Diversity!

[Bluma Bezbroda]

Taking advice from friends (including my new Litopian friends ) I set my nearly finished MS aside to "rest" for a while- I am adding only minor corrections and polishing it up a bit when the inspiration comes. In te mean time I started to write-up The Real Thing (TM). I am totally loving it, but I noticed something in my story that really made me think. The thing in question is diversity, or, in other words, how to not make everyone white.

We had a thread just moments ago about we "see" our characters- how exactly they should look like. My problem is, I see my characters extremly clearly and for a very long time already- the story in question budded in my head when I was so young that I can not pinpoint exactly when it was. I come from a very monolith society- there are some Vietnamese in Poland, but its still sort of a sensation to spot a black person on the streets- and it is, sadly, of big consequence for how I constructed my characters (probably how I imagine people should look like, I have to shamefully admit). I read a great article once, written by a black activist from the US that said "Even if we make things up, it still has to be white". I certainly don't want this to happen in my prose. But then I would have to change the character/s that I already see clearly in my head, got used to them, like them a lot. And that would be difficult and, frankly, artificial.

In my first MS I didn't have this problem. Its a something of a "play of two actors", so you don't have to make a big effort to make it non-monolith I envisioned one of the characters as having a dark complexion anyway, so at certain point I just tossed in a Greek/Egyptian ancestry for him. It works great (or at least I think so). But with this book its more complicated. The characters are plentiful and, with minor exceptions, I see them as white. I can't play the "context" card- as "it's happening in Poland, so no wonder everyone is caucasian". It's speculative fiction, there are monsters and demons and shit, so I have absolutely no excuse.

Thoughts, my fellows?

 

[Emurelda]

I completely relate. It's a difficult one but recently I decided that the protagonist should be English black male from middle class background. For me I felt it was relevant to mix different races. After teaching in a catholic school I had never met an Indian Catholic before her name was Helen and I liked that so I've included an Indian Cathalic called Suze in my book too. The twins Pete and Lucy are English white and Xi Wan is Chinese. The five of them have each a unique skill and when working together they can overcome many obstacles, once they can find a way to agree on anything!

I am a visual learner and had to have the protaganist drawn out. So here is Sebastian Carter:

 

[Marc Joan]

I think if you force characters into particular profiles for the sake of political correctness, the story will end up feeling very artificial, and readers may feel that they are being patronised. I believe that what comes out of you, in your writing, is a valid expression of who you are, and it's probably a mistake to try to change that, because there's a reason why you see the characters, etc, as you do -- it's because that's what you have /had experience of at the time the story gestated. Write about what you know about. Just my opinion.

 

[Bluma Bezbroda]

I agree that forcing it is probably a bad idea. But I am not sure whether it has to do with PC. Because I'm not worried that I will offend someone by not including POC in my story. I just feel that this is a right thing to do, since you know, the world is not primarily white, and yet Caucasian characters tend to dominate tend to dominate in fiction. Also, it has something to do with stepping out of your comfort zone, which is always a valuable experience

Again, the universe in this story is made up. So, if I want to have a non-white character, I don't have to study African/Chinese/whatever culture to make the person believable. I just change the skin color, or other physical traits. The change is cosmetic, yet meaningful.

The other aspect of it is, that its perhaps not so good to be inflexible just because that's how we always imagined the character (same goes for plot, I think). It's nice if writing is a dynamic process. As Emurelda said, we get inspiration from meeting different people. And ever since I am living in a diverse, multicultural environment I have less and less problems imagining characters that are diverse as well

 

[Paul Whybrow]

To encourage diversity and challenge the prejudices of readers, describe your characters gradually by dropping clues about them. These could be subtle pointers, such as their choice of a snack, the music they listen to on the car radio or dialectical words and phrases they drop into conversation.

I prefer this way of describing someone to bluntly giving a description of their appearance, which feels like an encumbrance wedged into the narrative. There's no need to itemise what someone's skin colour, religion or sexuality as if giving a résumé. Sneakily introducing information about them by mentioning how they conduct their lives, and how others react to them (including bigotry) will form a fuller portrait of who they are—readers like working stuff out, and it might help to alter any preconceived ideas they have about what foreigners are like.

The length of a story will affect how much you're able to do this, for a shorter form will need stronger instant descriptions. Remember that however much we give details about our characters, the reader will still transpose their ideas onto how your goody or baddy looks—which is why film adaptations cause upset with unusual casting.

 

[Richard Turner]

To encourage diversity and challenge the prejudices of readers, describe your characters gradually by dropping clues about them. These could be subtle pointers, such as their choice of a snack, the music they listen to on the car radio or dialectical words and phrases they drop into conversation.

I prefer this way of describing someone to bluntly giving a description of their appearance, which feels like an encumbrance wedged into the narrative. There's no need to itemise what someone's skin colour, religion or sexuality as if giving a résumé. Sneakily introducing information about them by mentioning how they conduct their lives, and how others react to them (including bigotry) will form a fuller portrait of who they are—readers like working stuff out, and it might help to alter any preconceived ideas they have about what foreigners are like.

The length of a story will affect how much you're able to do this, for a shorter form will need stronger instant descriptions. Remember that however much we give details about our characters, the reader will still transpose their ideas onto how your goody or baddy looks—which is why film adaptations cause upset with unusual casting.

I entirely agree with what you say here, but query your use of "dialectical". From the context it looks more as if you meant "dialect". Typo?

 

[Richard Turner]

Taking advice from friends (including my new Litopian friends ) I set my nearly finished MS aside to "rest" for a while- I am adding only minor corrections and polishing it up a bit when the inspiration comes. In te mean time I started to write-up The Real Thing (TM). I am totally loving it, but I noticed something in my story that really made me think. The thing in question is diversity, or, in other words, how to not make everyone white.

We had a thread just moments ago about we "see" our characters- how exactly they should look like. My problem is, I see my characters extremly clearly and for a very long time already- the story in question budded in my head when I was so young that I can not pinpoint exactly when it was. I come from a very monolith society- there are some Vietnamese in Poland, but its still sort of a sensation to spot a black person on the streets- and it is, sadly, of big consequence for how I constructed my characters (probably how I imagine people should look like, I have to shamefully admit). I read a great article once, written by a black activist from the US that said "Even if we make things up, it still has to be white". I certainly don't want this to happen in my prose. But then I would have to change the character/s that I already see clearly in my head, got used to them, like them a lot. And that would be difficult and, frankly, artificial.

In my first MS I didn't have this problem. Its a something of a "play of two actors", so you don't have to make a big effort to make it non-monolith I envisioned one of the characters as having a dark complexion anyway, so at certain point I just tossed in a Greek/Egyptian ancestry for him. It works great (or at least I think so). But with this book its more complicated. The characters are plentiful and, with minor exceptions, I see them as white. I can't play the "context" card- as "it's happening in Poland, so no wonder everyone is caucasian". It's speculative fiction, there are monsters and demons and shit, so I have absolutely no excuse.

Thoughts, my fellows?

The same sort of thing would apply to people living in rural areas all over Europe - I don't know about North America. I live in rural Wales and whilst the two cities in Wales have a fair cross-section of racial types, the rural areas are almost entirely white. It seems to me that if you are writing about a mono-racial (monochrome?) society, to be true to life any characters who are not the same race/colour would be incomers, visitors or outsiders.

 

[Bluma Bezbroda]

I used the word "monolith" to encompass wide set of features- race is one of them, but I meant also religion and ethnicity

I agree absolutely that if your story has a realistic setting (e.g. rural areas of Europe), the colored characters would have to be there for a specific reason/you have to justify their presence. If you make up the setting, like I am doing now, you don't have to bother with that beyond, well, describing the society as heterogeneous. And that should be done with skill, as Paul excellently pointed out.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

I entirely agree with what you say here, but query your use of "dialectical". From the context it looks more as if you meant "dialect". Typo?

Curses, you're right. I meant to type 'dialectal'. I must stop reading Hegel at bedtime!

 

[Sea-shore]

Taking advice from friends (including my new Litopian friends ) I set my nearly finished MS aside to "rest" for a while- I am adding only minor corrections and polishing it up a bit when the inspiration comes. In te mean time I started to write-up The Real Thing (TM). I am totally loving it, but I noticed something in my story that really made me think. The thing in question is diversity, or, in other words, how to not make everyone white.

We had a thread just moments ago about we "see" our characters- how exactly they should look like. My problem is, I see my characters extremly clearly and for a very long time already- the story in question budded in my head when I was so young that I can not pinpoint exactly when it was. I come from a very monolith society- there are some Vietnamese in Poland, but its still sort of a sensation to spot a black person on the streets- and it is, sadly, of big consequence for how I constructed my characters (probably how I imagine people should look like, I have to shamefully admit). I read a great article once, written by a black activist from the US that said "Even if we make things up, it still has to be white". I certainly don't want this to happen in my prose. But then I would have to change the character/s that I already see clearly in my head, got used to them, like them a lot. And that would be difficult and, frankly, artificial.

In my first MS I didn't have this problem. Its a something of a "play of two actors", so you don't have to make a big effort to make it non-monolith I envisioned one of the characters as having a dark complexion anyway, so at certain point I just tossed in a Greek/Egyptian ancestry for him. It works great (or at least I think so). But with this book its more complicated. The characters are plentiful and, with minor exceptions, I see them as white. I can't play the "context" card- as "it's happening in Poland, so no wonder everyone is caucasian". It's speculative fiction, there are monsters and demons and shit, so I have absolutely no excuse.

Thoughts, my fellows?

I grew up in all-white Lancashire town then moved down to Inner London where it is very ethnically diverse. In the end I just learnt to see people as 'people'. I guess you can just try to imagine what you think would be the norm in your world and let that come across in your writing.
That's what I love about writing: the imagination and world building.

 

[Richard Turner]

I grew up in all-white Lancashire town then moved down to Inner London where it is very ethnically diverse. In the end I just learnt to see people as 'people'. I guess you can just try to imagine what you think would be the norm in your world and let that come across in your writing.
That's what I love about writing: the imagination and world building.

Yes - world building. I wrote a review recently (not on this site) of some sample chapters set in an imaginary world. The author had such a complete vision of his world that he forgot to give us any sign posts - it was baffling. Personally I feel that imaginary worlds should be somehow grounded in a reality we can all recognise. Terry Pratchett for example made his characters so real and funny that you suspended disbelief in the elephants that were holding everything up.

 

[Sea-shore]

Yes - world building. I wrote a review recently (not on this site) of some sample chapters set in an imaginary world. The author had such a complete vision of his world that he forgot to give us any sign posts - it was baffling. Personally I feel that imaginary worlds should be somehow grounded in a reality we can all recognise. Terry Pratchett for example made his characters so real and funny that you suspended disbelief in the elephants that were holding everything up.

Agree! That is until you read the Science of Discworld! Have you read those? Co-written.

 

[Sea-shore]

Yes - world building. I wrote a review recently (not on this site) of some sample chapters set in an imaginary world. .

Oh perhaps you could paste the review up here for us to read? Sounds interesting!

 

[Patricia D]

Taking advice from friends (including my new Litopian friends ) I set my nearly finished MS aside to "rest" for a while- I am adding only minor corrections and polishing it up a bit when the inspiration comes. In te mean time I started to write-up The Real Thing (TM). I am totally loving it, but I noticed something in my story that really made me think. The thing in question is diversity, or, in other words, how to not make everyone white.

We had a thread just moments ago about we "see" our characters- how exactly they should look like. My problem is, I see my characters extremly clearly and for a very long time already- the story in question budded in my head when I was so young that I can not pinpoint exactly when it was. I come from a very monolith society- there are some Vietnamese in Poland, but its still sort of a sensation to spot a black person on the streets- and it is, sadly, of big consequence for how I constructed my characters (probably how I imagine people should look like, I have to shamefully admit). I read a great article once, written by a black activist from the US that said "Even if we make things up, it still has to be white". I certainly don't want this to happen in my prose. But then I would have to change the character/s that I already see clearly in my head, got used to them, like them a lot. And that would be difficult and, frankly, artificial.

In my first MS I didn't have this problem. Its a something of a "play of two actors", so you don't have to make a big effort to make it non-monolith I envisioned one of the characters as having a dark complexion anyway, so at certain point I just tossed in a Greek/Egyptian ancestry for him. It works great (or at least I think so). But with this book its more complicated. The characters are plentiful and, with minor exceptions, I see them as white. I can't play the "context" card- as "it's happening in Poland, so no wonder everyone is caucasian". It's speculative fiction, there are monsters and demons and shit, so I have absolutely no excuse.

Thoughts, my fellows?

"Monsters and demons and shit" sounds pretty diverse to me. If this is a fantasy environment, can't you do whatever you want? Make your characters blue like those in that wonderful movie, the title of which I can't remember at the moment.

 

[Sea-shore]

"Monsters and demons and shit" sounds pretty diverse to me. If this is a fantasy environment, can't you do whatever you want? Make your characters blue like those in that wonderful movie, the title of which I can't remember at the moment.

Avatar?

 

[Patricia D]

@Sea-shore Thank you. Now I'll be able to sleep tonight.

 

[Bluma Bezbroda]

@Patricia D heh, I overstated a bit, it's not a classical fantasy setting And even if there will be some monsters and demons, most of the characters will be humans (or humanoids at least, depends on your terminology). Therefore, they will have to have human characteristics.

Tolkien's universe was a one with monsters and dragons, yet all of his humans/humanoid species are white on white on white (and yes, I know, historical context ).

 

[Robinne Weiss]

@Patricia D heh, I overstated a bit, it's not a classical fantasy setting And even if there will be some monsters and demons, most of the characters will be humans (or humanoids at least, depends on your terminology). Therefore, they will have to have human characteristics.

Tolkien's universe was a one with monsters and dragons, yet all of his humans/humanoid species are white on white on white (and yes, I know, historical context ).

We interpret Tolkien's characters as white on white (as did Peter Jackson)--but nowhere does he actually describe their skin colour. A reader could just as easily see them all as dark-skinned.

 

[Robinne Weiss]

And this is why I intentionally leave the physical descriptions of my characters a bit vague unless there are good reasons for someone to be tall, short, of a particular race, etc. I would like my readers to be able to see a character as they want to see them--a 12 year-old Latina should be able to put herself in the starring role of brave MC, as should a 9 year-old girl from Minnesota. A physical description when it doesn't really matter what a character looks like from the story's perspective reduces a reader's ability to use their own imagination to make the story relevant to them.

 

[Bluma Bezbroda]

Yes, Robinne, we interpret them as such, that's part of my point. Most of the readers wouldn't even think that they could be non-white. And, indeed when a movie adaptation is made, it will star only white actors. Aaaaaand when someone asks why cant we have black/brown elves, then a sh*tstorm starts...

I think its a very interesting thing and certainly a valid and valuable approach, to just not specify how the characters look like. More so for me, as I never thought about doing it that way Its just that sometimes (maybe too often?) I want to make a point with the description of my character...

 

[Richard Turner]

"Monsters and demons and shit" sounds pretty diverse to me. If this is a fantasy environment, can't you do whatever you want? Make your characters blue like those in that wonderful movie, the title of which I can't remember at the moment.

Avatar? Yet the blue people were still basically human.

 

[Patricia D]

How much and how to describe characters is tricky. In my head, the homicide detective in my trilogy was bi-racial - he was the son of an American GI stationed in France and a French woman, raised by his paternal grandparents - in Philadelphia to be precise. But that backstory was edited out of Book 1. Readers and my publisher assumed he was white, and I felt Book 2 was too late to specify otherwise. Thus, Mike became white in the next two books, and I gave him an African-American partner. (These books are set in New Orleans, which has a diverse populace.) I still wish I'd left his ancestry in and, one day, will use it for another character.

 

[Patricia D]

Avatar? Yet the blue people were still basically human.

Yes. they were lovely blue humans, which made the question of ethnicity as we know it moot.

 

[Chase Gamwell]

Super late to the conversation, but I'll add my two cents. To a degree, I think a great many of us don't really think about diversity in our stories. I wrote two and a half novels without even realizing that literally EVERYONE except for the main character in the third book was white. The main for the third book was a female Inuit.

Diversity is a talking point with regard to many types of media outside of writing, as well. Aside from writing (there was a huge row surrounding the Hugo nominations in 2015), both Comic books and video games have issues with diversity. Lately, things have been getting better, but for years, the white male protagonist dominated both mediums. Comics are only now starting to diversify. Superheroes are a lot more varied than they used to be (I think the new Captain America is black), which is saying a lot when you consider that the original Avengers were all men with blonde hair and blue eyes. Video games are following suit, though at a much slower pace.

I think diversity in our own work is worth noting, but as @Marc Joan said, if you force your characters to be something they aren't meant to be (or force them into a different race/color/ethnicity/sex/etc for the sake of political correctness), it will come across that way in the writing. That's not an argument against writing diverse characters, just an observation that I agree with.

Going back to the Inuit lead in my third novel (that remains unfinished for now), I really liked who she was as a character. Where she came from and what race she was didn't define who she was. Her personal journey and why she was on that journey did. And I think that is a good example of how we should be writing. Rather than worrying about whether our cast of characters isn't diverse enough, we should worry about whether the characters are believable in the stories we're writing. If we can do that, diversity will begin to come naturally as we branch out from what we are most comfortable with writing into areas that we are interested in writing about.

 

[Bluma Bezbroda]

I will repeat what i mentioned before, just because it's a message I do want to get across : I am not motivated by PC, but by normal, human decency.

Diversification of (pop)culture is indeed happening, much to my delight (sometimes not nearly as steadily as we would wish- hence #oscarssowhite...). From comic books, I would mention relatively new, but bestselling "Saga". From all its characters only one can be described as a white male. I would very much like to keep the pace with that, hence this thread

Rather than worrying about whether our cast of characters isn't diverse enough, we should worry about whether the characters are believable in the stories we're writing. If we can do that, diversity will begin to come naturally as we branch out from what we are most comfortable with writing into areas that we are interested in writing about.

I totally agree.

 

[Nicole Wilson]

This is something I've considered, as I have a five person team in my series. A lot of how you picture and then write your characters is based off of how you were raised and what environment you were/are in. I was raised in a very diverse environment, so one of the five is African American, and another is a woman. I have another prominent character that's African American as well. However, most of my characters are white, because I'm white. Not because I *want* them to be white, but, since I am white, that's just how I picture a majority of my characters, unintentionally. A problem I know a lot of authors run into when trying to write a POV character that's not the same race is that they haven't lived in that race's shoes, so it's hard to write. It's the same as writing in the other gender's POV. Not impossible, but difficult for a lot of people.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Whatever choices we make with our characters representing examples of diversity, they should fit the circumstances of the plot. My psychological thrillers are set in Cornwall, a county whose largest town Falmouth has 27,000 inhabitants. There are more ethnic minorities there as it's a port, but the whole county has a population of 536,000—of which 95.7% declared themselves to be 'British White' in the 2011 census, with only 4.3% 'Other'.

I've lived here for 25 years (minus three years in Atlanta, Georgia), and in all of that time I've seen perhaps 50 Black people. There are more people from the Indian sub-continent and of Chinese origin—many connected with the restaurant trade. My stories reflect this demographic, which would be the opposite if I wrote them set in Atlanta where the population is 51% Black and 41% White.

All of my coppers are white, as that's largely how things are and not a reflection of prejudice on my part. All of them are able-bodied too, as that's a requirement of the job, though my hero is troubled with depression. The serial killers he caught had mental illnesses: PTSD and psychopathy. They all saw life in very diverse ways. One of the detectives is lesbian, and in the latest novel the villain is a closeted homosexual. All of these characteristics flowed from my creative mind as they fitted naturally. Crowbarring a disabled black serial killer into the plot wouldn't work, as he'd be instantly identified! People notice differences.

I subverted the Cornwall demographic by having one of my serial killers disguise his Eastern European appearance with the use of full head face masks of Chinese appearance, and wearing prosthetic face moulds to look like a disfigured war veteran. He used people's prejudices against foreigners and the disabled to make them look away from him, becoming unmemorable in that way.

The recent fuss about diversification at the Oscars was preceded with debate about casting a new James Bond. Idris Elba was suggested as being ideal to play the first black oo7. He's a fine actor, but James Bond wasn't written as being black. Political correctness can be too flexible sometimes, bent over so far as to snap its own back. Think of the fuss that's made when white actors wear blackface. I'm not sure what makeup will be involved in the shooting of an upcoming comedy about Michael Jackson, that has seen Caucasian Joseph Fiennes cast as the singer!

Joseph Fiennes defends playing Michael Jackson: 'I was shocked to be cast'

Mixed race South African comedian, Trevor Noah, who recently took over the Daily Show in America as host, made an amusing observation on race and role models:

“You can’t have a black Bond because James Bond is a fictional character based on a white guy, but then Jesus is a fictional character based on a black guy, and he’s white now, so…”

Experiments in casting plays and films are all very well, and can be fun. For example, Helen Mirren was cast as a female version of Prospero in a film adaptation of The Tempest. When we write our novels though, things have to ring true.

As Iain M Banks said: The trouble with writing fiction is that it has to make sense, whereas real life doesn't.

 

[Bluma Bezbroda]

As to Bond- well, the original character was also written to be a chain smoker, yet we don't see him dragging on Marlboros for quite some years in the movies I do not have any problem with casting a black actor to play in a Bond movie, especially that I hear that most things have nothing to do with the novels anyway (I didn't read them myself, that's just the info I get from people who did).

As for Trevor Noah, he and Lupita Nyong'o gave a very insightful interview concerning discrimination in movie/entertainment industry

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/f...p-stories-below&WT.nav=top-stories-below&_r=2

 

[Patricia D]

Joseph Fiennes defends playing Michael Jackson: 'I was shocked to be cast'

A white British man will play Michael Jackson? Really? My mind boggles.

 

[Jason Byrne]

We interpret Tolkien's characters as white on white (as did Peter Jackson)--but nowhere does he actually describe their skin colour. A reader could just as easily see them all as dark-skinned.

Even more late to the conversation than Chase, but remember this? It was trending on Twitter a few weeks back:

#HermioneIsBlack