
Can I ask you to participate in a small experiment? It won't hurt, I promise! However, it is important in order to see this question through a different lens. Now, read the rest of this paragraph in full before performing the action. Set the timer on your phone to sound after 30 seconds. Then take a deep breath and close your eyes, and for half of a minute try to visualize what a normal person looks like. Ready? Go ahead...
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Okay, so you pretty much know what comes next. Do I have to ask; what did you see? What did you visualize in your mind as "normal"? Now, this exercise is not designed to make you feel guilty about anything, just let me explain. We all have a different perspective of what "normal" looks, sounds, and acts like. The idea of normal is usually rooted in your environment and what you see every single day. That is completely okay.
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While I was coming up with the concept for this story, I spent a lot of time carefully thinking about what each supporting character looked like before working on the main character. This was intentional because I felt like it was so important for me to make sure that the focal point of the story did not unintentionally paint a picture of what "normal" looks like. If the character had a specific human-like skin color such as Black or White, then ultimately I would have been writing a story where all of the supporting characters are "different" because the main character is clearly "normal". I made him green to remove the idea that there is a "normal" because there isn't. Every character, like every person on the planet, is uniquely different.

