How Not to Write a Book

I'm not going to answer this about what is "alright" because I think that depends on how you want to write your character.

I would probably read a character written like this as not having people in their life who have been through the medical complications of having tumours.

In a medical setting, I have no idea how someone could believe that this is a path of less resistance. Feigning having had giant tumours seems like a lot to fake, especially if they had any previous medical records of this happening, and I would not read a character trying to convince people of this in earnest as having much knowledge or care for people who have actually experienced things like breast cancer. It also will not make him seem cis, if that's what he's going for, in my opinion.

I guess I mainly ask if this is just terminology they've chosen to use, because that's kind of different... but I still would probably find a better euphemism in a medical setting where a doctor would need to be aware if someone has a predisposition to getting giant tumours, and where this would impact their care. Doctors, as much as we rely on them, don't always remember the stuff they have been told. (I think anyone who regularly interacts with the medical system as a disabled person could tell you this, especially those of us who have had our medical records printed out.) They'll likely need to explain this every visit, if it's just that they are using certain terminology.

If this is something said with the intention to skirt around the truth or lie for personal comfort or safety: I understand emotionally relating to chest as though they are tumours, but telling a doctor that you had massive tumours on your chest will no doubt lead to follow up questions about what kind of tumours, were they malignant (cancerous), do you have a genetic predisposition to tumours, how often should we do bloodwork to make sure this doesn't happen again, etc. This may become complicated and mean that medical issues that this character might end up having will get misinterpreted or overlooked.

I can understand someone saying this, outside of a medical context, if being stealth is essential for them. However, this will likely be interpreted as your character saying that they have had cancer. Even though not all tumours are cancerous, it opens the door and may get misquoted from one person to another as your character having said they had cancer and lying about it if they get found out.

A character being written this way would come off to me as uneducated and naive at best, and as having not totally thought this through.

If you are trying to write a more sympathetic character who doesn't face complications (medically or socially) for claiming to have had tumours, I might suggest saying something like gynecomastia instead, as there are people in that community who have explicitly said that they are okay with trans people saying this if it helps them feel safer, because it also happens to help destigmatize gynecomastia, and all the tissue is technically the same under a microscope anyway, and it's usually caused by the same thing. (Hormones doing stuff.)

I just think tumours are a bit much to claim to a doctor, whether because of the complications or whatever else. It may also lead to not being taken as seriously in a medical context, and that's just... a lot of stigma to wade through.

I generally find people writing stories about people faking some illness or disability to not be pretty damaging disability representation.

If this is a huge plot of your story, that's it's own thing. In which case I will continuously recommend @cripplecharacters as an excellent resource, and also mention @scriptmedic (largely an archival blog) as resources for the more disability and medical stuff.

All that said, I'm pretty sure I have heard people use this language in spaces with exclusively other trans people who all knew they were not talking about tumours in the traditional sense so much as emotional sense. I usually let it pass me by because it's clear to me that this is something that is a tumour in every way but physical, but I absolutely think writing a story with this will come off differently.

This is just my take though. Other trans disabled folks may feel differently.

For some context, the vast majority of breast cancer tumors are smaller than 5cm in diameter. Phyllodes tumors can be larger but they're still generally more in the like 4-7cm range. Tumors are also generally measured in size, not weight, so "half a kilo" would be an odd way to describe a tumor.

Getting breast tumors removed also does not make your breasts go away, and I can't speak for removal of breast tumors that large, but scars resulting from the removal of breast tumors and top surgery scars don't look the same.

If the character did claim to have had tumors removed, the expectation would generally be that they were getting regular imaging (probably ultrasounds and/or MRIs), likely every six months if not more frequent to look for recurrance. Breast tumors aren't identified by blood tests, at least in my experience, but through radiology/imaging.

They would also be expected to know what the tumors had come back as. For ones that had gotten to be that size my best guess would probably be phyllodes tumors, but again, I am not a doctor.

I don't think claiming to have had tumors removed would be taken as claiming to have had cancer, because a ton of people have non-cancerous tumors, but those would be such wildly large tumors that I can basically guarantee that they would derail any medical appointment. And, again, at least from my experience, breast tumor removal scars simply do not look like top surgery scars (though I can't speak to what tumor removal scars look like for tumors that large, because they are super rare).

It is possible to find both sapphic SFF and M/M fantasy. It is significantly harder to find, say, aro urban fantasy. Or trans romantic suspense. Or intersex mystery.

A lot of the advice above only really works for trad published or popular books and for identities/subgenres/content that aren't too niche.

So here's some advice if the advice above isn't working for you (either because you can't find books with what you want or because the books you are finding don't end up being the vibe you want), from someone who reads a few hundred books a year:

Find websites or lists dedicated to the specific thing you are looking for. They will generally have more variety and will post you to examples that don't show up in regular rec lists. (ex: aro book recs, ace book recs, intersex #ownvoices database, sapphic books). Goodreads lists can (sometimes) also be your friend.

Get comfortable reading self-published and small press books. Trad publishing has its blind spots.

Check Reddit for recommendations

Start figuring out what it is specifically that you like and then start making your searches more specific. This can be subgenre (if you want urban fantasy, you're rarely going to find it just searching "fantasy"), tropes, plot devices, vibes, etc.

Look at the "readers also bought" on Goodreads/Amazon, similar books on Storygraph, etc. if you read a book you like. Even if you don't end up reading the one you click on, it can show you similar authors (similar to looking at the blurb on a cover), especially because far fewer books have blurbs now.

(The rules)

My progress (hard mode):

🤍 0/2

🩷 0/4

🩵 4/6 (4 books with trans main characters, 2 books with disabled main characters, 1 book with a female main character)

🤎 6/6 (2 books with a indigenous main characters, 3 books with a disabled main character, 1 book with a female main character)

🖤 2/6 (1 book with a disabled main character with HIV/AIDS, 1 book with a female main character)

❤️ 4/8 (1 book with a bisexual / female main character, 1 book with disabled main character)

🧡 4/7 (1 books with a lesbian / female main character, 2 books with disabled main characters)

💛 3/6 (1 book with an intersex main character, 0 books with disabled or female main characters)

💚 5/6 (1 book with an aromantic main character, 2 books with disabled main characters, 2 books with a female main character)

💙 7/7 (1+ book with a gay main character, 3 books with disabled main characters, 2 book with a female main character)

💜 8/8 (1 book with an asexual main character, 2 books with disabled main characters, 1 book with a female main character)

Total book count: 43/66

Read more for book list from April/May and whether I would recommend each of them.

I do have a few books that are on my Maybe list because I already own a physical copy of them:

A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett (also a Hugo nominee and I should read it before voting closes in August)

So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole (I have to get myself in the mood for reading YA)

Mistress of Lies by K. M. Enright

The Unbroken by C. L. Clark

Persephone Station by Stina Leicht

The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

while realism means--exactly that, adherence to the specific logics of actual reality and its physics, logistics, etc.

There's a particular recurring discussion of "realism" in media that goes something like this: "okay, but realistically the heroes would always win because they'd just shoot the villain while they're monologuing" – while refusing to acknowledge the obvious follow-up question: "wait, but if monologuing reliably gets you shot, where do all the monologuing villains come from?"

i.e., what we're really discussing is not a milieu which has adhered to some notional model of "realism" ab initio, but one which was apparently governed by the conventional tropes of its genre right up until the moment the character the person framing the scenario wants to win walks into the room, whereupon "realism" asserts itself.

Heck, there were folks doing this song and dance in the notes of the post this one is following up on, trotting out hypotheticals like "in a realistic fantasy setting the twelve-year-old chosen one would always lose because experience trumps skill and the power of friendship isn't real", implicitly taking it as given that in a milieu where this is true, people would still be handing out magic swords to twelve-year-olds.

This is, in some ways, where groundedness and realism intersect--once the story has established that, for a certain thing, the internal logic of the world aligns with the logic of reality, readers will (reasonably) expect that to continue to be true.

One of the sort of notorious examples of this is horses in fantasy worlds--you can have horses that don't work like Earth horses, but once you establish in universe that they do work like real Earth horses, readers (or at least readers who know horses) will want a realistic portrayal of horses.

The male main character punching or slapping the female character across the face would be almost unimaginable in the vast majority of romance novels, but nonconsenual spanking and forced kissing or groping are not particularly uncommon, including prior to the characters being in a relationship.

There is a response that basically goes "this is women finally being able to openly express their sexuality and their voice and you're just trying to silence them."

And there are people, obviously, who are are trying to do that--but this same response is often given not only to conservatives trying to censor "pornography" but also people in marginalized communities talking about problems within these writing spaces or ways that they are made to be unwelcome.

It's an impulse I totally understand, but it's also really frustrating to see (generally cis/white) women using their marginalization as a women to insulate themselves from criticism or act as though being a woman makes them incapable of racism, ableism, homophobia, ace/arophobia, transphobia, or even sexism.

A few years ago there was this whole thing with women in the romance publishing space getting mad at a queer man for talking about how female authors are prioritized in the romance publishing space over queer male authors when it comes to publishing stories about queer men. The M/M publishing space is overwhelmingly dominated by white female authors.

There is virtually no space for Black men or any other men of color in the romance publishing space, or for non-binary people (especially amab non-binary people), or for other trans people.

The priority should not be about making these spaces "women's spaces," it should be about making them genuinely welcoming, equitable, and open spaces. Women using their voices to shut down queer men's voices, or Black men's voices--that's not some sort of victory.

You absolutely don't need to prioritize men in these conversations. I'm not saying that you should.

There is a response that basically goes "this is women finally being able to openly express their sexuality and their voice and you're just trying to silence them."

And there are people, obviously, who are are trying to do that--but this same response is often given not only to conservatives trying to censor "pornography" but also people in marginalized communities talking about problems within these writing spaces or ways that they are made to be unwelcome.

It's an impulse I totally understand, but it's also really frustrating to see (generally cis/white) women using their marginalization as a women to insulate themselves from criticism or act as though being a woman makes them incapable of racism, ableism, homophobia, ace/arophobia, transphobia, or even sexism.

A few years ago there was this whole thing with women in the romance publishing space getting mad at a queer man for talking about how female authors are prioritized in the romance publishing space over queer male authors when it comes to publishing stories about queer men. The M/M publishing space is overwhelmingly dominated by white female authors.

There is virtually no space for Black men or any other men of color in the romance publishing space, or for non-binary people (especially amab non-binary people), or for other trans people.

The priority should not be about making these spaces "women's spaces," it should be about making them genuinely welcoming, equitable, and open spaces. Women using their voices to shut down queer men's voices, or Black men's voices--that's not some sort of victory.