Hi!
I hope this is an okay thing to ask/post here.
I have a couple hybrid self-help books in the works, and it occurred to me that some of the language I’ve been using is exclusionary. The tone/style is basically the opposite of magical realism, in which evidence-based therapy, psychology, and neuroscience stuff is presented as if magical.
Because of this, I can certainly make use of terms like “being,” “entity,” etc, (and I already do, to some extent) but there are times where I (maybe naïvely?) feel like I need to be more specific about what/who I’m referring to. This is important and difficult because I’m trying to avoid breaking the fourth wall by using the word “you” (or referring to the reader directly at all).
Questions/ Discussion Topics:
Do you have an opinion on the word “person”? I would argue that non-human animals are people, but I imagine it could feel dysphoric to be referred to this way
What about “one” or “individual”? This seems exclusionary of systems, and possibly objects
Is there any alternative to “human”/“humanoid” that captures the spirit of what that conveys without being problematic?
When I read “he or she,” I automatically think “ah okay, this isn’t about me.” and that feeling fucking sucks. I don’t want a single reader of mine to feel this way, if I can avoid it
If it’s blocking your writing… Explain this exact problem in a preface and move on while an answer (hopefully) percolates in the background.
I’m a big nerd and affectionately refer to my family members as “units” in a deliberately ironic way. E.g. my children are childunit01…03 and wifeunit01. This is probably a useless anecdote though.
The point though is that a physical individual is the unit of interaction for people, even if that physical individual houses multiple people or a person that doesn’t conform to the physical representation. It’s also the unit of interaction with the world, or interface if you will.
I’m also a big sci-fi nerd, so intelligent non-human interactions are a big part of the media I consume. Many authors deal with the same problem. You could look there for inspiration.
Of the top of my head “agent” (as in agency) seems like a good candidate. Everything alive had some degree of agency, humans probably have the highest degree.
This is great input, thank you! I like both unit and agent. I’ve also used “subjects” a few times, so those will fit in well, I think.
One of the books is almost done actually, and I’m wanting to go back and adjust the language used throughout, so it’s moreso blocking the publishing than the writing lol
I personally do not identify as a person, but as a myth. And I think what you’ve discovered is that there are few catch-all terms for all the different kinds of beings, because what you’re trying to do is group very disparate concepts together.
What I might do is pick a different exclusionary term each time, and have some of the exclusionary terms exclude humans and people and other such majorities too. So everyone is included some of the time and everyone is excluded some of the time. That way, everyone is getting the same reader experience, and you can calibrate your UX to that experience. Like writing in the preface “Whatever you identify as: man or woman, human or animal, person or idea, some of the terms in this book will not apply to you.”
That said, Iain M Banks tends to use “intelligence” in his books as a general term for thinking beings. I would be more inclined to use the term “sapient”.
That’s a really interesting idea, I’ll definitely explore that! Thank You for the input and insight
