How to Stop Writing With Ignorance: Tips to cut out misrepresentation and avoid narrative biases in your travel writing
***This was first published in The Writing Cooperative***
I noticed the mood in the writing group shifted as the four of us moved further down the Google docs comments on my personal essay of motorbiking the Ha Giang Loop in Vietnam. I was submitting the story for publication. We stopped to discuss subsequent notes: beware of romanticizing; passive characters; be careful of the Noble savage.
I had done something wrong in my writing.
Worse was that three other writers could see a gap in my writing about travel experiences that I hadn’t noticed — I’d marginalized a group of people, assumed their voice, and painted passive people through a romantic lens. I had killed my travel narrative by making it all about me, the white women from America traveling through the exotic lands of Asia.
I wrote how I saw the world, instead of writing a story about what I had seen in the world. Being aware of my biases would have helped me to avoid representing, classifying, and glorifying aspects of my new experiences in Asia.
I hadn’t taken the time or trouble to ask questions of the people who had lived in the place I was writing about, so what now? How could I find and fix the ignorance in my narrative travel writing after the experience?
I came away from the writing circle with four actionable solutions that I wish I would have known years ago when beginning to write about travel. By writing truthfully, making characters active, asking questions where you don’t know the answer, and reporting rather than giving opinions, you can write around personal biases and avoid ignorant travel writing.
Be truthful by writing what you see and avoid emphasizing absence
Write about what you see, what’s present, and what’s truthful. Be careful to avoid highlighting and overemphasizing remoteness in a piece or scene as this leans more towards “how” one sees the world rather than what it is.
Overemphasizing remoteness can be problematic. The repetition of remoteness, might suggest a link between physical distance and social distance for the people who live in a place. This is problematic as it paints the setting of the Noble savage (Merriam Webster defines as a mythic conception of people belonging to non-European cultures as having innate natural simplicity and virtue uncorrupted by European civilization).
With an over emphasis on distance from “civilization” the repetition of remoteness shapes an idyllic setting suggesting the speaker’s “survival” of a situation or an experience and diminishes the legitimacy of a people’s equal, complex, and diverse existence.
The farther you deepen the scene untruthfully and over dramatize the landscape, the more something becomes an obstacle to overcome by people who have now been misinterpreted as people who need to “overcome” that obstacle. Instead, use your writing to be clear about what you see. Use the power of observation and sensory details to give the reader an idea of a place as a whole rather than through your scope.
Example
They were from a poor part of town in India, living in a small house they didn’t even have a door. They had nothing.
Problems
I hadn’t done research to know if the neighborhood in Udaipur was actually part of a lower economic tier or if the house I visited was just of a family that lived differently than what I was used to.
I used the words “didn’t even” to impart an opinion of status that comes if you do have a door.
I overgeneralized and assumed that because the family did not have the amenities, comforts, and appliances that I was accustomed to seeing in a house, that they had nothing.
Better way to write the scene
As I entered the house behind Sunny, I crossed through an open archway. I left my sandals inside by the single stove on the ground. In the house, there were three spaces divided by curtains and illuminated by a single lightbulb: a kitchen, a room with a raised surface that held blankets and pillows, and a space with mats big enough for four adults to sit knee to knee in a circle. No toilet.
Ensure that people and characters have agency in your writing
It’s ok to observe, to take notes of what you see, and to be drawn to aspects of culture that are different than your own, but people are people everywhere and each is living a complex and dimensional life that can’t be ignored in writing. Be careful not to make people a passive part of the landscape. Using words or phrases such as “then I noticed” “and then there was” “he/she stood there” or “I watched” are some phrases that objectify a person as something existing entirely for the author to notice and then move away from. By taking away a person’s movement and action, by making them passive in your story, you’re denying them existence beyond the words you’ve written.
Instead of having characters, especially characters from a culture you don’t know or understand, be part of a passing landscape that you “notice,” give them action in your story. Even if it’s simple action, humans are full of action. Give them agency. Show characters moving, acting, participating in the world your writing about rather than leaving them plastered to your page like a prop.
Example
I lost the view for a while trying to manage the relationship between my speed and the gravel, when I came around a corner and there was a woman along the highway shaded by a parasol. Her clothing was black with fringes and buttons colored neon.
Problems
The sentences suggest the woman is just as part of the landscape as the road, speed, and gravel are.
Using the words “there was” suggests she’s something to be “picked out” or observed and suggests she’s still/stuck and has been waiting for me to take notice.
Actions are done to her rather than her being an agent of her own actions: the parasol does the shading, the clothes do the wearing.
Better way to write the scene
I came down around a corner opening up to a valley and saw a figure walking up the highway holding a black embroidered parasol. Moving closer I saw it was a woman wearing black fabric with vibrant colored fringe walking up the hill.
Ask open ended questions and let the reader decide
As a writer, imagination comes naturally and it can be easy to bend into exaggeration when travel writing. Attributing characteristics beyond what you physically see, is objective and untruthful. Using adjectives and ideas such as tough, brave, strong, gentle, caring, can manipulate the reader and create a narrative of what the author wants to see rather than what is present. This can be problematic and begin to romanticize the “other.” Be careful not to exaggerate parts of a culture or import specific examples of a culture that spin a narrative untruthful to what exists. Using questions in your writing is a great way to acknowledge your lack of understanding of the culture and people while still moving the narrative along. It’s a great way to give rise to thoughts about the culture without imparting or assuming an opinion on what you see.
Example
She was old but tough as she walked up the steep hill. We had passed through nowhere and we were headed to nowhere where the woman was walking from. She carried on with a steady pace as she trudged up the hill toward me.
Problems
That sentence assumes that because she is old she shouldn’t be walking, giving her a fragileness that she must overcome and that I don’t know is true.
Using the word tough implies that I know something about this woman where I don’t and it also again goes back to a fragileness that I’ve imparted on the woman because of her age.
In talking about “no where” I’m using my own view on what constitutes a “where” which is skewed to what I know and would classify as more than a few houses. The woman’s idea of a “where” might be entirely different.
I’ve assumed that I know where the woman is coming from, which I don’t know.
The way “me” is used at the end of this observation, suggests that the woman exists only in the story as a symbol and something working around me rather than as she really is, an individual walking despite my existence.
Better way to write it
My engine was revving as I let second gear control my downhill speed and I wondered how far had this woman walked already? I stared, guilty of how tired I felt sitting. Where was she walking?
Report using “I” statements rather than giving opinions with “them” statements
It can be all too easy to wrap up good feelings and positive interpretations from experiences into a narrative that beautifies or romanticizes a scene or people. Be careful to avoid language that may sway the reader to seeing a scene other than what it is. Adding words such as humble, beautiful, worthy, and natural when writing a scene gives an interpretation of a person or group of people that may be over glorified or misrepresented. The romanticization of a scene becomes a problem because it depends on the author’s interpretation of what they see. Interpretation can become opinion and easily turn to objectifying the people and their culture. This is also problematic because it falsely assumes the “other” needs to be interpreted or needs a voice. However, by avoiding overgeneralized interpretations as an outsider to a culture, avoiding opinion, and sticking to observation with “I” statements keep the voice with you as the author therefore avoiding representation of an “other” that didn’t ask you nor did they need you to represent them through a voice in writing.
Example
The kids hadn’t wanted anything from us as we walked their town as strangers, but the first sparkle lit their eyes with curiosity and a few multiplied into twenty. I managed the lighter and then sent each smiling kid into the dark to draw circles before they came running back eager for another. The new experience stirred their excitement. The last sparkler went to a girl of eight years old who carried her light out of the circle and gave it to a younger boy who was out of breath having made it to the commotion too late. Whether it was her brother I didn’t know, but she had shared so effortlessly with a kindness uncharacteristic to kids I knew. After the last sparkler had gone out the kids waived, and ran back to their homes while we returned to a humble dinner.
Problems
The first sentence suggests an interpretation of what the children of the village wanted, something I do not know as the author because I never asked.
The moment of the sparklers in the village gets exploited with opinions about the children’s curiosity and intrigue and the word “new” assumes that this is the first time any of the children have seen or played with a sparkler, which is something I don’t know as the author.
The moment with the little girl and the little boy is over glorified and the words “effortless kindness” adds a character trait to the girl that is a romanticized interpretation of her actions beyond what I can see as the author.
The ending suggests the children have nothing to do other than to be entertained by the foreigners and must return to their homes when the scene is concluded. This is a misrepresentation of the scene and what life may be like for the children of the village.
Better way to write it
There were a few children playing at a cross section between alleyways and I drew out the sparklers from my backpack for such an occasion, presuming village children would find them entertaining. The sparklers were imported from Thailand, would these kids have seen them before? I managed the lighter and then sent the first young boy into the dark to draw circles before he came running back eager for another. The excitement drew more children and soon we were in the company of twenty kids who all wanted to play. I couldn’t supply the sparklers fast enough, yet the night air was filled with the continuous crackle of fire. I tried to be fair in who and how many sparklers were given out, as the kids returned more eager to hold fire than before. They closed in the circle around me. My stomach turned wishing I had a thousand sparklers so each child could play. I showed my empty hands and the kids waived, saying thank you. Then they turned to one another chasing and playing as we headed back for dinner.
***
Changing the way one writes about the world is difficult, but sharpening the way you write apart from biases is worth the turmoil. If you can be truthful, make your characters active, ask questions where you don’t know the answer, and report rather than give opinions, then your writing will reflect the feel good fuzzy feeling of having traveled without turning an eye away from how the world truly exists.
Written By: Rose Hedberg
As a recovering perfectionist, Rose helps others navigate their writing roadblocks to get into more creative joy. Rose is a published co-author of flash fiction, an experienced freelance writer, ghost writer, and grant writer. Rose is a book junkie collecting passport stamps every chance she gets. Based in Cartagena, Colombia she lives for flavor and sunsets plunging into the Caribbean Ocean when out of office.
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