How to tell your own authentic stories while also supporting marginalized voices

As an author, I believe that I have a responsibility to create diverse works that do not present the world as a one-dimensional space where only certain people are welcome to exist. This can be a tricky balancing act for a white writer like myself. I want my novels to be diverse, but I also do not want to unknowingly reinforce stereotypes that I may not be aware of. I do not want to cross the line into cultural appropriation or telling stories about experiences that may not align with my own. For the past few years, I have been taking an #ownvoices approach to this subject, and I feel like I have learned a lot from the experience.

My novel If You Didn’t See It Coming is an example of an #ownvoices book even though people of color are not at the forefront of the story. It’s an accounting of marginalized characters (namely women) involved in domestic violence situations, many of which are inspired by my own experiences with a violent abuser. Although the characters are fictional, and their stories are not a retelling of my own story, it still illustrates the struggles of a marginalized group of people.

Because I was telling the story from my own perspective, the main characters are all white. There is very little intersectionality of identities because I was telling the story from the perspective of a cis white woman. However, I did consider representation and intersectionality while writing the novel. I considered making my main characters more diverse, but I didn’t feel right about trying to write what I consider to be someone else’s story.

Even Google Bard has read One Bad Cat!

I asked Google’s new artificial intelligence (AI) platform, Bard, if it had read my latest book, One Bad Cat, and it turns out it has! Not only that, but Bard gave it a glowing review. Here’s what it had to say:

“Yes, I have read One Bad Cat by Mandy Webster. It is a humorous fantasy novel about a psychology professor who is turned into a cat by his female coven members. The novel follows Stephen as he tries to adjust to his new life as a cat, while also plotting revenge on his coven members.

New Book Title: One Bad Cat by Mandy Webster

In case you missed it, I released my latest book, One Bad Cat in 2022 with little fanfare. This was one of those pieces you write and then are afraid to share because it’s almost like lifting your skirt and showing everyone your underwear. I had a lot of fun writing One Bad Cat but was a little afraid of the reception it might receive. So, I quietly put it out there and waited.

After having a few people read the book and getting a lot of (unexpected) good feedback — from some of the most unexpected readers, no less — I took some time to add a new cover and decided to do a re-release. So here it is!

One Bad Cat by Mandy Webster

Dr. Stephen Scott is a psychology professor who dabbles in the occult. When his female coven members cast a spell to turn him into a cat, he vows to seek revenge. But first Stephen must find a way to open his safe so he can get to the charm bag that is the source of all his power.

Hi, my name is Mandy Webster, and I survived domestic violence.

My sister survived domestic violence too, as have several of my aunts and cousins, whether they care to admit it or not. I have a vivid memory of visiting an aunt when I was child, of one of my cousins showing me a hole in the wall and telling me, “My dad did that.” I am currently watching a niece grapple with a coercive control situation that will likely become violent, if it hasn’t already. If we don’t find a way to help her escape, she might end up like our cousin who didn’t survive domestic violence. In 2019, that cousin’s ex-husband murdered her in cold blood, shooting her in the back and head multiple times while their five-year-old played in the next room.

Yes, I am quite familiar with domestic violence. But I don’t let my experiences with domestic violence define me. Instead, I have worked hard to define it. I’ve talked to lots of survivors, read books on the subject, and even took a criminal justice studies course on intimate partner violence to try to understand how this could have happened to me. I watched The Perfect Victim and consumed Maid (both the book and the Netflix series), and read countless memoirs written by my fellow survivors. I want to understand and expose family violence in the hopes that I can help someone else save themselves the same way I saved me.

I saved me.

I’ve often considered writing a memoir about my experiences and might still do so. The problem is, like many PTSD suffers, I struggle to pin down the memories of what happened through those ten years of trauma. Sometimes it feels like my body remembers more than my brain does. The memories often come in disjointed flashes when I care to think about them the least.

I am officially a #NaNoWriMo2020 Winner!

Well, I just won NaNoWriMo this morning. How about you?

Whether you win #nanowrimo2020 or not…you’ve still got it inside of you! pic.twitter.com/rs47UbE8pF

— Steffi is Querying (@clumsiesteffi) November 27, 2020

I have two new #novels in the works!

I am so excited about my writing right now! I just finished a rough draft of the second of two novel manuscripts that I plan to finish by the middle of this year!

It usually takes me some time to switch from writing mode to revising mode, but it really helps that I set one of the manuscripts aside and moved on to the next one before editing this time. Revisions are already going well, and I hope to have this manuscript ready to share with my creative writing workshop in just a few weeks!

How about I tell you what I’ve been working on so you can share in my excitement?

Project #1: Demons of the Night

I started this book quite some time ago when I had one of those dreams that was too good to not write it into a scene. This novel is very different from my last two. It’s an adult book that includes witches, demons, and philandering preachers. It’s a battle of good and evil, where it’s not always obvious which side is which.

Image Credit: https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/halloween-demon_955179.htm Designed by Freepik

At the center of this battle is Docia, a sheltered young woman whose father and step-mother are determined to keep her sequestered within the “safe” world of her grandfather’s church compound and seem unlikely to ever allow her to move forward into a life of her own choosing.

Coming Soon: F-ing Freddy Fisher

Yesterday, I glanced at my blog and realized, “I haven’t blogged since May—MAY!” Wow, have I been busy! I guess it’s a good thing though, because I have been busy writing other things. In fact, I am very close to publishing my latest project, a short YA novel titled, F-ing Freddy Fisher.

It’s kinda funny how Freddy came about. I started writing his story in 2013, but then I got distracted and moved on to something else. This spring and early summer, I started another project, which was going great. But then one day, I realized I was at 78,000 words and was hating where my story was going. I needed to take a break and do something else for a bit to let that story simmer.

So, I went through my folder of abandoned projects, and Farley (the name change to Freddy would came later) caught my eye. I opened the Word file, looked it over, and thought, “Huh. This story is almost complete.” So, I went for it.

How to organize your first draft #novelwriting

The past few weeks, I’ve been working on my second “real” novel, and it hit me this morning that I’ve finally figured out how to organize my work in the first draft stage so I can keep track of what I’m doing. Because organization can be a key element of being an efficient writer, I thought I’d share my system in case some other writer might find it useful. I think the easiest way to explain my system is to paint a picture of it for you, so I took a screenshot of the first page of my actual document:

And now, I will explain what I have done:

I think it’s time to start #writing

Writers write! | English: penulis = writer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My notes on my new novel have reached 12 pages and 6,500 words. I have come up with a focal point to build my story around. The more I think about it, the more convoluted the story becomes. I think it’s time to start writing!

I seem to have also discovered my main writing genre, despite the fact that there are other genres I would like to write in. The book I originally planned to write next was adult fiction with a little bit of magic and fantasy thrown in. It was going to be dark, and in many ways, devious. I still really want to write that book. However, it seems to make more sense in this moment to maintain the momentum I have built with Valley of the Bees and stick with future-fantastic dystopia.

I also can’t ignore the fact that this new novel is demanding to take center stage at the moment!

Reining it in: How to focus your #story so it doesn’t run away with you #amwriting

Animated sequence of a race horse galloping. Photos taken by Eadweard Muybridge (died 1904), first published in 1887 at Philadelphia (Animal Locomotion). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My new novel has topped 3,500 words of notes as I freewrite and brainstorm my way into an outline. I had a moment today when a sudden realization about what my novel is really about struck me. A shiver ran down my spine as I realized the possible implications of the totally subversive idea that emerged from the murky depths of my subconscious mind.

“This is big,” I thought.

And then, “This is probably going to piss a lot of people off.”

Muahahaha!

Not literally, but I was thinking it.

As I typed out the details of my idea, another idea struck me. By “struck me,” what I mean is that it wacked me upside the head like a baseball bat.