Indie Author Weekly

167: Writing alternative relationships, Q&A Part 2

• Sagan Morrow • Episode 168

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This episode provides Q&A inspired by the Weeknight Writers "Writing Alternative Relationships" panel discussion I spoke at this past summer — it's a follow up to our previous episode where I answered the first 3 questions: 

  • Q4: What level of awareness is it important to have when thinking about writing alternative relationships? (harmful tropes to avoid, poor representation traps, trusted places against which to check info/questions about types of alternative relationships we’re less familiar with?)
  • Q5: What advice would you give to a writer who wants to create a world where these alternative relationship models are considered normal or even the norm? What changes would this normalization have?

Stay tuned for Part 3 of this Q&A, coming next week!

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Hello and welcome to the indie author weekly podcast where I take you on the behind the scenes journey of my adventures as an indie author.
I'm your host Sagan Morrow, and I'm an eighth time polyamorous romcom. Author plus I've also written several business books for solopreneurs. Let's dive into this episode. Today. I want to continue our conversation from last week and answer a few more questions.
A couple more questions from a panel that I spoke on this past summer for the weeknight Writers Group. weeknight writers is a social enterprise dedicated to creating accessible educational resources and events for fiction authors, and it is run by the business for authors team. They do story crafting sessions, which are one day virtual conferences with panels exploring a specific aspect of writing such as world building or story structure. So this past summer when I spoke at one of their one day conferences, the topic for our panel was writing alternative relationships. We had a great discussion about what that looks like and the nuances of writing alternative relationships. In episode 166 of this indie author, weekly podcast just last week, I answered the first three questions that were kind of presented to us on the panel. So today, I wanted to follow up on that and answer a couple more questions. I think that these questions are really great and worth exploring. So I thought that would just be fun to kind of share my answers, you know, outside of that panel just here on the indie author, weekly podcast. So let's get into this. Again, the first three questions were back in episode 166 of the indie author weekly podcast, so go and tune into that if you haven't haven't already. And now we can just carry on with the next couple of questions. Question number four what level of awareness? Is it important to have when thinking about writing alternative relationships, including perhaps harmful drugs to avoid poor representation traps, trusted places against which to check information or questions about types of alternative relationships were less familiar with. Okay, so one of the best questions that I would encourage you to ask yourself is, how would I approach this if it was a more mainstream or socially accepted, acceptable relationship? And then compare that to how you are approaching the relationship that you are writing in your novel? Where are there discrepancies? So that's just a really great way for you to look at am I normalizing this? Am I writing this as a you know, you know, regular sort of run of the mill relationship? Or am I using some kind of a harmful trope or am I representing this a little bit, perhaps negatively, in a way that I simply would not if it was more mainstream or if it was more socially acceptable? So that can be a great way to do it? I would also recommend asking yourself the question, why do I think that I need to write about x y Zed just because it's an alternative relationship. So for example, the type of alternative relationships that I write in my own novels are polyamorous relationships and open marriages. So this basically means that my characters might be in more than one romantic partnership. It's consensual among all parties involved, it's ethical non monogamy. So one of the common beliefs or myths about polyamory is this idea that if you open your relationship, it means your current partner isn't enough. Or you will change our mind when you find the right one. Or you simply don't have a good enough connection with your existing relationship. Or you're just using polyamory as an excuse because you really want out of the relationship. So I like to flip these types of tropes in my novels. These are things that my characters might struggle with, because they have internalized those ideas, but upon some communications and self reflection, they realize that it is not the case. Another trope is the concept that all polyamorous people are super sweaty. And this is an interesting one because we are also in the midst of this backslide societally, where women's rights are being taken away. So I do like to write my characters to be fairly open sexually. I like writing sweaty characters because in my mind, it's really about reclaiming our sexual freedom. So it kind of comes back to, you know, this question of what is the purpose of me using a particular trope or idea and how can I use it from a thoughtful place? So how can I really, you know, be very thoughtful about a particular you know, sort of trope or concept that I may be using what is my intentionality behind it, why do I want to do this particular thing? Is there a better approach you know, better quote unquote, approach to take is there a different approach to take that can still conveys the same sort of concepts, all of that and also, I think that there is value in you know, if we are writing a particular trope in one book, than almost writing the opposite in another to really be able to showcase them. So again, I personally I like writing characters who might be more sexually permitted promiscuous, but I'm not going to only be writing characters like that, you know, I want to write characters who are very open with that type of thing. And also, I'm going to very soon have a main character who is not sweaty at all, and I like being able to sort of showcase those dynamics to really give you those examples of your all of the different possibilities and you do not need to be sexually promiscuous. You know, you don't need to be slutty to be polyamorous and you know, all of that types of thing. So really exploring all of the different kinds of options. I do think that that having, you know, if you are doing it a lot and a particular set of books, then being able to kind of flip that and try something else is a good way to kind of navigate that potentially. Question five, what advice would you give to a writer who wants to create a world where these alternative relationship models are considered normal, or even the norm? What changes would this normalization have? So my biggest piece of advice here is to view it almost like a parallel universe. So for example, I have chosen to not include COVID in my novels, even though I have written my novels to the present day. So I don't actually like incorporate, like the years in my novels, but it's very obvious that it is modern day, but I did not want to I did not want to write about COVID I simply did not want to include the pandemic in my novels at all. I love this idea of a world where COVID simply does not exist. So I just I chosen to eliminate it. And you are allowed to do that you are allowed to eliminate something or add something. So if you view it as this thing is normal, well what happens then how does it change your approach, it probably becomes less of a big deal and more of a passing background nuance. So I've you know, I've definitely done this with with one of my characters in small towns below is the main character, you know, right from the bat in the beginning of the book, she just is used to having polyamorous type of relationships she's used to ethical non monogamy is almost foreign to her this concept of monogamy. So we do not see her go through any type of self discovery journey of monogamy versus non monogamy she is simply non monogamous. That's just completely normalized to her. That is just who she is. And it's kind of fun to write the book through that lens because with my polyamorous passion series, all of the main characters are discovering this like within themselves throughout the novels, they're all realizing that they identify as polyamorous so really looking at, you know, if this is normal, what happens then? How does it change your approach to the story, and how does it change the character's approach to everything that they do? I think another example of this is again in small town stilettos the main character Margaret is a fat woman. And I just did not want to have any of the other characters being fat phobic towards her, I did not want her to be you know, to have any internalized fat phobia. The only sort of aspects of fat phobia that are in that novel are more like socially types of things. So you know, she mentioned that that not all you know at one point she goes home again and she makes mentioned that you know, kayaks don't typically fit her that she needs one that's more size to her and that type of thing. But it was really important to me that there aren't you know, even though she has definitely has some, you know, there are villains right like she has enemies in in small town stilettos. But even then, like there is no fatphobia going on. So she doesn't have to deal with any, you know, snide remarks about her weight or anything like that. And she also has no internalized fat phobia. And I just love this idea of that just being the way that it is where there's simply she just doesn't have to deal with that. And I like being able to have that in in her world. That was just really important. So, another another sort of approach to this of normalizing again, getting back to alternative relationship models. Doing this can be done by substituting an alternative relationship model for a more mainstream mainstream one. So really looking at if this was a more socially acceptable relationship, what would happen then what would this dynamic look like? How would other people perceive this? All of that type of thing? Another piece of advice that I would give is to remove the sensational aspects. So I like to do this by peppering my stories with situations where a character might be blowing something out of proportion, and then someone else comes along and they're like, what's the big deal with this? I don't get it. So for example, children and parenting is a big, you know, quote, unquote issue that comes up in the argument against polyamory, but most of my characters are child free. So the one character who does want to be apparent, she hasn't really had any conflict with the idea of reconciling an open relationship with having children and you know, their story is going to continue to develop with it just being a complete non issue, and I kind of really liked that idea. And again, sort of flipping it around in small town stilettos. Margaret is just rolling her eyes at monogamy. And she, you know, I think she literally says at one point, why is everyone so obsessed with monogamy? So it's kind of fun to be able to flip those types of things and, you know, against, like, removing the sensationalization or just having people be like, I don't, you know, like, what's the big deal? Like, who cares type of thing. So that can be a fun way to sort of play.
So there you have it. Those are my answers to a couple more questions from the weeknight writers story crafting sessions, panel discussion on the topic of writing alternative relationships. You can get into into part one from last week and episode 166 here on the indie author weekly podcast, and stay tuned for part three coming here. Very soon on the podcast next week, where I will share my answers to a few more of the questions. The last set of questions on this topic is writing alternative relationships. And if you would like to check out my novels, you can grab your copies of my polyamorous passion series at all major bookstores, or visit Sagan morrow.com/books Link is in the show notes. If you have additional questions about this topic, or any other topic you would like me to address here on indie author weekly, I would love to hear about it. Please submit your topic ideas at Sagan morrow.com/question That my friend is a wrap for today's episode of indie author weekly access the show notes for this episode at Sagan morrow.com/podcast and share your thoughts about it on Twitter or Instagram. My handle is at Sagan loads. Please take two minutes to rate and review indie author weekly on Apple podcasts. Thank you so much for tuning in. And I will see you next week for another episode of indie author weekly

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