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swordandboardllc · 1 year

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Write What You Don't Know

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I don’t write what I know.

At least, I don’t exclusively write what I was taught in school or by my community. My parents did their very best to broaden my horizons, but there is only so much a parent can teach. While it is hard to know what you don’t know, probing at the boundaries of your ignorance is of the utmost importance to the writer’s soul and candid introspection.

It is sorely limiting to write only what you know. If we all did that, autobiography would be the only category at the bookshop. All speculative fiction demands both authors and readers step outside what is real, and what is known, into the unknown. As Ursula K. LeGuin said, ‘Write what you know, but you may know dragons.” The advice of ‘write what you know’ is imagination limiting self censorship if taken too literally. It can kill creativity, stifle stories, and leave an author a bumbling mess trying not to step on too many toes.

Better advice is to write what you take the time to know. Curiosity should drive creativity, and pursuit of artistic excellence should drive us to create stories that ring true. If you’re willing to go down the wikipedia rabbit hole for a day to find out the origins of an obscure flower for one scene, then you have no excuse not to use the same sort of dedication when including BIPOC, LGBTQA, and/or disabled characters. While I know many writers are solitary creatures, the beauty of the internet means it’s easier than ever to email someone with the expertise on the topic you want to write about. No phone calls required! While social media can often be a hazardous, if not outright toxic place to be, there are also opportunities to speak to, interact with, and learn from those outside of your religion, culture, race, or county. When used correctly, it is an excellent social research tool.

Your story impacts the reader, and it impacts other authors. If you are writing a story of a minority, consider the impact your story has on the minority you’re inspired by. Importantly, consider whether or not your story gives back to that community. Does it help showcase the humanity of those groups? Does it fairly represent their struggles, even if doing so clashes with your preconceived notions? Are you as the author helping support these groups in some way? While it might be difficult to offer monetary support (given that author royalties are fairly paltry on average), showcasing and promoting minorities within the industry is an excellent way to show support. If you owe some of your success to a minority group, you should be doing what you can to uplift them.

I wholeheartedly believe that authors should write with intention. The words you place on paper matter, and can change the world. Make sure that change doesn’t cause real world harm. Be an Ursula K. LeGuin, not a J. K. Rowling. Don’t write only what you know now. Become more, learn more, and write that.

Happy Writing,

L.J.

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#write what you know #writing research #write what you don't know #blog post #ursula k leguin #jk rowling #inclusivity #disability inclusivity #minority #bipoc #improve your writing

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biggest-gaudiest-patronuses · 1 year

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i'm begging you guys to start pirating shit from streaming platforms. there are so many websites where you can stream that shit for free, here's a quick HOW TO:

1) Search for: watch TITLE OF WORK free online

2) Scroll to the bottom of results. Click any of the "Complaint" links

3) You will be taken to a long list of links that were removed for copyright infringement. Use the 'find' function to search for the name of the show/movie you were originally searching for. You will get something like this (specifics removed because if you love an illegal streaming site you don't post its url on social media)

4) each of these links is to a website where you can stream shit for free. go to the individual websites and search for your show/movie. you might have to copy-paste a few before you find exactly what you're looking, but the whole process only takes a minute. the speed/quality is usually the same as on netflix/whatever, and they even have subtitles! (make sure to use an adblocker though, these sites are funded by annoying popups)

In conclusion, if you do this often enough you will start recognizing the most dependable websites, and you can just bookmark those instead. (note: this is completely separate from torrenting, which is also a beautiful thing but requires different software and a vpn)

you can also download the media in question (look for a "download" button built into the video window, or use a browser extension such as Video DownloadHelper.)

#for adblocking--ublock origin is my favorite but adblocker plus is also popular #also i once again highly recommend using firefox especially on mobile #to enable adblock on firefox mobile just click 3 dot menu > addons > addon manager > enable uBlockOrigin #that's for android i assume it's similar for iOS #update it is NOT similar for iOS bc Apple hates you. i'll write another post later #anyway. PLEASE USE AN ADBLOCK ALL THE TIME (except for specific websites you want to support)#your internet browsing experience will be so enormously improved #also on firefox if you want to get past a paywall click the 'Toggle reader view' button as soon as the page loads #(it's on the right of the taskbar. a little rectangle with horizontal lines)#works for most news sites by showing you the webpage text that is hidden under the 'you've run out of free articles' popup #doesn't work for everything but it's worth a shot

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turtleofthehollow · 5 months

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The best way to make an arrogant character learn humility is for their failures to be a direct result of their arrogance

By making their arrogance the direct cause of their failures, they’ll be forced to examine their actions and try something else

To complete their arc, make sure they only succeed once they’ve learned humility

#technically works with any character flaw #character flaws #characterization #character arcs #character traits #writeblr #a03 writer #fanfic writer #writing advice #writing reference #writing tips #writing resources #improve your writing

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somerandomdudelmao · 9 months

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@tapakah0

This little bunny means the world to me

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poorly-drawn-mdzs · 6 months

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We could have had it all...

[First] Prev <–-> Next

#poorly drawn mdzs #mdzs #wei wuxian #jin guangyao #nie mingjue #oh man....the NieYao dynamic....All these complex emotions and ties to each other and they *aren't* canon?#Sorry fellas but the way you proposed writing your bro a letter of recommendation & agreeing to it was very fruity.#And *then* Lan Xichen shows up. And both JGY and NMJ are head over heels for him and have been for ages apparently.#Its like they found out that LXC had been two timing them this whole time and their response was: “UM. HOT?��#I'm tempted to redraw these three as that one bisexual-core image with Anne Hathaway. You know the one. It fits.#It's strange seeing all of this fondness in retrospect compared to the betrayal you feel in The Untamed after a longer build up.#Initially it felt like 'oops we made him a little too 2 dimensional as a villain - quick make him more sympathetic'.#JGY even had a scene with him kissing babies. As any politician would do to improve their image.#but it does come around to really showing a more authentic JGY and the tension between him and NMJ.#As an angst lover I am personally all for 'what could have been' relationships and they DO have it all.

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writersexchangeepublishing · 2 years

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3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection, Volume 5: Three-Dimensional Fiction Writing by Karen S. Wiesner

Craft a story so lifelike, you actually feel like you can step into the world beyond the pages! You know it when you read it: In page after page and scene after scene, a truly engrossing story has qualities that set it apart. Authentic characters, a well-rounded plot, and immersive settings work in harmony to create a three-dimensional experience–one you can practically step inside and explore.…

View On WordPress

#howtowritebook #nonfictionbooks #referencebook #writingreference #bookblogger #books #Improve your writing #NonFiction #on writing well #reading #WritersExchangeEPublishing #writing backstory #Writing Fiction Books #writing help book #writing reference books #Writing Skills book #writing tips for novels

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frownyalfred · 2 years

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my advice for writing dialogue:

be brave

if you can’t say it in one breath out loud, you should probably add some punctuation

for casual dialogue: can you imagine two people saying this at a local coffee shop?

people talk over each other and cut each other off in real life all the time. your characters should too

modern, conversational dialogue isn’t one person lobbing one fully formed, multiple-sentence thought at another person, and then waiting to receive one back

dialogue is filled with placeholder sounds — ehs, ums, uhs — and these differ by region, language, and culture

people ask for clarification and sometimes things are just, by nature, unclear. sometimes you have to let the characters figure out the disconnect even if you, the author, know what it is already

find clips and videos online of the people/region and listen to them! how do they talk? is it fast, or drawling? how can you convey this to a reader who may have never heard them?

#just some thoughts #I mean be brave is my big takeaway though #just keep writing it and trying again and improving #that’s the only way your dialogue gets better #it becomes natural over time #writing #fic #writing tips #tips #reading #fanfic #fanfiction #ao3 #archive of our own #tumblr #fandom #fandom stuff #writing advice

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em-dash-press · 1 year

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Skills Writers Gain From Reading

We’ve all heard the old line of encouragement—reading makes you a better writer.

But how exactly does that work?

These are a few skills you’ll gain from reading with the viewpoint of a writer, not just a reader.

You’ll Flex Your Critical Thinking Skills

Reading made up events and imaginary people might not seem like critical thinking, but you’ll use your brain in more ways than one. While you’re sifting through a book, you’re also:

Observing cause and effect correlation

Analyzing how actions and events affect characters or the plot

Recognizing things like bias (narrative or otherwise)

Problem-solving to get ahead of the problem (Who’s the murder? The thief? The villain?)

Remember what you read before (simple, but takes practice!)

All of these skills are part of the drafting and writing process too. Grab a book or two—you’ll need these abilities to bring your stories to life.

You’ll Practice Your Grammar and Spelling

Whether you feel a secret thrill at finding a typo in a published novel or second-hand embarrassment for the people who made it happen, you automatically practice your grammar skills by spotting them.

You’re also reading words over and over again, which makes them easier to recall when you’re trying to spell them.

You’ll Discover New Writing Styles You Like or Dislike

You might also find that some writers vary their sentence structures in ways you like or dislike. The long, stretching sentences within a historical fantasy novel could draw you for the long haul. Maybe you prefer the short, conversational sentences that weave between longer ones in a comedic book.

Word choice is also a significant factor in enjoying a writer’s voice/style. Some writers will challenge you to keep a dictionary nearby at all times. Others will use modern slang or colloquialisms that might take you out of the story—or make it feel more real to you.

As you get used to the styles you prefer, your writing may naturally shadow those styles when you’re writing a story after putting the book down. That’s okay! Experimenting with style or tone isn’t plagiarism and doesn’t make you a bad writer. It’s another step in the journey of defining who you are as a creative wordsmith.

You’ll Learn New Ways to Describe Things

Imagine two writers describing a character walking across the street. One writer might focus on how the character feels, what they’re thinking, or what that moment in time means to them by writing in first-person POV. The other could write about the weather, the city, the cars passing by, or what another person thinks of the protagonist through third-person omniscient POV.

It’s always good to challenge how you might write a scene by reading how others do it. You’ll return to your work or start a story with a new perspective on standby.

You’ll Analyze the Plot

When you fall in love with a novel, it’s natural to think about the plot even after you finish the book. You’re likely reminiscing about the great plot points like two future best friends meeting at a pizza shop after stepping forward for the same order—they shared first and last names! Maybe you loved how each minor conflict built into a war between nations or how a character slowly lost their mind and sought revenge.

You’ll know what works and what doesn’t work about the plot structure based on how a novel grips you or not. Your brain will take note about the many things you feel and store it for instinct later. While you’re plotting that traditional mountain-shaped plot line, your creative side will find inspiration to drop conflict or positive moments that enrich your story.

You’ll Fall in Love With Characters

We’ve all written a good character and we’ve all written a bad one. Do you remember the first time you read a morally gray character? It likely blew your mind and made you want to write one too.

Falling in love with characters is like practice for writers. You won’t want to make the exact same character in all of your future stories (unless you only want to write fan fiction, and if that’s the case—enjoy every moment of it!), so you’ll use them as inspiration just like people in real life.

You’ll Improve Your Concentration

Not to sound like a cliche, but social media companies literally create their apps to monetize the brain’s ability to crave stimulation. Scrolling and swiping has likely had an effect on how long you can concentrate. I know it has for mine!

Even if you’re not on social media, things like the pressure to multitask and juggling responsibilities can wear on your focus too. If you miss those moments in your childhood or teenage years when you would spend an entire afternoon or weekend with a book, you don’t have to be sad for long.

Reading any length of a book can improve your concentration. Set a timer and read for five minutes. Next time, read for six. Slowly expand your time for reading (while there aren’t other distractions around, like notifications on your Kindle or your phone screen lighting up nearby).

As you read in longer stretches, you’ll write in longer stretches too. Your brain will feel more at rest with the one quiet activity you choose to do. Did I mention that makes editing way easier too?

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The next time you feel guilty for reading something instead of writing, remember that you’re also sharpening these skills! Reading is an invaluable way to get better at writing. All you have to do is pick up a book.

#writing tips #writing advice #writeblr #read to improve your writing #writers of tumblr #creative writing

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ultimateinferno · 8 months

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No I haven't read the Communist Manifesto but I did read Brennan Lee Mulligan recount the best Christmas Party he's ever been to and that's basically the same thing.

#dropout #dimension 20 #d20 #brennan lee mulligan #bleem #the big CM is basically a pamphlet anyways das kapital is the thing thats of substance #like literally to call it more substantial than the manifesto would is like saying andre the giant was a pretty tall dude #just google ''brenna lee mulligan communism christmas party'' if youre curious first result #his voice really comes out in writing even stronger than his improv and thats saying a lot

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cartsandhorses · 9 days

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dare I say art museum date number two?

#dr. no 1962 frame referenced. If I find it I’ll link it #they’re married here but “dr. lecter please quit showing your nude drawings of me in public”#random person with the bag is definitely stealing something #do not watch movies with me. i will be pausing/writing down time stamps of frames that catch my attention #or worse yet pause the movie every time i see horses to improve my drawing #(age of uprising im looking at you specifically)#yes those are the ineffable husbands in the back #crowley doesn’t know whether to put their hand on aziraphale’s back or not #hannibal #nbc hannibal #hannigram #will graham #hannibal lecter #hannibal fanart #art #hannigram fanart #murder husbands #my stuff

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tokidokitokyo · 15 days

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How to Improve Your Handwriting in Japanese

Learning to write in Japanese, teaching others to learn to write in Japanese, and watching Japanese people write in Japanese has taught me that it’s hard to write in Japanese. Remembering how to write the kanji in the first place is hard (especially with the ease of writing in Japanese on the computer or phone), remembering the stroke order and then figuring out how to fit the character into the space that you have - these are all difficult. And then on top of that, you don’t want these beautiful characters to look like you were bouncing up and down on a dirt road while you wrote them.

Handwriting in any language varies by person. There are people whose handwriting is sloppy in Japanese, just as in any other language. My handwriting in English isn’t perfect either, but I want my kanji to look less like shaky squiggles and more like, well, a native Japanese speaker’s characters. So I decided to break down how I go about improving my Japanese handwriting.

Practice

When you learn to write in English, you practice your letters over and over again. When you first learn kana and then kanji, it is also a good idea to write them over and over again. This helps many people to remember the characters (stroke order, spatial placement of each part of the character), and by writing the characters over and over again you will be able to write more quickly. You also won’t have to look up simple characters over and over again when you want to write a composition or a letter.

When I first started writing compositions by hand in kanji I remember looking up a character in the dictionary to check stroke order or to check how the kanji was written more often than not. This is a difficult way to write anything and takes a lot of time. Practice will help you to remember the characters and not have to stop to check your dictionary as often.

A high school friend told me that her mother would sit her down at the table every night and force her to work on her penmanship until it was what her mother deemed suitable. When we wrote our AP English essays in class, her penmanship was impeccable, although it took her much longer to write the essays than most of the other students. The result of what she considered torturous practice was amazing handwriting that made me jealous. If I had spent every night laboriously perfecting my penmanship I might also have attained that kind of handwriting - but I did not.

This is an extreme example, and I’m not saying you have to have perfect handwriting, but if improving your handwriting is something you would like to accomplish, taking the time to practice will certainly help your penmanship.

Books

There are Japanese books dedicated to this, because beautiful handwriting is desirable in all languages, but they are written in Japanese and I personally didn’t want to buy a book for this purpose.

Websites

Websites are a bit more difficult to come by because most people want to make some money off telling you their penmanship secrets. However, there are a few websites with some examples of good penmanship.

Links

Here are some online links for handwriting practice:

Chibi Musu Drill is where I look for kana practice for my toddler. They have a variety of drill print-outs that you can use to practice writing the characters correctly. This is especially helpful if you are self-studying as it helps with the shape of characters and the stroke order, and how the stroke should be finished (i.e. abrupt stop or drag and fade out to a tail). There are also tests you can print out for kanji. The site is all in Japanese.

Hiragana | Katakana | Kanji

Seiho’s YouTube Calligraphy School - VIDEO - Only in Japanese but the videos are easy to follow since she uses a red pen to highlight where to pay attention. This is more in-depth but has helpful hints on improving your kanji balance, but you can search 字がきれいに書く方法 to get more results.

Yumefude Penji on Instagram has videos showing how to write kanji properly.

How I Practice Handwriting in Japanese

For Kana

To practice handwriting kana, I find an example of good penmanship from a website. It’s best if the example is larger, or if I can blow it up. Then I print it out with darkened font. Drill print-outs also work well as they have characters for you to trace, then space for you to practice on your own.

I put a sheet of clean paper on top of the print-out and make sure I can read the characters through the clean paper. You can also get tracing paper. Then, I trace the characters multiple times. I try to feel the flow of the character as I trace it and to note if the stroke ends abruptly (とめ), has a kink in it (はね), or if it fades out to a tail (はらい).

Lastly, I practice on my own. I use the feel of the character I traced and try to replicate it. I compare my own work to the original sample, and try to determine how to get the characters to look closer to the original sample. My character might be too skinny, too round, or have a stroke out of place. I usually only do one character at a time until I am satisfied, and then move on to the next.

For Kanji

When practicing kanji, first, I use blank paper, download genkouyoushi (Japanese composition paper), or a notebook with wider line spacing for writing practice than I would for simply writing down vocabulary or notes. You can also buy special kanji practice notebooks. I do this so that I have the space to cleanly write out kanji with more strokes, rather than having to bunch together the strokes so that I can hardly read it. This way, I can practice the strokes with more room and pay attention to how the kanji fits together.

Then, I write the character several times. I try to get a muscle memory going for the character, remembering the individual parts, the radicals, the stroke order and what the kanji means. This helps me to remember the kanji, and then to understand how the individual parts fit together.

I am careful to not copy the typewritten Japanese characters, for these are often different than the handwritten characters. Using a kanji textbook or a website where they teach handwritten kanji is the best way to learn to handwrite kanji. Some dictionary apps also show stroke order and will show the handwritten version so you can see the difference.

9 Tips for Better Handwriting

Source

1. Hold your pen properly / ぺんを正しく持つ

2. Sit with proper posture / 正しい姿勢で座る

3. Create a calm setting where you can concentrate / 落ち着いて集中できる空間を作る

4. Write using the correct stroke order / 正しい書き順で書く

a. From the top to the bottom / 上から下へ

b. From the left to the right / 左から右へ

5. Take care with the Stop - Wing - Sweeping Stroke / とめ・はね・はらいを丁寧に

Showing stop - wing - sweeping stroke in kanji

6. Modulate the size of the character and write slowly and carefully / 大きさにメリハリをつけながら、ゆっくり書く

7. Make sure the characters rise to the right / 右上がりになるようにする

8. Make sure the spacing between lines is equal / 線と線の間隔が等しくなるようにする

9. Write with the intention of being read by others / 人に読まれるつもりで書く

My handwriting in Japanese is far from perfect, but when I have a chance I like to hand write characters to get a better feel for them and for their meanings. I hope this guide helps you to improve your penmanship!

#writing in japanese #japanese handwriting #improve your handwriting in japanese #japanese #japanese language #japanese langblr #japanese studyblr #字をきれいに書く方法 #tokidokitokyo #tdtstudy

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swordandboardllc · 1 year

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Introducing THE STUMBLING BLOCK Volume 1

I’ve dipped my toes into the zine world only a teeny handful of times, and certainly hadn’t considered making one of my own. But with a newsletter, an ongoing blog, and the twitterverse, it was easy for Gideon Marcus to convince me to do so. All it needed was a name, and that too was something they easily convinced me of.

“You could call it ‘The Stumbling Block’” he said, and while I’m not sure he was being completely serious about it, I honestly can’t think of a better name. I want to point out stumbling blocks in fantasy, both in published works and pre-published drafts. I want this to both create stumbling blocks in authors, and show them how to clear away those blocks. Without further ado, let’s create some discomfort.

We are writers. We live with vast imaginations. Yet ‌in worlds where we imagine FTL engines or dragons, science-as-magic or magic-as-science, it seems we cannot imagine disabled or chronically ill people existing alongside it. Disability affects 15% of the world population, yet certainly does not appear among 15% of the characters we write about.

I maintain that writing is not a comfortable act. We delve into hard parts of ourselves and our societies to drive not just plots, but social change. We give fictional commentaries on past events to give hope for the future, regardless of how we veil the events we steal from. Even if all you write are cozy stories, you can’t write something cozy without knowing what you’re shielding the reader from. And that always bleeds through‌.

I spoke with a fellow writer who stated, “Well, there’s a reason you don’t see a lot of disabled characters in an action book.” Yes, there is.

Ableism. Often internalized.

There is a good chance that you, or someone you know, wear glasses. Visual impairments and their accommodations have become normalized, if not fashionable, in North American society. It doesn’t appear strange to go to work wearing glasses. Nor is it odd for your protagonist to wear them, if time period appropriate. It’s time to do the same for other assistive devices (self-propelled wheelchairs were invented in 1655, so no excuses for fantasy writers), as well as the disabilities that go with them.

Good Versus Evil: Scars, Disfigurements, and Moral JudgEments

Evil often comes in two forms: the hideously ugly and disfigured (consider characters like The Hound from A Song of Ice and Fire, or the entire race of orcs from The Lord of the Rings), or hauntingly beautiful (The Empress in The Poppy War, or Maleficent of Sleeping Beauty). Most protagonists, even if they state how plain they are (Bella from Twilight), they rarely actually are anything less than whole and hale, often still classically pretty or handsome. They are rarely ugly. After all, reading is escapism. It’s easy to enjoy a book where the reader is in the perspective of a beautiful character healthy in both mind and body. We can feel good when they do good, uncomfortable when they’re mistreated, and heroic when they defeat injustices. It’s easier to focus on the plot when we use the shorthand of ‘wholeness’ and ‘able bodied’ in our character creation. It’s uncomfortable to have a protagonist that forces us to examine our biases on abilities while they’re on their quest to destroy the evil corporation/empire/dragon. It takes more creativity to solve the solution of ‘How does an ambulatory wheelchair-user slay the dragon?’ than ‘How does my able-bodied character do it?’

Examination of what makes us uncomfortable breeds introspection and empathy in the reader. It’s our subconscious biases through social conditioning that lead to issues of entire races being coded as evil. Consider that while we may expect beauty to betray us (Melkor in the Silmarillion), it’s a far greater surprise for hideousness to be heroic (I don’t imagine we’ll see the first good orc in Rings of Power, for example). When our biases are deeply ingrained in our tropes and societies, how do we avoid them while still authentically telling the story we wish to tell? After all, I’m not here to tell you that you can’t write certain stories. But we can broaden our horizons to minimize real harm, and create those warm fuzzies of being seen.

Disability is the one minority group you can join at any point in your life, and likely will the older you get. That fact should be kept in mind with your world-building and character creation, and will help you divest disability from moral judgments. It’s fine to have a villain with facial scarring–only if they’re not the only character with a facial deformity. How your protagonists react to these deformities is huge. Statements like ‘now their internal and external match’ regarding a villain’s new deformity is harmful and that harm can be called out through your author voice. If the plot armor is too thick around your protagonists but not your antagonists, if disabling issues are quickly healed away for your heroes, and traumas leave no psychological impact, then you run the risk of placing moral judgments on the injuries and long lasting disabilities granted to the villains.

Bad things don’t just happen to bad people. Life is, thankfully, not fair (after all, if it were it would mean you deserved anything terrible that happened to you, which isn’t true). Good things happen to bad people. Bad things happen to good people. Disability can happen to anyone, and adding disabilities to your characters and accommodations to your worlds only makes it richer. And perhaps it will leave both you and your readers with a greater empathy and understanding for the struggles disabled people face in the real world every day.

The Author Disability Checklist:

Am I afraid to put in disabled characters? Why?

Do only my antagonist characters have long lasting physical disabilities?

Are traumas that should leave long lasting chronic effects (such as chronic pain or PTSD) glossed over after they occur?

Are disabilities used for inspiration-porn (ie: I can overcome this issue and lead a comfortable life, so therefore anyone can with enough positive thinking and gumption)?

Do you think that disabilities will distract from your plot or make it harder to write?

If your answer was ‘yes’ to any of these, there is a good possibility that you have internalized, ableist biases that could benefit from a discussion with a disability advocate or sensitivity reader.

An important point to keep in mind: what is ‘disabling’ will change depending on your setting and cultures. A sci-fi novel set on a spaceship in zero gravity might mean that mobility issues are non-disabling. Sight in a society designed for the blind, or a physical inability to communicate (vocal communication in a society of only skin color changing communication, for example), would create new and different disabilities for you to tackle.

The Disabled Character Test

Inspired by the famous Bechdel Test (Does a movie have at least two women, who talk to each other, about something besides a man), I present The Disabled Character Test: Is there a disabled character, and no moral judgment attached to their disability? Like the Bechdel test, the Disabled Character Test is simple on the surface, yet frustratingly few shows, books, or video games pass this low bar. Keep in mind that, like the Bechdel test, this isn’t a test to say whether or not a given piece of media is good. Simply whether or not there is representation.

For our inaugural edition, I present Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Is there a disabled character: Geordi LaForge, a blind engineer who uses a visor and optic implant combination to see a greater range than the regular human eye is able to.

Is there a moral judgment attached to his disability: No! Geordi is not presented as a better person (inspiration-porn) or disabled-as-punishment (bad things only happen to bad people).

Geordi’s visor is shown to be both a solution to problems as well as a discomfort. The visor and implants need to be maintained or else he has chronic migraines (something many people with glasses can empathize with). The visor technology can often be used to solve issues that the crew of the Enterprise encounters, but the visor isn’t the only valuable aspect of Geordi. It is part of him, but it’s not the most important part of him. It doesn’t define him. Instead, Geordi is a brilliant engineer, best friends with Data, has a terrible love life, and just happens to need accommodation for his disability. It is part of him, but it isn’t what solely defines him.

Geordi LaForge is the first character I remember recognizing as disabled. It felt normal that of course Geordi couldn’t see without his visor as my mother has glasses. It wasn’t strange for me that, in a future with spaceships and transporters, of course there was an upgrade for glasses. Visual issues wouldn’t simply cease to exist, there would just be cool new tech to deal with it! I was a kid watching TNG, and when I saw Geordi for the first time I didn’t know about issues like eugenics. Or that eugenics and gene editing were solutions many authors and screenwriters would choose to explain away disabled people in their creative works.

About the Author

L.J. Stanton grew up in Calgary, Alberta. She attended the University of Guelph and is a former horse trainer and riding instructor.

After immigrating to the U.S., Stanton was diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. With her husband, they started the media company SWORD & BOARD LLC. Stanton’s debut novel, THE DYING SUN, THE GODS CHRONICLE: BOOK 1, won the NYC Big Book Fan Favorite in Fantasy and was a finalist for the National Indie Excellence Award. Stanton is a founding member of SCRIBE’S JOURNEY Podcast and AFTER THE... talk show on Twitch.

Stanton now lives in Orange County, California.

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