Most fantasy and sci‑fi stories begin with the same assumption: if a character is disabled, the plot must eventually cure them. Magic restores what was “lost,” technology repairs what was “broken,” and the hero’s journey becomes a quest for normalization. My creative philosophy rejects that entirely. Disabled heroes deserve adventures, not cures. They deserve stories where their identities shape the world, not stories where the world reshapes them into something more palatable.
Disability studies scholars like Rosemarie Garland‑Thomson, Alison Kafer, and Simi Linton have long argued that disability is not a deficit to be corrected but a cultural identity shaped by community, history, and lived experience. Their work and my own learning in disabilities studies have deeply influenced how I think about fantasy and sci‑fi: not as genres that erase disability through magic or technology, but as spaces where disabled characters can shape worlds, wield power, and claim agency. Disability activist Neil Marcus wrote:
“Disability is an art. It’s an ingenious way to live.”
That’s the energy I want in my stories — not cure arcs, but creative, expansive ways of being. When I write my deaf princess with embroidery magic, or my blind and hard‑of‑hearing explorers stepping into the Wild, or my deaf teens leaving their ‘safe’ spaceship to build a world for themselves on a foreign moon, I’m writing in conversation with the stories that came before me. I love Marissa Meyer’s Cinder, where a disabled heroine saves the world without being “fixed.” Ann Clare LeZotte’s Show Me a Sign, portrays a community where Deafness is woven into the fabric of daily life. We need more stories like that. I’m also writing alongside contemporary voices like Sara Nović, who shows how Deaf identity is culture, not deficit. These works remind me that disability is not a narrative obstacle. It’s a lens, a culture, a way of moving through the world—and a source of power worth centering.
But if disabled heroes deserve adventures instead of cures, why do so many stories insist on “fixing” them? Why does fantasy so often treat magic as a universal restoration spell, and why does sci‑fi lean on technology as a tool for normalization? The answer isn’t that writers are malicious — it’s that our cultural imagination has been shaped for generations by narratives where disability is framed as a problem to solve. To understand how to write disabled heroes differently, we have to look at the stories that taught us to expect a cure in the first place.
Why Cure‑Based Narratives Dominate Fantasy & Sci‑Fi
Cure‑based narratives are the natural outcome of centuries of storytelling that treats disability as tragedy, burden, or flaw — something a “good” story must resolve. These patterns show up everywhere: in children’s books, in blockbuster films, in classic fantasy, and in the cultural touchstones many of us grew up with.
- Fairy Tales and Classic Literature: Cure as Moral Reward
For centuries, stories taught us that disability was a punishment or a symbol of inner brokenness — and that being “good” would restore the body.
- In Beauty and the Beast, transformation is the reward for virtue.
- In The Secret Garden, Colin’s disability is “cured” through fresh air and moral improvement.
- In Heidi, Clara’s ability to walk again is framed as a triumph of purity and pastoral goodness.
These narratives taught generations of readers that disability is temporary and fixable if you have enough faith, friendship, and have ‘earned’ it. I discuss this perspective further in my Disability Models series, particularly, the Moral Model and the Charitable Model.
- Children’s and Middle‑Grade Fiction: Disability as Obstacle to Overcome
Even in more modern stories, disability is often treated as a hurdle the character must “beat.”
- I enjoyed Wonder, but since reading it have questioned its foundation. Auggie’s facial difference is framed as something others must learn to accept, but the story still centers his transformation into an inspirational figure.
- I’m a big fan of Percy Jackson, but in the first book, Grover’s originally established disability is soon “revealed” to be a disguise for magical legs — a literal cure through fantasy logic.
These stories aren’t malicious, but they reinforce the idea that disability is incompatible with adventure unless it’s softened, hidden, or resolved.
- YA and Adult Fantasy: Magic as Restoration
Fantasy loves a dramatic transformation — and disability is often the thing transformed.
- In many retellings of The Little Mermaid, gaining legs is framed as an upgrade.
- In superhero narratives, characters frequently gain powers that erase or override disability (e.g., Steve Roger’s asthma is obliterated with the super serum, Tony Stark creates a replacement ‘heart,’ and Daredevil’s heightened senses is cure‑adjacent for his blindness).
Magic becomes a narrative shortcut: why explore disabled identity when you can wave a wand and “fix” it?
- Sci‑Fi: Technology as Normalization
Science fiction often imagines a future where disability simply doesn’t exist.
- Cybernetic implants “correct” blindness or deafness.
- Genetic engineering removes disability before birth.
- Futuristic prosthetics are framed as superior replacements rather than tools that coexist with identity.
This reinforces the idea that progress = erasure.
- Cultural Touchstones: The Medical Model Everywhere
Outside fiction, our culture is saturated with cure‑centric narratives:
- Telethons that frame disabled children as tragedies waiting for rescue
- News stories that celebrate “miracle surgeries”
- Viral videos of “inspirational” disabled people overcoming their bodies
These messages seep into our storytelling instincts. They teach us that disability is a narrative problem — and that a cure is the natural solution. But when we step back from these patterns, a different truth emerges: disability doesn’t limit story — our assumptions do. As Alison Kafer argues in Feminist, Queer, Crip, our cultural imagination has long pictured futures where disability simply doesn’t exist. Sci‑fi inherits that assumption unless we deliberately challenge it.
And that’s where craft comes in.
Agency Over Ability
At the beginning of my writing journey, many of my characters lacked agency. I wrote very ‘plot-heavy’ and stuff happened to my characters instead of the characters changing the story with their decisions. Lots of critique partners have pointed this out over the years and I’ve worked to make sure the character is steering the plot. Not the other way around.
To help me focus on the heart of my characters, especially as I center stories around disabled characters I use this simple idea: a character’s power comes from their agency, not their ability.
Agency is the capacity to act, choose, resist, influence, and belong. It’s the engine of story. Ability—physical, sensory, or otherwise—is only one facet of a character’s experience, not the measure of their worth. When disabled characters are written with full agency, they stop being symbols or obstacles and become heroes in their own right. Disability scholar Simi Linton reminds us that:
“…agency is the freedom to act meaningfully within constraint.”
That’s the heart of my character work. This is why I’m drawn to stories where disability is integrated into the character’s identity rather than treated as a limitation to be overcome. Marissa Meyer’s Cinder is a perfect example: Cinder’s prosthetic limb and cyborg identity aren’t narrative burdens—they’re part of her competence, her perspective, and her courage. She saves the world not because she is “fixed,” but because she is resourceful, determined, and deeply human. Similarly, Ann Clare LeZotte’s Show Me a Sign portrays a Deaf community where signing is the norm, not an exception. In that world, Deafness isn’t a barrier to agency—it’s a cultural identity that shapes communication, relationships, and power.
I’m also inspired by contemporary authors who center disabled agency in fresh, genre‑expanding ways. Lillie Lainoff’s One for All gives us a chronically ill, dizzy‑prone musketeer whose strength lies in her tenacity and her refusal to be sidelined. Chloe Brown, from Talia Hibbert’s Get a Life, Chloe Brown, navigates chronic pain with humor, desire, and sharp self‑knowledge—her disability shapes her life, but it never diminishes her agency. And in Chloe Liese’s Bergman Brothers series, characters with autism, chronic illness, and anxiety are written with tenderness and depth, their disabilities woven into their romantic arcs without being treated as obstacles to love.
These stories remind me that agency is expansive. It can look like a Deaf princess using embroidery magic to communicate across political divides. It can look like a legally blind explorer navigating the Wild through texture, vibration, and intuition. It can look like deaf teens determined not be sidelined or restricted in a spaceship, when there’s an opportunity to build a new life on the surface below. Agency is not about what a character’s body can or cannot do—it’s about how they move through the world, how they make meaning, and how they shape the story around them.
When I write disabled heroes, I’m not interested in what they lack. I’m interested in what they choose. Their relationships. Their courage. Their cleverness. Their stubbornness. Their joy. Their flaws. Their hope. These are the qualities that drive narrative momentum. These are the qualities that make a hero.
When we start from agency instead of ability, the entire shape of a story changes. Suddenly, disability isn’t something to erase or work around—it becomes part of the character’s worldview, their relationships, their problem‑solving, their humor, their stubbornness, their joy. But honoring agency on the page also means being intentional about the worlds we build. Magic and technology are powerful narrative tools, and in many stories, they’re used to “fix” disabled characters by default. To write disabled heroes without erasing them, I have to design my worlds differently.
Fantasy and sci‑fi give writers extraordinary freedom: spells that can reshape the body, devices that can rewrite biology, worlds where the impossible becomes ordinary. But with that freedom comes responsibility. When magic or technology automatically “cures” disability, it reinforces the idea that disabled bodies are problems to be solved rather than identities to be honored. So, in my work, I treat magic and tech not as tools for normalization, but as extensions of culture, communication, and possibility.
1. Magic as a Tool, Not a Cure
In my first novel, magical hair combs used as hearing aid equivalents are available to Princess Marguerite, but she finds real communication and belonging in communities which use sign language. She also uses embroidery magic, but it isn’t a workaround for Deafness. It is how she utilizes her magic to protect others as well as to send messages. Threads become communication. Patterns become political messages. Color and texture become power. The magic doesn’t “fix” my deaf princess; it expands her agency, deepens her relationships, and gives her new ways to shape her world.
I love Avatar: The Last Airbender and how Toph Beifong, the blind earth-bender, used her seismic sense to move and fight independently. I admit sometimes she moved into “super-crip” territory when her blindness seemed fully compensated by her “magic.” But there were scenes of her in sandy environments, forced to wear shoes, flying in the air, or floating on water when her seismic senses could not compensate for her blindness. Overall, her extra senses and bending abilities are culturally grounded and treated as a legitimate way of perceiving the world. She’s a fully realized character, whose identity shapes her power.
When magic grows from identity rather than erasing it, the world becomes richer, more layered, and more honest.
2. Technology as Adaptation, Not Normalization
In my frontier-planet sci‑fi stories, technology doesn’t overwrite disability—it adapts to it. My legally blind explorer uses tactile mapping tools, vibration‑based navigation, and sensory‑rich environmental cues. My deaf teens use voice-to-text and text-to-voice features on their holopads to communicate with non-signing people onboard ship, but don’t use it as a substitute for sign language or visual/tactile cues. None of these tools “fix” them. When technology cuts out or is unreliable, facial expressions, body language, gestures, and pencil/paper all work. I’m creating worlds where innovation grows from diverse needs.
This mirrors the ethos of stories like How to Train Your Dragon. When Hiccup first designs the prosthetics tail fin for Toothless, he can’t manage to keep it open during the dragon’s flight. So, he designs it so that a rider can engage the tailfin as it is needed. The prosthetics for both Toothless and (spoiler) Hiccup don’t restore the characters to a pre-injury state yet are designed for partnership. They create new forms of movement, connection, and interdependence. Adaptation is growth, not cure. Technology becomes a companion to agency, not a substitute for it.
I love the Murderbot Diaries. The main character in the Murderbot Diaries is a self-aware security android who has past trauma and is coded as neurodivergent. At the beginning of the series, Murderbot (or SecUnit) seems to be self-soothing by watching soap operas and pretending to be fully controlled by the humans employing it. When the illusion is gone and Murderbot chooses autonomy, it uses technology to hide its movements, set boundaries, and manage communication on its own terms. Murderbot’s tech isn’t a cure – it’s part of its identity.
3. Systems That Support, Not “Correct”
Magic and tech don’t exist in a vacuum—they’re shaped by the societies that create them. So, I ask questions like:
- Who has access?
- Who designs or creates it?
- Does the system assume a single “normal” body?
- What happens when a disabled character uses magic or tech in ways the culture didn’t expect?
These questions use the principles in Universal Design and help me avoid the trap of building worlds where disability disappears the moment magic enters the room.
In my current manuscript, when the deaf teens plan a frontier town for all of the cryo-disabled survivors still onboard the ship, they use these same principles. They figure out low-tech features to make everything accessible – ramps with low-grade elevations, windchimes on each corner with a different tone for each street, high-contrast colors on building exteriors and also used in interiors between floors and walls, differently textured surfaces on edges of paths/roads, and tactile signage.
I love figuring out how to build worlds where disabled characters reshape magic and tech through their presence, their needs, and their ingenuity.
4. Wonder Without Erasure
The goal isn’t to strip fantasy and sci‑fi of their sense of wonder. It’s to shift the source of that wonder. Instead of marveling at a miraculous cure, readers can marvel at:
- a Deaf princess who negotiates peace through embroidered spells
- a blind explorer who perceives the Wild through texture, scent, sound, and vibration
- a hard‑of‑hearing explorer who redefines communication on the frontier
The magic isn’t in erasing disability—it’s in expanding what’s possible because of it.
Writing Sensory‑Rich Worlds for Deaf, HoH, and Blind Characters
When you write disabled heroes with full agency, the sensory world around them can’t be generic. It has to be intentional, textured, and alive. Sensory‑rich writing isn’t about compensating for what a character “lacks”—it’s about honoring the way they uniquely perceive and navigate their environment. For Deaf, hard‑of‑hearing, and blind characters, sensory detail becomes a narrative language of its own.
1. Sound, Silence, and Vibration as Storytelling Tools
For Deaf and HoH characters, sound is never neutral. It’s contextual, relational, and often secondary to other cues.
- Silence can be grounding, comforting, or strategic.
- Vibration can signal danger, movement, or emotional tension.
- Visual cues—body language, light, shadow, texture—carry meaning that hearing characters might miss.
This is one of the reasons I admire Sara Nović’s work: she writes Deaf characters whose sensory worlds are rich, layered, and culturally grounded. Deafness isn’t a void—it’s a different way of perceiving.
2. Vision Beyond Sight
For blind or low‑vision characters, the world expands through texture, rhythm, spatial memory, and environmental awareness.
- Footfall patterns
- Air pressure shifts
- Temperature gradients
- The emotional “shape” of a room
These aren’t superpowers—they’re lived experience. In my frontier stories, my legally blind explorer reads the Wild through tactile mapping tools, vibration‑based navigation, and the subtle cues of terrain. Her perception isn’t lesser; it’s differently attuned.
3. Communication as Worldbuilding
For Deaf and HoH characters, communication is never an afterthought—it’s culture.
- Signing styles
- Facial grammar
- Touch cues
- Group dynamics shaped by line‑of‑sight
This is why Show Me a Sign resonates so deeply: it portrays a community where Deafness is woven into daily life, not treated as an inconvenience. Communication becomes a shared architecture, not a barrier.
4. Sensory Detail as Agency, Not Compensation
The goal isn’t to “make up for” disability with heightened senses. It’s to show how characters move through the world with competence, creativity, and insight.
- A Deaf princess who reads political tension in posture and breath
- A blind explorer who feels the Wild shift beneath her feet
- A HoH scientist who figures out communication systems that reshape group dynamics
These sensory choices reinforce agency. They show that disabled heroes don’t need cures—they need worlds that recognize the fullness of their perception.
There’s so much more to say about sensory worldbuilding—entire posts’ worth of nuance about Deaf culture, tactile storytelling, communication access, and the ethics of writing from lived experience. But for now, this feels like the right place to pause.
Adventures, Not Cures — And So Much More to Explore
Writing disabled heroes without fixing them isn’t a limitation on story; it’s an expansion of it. When disability is treated as identity instead of obstacle, the world opens up. Magic becomes richer. Technology becomes more imaginative. Sensory detail becomes a narrative language. And characters step into their full agency — not because their bodies conform to a narrow idea of “normal,” but because they shape their worlds through choice, courage, community, and hope.
This post only scratches the surface of what’s possible. There’s so much more I want to explore: the nuances of Deaf and disability culture in fantasy settings, the craft of building accessible worlds, the emotional architecture of hope, and the ways disabled characters reshape genre expectations simply by existing at the center of the story. Each of these deserves its own space, its own deep dive, its own conversation.
For now, I’ll leave you with the heart of my creative philosophy: disabled heroes deserve adventures, not cures. They deserve stories where they are powerful, complex, joyful, stubborn, brilliant, flawed, beloved — and wholly themselves. And I’m excited to keep building those worlds, one post at a time.
More soon.
Here’s a fun song that feels like a good fit to this post.
It’s Time – Imagine Dragons
Its percussive beat and the encouraging tone drive home the point that “It’s time to build.”