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@mgtask Great topic! I would also reaally like to see more neurodiversity in Christian fiction. As far as I’m aware there has been a huge push toward giving a voice to neurodiverse characters in secular fiction over the past seven years or so (though whether that has been done well is a different issue) but I don’t see the same in Christian fiction. And it’s not as if every single Christian is highly neurotypical =P There’s such a strong push in many circles toward the idea that Jesus “cures” every mental “ailment” and that true Christians either don’t practice the “sins” or otherwise suffer from things like PTSD and depression that it’s something young Christians truly need to read.

Not that it won’t stop pastors and mommy bloggers from writing sermons and posts about the encroachment of 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔚𝔬𝔯𝔩𝔡 into Christian spaces, but maybe it could give young Christians room for a constructive sort of rebellion instead of, like, just going out and getting drunk =P

@wolverinerm I don’t like diversity for the sake of morality, which I think is what most people mean by diversity for its own sake, but forced diversity is the most useful exercise toward becoming mindful of natural diversity.

Like, I grew up in a sheltered homeschooled environment in one of the whitest parts of the US. I have very little experience of any lifestyle that isn’t that of a lower middle class white blue collar homeschooled conservative Christian family with no TV. Since leaving home I have a ton of LGBT+ and variously neurodivergent friends, but practically no friends who aren’t white or who are less than three generations from immigration, and nearly all of those people were born within 50 miles of where I live now.

If I just write what I passively know, which I think is a driving force between lack of diversity in most cases, then every one of my characters is going to be pretty similar to me, or at least to the few people in my life.

If I research other kinds of peoples’ lives to try to write more authentic characters who are different to me, that’s forced diversity, and frankly I should probably be doing it more. I guess it’s more of a transparent issue in contemporary fiction. Maybe that’s why all the nerds of the 80s wrote fantasy, so they didn’t have to learn what real people were like =P I know that’s why I used to focus on it so heavily.

@phoenix Characters who love books are also… Not so much a pet peeve of mine, but something I kind of roll my eyes at whenever I see it. Despite my one published novella having an MC who loves books >.> I guess I feel like the writer just can’t help making their MC that much more like themselves, or they can’t imagine empathizing with someone who doesn’t love books like they do.

@naiya-dyani And yes, way more comorbid disorders please.