How timeless is your writing?
In an old ‘70s TV show, there is a scene where this scrawny, awkward fellow is trying to impress a beautiful foreign gal. He took her to a romantic spot on the northeast coast and talked about the history of the area.
“I think the Indians named it.”
“Indians?”
“Oh, not anymore. It’s a perfectly safe place now.”
Two points stood out to me in this brief exchange:
That “Indian” was synonymous with “danger.”
The belief that “Indians” are no more.
The later is still found in mainstream media and thought today. There is an underlying current, a sense that Native people are in the past. Forgotten.
I cover this issue in my free ebook, “5 Stereotypes to Avoid When Writing about Native Americans.” It falls under what I call the “historical-only view,” the idea that Native people truly were the vanishing race and are no more.
Yet Native culture…and our people…are timeless.
You might be surprised at how that thought influences your writing if you include Native characters in your story.