: Re: Pregnancy in writing - A bit difficult In one of my stories, I have a chapter that is all about a woman's first pregnancy and her experience. It is a fictional woman but still, because my

@Kimberly114

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Thank you for acknowledging the difficulty! Pregnancies are, in a word, diverse. And that's probably why I don't like reading about them so often (The Color Purple coms to mind as an exception): they seem to be not-quite-main plots, in books by men, that average out pregnancies as seen in books and shows on television and present the same pregnancy.

You can research subjective experiences just as well as you can research science. There are plenty of memoirs and listicles and thinkpieces out there. Try women's writing on Medium. Try Buzzfeed which is a left-leaning site that likes to promote openness about these topics. In general I lean toward suggesting very feminist writing for this, because feminists tend to be enthusiastic about writing about aspects of femininity and women's experiences that simply haven't been acknowledged in mainstream ethos. That is exactly what you need in order to not be stale.

Is your novel a novel where the characters sh*t? Any discussion of pregnancy that does not involve morning sickness, the fear of terrible injury or disease, and the fear of the baby not making it upon birth, is probably very incomplete.

In short, research it from primary sources i.e. contemporary women's writing.

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