The Twilight Zone makes a misstep with “Mr. Denton on Doomsday.” Al Denton is an alcoholic, a disaster drinker who’s willing to slurp from a broken bottle as the liquor tinkles out, not caring about the glass that might come with it. It ends much like James Frey’s fabricated autobiography A Million Little Pieces, with the protagonist kicking his addiction to the curb without help. Alcoholism, a disease which one of eight Americans suffers from, isn’t something people can easily walk away from, as Frey and “Mr. Denton on Doomsday” seem to believe. No one walks away unscathed.
If you’re going to write about something that affects other people’s live but not your own, do the research. This is something I talked about John Landis not doing enough for in “Beyond the Cabin in the Woods: The Twilight Zone Movie” too. If you want to write about identity issues, you may. Your characters can be a different race, a different gender, a different orientation, a different religion, a different anything than you. But you need to do the work to get it right. If you half ass it, you’re doing a great disservice to the people you’re misrepresenting. Don’t be that writer.
And before you go any further, ask yourself: What about me and my experiences qualifies me to write this character at this time? Make sure you have a good answer and that you’re spending time and money on traditionally underrepresented characters created by traditionally underrepresented characters.
Here are some resources for how to write from a point of view other than your own respectfully and realistically:
-“12 Fundamentals of Writing the Other” by Daniel José Older
-“Heroes and Heroin — Writing A Character Who has an Addiction” by Roz Morris
-“Writing With Color” (Blog)
-“Writing Gay Characters” by Megan Rose Gedris
– “Before You Write About a Trans Character, Read This” by Casey Plett
-“The Dos and Don’ts of Writing About the Disable” by Nicola Griffith
-“What to Consider When Writing Mental Illness” by Robert Wood
Ryan C Bradley 