Issues With Getting It Right When Writing About A Certain Faction of Society...

Thanks for bringing this up and for caring about it this much. When I look at this new thread and in the same few moments look at the situation of a U.S. Representative to Congress trying to force oath-swearing on Islamic visitors to her office, I feel I am gazing into an abyssal wound in humanity -- the gap of contrast is so vast.

I have no advice on your question at all, except that it is damned hard to get anyone right, even if the writer is of the same race, gender, age, political persuasion, religious attitude, what have you. It's maybe impossible. Maybe the only thing to do is get yourself right.

I'm sure others will have more useful things to say so I'll stop there.

I once wrote a scene involving a female's reaction on coming across a car accident. One reader (perfect stranger, btw) stated unequivocally that a woman would not react that way. I explained that it was a scene taken from real life - mine - and I (female) had indeed reacted just that way. She refused to back down.

Write your character the way that character is. What more can you do?

It's difficult. You mention gay. Well okay, there's this. A character that is a bit colorful. Not really flamboyant in a jovial sense. Just colorful. Not sure if that is the word? Not really. And there you go. A stereotype! Should you be sensitive of that? Will readers be? Hard to say. So should you rewrite the character a bit and make them less colorful. If you do that messes up your instinctual feel of how they are and then they don't ring as true. Ugh. Frustrating. So yeah. You are not alone with this. Part of writing is maybe just involves a certain degree of awkwardness. Maybe it is just best to do things your way and leave it at that. Deal with any objections when they come.

Beta readers who identify with that group, at early stages of writing. That's all I can think of.

That being said, even within that group opinions and experiences are going to be so varied that perhaps the best to shoot for is "within the range" rather than "spot on."

For example, I don't get offended if someone writes about a Catholic character who is more narrow-minded or misinformed than I am, as long as I can realistically see a Catholic character acting and thinking in that way. It is when the writer makes the character extremely and unrealistically out there that I get miffed (barring satire, of course). It also depends on if the character is meant to represent an individual or the group as a whole. The more he or she represents the group, the more people are going to get offended the more extreme he or she is.

As Kyla said, great discussion and something that should bear thought when writing.

I think, based on this post, that you're trying to make your minority characters represent their groups, and feeling guilty if you fall short. I'd suggest that the attempt is misplaced. Characters are individuals, not avatars. Racial or ethnic or or sexual or religious identity is just one small part of who they are.

When I write a character who's different from me, I start with what we have in common, which is always far more than what we don't have in common. I have a gay character in several of my books, including the latest. He's a former FBI agent, a bit of a Jewish mama, a kickass writer and a doting father. He doesn't represent; he just is.

The trick, I think, is to avoid stereotypes and do the research required to create authentic characters. Suppose you're a white suburban middle-class person who's never ventured far from that demographic zone. How are you going to create a convincing black up-from-the-streets hip-hop mogul, should you need one? If you base that character on characters you've seen in movies and on tv, you'll produce an imitation of an imitation. The only way to do it right is to go meet people who live in that world; and by doing that, you'll see (and write) them as idiosyncratic individuals, not Righteous Nature-Loving Native American or Sensitive Emotional Gay Man.

My 2 cents, for what it's worth.

The easiest way around this to just write characters. What makes a person a Sikh? What makes a person gay?

Neither of those things are personalities. There's a tendency to try to make non-white, non-straight people as representative of their entire group. That doesn't make any sense. A straight white guy has nothing to do with other straight white guys. If he's an alcoholic, you don't go "That is *so* straight and white."

Write people. Men who have sex with men have exactly that one thing in common. So don't worry about the rest.

Barbara R. said:

Characters are individuals, not avatars. Racial or ethnic or or sexual or religious identity is just one small part of who they are. ...

The trick, I think, is to avoid stereotypes and do the research required to create authentic characters.

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Barbara offers a great 2 cents. This is something I've been thinking about as well. We sometimes know certain traits that characters have before they actually become fully realized as characters. As much as we want to represent an race, ethnicity, gender, or experience accurately, it's all so very subjective to the individual. We can only do the best job we can to make our characters well-rounded, authentic people.

I'm currently writing about a main character who has a hearing loss, something she and I share, and I still find myself second-guessing how I'm portraying that through her. Then I remind myself that the book isn't about her hearing loss. It's just a small part of who she is.

Yes, what it comes down to is that individuals are individuals. They are what they are. Sometimes they follow stereotype and sometimes they don't.

Something that a friend said to me once, after watching me agonize over a scene in which the hero of the current novel just couldn't come out smelling like roses, was that you as the writer cannot control what the readers make of the story. You can't ramrod a story into a shape where everyone will take it the same way. You have to tell it and let them form their own conclusions.

Why don’t you contact the tribal counsel and ask if there is anyone to help you get, their costumes and traditions right...?

I’d bring the gay thing up after I had a better idea of their over-all views of life.

I remember putting up a piece of writing on my forum very early on and a gay man accused me of writing a stereotypical character who would have contributed towards his pain as a young man and was too camp. At the time I do remember smiling at the tantrum that was only lacking in a wrist flick and a flounce. No matter what your experience you are going to offend some people and I don't think you should avoid that.

When my very first gay character came out the closet I asked my best friend for his book collection and I was shocked to discover every book with a gay MC was either erotic fiction or about being gay. It made me angry and after that I have made sure I at least have a major character in my stories -- they are all based on real people so I am unworried. Some do have elements of stereotype my closest gay friend is not very stereotypical until you look at his music collection or see him ice a cake. Another friend and his partner are as camp as Christmas - both play rugby, one is in the military and the other works heavy construction. I do often include a stereotypical element but they are people and the story rounds out the character until they are more than that.

As my friends say - my gay characters are no more camp than my straight ones so they fit right in. (I grew up around Carry On Films and cheesy sit-coms).

With my black, British fourteen year old gay kid I am taking the same approach. I'm basing him on a couple of real people and I know I will get some things wrong no matter how hard I try. But literature needs these characters and I all I can do is make them as real and as good as I can.

Nationality, culture and upbringing is important to how someone reacts to things. But so is their DNA and the person they are.

There is an author who writes stories set in 1950s Liverpool - how she remembers her childhood. Some people think they are the best ever -- my mother who was brought up in Liverpool at the time thinks they are rubbish and don't relate to her experience.

There are books I read that I should relate to and don't.

I try not to write about groups, but about individuals. About 99% of the time, a person is a person is a person, and the live as any other person, and deal with situation as any other person does. They hold teh same jobs, have the same dreams, etc.

When differences come up, when I have to write about that persons group, whatever it is, I treat it the same way as any other problem in writing I know little or nothing about. I talk to an expert or three.

In this case, and expert is someone who's a member of that group. Also in this case, it's better to talk to three such "experts" because even within groups, types, or whatever, people are not all the same.

KTC said:

My First Nations character lives on a Reserve but there is no tradition adherence in his immediate family.

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Still, it helps to know what their background is. Reservation life is a different experience than living in a city: these things run deeper then than they may appear.

KTC said:

Yeah. My gay character is flamboyant. The thing is, you can never represent the entire spectrum of the people you're trying to represent. I just don't want to go BAM, stereotype followed! None of us are cookie-cutter representations of our sex, race, religion, sexuality, etc, etc, etc.

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I'll have to come back to respond in more detail, because I'm on my phone right now, but I just wanted to say: KTC, having gotten to know you on this forum for a few years now, I'm entirely confident that you'll do a good job. The fact that you truly care is worth far more than writing something perfectly inoffensive. You'll always offend some people. Your heart and mind are in the right place, and that's what matters most.

Neegh said:

Why don’t you contact the tribal counsel and ask if there is anyone to help you get, their costumes and traditions right...?

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Err... Don't ask about costumes. The only time Natives wear costumes is Halloween. Maybe you meant regalia or traditional clothing?

Barbara R. said:

I think, based on this post, that you're trying to make your minority characters represent their groups, and feeling guilty if you fall short. I'd suggest that the attempt is misplaced. Characters are individuals, not avatars. Racial or ethnic or or sexual or religious identity is just one small part of who they are.

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I agree with this. You can have a 'minority character' that has attributes shared by a stereotype, but as long as those attributes aren't the sum of the character, then I think you're OK.

For example, I have a pretty camp gay friend who is incredibly driven in his career and seems to suffer from some kind of Peter Pan complex where he doesn't want to be old, but at the same time doesn't want to be thought of as young. If I were to write him as a character, I'd write him as camp. But the core of his character and goals and whatever would be that Peter Pan conflict.

I'm just now finishing a book set around 1850 in pre-Civil War frontier America, and it involves a fugitive free black man escaping from the slave-holding states and traveling west to the gold fields of California. I have to use the "n" word in narration and occasionally in dialogue, because my first-person narrator is a white man accustomed to that culture and usage, and now questioning it, as a result of events. The usage has historical veracity, and any attempt to avoid it would come across as artifice and fakery. But it's tricky, and I'm concerned it might get taken the wrong way.

Then again, I'm pretty sure the thing has, like everything else I manage to write, less publication potential than my grocery lists, so maybe it doesn't really matter.

caw

I'd just write it, first. Then see if you can get some members of whatever group it is to look it over and see what they have to say. Change anything you think best with that input in mind. Whatever you do, somebody probably won't like it but at least giving it some thought like you are should keep you out of the worst of the hot water.

RightHoJeeves said:

For example, I have a pretty camp gay friend who is incredibly driven in his career and seems to suffer from some kind of Peter Pan complex where he doesn't want to be old, but at the same time doesn't want to be thought of as young. If I were to write him as a character, I'd write him as camp. But the core of his character and goals and whatever would be that Peter Pan conflict.

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Stop basing your characters on me.

blacbird said:

Then again, I'm pretty sure the thing has, like everything else I manage to write, less publication potential than my grocery lists, so maybe it doesn't really matter.

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Have you tried publishing your grocery lists?

blacbird said:

. But it's tricky, and I'm concerned it might get taken the wrong way.

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Plenty of books use that word. Someone *is* going to get offended. Ignore them. The only conscience you have to worry about is your own, and if you think you are using it in a way that reflects your setting rather than just for the fun of it, who cares what anyone else thinks?

No matter what you write or how careful you are, someone is always going to hate it. That's just life. You could round up every black friend you have and have them give you a pass and still find out if you get it published that someone wants your hide for it. Again, just ignore them. I promise you that a racial slur in an otherwise good book is not going to make anyone in the publishing industry blink an eye.