On Writing Disability: Justifying in SFF

Too many times in discussions of disability representation, I’m faced with the same argument. “Well, that makes sense in modern or historical stories, but not in fantasy or sci-fi. People with disabilities would just be cured with magic or science.” They seem to think that’s the end of the conversation, and that anything further is just an attempt to erode the integrity of the genres with our facile need to see ourselves in them. Truthfully, it is tiring to continue from there. One has to either roll up their sleeves and engage in what could be hours of infuriating conversation or stop everything and write an essay. And then be disagreed with anyway.

However, I’ve been wanting to respond to this particular subject for a while. And hopefully, this post can provide an easily-linked rebuttal to the rote talking point. I submit to you that not only is it important to disabled and abled people alike to see disabled people in their favorite stories, but that adding them will in no way upset the integrity of your high fantasy or sci fi story. Even if you don’t have room for conventional disability, you can refer to the Social Model of Disability (link) to engage in creative allegories or expressions of disability that aren’t simply one-to-one with the modern world.

Uhm…why, though?

Any discussion on representation is going to need a brief disclaimer on ‘why’, but in this case, I’m going to keep it brief. Disabled people exist. We make up 12-20% of the entire population. We live in every community, come from every race, are every age, and have every socioeconomic status (though it’s statistically more likely for us to be in poverty). And many, many of us love stories.

Seeing ourselves within the media we consume is a way to fight shame and improve self-worth. It’s also a way to normalize our presence to abled people, which is especially important for disabled people as our community struggles with visibility and erasure in day-to-day life. Maybe if we were more often seen as complete people, we’d hear fewer comments telling us to ‘just stay home’ if the rest of the world is inaccessible.

People don’t want to think about disability because their view of it is so narrow and depressing, but it takes exposure to change that. I understand that learning about and writing disability is a challenge. It’s complex and nuanced, taking extreme care and expertise to dig into. Writers who don’t live with disabilities themselves might struggle to capture the authentic experience even with the best intentions. Hopefully, this blog can help bridge the gap.

Disability In Fantasy

Magic fixes everything, right? 

No. If magic can’t instantly fix the main conceit of your story, there’s no reason to assume it can fix any disability it comes across. In most magic systems, there are still rules, limitations, and confounding variables keeping it from simply being the miracle cure-all. When there aren’t, then the entire fact that there’s a healing power that can fix anything is going to be a cause for a lot of conflict and of itself. Please see: the Holy Grail. Maybe people start wars over these powers. Maybe the ability to cure so completely isn’t worth the devastation.

Maybe your magic system heals based on the ‘natural’ state of the body, and some disabilities are the ‘natural’ state of the disabled person? Maybe curing them would make the healer sick in turn, as they must use so much energy to fix them. Maybe growing a limb back causes lingering pain, or maybe the body doesn’t know how to move it correctly anymore and they have to go through a process of mobility training.

Maybe magic support is 100% available for the disability in question, but society is capitalist, and thus medical care requires payment. How’s the disabled character gonna get that? Oh, look. A strong plot hook.

Disability In SciFi

In many ways, sci-fi is much easier to incorporate disability into than fantasy. Dysoptian and cyberpunk genres involve so much social inequality and grungy aesthetic, there are many tools to work with. The argument that social inequality could lead to unequal distribution of potential cures is even simpler here than in the fantasy genre.

Moreover, when you’re dealing with medicinal or technological solutions, you’re dealing with messing with the human body on a human level. Let me tell you from experience: everything that can go wrong will go wrong. Pills have side effects, prosthetics cause friction injuries, measures upon measures have to be taken just to make sure that the cure doesn’t kill a person. 

These are fascinating and complicated issues to dig into and certain versions of sci-fi do this incredibly well. Even sci-fi stories that involve any level of augmentation are ripe for these themes to enrich them. 

“It’s Not Fun”

Well, that’s a strange take. Unless you’re reading a specific genre of feel-good fluff pieces, any good story is going to be good precisely because of the struggle. In a narrative sense, disability can be very fun! A story where nothing goes wrong is very, very boring. Stakes bring depth and tension, and characters’ flaws are what make us attach and relate to them. Writing a disabled character outfits you with that many more tools to improve your story, if you’re brave enough to try.

In the end, all I’m saying is that the urge to wave your hand and say “I don’t have to write disability because magic fixed it all” is a flimsy one. No one’s obligated to add disabled characters in their story, but don’t expect me not to argue with you if you try to take this tack. Just tell the truth and say you didn’t envision your story with disability, we won’t hate you for it. And it’s far less gatekeeping for every other story or writer that does.