I'm a writer. I was wondering if you can give pointers on realistic and respectful writing of a character who has had a brain injury. Especially things to avoid that may be wrong/hurtful.
I'm sure this person would love extra contributions in replies or reblogs too! But here's some stuff I compiled so far
I think it's important to think about why you want to portray a character with a brain injury
If your reason for wanting to portray it is anything related to using that character's brain injury as a major plot inconvenience (eg. they forget a piece of information and the whole mission is ruined), I really don't recommend it. It's not entertaining writing as it is and just it makes the character seem like a burden to the plot.
If you just want one symptom for plot reasons (like memory difficulties), also ditch the brain injury idea. Either you intend to represent the whole experience or none of it!
I'd say similar things if the character is just going to feel hopeless or awful about it the entire time and it's going to be constantly used to make the readers emotional - we eventually have to live with it, even if accepting it takes time, and learning to accept your disabilities is something that desperately needs representing. Brain injuries are not some kind of eternal punishment for people with them, nor a tear-jerking tragedy for people without them
Do proper research into brain injuries and zone in on what's applicable to your character
What is the cause of their brain injury? What type of brain injury is it?What parts of the brain were affected? How long has it been since they acquired it? How comfortable are they with their reality now? Do they have access to proper medical care and means of recovery? What will their symptoms actually look like?
All of this is important if you want your character to feel fleshed out in this area too
Run your work by people with brain injuries who offer it!!!! You can find people on writing subreddits, discord servers, in-person, all sorts of places, who'd like you to ask questions and help in the writing of your character
Don't just talk about us, include us in the conversation. Acknowledge that you cannot fully understand our experience and so you cannot make the rules on how to portray it respectfully!
Listen to our stories! Spend time with us online and in person if you can! There are so many stories from people with brain injuries on all social media platforms - do not use their words directly without permission, but you can certainly learn from their experiences and think about what your character's experience might look like
I really like this article it goes pretty in-depth into all areas of brain damage & injuries and recovery in writing
Flesh out your character just as much in every other applicable area - if you overly expand upon their disabilities only for the character themself to be pretty lackluster, you're not portraying a real person anymore, you're just portraying the concept of a brain injury
- The 'You're not the same person anymore' trope, where a character experiences an accident or head trauma and is suddenly an entirely different person on every level. It's pretty much just used as an emotional plot device. Severe brain damage can result in significant changes in personality, but they are the same person
- Doom and gloom, where you're essentially just writing pure angst intended to make the audience emotional with no real representation of the disability outside the context of 'this is really sad'
- Comedic relief, where a character's brain injury is used almost exclusively as a humorous tool (eg. haha they keep forgetting things, haha they talk weird, haha they lost their train of thought, haha they behave inappropriately and don't realise it)
- And I'm not saying you can't do something amnesia-related, but if you're looking for a plot device that'll cause a character to do something like forget their entire life before that point for a very prolonged period of time and receive little to no medical intervention, please find a fictional means for it (eg. fantasy/sci-fi elements) instead. It's just so overdone and it's always written as caused by a head injury that you'd expect to result in TBI, but those effects are not realistic for TBI
How to write a character with amnesia article
I'd love to see what others have to add to this! I know it's not uncommon for some people to say you shouldn't even try to represent other people's disabilities, but I don't think that's a realistic way to approach it, especially when lots of us would love to write fiction about brain injuries but struggle to because of said brain injury