Writing my Somerville Downs sweet romance series began with a question: What happens if I ‘write what I know’?
What my characters go through isn’t necessarily what I’ve been through, but I do have lifelong experience of walking ‘between worlds’ as a first-generation immigrant in Australia. Too Westernised to get on smoothly at home, but too Other to just fit in among my school friends, much of who I am today was shaped by the person I had to be in order to navigate my new life.
To be honest, I spent most of the last five years not feeling confident about writing multicultural romance. I worried my books had not enough culture while simultaneously having too much.
But all that changed recently, when my sister told me she wished she’d grown up with more books featuring people who looked like her and shared her life experiences.
Discovering that someone I actually know and love struggled to hear the sound of their own culture over the loudest voices in the room was a revelation. It made the abstract concept of “representation” far more real and necessary.
Writing your own culture into books
In your first draft, do away with the idea that you have to make your culture palatable for readers. Easier said than done if life experiences conditioned you to suppress or deny your culture, but this for-your-eyes-only version of your manuscript is a very safe space in which to try.
Open your heart and let the memories and feelings flow. Don’t worry if it’s too much or not enough. Your intuitive appreciation of your culture will likely surprise you, as things you assumed were “normal” and “just like everyone else” suddenly show up in unexpected ways.
Once those home truths are staring back at you from the page, your creative brain will have a much easier time working them into a tighter, more compelling story. A personal example: I never expected the everyday Asian household habit of taking your shoes off indoors would end up as the closing image of The Guy from the Internet, and now I struggle to think of shoes by a door without some deeper meaning attached.
As you write, your mind will make its own interesting connections. Your natural tendency of doing this is, after all, what got you into writing.
Writing someone else’s culture into books
When you write your own culture, you’re drawing from a lifetime-thus-far of incidental research, ie. research you ended up doing without intending to. And you contextualise this by understanding how your cultural experiences relate to social norms, differing worldviews, and other people’s experiences.
To that end, you absolutely can write someone else’s culture into your books. Just be aware that certain kinds of knowledge just won’t be available to you as an outsider. And this outsiderness extends to broader definitions of culture as well. For example, the conversation that develops in subcultures built around shared Divergent neurotype experiences can feel alien to someone born with a Typical neurotype.
This is where cultural consultants and sensitivity readers come in. Contrary to what you might hear, you don’t always need a sensitivity reader when you include other cultures. It’s more that you need to have involved enough research for authenticity and to avoid perpetuating harmful stereotypes, and a sensitivity reader can help a lot here.
Doing it your way, and accepting it’s just one way
My biggest fear when The Guy from the Internet came out was that readers would see it as loaded with stereotypes when all it did was draw from my own experiences and what I saw around me. Back then, the #OwnVoices tag was my way to signal the insider info, but that short-lived label introduces its own set of problems, like outing people who still need anonymity to function safely in society.
Now the standard practise seems to be accepting that your voice is one voice among many, and to represent yourself accordingly. You’re not writing The So-and-So Experience. You’re writing A So-and-So Experience, a filtered glimpse and conversation starter, not the whole story of a cultural group.
Almost six years later, the final book in my Somerville Downs sweet romance series is out in the world. I’m confident in calling it multicultural, confident about being neither too little nor too much, and content to for it to simply be.
The Guy from the Airport explores what being part of a loving, yet at times misguided, family means when you finally grow up and decide how you want your own life to go. It’s not necessarily an “Asian story” – Rachel just happens to be Southeast-Asian Australian because that’s the Somerville Downs vibe.
But readers like my sister, or my cousin’s daughter, or even the teenager at the cash register in the Chinese restaurant down the road may see facets of their own experiences reflected in these pages, and know they’re not as “othered” as they might sometimes feel.
Sommerville Downs Sweet Romances
“I’m tired of telling myself you care, then finding reasons to doubt it’s true.”
Rachel Yeoh has known Ethan since they were kids. She’s liked him only to lose him, only to love him all over again. This all-right boy with the mussed-up hair is well and truly under her skin. Just don’t ask her about it directly, especially not after what happened when they were seventeen.
Ten years later, a chance meeting on the other side of the world sparks old hopes and fresh fears. Rachel already said farewell to the girl she was in Somerville Downs. If Ethan’s the same old guy he used to be, she’ll have to say goodbye to him too. And this time it’ll be forever.
The Guy from the Airport is a sweet, off-beat, second chance romance, set in the world of Somerville Downs.
About Birdie Song
Birdie Song was born in Southeast Asia and now writes from Perth, Western Australia on Whadjuk-Noongar country. She believes love is more important than labels, integrity is a person’s most attractive quality, and that no one should be judged for putting pineapple on a pizza. When not writing, she tends to a veggie garden and reads a variety of books, hoping to one day understand the meaning of life.
Visit birdiesongauthor.com to learn more.
