Category: Cognitive Science for Writers

The World Wide Web (No, the Other One)

Posted on by Kai Raine

The other day, my sister and I were having lunch and talking. I used the word “Iranian”, pronouncing it “I-ray-nian.”

“I-rah-nian,” my sister corrected.

I stared at her. She stared back with a slight smile, which turned to a frown as I just continued to stare.

“What?” she asked. “You correct my English.”

I do. It’s true. I try not to unless I’m having to put effort into comprehending her words, but I definitely end up sometimes needlessly “correcting” her.

Neither of us grew up in English-speaking environments. If I had an advantage in the language, I would guess that it was that I was often on my own. If I made a mistake, there was no one to shield me from the fallout: the laughter, mockery, condescension, and confusion of my peers and family were mine alone to bear.

So, here we were in a situation where my sister was convinced that this word was pronounced one way, and I was pronouncing it in another way. My instinct was to believe her, because I had no specific memory of being told how to pronounce the word “Iranian”.

But I’ve been training myself out of automatically believing things just because the speaker sounds confident and I’m not confident in my own knowledge. So instead, my sister and I cycled through words that we knew how to pronounce. “Canada” vs “Canadian”. “Arab” vs “Arabian”.

By the end, I was convinced that my pronunciation had not been wrong.

The point I’m making here is not one about pronunciation. I’m not a stickler for pronunciation or grammar in conversation. I think if you can make yourself understood, that’s all that matters. (My non-native English speaking friends can probably attest to how useless I am as an English-speaking practice partner.)

The point I’m making here is one of how knowledge comes to be.

Knowledge is Not Something One Person Has

Something that’s dominated my thinking a lot these past months is the psychology of knowledge.

A few years ago, I started taking more care paying attention to how much I believe of what people say to me.

At some point, I became aware that my natural tendency is to overwhelmingly believe the words that are said to me, even if they aren’t substantiated by anything…except maybe that I like the person who is saying them, or they sound more confident than I feel.

Once I started doing this, questioning everything that is said to me, I started to notice that a lot of people don’t seem to have any idea what they’re talking about. And all my life, I’ve been absorbing these pieces of “information” that are substantiated by nothing.

If I were to go through all the “knowledge” I think I have and dissect it, trying to figure out where I acquired it and how reliable a source that was, I would mentally cripple myself.

It’s not a flaw or a failing to not have fact-checked everything. I do this too: I simply repeat information or opinions that I’ve absorbed from my friends or environment, and don’t give much thought to their accuracy. In some circles, this is a hot topic about the cycle of misinformation. But it’s amazing how much this happens with little, pointless things–the way that everyday decisions can be swayed by words based on information based on nothing.

I read The Knowledge Illusion by Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach–a book I highly recommend, by the way. Early on, this book highlights the fact that it’s impossible for one person alone to hold all relevant information about a given topic, and see the bigger picture. The bigger picture only comes together when several people come together, each with a different facet of knowledge.

I’ve found that it’s a difficult thing to do, always acknowledging that my viewpoints and opinions are only a tiny slice of the bigger picture–that I will likely never have a full grasp on the bigger picture. It’s a state of uncertainty, and while I can hold my mind there for a time, it often wants to slip into places of certainty.

Sometimes, I’ll notice in the middle of a conversation that all the words I’m saying, and all the words the other person is saying to me, are all pointless. We’re just knocking 2 opinions against each other, both unsubstantiated by anything other than a sense of “this feels right”.

It’s an adventure, and it’s also a realization that makes it harder to get upset or offended when someone says something “ignorant” that might otherwise have cut into my sense of self. It helps me to remember, in moments when I might otherwise be hurt, that this person has no idea what they’re saying—and neither do I.

But it’s not always about accuracy. There are meanings behind the (sometimes inaccurate) words, and that’s the important part.

A Quick Guide for Writing Diverse Characters (Whose Backgrounds You Don’t Share)

Posted on by Kai Raine

It’s come to my attention that I take for granted that a lot of aspects of this subject—writing characters with backgrounds other than your own—are “common sense.”

My bad.

Since I have insomnia tonight (again), I thought I’d try to make it up by making a blog post about some of the most important aspects that I generally consider to be common sense. But then again, my own sense of what “common sense” means fluctuates wildly depending on all sorts of things. Like the culture I’m most attuned to or the language I happen to be thinking in. Or my mood at that particular moment.

To be totally honest and transparent, I’m writing this to and for myself. Because while I do think about this sort of thing a lot, it’s hard to hold everything in my head at once. So even when I say “you” in this post, I really mean me. If it helps someone else too, that’s awesome! If not, no offense is intended to anyone. (I’m looking at you, future me. I see you glaring back into the past.)

This is not a list I’m saying anybody should adhere to! It’s just a sort of guideline, for authors feeling stuck or insecure (as, at this particular moment, I do).

Here’s the standard disclaimer that I don’t state often enough: everything I say is purely my opinion. I’m not trying to say this is what’s right, or that my opinion is somehow better than someone else’s. If anything I say seems off to you, feel free to leave a comment educating me, or find someplace on the internet that’s more your speed. I’m grateful if you do the former (even if I don’t agree, I like hearing what other people are thinking), and I’m happy you’re happy if you do the latter.

The Big Question: Is it okay for me to write a character of a background not my own?

Just in case you haven’t heard me talk about this before: YES. YES YES YES YES YES!!!! My answer to this question has, so far, always been yes.

Write what you want to write. Don’t let anything hold you back.

Writing is, by definition, living lives not our own. What would the world be if we only ever wrote characters from our own backgrounds? There’s something that can be groundbreaking in a story that reflects the reality of the author, writing their truths about their own background into a character. But that’s not the only way to write.

Okay, I’m doing this! Where do I start?

Okay, let’s back up a bit. You’re writing a diverse character. I would start with the question: Why give this character this background?

Let me be clear: I’m not saying that this should be a deterrent. Not at all. What I’m saying is this: Take a good, hard look at why you’re doing what you’re doing. Know it, so you can own it.

What do I mean by this?

Step 1: Digging Up Your Motive

Whatever your motive is to include diversity among your cast, your motive will likely bring with it some strengths and some weaknesses. By knowing and owning your motive, you can balance out some potential weaknesses.

Sometimes, an author’s seeming motivations are painfully cringe-worthy—and I do say “seeming motivations” to remind us all that I can’t tell you what was actually going on in their minds. I can only say how they looked to me. Off the top of my head, I can give you several examples of these seeming motivations:

  1. Through this minority character, the non-minority protagonist learns to support minorities.
  2. I need a minority character in my book for the sake of optics.
  3. I don’t know, I just wanted a character of this background, I guess.

Let’s talk about these motivations for a second.

I’m going to say something you might not expect: nothing is wrong with you if any of the above is your motive. There are all sorts of reasons why you might decide to do something as an author.

However, if your readers can recognize that that was your initial motive, then…well. That becomes a different story. Let me walk you through a very simple rundown of how I might conclude that an author of a book I’m reading was motivated by each of these 3 compulsions.

  1. The character is going through a struggle having to do with his/her background, yet his/her emotion and struggle are for some reason almost, if not entirely, shouldered by the protagonist instead.
  2. There is a single minority character among a bunch of otherwise non-minority characters. This character is treated as a joke/stereotype/nuisance/disposable.
    • ALTERNATIVELY, if the character is from a non-visible minority, then the fact that they are of this minority is treated as irrelevant to their character or the story, but the fact that they are of this minority is treated as a BIG DEAL.
  3. The character is of a certain minority, but at certain points, there’s a certain cognitive dissonance.
    • For example: a deaf character has no trouble following and participating in a group conversation where no one’s using sign language. Now, this is not impossible. However, lipreading in a group conversation where you don’t necessarily know where to look as different people stop and start talking would be extremely difficult, and probably exhausting. If the text doesn’t reflect this challenge, it can come off as the author forgetting that this character was deaf and the limitations that come with it.

I would also advise caution if your motivation includes “championing” the cause of a minority of which you are not a part. I don’t say this because of any judgement of the motivation. But when we feel that we’re doing something “right,” we’re more inclined to be blind to what we may be doing wrong.

Step 2: Know That You Do Not Fully Know Your Character

Now that we’ve considered our motivations, we move on to the next step.

You’ve started crafting a character of this cool diverse background; maybe it’s been long enough that you already deeply love and sympathize with him/her. That’s awesome, but don’t forget—you don’t know this character. In many ways, you probably never will. This character has lived a life you can imagine, but cannot experience.

It may be impossible to turn your brain entirely back to a blank slate to try to understand this character—but that’s okay.

As part of this step, remember: you have a bunch of friends of this minority that you love? Great. That has no bearing on your ability to portray this character.

Beware especially of the thought process: I have one friend of this background, therefore I can write this character.

Sure, we can base a character on a person in our lives; but basing a character on a real life person including their background with no other frame of reference is extremely dangerous. I do not advise doing this. (In fact, even as I envision this scenario, there are at least 3 voices in my head screaming, “Abort! ABORT!!! ABORT!!!“)

Step 3: Take the Time to Research

There’s only one solid rule in my mind about writing a character from a background not your own, and that rule is this: do not rush the research!

Sure, you can write drafts even while your research is still young and shallow. But just because your story seems to be working just fine without more research, don’t stop there.

By research, I don’t just mean learn the figures and numbers and statistics about this minority.

You’re not representing the entire minority. You’re representing your character. And that character grew up with a culture or traditions or norms that you do not share. The statistics and cold hard facts only go so far to building this character. Knowing them will help you, but they aren’t enough.

Step 3a: What do you take for granted that your character doesn’t? (or vice versa)

Every minority, be it race or disability or gender or religion or anything else you can think of, has something (actually, multiple somethings) that they struggle with that the majority takes for granted.

Therefore, whether you see yourself as a member of the majority writing a minority, or a member of one minority writing another minority, or even a minority writing the majority, be on the lookout for these things that some take for granted and others cannot.

Don’t stop when you find the most obvious ones—keep looking. If it seems easy, look harder. (Or longer. Don’t stress yourself out about it. My writing tends to get measurably worse when I’m stressed.)

Step 3b: What assumptions have you been making about this minority?

Try to find the things that never occurred to you—the things that run contrary to what you might have expected.

The benefit to this is two-fold. On one hand, you gain insight into your character’s background. On the other hand, you also gain insight into what used to be a blindspot of your own.

For instance, take this video by Molly Burke. Despite the fact that I have a published short story featuring a blind main character, and as such have done a great deal of reading and researching about what it’s like to live without sight, much of Molly’s perspective still surprises me. I don’t see my ignorance as anything to be ashamed of—it’s a chance for me to learn something new, and in case I was getting arrogant, reaffirm that I don’t really know what it’s like.

(And yet I feel compelled to tell everyone—I wrote that piece a really long time ago. It was only published last year, but I wrote it back in 2010. It was, in fact, the first piece I ever wrote after deciding to make a go of being a “real writer”. It’s also my first short story. In a way, it’s more a reflection of what I thought literary magazines wanted than anything.

Okay, moving on!)

Step 4: Overlooked Blind Spots

This is a tricky one. “Look at your blind spot!” is an insanely unhelpful piece of advice.

As a general rule, this is probably where I would start seeking external guidance if I haven’t already been consulting with anyone. If I have been consulting with someone or someones, I might go hunting for a fresh, alternate perspective.

Again, the point is not to take this alternate perspective and weave it religiously into the character. The purpose is to possibly make you aware of anything you might not previously have thought of.

Step 5: Live Your Character for a Day (or however long feels right)

I’d probably only go over this step for a protagonist. Actually, I have a lot of stories on hiatus because I live in terror of step 5, even within my mind.

This is the step where things get really hard.

You’re writing about a refugee. Have you been to her hometown? Have you been to the sort of environment where this character would have gone to apply for asylum? Have you observed the difference between what it’s like to be going through the process of applying for asylum, versus how it is to have been granted asylum?

You’re writing about a character of a religion not your own. Have you spent any extended period of time surrounded by this religion? Have you been to religious services?

In some cases, there’s nothing you can do to try to live your character’s life. Things like skin color, gender identity, sexuality, biological sex—we’ve got what we got, and there’s no getting away from that. But that very fact can make us that much wiser when writing these characters—it makes us aware that we’re leaning heavily on the limits of our minds.

Step 6: Show Your Story to Someone

I’ve been assuming that, during this whole process, we’ve been writing and editing and going through draft after draft.

At some point, show your story to someone. It doesn’t have to be someone of the minority (or minorities) you were writing, but that probably helps.

Remember to take their opinions with a grain of salt, positive or negative. They’re just one person.

The Bottom Line

Even as we try to be conscious of all the things we might be missing, we’re not aiming for perfection. If the story feels right, and the character feels right in it, then that’s that.

It shouldn’t become a source of stress.

Write however feels best.

As I’ve written this, it’s struck me that this is probably a process that it’s good to go through with any character, not just minorities. We’re not just talking about societal majority/minority issues, after all. We authors are each 1 person trying to weave stories with dozens or hundreds of characters.

Anyway. I hope that this was useful to someone, somewhere, sometime. (Looking at you, future me.)

Counterbalancing (a Tiny Bit of) Our Biases

Posted on by Kai Raine

Apparently yesterday’s (by an hour) post was more personal than I was quite ready for…

Let’s detox with something less personal!

Counterbalancing a Tiny Bit of Our Biases

An Unofficial Crash Course in Cognitive Science for Writers: Pt. 1

Have you ever reflected on a memory, and brought it up with a family member or friend who was there, only to find that they remembered it very differently?

Some of this has to do with how the brain stores and rewrites memories; some of this has to do with perspective and past experience. But it also has to do with a word I secretly hate using: bias.

We all are biased. Maybe that bias isn’t necessarily fixed for extended periods time, but at any point, our brains can only be in one state. As a general rule, I find it helpful to think of it this way: we’re made up of all our biological predispositions plus the heavily weighted events that steered us through our development, plus every millisecond of experiences since then.

Personally, it’s a little overwhelming if I dwell on it.

My father always said, there is no wasted time. In the world of neuroscience, this is true. Every thing we do or don’t do, everything we say or don’t say, everything we think or don’t think is part of the process that creates paths in our minds. For instance, if we “hate watch” things, or read articles that make us angry and worse, subsequently dwell on these things, we can end up reinforcing those anger-inducing pathways. We can end up forming a sort of pseudoidentity around something that, ostensibly, we would have been happier if we could have dismissed from the start. Love and hate use the same circuitry in the brain, after all, though hate apparently retains a semblance of rationality.

When I was learning the flute, my teacher used to talk about the “erosion” of mistakes. For every time I made a mistake, she would say, I had to play that part correctly twenty times to counterbalance the mistake. Any less, she said, and the mistake would take root in my fingers, and I would be doomed to make it again.

As I started studying cognitive science, I felt a growing marvel at the wisdom of my flute teacher. Because, we learned, while science in the past was determined to map the brain by finding the specializations of certain locations, that’s not quite how it works. Some parts of the brain are specialized, yes, but by and large, brain “mapping” is about networks. And habits—not just patterns of how we act, but the thought patterns underlying them—are networks that become engrained in our brains. Not only are they hard to break; even once we do break them, it’s incredibly easy to set off that neuronal pathway again.

Those thought habits? They’re part of what create biases.

If your first thought is that you can control your mind, adjusting for every unwelcome stray thought the same way my flute teacher taught me to adjust for mistakes—sure, by all means, if you can do that. I can’t do that, but I’m not foolish enough to believe that no one can.

For me, I had to embrace radical self-acceptance. Learning not to blame myself for anything: learning to observe, and adjust my behavior. Accepting that not everything is in my control, even in the confines of my own mind; that sometimes, I’m an asshole and that’s okay. It was radical self-acceptance that is teaching me to see my own biases and thought-habits more clearly, and—slowly, but surely—adjust them, where I want to.

Racial Bias

Since we’re talking about writing, we have to talk about some form of bias. I have to admit, I don’t usually talk about “race”-based bias, because in my experience, “racism” is too narrow, and gives a pass to a lot of similar thought patterns that would be covered if I only chose the umbrella of “tribalism”. So I do that. But that doesn’t mean that I discount racial bias—it just means that it’s one of many types of bias that I try to be aware of.

For the purposes of this post—recognizing and correcting our own biases—it must be largely irrelevant what other people are doing. The only extent to which other people’s biases matter, in this context, is how they affect us: if someone else’s tribalism is making us more tribal, for example.

But if we’re talking about studies, “tribalism” is too broad: it can be seen in nationalism, ethnocentrism, and so many other types of “ism”s. I’m opting to talk about race, here, because there is plenty of research on the subject. So, if you’re wondering if you might be racially biased, you could try taking this test. (If you want to take it, then for the sake of doing so without hearing about my experience, please take it before reading the next paragraph.)

To be honest, I’m somewhat suspicious of this test, since I felt like I knew exactly what the test was looking for, and therefore had the power to control it. I messed up on a single image the first time I took it, and that resulted in it giving me the result that I was biased; surprised that it would yield that result after a sample size of 1, I tried taking it a second time, messing up in the same way once, but then also messing up in the opposite way once. It told me that I was unbiased, that time. I admit to being slightly annoyed at that, since I could easily have made that “correction” the first time—I felt like it was a coin’s toss whether I chose to let the mistake go or try to “correct” it.

But at the end of the day, only this truth matters: race is just a social construct. Scientific research has even offered cause to question the validity of medical profiling of people by race.

Now, what this means for a member of society is very different from what this means for a writer.

As members of society, it means we must make an active effort to move past any sort of bias—which brings us back to having to recognize and counterbalance our own biases. Here, I don’t have that much advice to offer, except to read some cognitive science studies on bias and wonder how it might apply to various aspects of my life.

A personal example… For me, this involves going into the dark corners of my mind that I’d really rather leave untouched, and trying to recognize whenever I’m developing a bias; engaging in conversations that make me feel uncomfortable and upset with people who I feel don’t care about my perspective, and trying to understand theirs anyway. To me, it means leaving any preconceptions about who is worth talking with and listening to behind—trying to find a way to connect with people that I might otherwise shut out.

A scientific example… There was a study conducted in which participants would wear gloves, causing their skin to appear a different color than it was; and this showed that participants were more likely to show empathy for someone with a different skin color afterwards. This article provides an excellent rundown of the study and the background.

But as writers, our challenge is a slightly different one. Because while at our core, we may be the same, our experiences are often different. A person used to being treated fairly may not see or believe another person’s story of unfairness in the same setting, for example—a pattern all too common on the news.

An optional writing exercise

Look back on one of your experiences of an event, person and/or place you have lived through—preferably a mundane one that you have only ever considered from your own perspective. Reflect on other, very different experiences that people might have had. Perhaps this involves asking siblings or friends or relatives about their perspective of this event, person or place. Notice the differences from your own memories. Try writing a short story about that event, from someone else’s perspective—real or fictional. Then, after you’ve written it from the other person’s perspective, write it from your own.

An optional reflection: Has your perspective of your own experience changed?

(Just a note: there are no right or wrong answers, here. It’s just an exercise.)

To be continued…

I think. If anyone found this helpful and wants more, please let me know in the comments or an email or a message through the site’s contact form.

Here are some resources that I think are extremely helpful in understanding how the mind doesn’t necessarily work in the way that we might expect.

This book is about subconscious decision-making, and how we often end up rationalizing decisions that our brains have made for reasons unknown to us.

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (and Other Clinical Tales) by Oliver Sacks

Phantoms in the Brain by V. S. Ramachandran