Building Character Diversity

Well to be honest, I don't assign race or gender initially. I think of what their personality will be first. Other stuff is just like taking a photograph, and pictures of random passers by (metaphorically).

By this I mean, while I had some idea that Nadine may be trans, Malcolm and Slepgner gay, Ellen stealth trans, Blanci gay, and so forth, I don't identify them as "that gay person."

Or as one youtube video so eloquently put it. I'm gay, but that's not all I am. I should go find it. Though the principle could be applied to just about anything.

Lots of things don't have anything to do with the story, like straight blonde hair or smooth pale skin. Such things get mentioned constantly anyway, but for a more diverse cast of characters, well then it's of zero importance, so don't mention any of it.

It's kind of the thing, though. Such details don't have to have any direct impact on the story before they've earned the right to be included.

I haven't seen any mention of setting for the example, but your character might just be as likely to be shunned by others not only because of his circumstances, but because of his race. In which case, it would be hard not to reveal such descriptions. In other words, leaving his colour as blank would simply be unrealistic, and not in any way neutral.

Aside from the body language that he will receive from those around him (and he might briefly reflect on why this happens, also another opening to reveal his race), there's also the nature of remarks from other people that may be aimed directly at that aspect.

Also, this may or may not give you any direct answers, but maybe some earlier interesting thoughts on the topic at large might somehow be of help?

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=283582

Every reader's "default" is not white. It might seem that way because it is that way to you or because the western fiction market is not made up of a very diverse author pool.

Regardless, I don't believe in artificially creating diversity. If someone mentions that my book set in New York City has only white characters in every possible situation and described to be absolutely white, then I've screwed up writing something realistic and will change it. But just because I don't have an Asian character doesn't mean I'm going to add one for no good reason.

I mainly write fantasy and in my world physical appearance is a strong identification of someone's culture or in a limited case, their ranking in society.

I think the main thing is to make this person a well-rounded character, regardless of what race of culture he/she comes from. Make the person authentic and believable, and don't have them be the sole representative of their race or culture in the story. One reason these cliches smart so much is because a disproportionate number of people of color in literature and movies are often portrayed in these ways.

There have been some long threads about the issue on the AW boards in the recent past as well as a bit longer ago. Here are some links to some of them, as they might contain some helpful perspectives:

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=288949

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=296059

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=295797

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=291063

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=288858

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=253942

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=216561

Each thread has taken its own twists and turns, probably based on who posted most in it, but the general consensus that often emerges seems to be (though many people don't agree):

1. Characters don't need a "reason" to be people of color, or LGBT, differently abled, or female any more than they need a reason to be white, straight, cis-gendered, able-bodied males.

2. If race or appearance or orientation is not mentioned at all, most US or European readers will assume the character is white or straight. Even PoC and LGBT people make this assumption sometimes, because whiteness is treated as the default norms in our society, and most major characters in novels and movies are white and straight.

3. Even if race or appearance is mentioned, some readers will "refuse" to see character as anything but white or straight (whole Rue issue in Hunger Games). There may be ways to get across that white is not the default norm in your setting, but again, it takes some deliberate thought.

4. This IS a problem (well, not everyone agrees, but a large number of people who aren't white or straight believe that whitewashing, invisibility, otherizing, and under representation are issues in both novels and movies).

5. We live in a diverse society (in the US, at least, and in many other countries too), and in fact, even western society has been more diverse than we suppose throughout its history. And of course when stories are set in fantasy worlds, they don't have to follow white, European, heteronormative stereotypes anyway.

6. People do screw up sometimes when writing outside their own personal experiences. Sometimes they can do so in ways that are hurtful. Some common issues are superficial appropriation of cultural features without really understanding them or representing them accurately, inadvertently using lazy, cliched, or offensive descriptions (chocolate skin, almond eyes) or cultural stereotypes, exoticizing the other, resorting to lazy tropes that may be nicely meant but have grown tedious (google "Magical Negro" and "Wise Old Native Person Spiritual Guide," for instance), and so on.

7. Even if you do your best at incorporating diversity, someone probably will think you got it wrong. But a number of people argue that it's worse not to try at all. The reason why there's so much pressure to do things perfectly with regards to representation is because it's so damned rare for people to write non white characters at all.

8. Some insist it's just tokenism or a nod to being PC, others insist that people of color, LGBT people and others are not actually underrepresented as protagonists, authors, or important characters in novels. Others argue it's a serious issue across most genres.

Write well-rounded characters. Don't make them caricatures. So you have a crazy homeless person. Crazy people have backstories, often quite interesting ones, and their lives aren't completely defined by their craziness, just as people of any race, gender, or sexuality are not defined by that label.

Also keep in mind that some people will complain no matter how well you portray a character like this. Your job is to write the character well enough that reasonable people will see no problem. Don't worry about unreasonable people. You can't please them.

If you want diverse characters, it helps to meet others of different cultures. I'm not sure where you live, but most major US cities have a good mix of different backgrounds. Meet them, befriend them, learn from them, eat with them. The more you know of them, the more you can treat them like human beings and less like figures you just add into your ms. Traveling helps a ton too.

I think the most important thing is for them to be interesting. Honestly, just don't do like most movies, where all the interesting characters are from the majority culture and all throw-away, minor characters are minorities and are added just to be 'diverse.'

Phantasy makes a great point about meeting people from other cultures and backgrounds. That was one of my favorite things about college. Even at a college that wasn't particularly diverse, there were still many opportunities to meet people from different backgrounds.

Even in my predominantly white, middle-class suburb, I encounter people of other races at work.

Figure out which one is true. Then be real about what you're writing.

I think the key phrase here might be "short story". It is harder to show diversity when you only have a small number of characters or only a single character.

A single character can only be who they are. They can't be all races or sexual orientations all at once. You are going to have to pick one and write from there. Your homeless character with mental problems could be any race, any religion, any sexual orientation. That's just happenstance. It's very hard to establish a trend from just one or two instances.

Where it starts to become an issue is if every hero is white and every arch villain has a British accent and so on. Or if you try to force diversity into a plot, say by having a group of people where everyone has a different skin tone, religion, sexual orientation, etc.

But in a short story you are having to work with a smaller cast list anyway. Diversity is harder to achieve, but also less likely to go wrong.

You may be in danger of over-thinking this one. In your shoes, I think I would focus on making the story interesting first.

I've never consciously thought about 'diversifying' my stories before. But I am writing Roman HF, and my current book is set in Judaea during the 2nd CE and three of my major characters are Jewish. So how do I write about Jews living 2000 years ago?

Well, the same way that I started writing about Roman characters. I research. I've read books on Jewish History, Judaism and the Torah. I have books detailing Jewish culture. The Jews see the world in a very different way than my Roman characters, time and space is measured differently, their calendar is different, their identity and how they see themselves is different. I've researched the tribes, their languages, the geography. I've also researched the Jewish stereotype so I don't fall into cultural pitfalls. In a few books time my MC will be in Roman Britain, and I will research in the same detail. Our skin colour may be similar, but we had two very distinctive cultures that became a hybrid in Romano-British culture.

You needn't be diverse. It's a plus, but not a requirement. Lots of un-diverse novels are put out. The majority in fact, going by what's on the shelves. So continue making your characters white if you like. No one is going to call you out, on that, or make you stand in a corner ;-)

Ken said:

You needn't be diverse. It's a plus, but not a requirement. Lots of un-diverse novels are put out. The majority in fact, going by what's on the shelves. So continue making your characters white if you like. No one is going to call you out, on that, or make you stand in a corner ;-)

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Really, Ken? Did you really just say this? After the other thread and people talking about how racism is still alive and well, you're telling someone whitwashing is fine when they want to add diversity to their writing.

To the OP:

The way I see it, there are positive ways to add diversity, and negative ways.

A positive way would be to sense the excitement of seeing the world through a pair of eyes that has had very different experiences than you. When you're open to this, you get to experience things in a way that goes past the mere creation of a fictional character, and that enthusiasm should come through in your writing.

A negative way would be to see diversity as a potential landmine and as a result you focus your efforts on not offending people. This automatically ties one hand behind your back and, ultimately, your writing will probably show the trepidation you feel.

IMO, you appear to fall in the latter category.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you feel like you can't tell the story you want to tell because of a character's gender/race/sexual orientation, then change that part of the character that's causing you to pull back.

Ultimately it's the story that's important, and you need to be able to tell it your way.

Lillith1991 said:

Really, Ken? Did you really just say this? After the other thread and people talking about how racism is still alive and well, you're telling someone whitwashing is fine when they want to add diversity to their writing.

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Saying that it's not fine to have exclusively white characters is pretty much the same thing as enforcing racial quotas.
Often considered to not be the best idea.

I don't object at all to the idea of increased racial representation; what properly gets on my tits is the notion of expecting people to write this way, whichever way that is.

My main character is half-Asian, and sometimes I struggle with the fact that the plot doesn't give me enough room to play with this side of him. I don't know if I've been clear enough from the beginning that he's not white since I haven't said it out loud. I might add something when I rewrite it because I don't want people to assume. He's short, he has a darker skin and black straight hair, but that doesn't necessarily make it clear. We'll see how I'll bring it out. Nonetheless, he's first and foremost a person.

Lillith1991 said:

Really, Ken? Did you really just say this? After the other thread and people talking about how racism is still alive and well, you're telling someone whitwashing is fine when they want to add diversity to their writing.

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Maybe its just me but I thought his ;-) indicated sarcasm...

Okay, so let me get this straight. You want your MC to be a homeless man with mental issues and you don't want him to be white but are afraid of making him stereotypical of a particular race. What if you couldn't even tell? I've seen many homeless people that are so layered in clothing, with hair so overgrown, and faces so weathered that you can hardly distinguish their sex, never mind their ethnicity.

NRoach said:

Saying that it's not fine to have exclusively white characters is pretty much the same thing as enforcing racial quotas.
Often considered to not be the best idea.

I don't object at all to the idea of increased racial representation; what properly gets on my tits is the notion of expecting people to write this way, whichever way that is.

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I'm not speaking of quotas in the least. I just think it strange that when someone expresses that they want to add diverisity to their writing, someone comes along and reminds them they don't have to. If they didn't want to, then I assume they wouldn't have asked in the first place. In theory at least, we should be encouraging this interest instead of saying, "Well, you know you don't have to, right?"

Yes, they do know that. They're trying to go outside their comfort zone though, and expand their writing abilities.

Locke,

I applaud you for wanting to include diversity in your work, and for asking others to help you find a way to do it. That fact alone suggests to me that you'll give it an honest attempt. You may fail - we all do sometimes - but it's important to try your best.

But Ken is right that not everything has to be about every kind of diversity. A straight, white male with mental illness is a step beyond the generic and well worth writing about. If it fits the story, helps you accomplish what you want to say, interests you as a writer, or is just something you want to do, you could make the character diverse in some other way - Asian, gay, amputee, etc. But you don't have to hit all the touchstones of diversity in every single story.

There isn't a perfect answer in how to do this that everyone will agree on. Whatever you do, start with research to learn what you can. Try to be fair and honest, not superficial and easy. When you finish, run it by someone who knows more than you. Good luck!

I think in this particular case, you have to let the character tell you who he is. Presumably you'll be exploring who he is, and how he got there. That should, I think, give you a hint of his ethnicity.

Yep. Basically just no requirement, especially if it's a struggle.

Locke said:

So, I sort of feel like I'm between a rock and a hard place; either the MC is "default white" or I'm contriving a race for the sake of diversity (which I suppose I am in fact doing).

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Usually, it's best to just let things happen and progress at their own pace. And before you know it you'll have a novel or story with a diverse MC. And if it doesn't happen it doesn't happen. Be true to your stories and also to yourself. If you want to effect change for the better in terms of increased appreciation of other cultures among readers it'll happen on its own. Just give it time in addition to tending to the fine suggestions offered upstream

Lillith1991 said:

Really, Ken? Did you really just say this? After the other thread and people talking about how racism is still alive and well, you're telling someone whitwashing is fine when they want to add diversity to their writing.

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Whitewashing"? Racist word, anyone?

Wanting to diversify your writing is fine, as long as you aren't doing it just to show how wonderful and racial conscious you are. There isn't a damn thing wrong with using an all white cast, or an all black cast, or an all yellow cast, or an all green martian cast.

I don't like racism, but the worst racism out there is telling someone else they have to include minorities, else they're being racist.

If a minority character needs to be in a story, then a minority character should be in that story. But don't dare make him a bad guy, of course. Can't have a black drug dealer, or a Muslim terrorist, and every Native American has to be noble, and trodden upon by the evil white race.

I try to be realistic in my writing, but this very often means no minorities allowed. The town where I set many of my stories has never had a minority resident, and the school system them has had only one black student in it's history. He stayed less than one year. I'm not adding one for the sake of racial diversity.

If writers want to work in a whole damned rainbow collection of people, genders, and you name it, into their fiction, fine, go for it. But these writers are no better, and no less racist, than anyone else.

Whitewashing? Yes, that's the way to defeat racism, isn't it?

Lillith1991 said:

I'm not speaking of quotas in the least. I just think it strange that when someone expresses that they want to add diverisity to their writing, someone comes along and reminds them they don't have to. If they didn't want to, then I assume they wouldn't have asked in the first place. In theory at least, we should be encouraging this interest instead of saying, "Well, you know you don't have to, right?"

Yes, they do know that. They're trying to go outside their comfort zone though, and expand their writing abilities.

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This. It's not a cliff people need to gently be steered away from.

Singling out any one writer as a racist for not meeting some special quota would be absurd.

But the providing of encouragement to a writer already showing an interest in the subject somehow being interpreted as a demand for everyone to be more inclusive in their writing, or be branded racist, is just as ridiculous.