I'm working on a short story piece for a contest. I had no intentions of having an asthmatic character, but I was writing him and he just decided he was going to be asthmatic.
Now, my mother is asthmatic, so I can talk to her about it, and I've been doing research, so I'm less worried about writing it wrong (not to say I'm not worried about that at all, because I'm not asthmatic and the last thing I want to do is portray it wrong), and more worried that it's fallen into that sort of 'nervous boy' (or the 'nerdy inhaler' as it seems to be called) trope. I've seen it so many times, where the shy, nervous and/or nerdy kid has asthma and it's never written in well. Cody, the MC who has asthma, is somewhat nervous, but not so much shy as reserved. (and he's not really nerdy)
Should I just cut it out? I usually keep things like this in because it's something that comes naturally with the character without my interference, but I really don't like that trope and I didn't realise that it might come across that way until much later.
Thanks!
(I don't know if I worded this quite right, and I apologise if this sounded offensive in any way. It was not my intention)
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