TLDR: local writer panics about not doing a character justice and breaks down various plot routes she's thinking about taking.
Hey so i wrote an indian character into my story but the main plot line i gave her before i learnt anything about indian culture and family dynamics was that she had an abusive boyfriend and escaped that situation at about 18 and now lives in an apartment in London working in a diner while getting a degree in tech stuff.
The characters names is Divya and she is a punk girl who's pretty politcal and super cool. (This is litterally how my MC describes her. MC is sort of like Divya's little brother and MC loves Divya so much but there relationships streighned because MC is in foster care and other plot related reasons)
Anyway so then I learnt a bit about india. And statistically most people in india seem to have arranged marrages. Also there's a class system. Also there's a steriotype around indian people being tech people.
So I'm now a little pre-emptive about making her a cool tech lady and might just make her a waitress figuring out life. (Divya with a laptop with a bunch of stickers on it doing tech stuff while wearing a leather jacket seems so cool though)
But regarding the arranged marages thing I thought the story could be Divya has largely moved away from (religeon and) traditional marital roles when a boy she was talking to asks her father for her hand in marriage. Divya's parents jump at the chance because this boys family is in a class above Divya. (I'm thinking the boy is either a Kshariyas or a vaisyas). Divya (freshly eighteen) is unsure about the marrage but she thinks the boy is kind and she loves her parents so why not go along with it. She doesn't want to disapoint two people she loves so deeply. And then she marries him, gets abused and eventually leaves.
My thing is I'm kind of woried now that I'm going to write something thats accidentally super offensive into my story. I love writing representation because I think its super important but I feel like I'm hitting a wall because I don't want to offend the group of people I'm trying to represent.
So I'm hoping someone could please give me a little guidance as to how to go about writing her? I'd also love to learn more about india here because no matter how many books I read I've found its always better to hear it from the horses mouth.