Writing an Identity Not Your Own

Writing an Identity Not Your Own, by Alex Temblador, is an extremely helpful book for creative writers who wish to write about historically marginalized characters. It concerns writing identities other than your own, be they racial, religious, sexual or the many other identities that exist. The author offers help in avoiding pitfalls like stereotyping, tokenism, and other forms of discrimination. I am a white writer, and in one of my fiction pieces, I used my personal experience and Temblador’s book to help me frame two indigenous characters, who worked with three other characters who were white.   

Why is this important? Because the norm in publishing is for people with privileged identities, mainly white people, to get published telling stories of identities that are not their own, and too often they don’t get it right. Harmful stereotypes and tropes can be presented that further “racism, discrimination, ableism, homophobia, sexism and other forms of prejudice.”

This book gets it right. Alex Temblador deals with the concept of identity and the many types of identity, and how to recognize unconscious bias and bias blocks, discrimination, microaggressions, tokenism, and much, much more. In one example, she quotes author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about the danger of the single story, or single perspective which can create stereotypes. “The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” Chapter 11 lists stereotypes and tropes associated with most of the major identities and is compelling reading. The subtitle of this book is A Guide for Creative Writers, but I would suggest it is not only a guide for writers, but also for readers.