# Where's the 'urban' in urban fantasy?



## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

I think we can have an adult conversation about this. Mods, apologies in advance if this thread turns sideways and ugly. My fingers are crossed in the hopes that kboards is better than that, though.

I'm currently in a deep dive into urban fantasy reading and research, and something that's struck me is that the vast majority of high rated and well selling books in the genre portray white hetero females. (And my research may well be incomplete--if you know if great selling series that aren't these, let me know!)

Even if the character happens to be part demon, part shifter, part vampire, part-whatever beastie or part-some flavor of ethnicity, they're shown on the cover as white or off-white, generally brunette or redhead, and most seem to have a hot guy in some format involved in their life.

So, am I not looking in the right places for a more diverse spread of ethnic characters, LGBT characters, and more diversity? Would writing and publishing in these genres mean that a writer really needs to kinda sorta stick to the white, hetero female lead to find the largest potential reader base?

Other thoughts? Play nice.


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## Matthew Stott (Oct 22, 2014)

I don't see why. I mean, urban in this context just means 'town' or 'city', right? Fantasy in a modern everyday setting. So I see no reason why to restrict to one colour or one sex.

Oh! And I just remembered: The Rivers of London series. Very popular (at least in the UK) Urban fantasy, black, male lead character.

http://amzn.com/B004K1EC1S


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## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

I think people tend to write characters they identify with for the most part. It just is what it is. "Urban" doesn't necessarily mean color. I think a lot of white authors would worry about getting the experience, or slang, or something else wrong so they write what they know. It's not a bad thing. It's just life.


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## Sonya Bateman (Feb 3, 2013)

Well, there is The Dresden Files... that's kind of big. 

Shei Darksbane, a member here, had been doing well with an LGBT urban fantasy series. Awakened was the title of her first book.

Domino Finn has a male (Hispanic?) lead in his Black Magic Outlaw series.

And I write UF with male leads.

There's a few, anyway.


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## D-C (Jan 13, 2014)

Have you read much UF?

You're making very sweeping generalisations on a genre. But, there are a great many UF books out there that go against the tropes. You just need to scratch beneath their surface.

I can't type a long reply - I'm about to pick my kids up from school, but...no, you do not need to stick to the obvious tropes. Write the UF YOU want to read, but be aware of genre expectations (make sure you do tick some of the UF boxes to keep the majority of the readers happy, like contemporary setting, action, a dash of romance, something paranormal.) Write from the guys POV, those UF's rock. See Domino Finn's recent release. In fact, you can have a lot of fun pushing the UF's boundaries.

I'll be back - gotta rush...


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## D-C (Jan 13, 2014)

Ah yes, The Peter Grant , Rivers of London - LOVE that series!


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## C. Michael Wells (Feb 26, 2014)

Urban fantasy - the expectation is that the story is going to have fantasy elements but be placed in a modern day city. It isn't really a commentary on the characters inside.


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## Sara C (Apr 30, 2014)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I think people tend to write characters they identify with for the most part. It just is what it is. "Urban" doesn't necessarily mean color. I think a lot of white authors would worry about getting the experience, or slang, or something else wrong so they write what they know. It's not a bad thing. It's just life.


Completely agree with this. I do have "urban" characters in my books (using the term in regards to what the OP was asking), but my MCs are all white females. Part of me is a little worried that I might offend someone if I wrote a main character that's a different race, because logically I could never fully "get" that different viewpoint. I do see what the OP is saying though, to some the term "urban fantasy" might be misleading. I much prefer the blanket term of contemporary fantasy .


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## J.A. Cipriano (May 27, 2014)

There are probably three or four reasons. Two of which are pretty reasonable.

The first is stock art. It's difficult to find non-white stock art in the quantity and poses necessary to create a UF cover, or most covers for that matter. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but certainly less of it exists.

The second is as Amanda said, most people write someone they identify with, at least at first. I'm not trying to imply the author world is mostly white, but look at television or movies. Nearly everyone is white. There are exceptions this year, but still...

The third is for the reason you, yourself, said. If you look at best sellers, those characters are mostly white. If you're trying to learn what to do via study, making a white or white seeming character (especially when you don't really care about the person's race) is a no brainer.

The fourth is this, and I'm not trying to get myself in trouble, so I'll just leave this here. http://qz.com/149342/the-uncomfortable-racial-preferences-revealed-by-online-dating/


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## TomShutt (Aug 24, 2015)

Have you read Justice Calling, the first book in the Twenty-Sided Sorceress series? I believe the MC is a game-loving Native American sorceress living in Idaho, so those are a few hints toward something new (though she does start to fall in lust with the male lead absurdly fast). Others have mentioned Dead Man, which also looks promising.

I do agree with Matthew and others have said, though, in that the "urban" in urban fantasy means, to me, that the story is just placed in a modern setting. You've got spell-slinging, shape-shifting magic and mayhem, but also cell phones and rush hour traffic. And I think Amanda is right in saying that people write what they know, so it might just be that you have more heterosexual white men and women writing based on their own experiences rather than stretching too far and representing something or someone the wrong way.


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## RomanceWriter77 (Mar 10, 2014)

Jim Johnson said:


> I think we can have an adult conversation about this. Mods, apologies in advance if this thread turns sideways and ugly. My fingers are crossed in the hopes that kboards is better than that, though.
> 
> I'm currently in a deep dive into urban fantasy reading and research, and something that's struck me is that the vast majority of high rated and well selling books in the genre portray white hetero females. (And my research may well be incomplete--if you know if great selling series that aren't these, let me know!)
> 
> ...


Most of the books in the Top 50 Urban Fantasy genre are Bella Forrest books, which I'm pretty sure based on the description are really romance novels (hence the half naked dudes on the cover). She's probably trying to maximize eyes on her books by listing them in multiple genre because if you look at her profile, she's also listed as a romance author.

So aside from diversity, you've got some authors putting romance novels in UF, which accounts for hetero couples on the covers.

In so far as diversity, most of these authors appear to be white women, so it's no surprise to me that their protags resemble them, at least on a basic level. They may or may not even consciously be aware that all their characters are white, though, they may very well be aware that white, hetero women are the largest group of readers and therefore write to market.

And since UF is not romance (or shouldn't be) I'm not sure what LGBTQ has to do with anything since by definition it really shouldn't feature heavily in a UF book.

Urban is just setting, not a social/demographic aspect.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

> I think people tend to write characters they identify with for the most part. It just is what it is. "Urban" doesn't necessarily mean color. I think a lot of white authors would worry about getting the experience, or slang, or something else wrong so they write what they know. It's not a bad thing. It's just life.


I think it's partially this. Although, one reason I Bring the Fire Part I is so white is because I'd read that it's harder to sell books about non-white heterosexual characters. Since I wanted the series to be more diverse, I chose to hook them with the first book, and then add more variety as the story went on.

I will say I received a scathing review online (not on the 'Zon website) about the third book in the story being homophobic, even though one of my betas identified as a bisexual man and had no problems with it. It was ... disheartening ... to have something you've written be so misinterpreted. I think, depending on where you grow up, your experience being gay, black, Asian, handicapped, etc. might be very different. Some people only see the world through the prism of their own experience, and hold onto that very tightly. If what you write doesn't conform they get very angry.

... Also, I think this anger is more common in young people, just because they often haven't travelled enough to realize that their experiences might not be universal. So if you write Urban Fantasy with a young audience in mind, this could be an issue.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Probably a poor choice of thread title. I know what UF is. I'm more thinking about the perceived lack of diversity on the covers of the top-ranked and selling UF series out there. I am reading a lot of UF now and am grateful for the recs. Much as Domino and Chris Fox and others have talked about, I'm planning and working on a new series and doing my research on the tops in the genres to target the new series at the strongest readership base, and my current (clearly incomplete) research is suggesting that a white or off-white bi or straight female MC is in that range.

And if that's at all accurate, what I'm struggling with is to either go with what's working plus tweaks to make it my own vs serving an under-represented element and hope for the best.


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## aimeeeasterling (Sep 22, 2014)

My book Jaguar at the Portal followed a Hispanic main character, which I was a little leery of doing because I was afraid I might get parts wrong. It hasn't done all that well, which I think is because I didn't hit the genre buttons well enough, although the Hispanic lead might not have helped.

On the other hand, I have important gay secondary characters in my main series and no one has had any problem with that (presumably because I hit the genre buttons well enough). I did keep the main character straight because that's what I know most about and what I suspect most of my readers prefer since 90-98% of the population is heterosexual.

From my research, urban fantasy readers are largely women in the age group 18 - 44 who tend toward a slightly higher than average income level. They identify most with characters like themselves, which often means white women. They like romance in their books, and most of us prefer romance in the direction we also swing, so most like a straight main character.

Of course, Patricia Briggs has done great with a Native American main character. Mercy's ethnicity is only a small part of the book, though, and it might be a harder sell if her race was something that's less frequently romanticized.


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## JR. (Dec 10, 2014)

Damn, I was just commiserating urban fantasy as well, and thought you'd brought up the same thing. But no. Nothing about how my fantasy is very urban, but for some reason is not urban fantasy. Jim, most main characters are white hetero women because most authors are white hetero women, and they're the best sellers because most readers are white hetero women. Doesn't mean it's uncommon to find others. Here's a hundred gay characters to start off with:
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/24617.Best_Urban_Fantasy_with_gay_glbtq_characters

Here's another hundred black women:
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/47373.Black_Women_Heroines_in_Urban_Fantasy_Paranormal_Romance_and_Science_Fiction

I think my main character is gay, but I never asked, so who knows?


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## Rebecca Frank Art (Jun 9, 2014)

There's also Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson- she's Native American and that's a very popular series.

As with many forms of media, it would be great if there was more diversity and representation in UF books. I'm working on the second cover in a series that hasn't been released that features a UF black heroine, and I wish that wasn't something that was unusual for me. I don't think it's something that's inherent to the genre, though. It's not that diverse characters are unwelcome in UF, they just aren't written enough. 

As far as romance goes- I like romance as a subplot to UF books. If it's too big a focus of the story, it's more paranormal romance.  And I'd love to see more LGBT characters represented.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

> And if that's at all accurate, what I'm struggling with is to either go with what's working plus tweaks to make it my own vs serving an under-represented element and hope for the best.


I think I was maybe too conservative in my approach ... people who read tend to be more open minded anyway. I'm not going to say what Steve Rogers and his daughter Claire Rogers got up to in Ragnarok (Steve is African American), but I will say I expected some racist heat for it. It never came, and my audience skews heavily Southern.

I have had men say things like, "I like this, but you write like a woman. Keep trying though, you'll be good someday ..." But I have never gotten an email about "This is liberal multi-cultural BS!"


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

I agree with you, Jim, that it'd be great to have more a more diverse set of MCs in urban fantasy. A couple of the bigger trad pub heroines are Native American -- Mercy Thompson and Jane Yellowrock. Tom just mentioned Annie's MC, and someone below mentioned Shei's books. Kyoko M here on Kboards has an African American heroine in _The Black Parade_ and its sequel. Domino's great new book, _Dead Man_, has a Latino MC. There's the Iron Druid series (white male hero).

So, there's some variety out there. But we need more, I think. The large majority are, as you say, white, cisgender, hetero females. Mine MC is just that.

I'm sort of hoping the indie movement makes it easier for writers of color to get their work out there. I get the sense that publishers have done some pushing away of manuscripts with non-hetero/non-white/male MCs because there's "no audience" for such books. This is, of course, not true at all. Hopefully self-publishing will be another way into the market for writers who are unjustly turned away.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

JR. said:


> Jim, most main characters are white hetero women because most authors are white hetero women, and they're the best sellers because most readers are white hetero women.


And that's probably the core of what I'm looking at. To take other writers' advice to target a genre/sub-genre with the intent of engineering a successful series from the ground level and building it, it could be that a white hetero female (or a pen name) writing white hetero MCs with more of a focus on PNR than non-romance UF might be the blueprint. And if a writer doesn't necessarily want to hit those specific elements, then they should be prepared for maybe more modest success. I don't know. Spitballing and musing while I outline and plan.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Another male hispanic author writing UF is Mario Acevedo. Then there's the Black Dagger Brotherhood by Ilona Andrews and the Iron Druid series by Kevin Hearne. One of the things you need to distinguish is whether you're reading urban fantasy or paranormal romance. The two genres are very similar, but one incorporates the standard romance tropes. 

I would hesitate to try to write a black character because I don't think I could make him/her authentic. I might try a hispanic character because I grew up in that culture, but it's much easier to write from a white pov. As to writing LGBT, there is a niche, but you limit your audience. There definitely is a strong m/m romance audience, and setting it in a UF environment won't hurt potential readership. Check out the groups reading m/m on Goodreads.

Keep in mind that the grand majority of UF/PNR is based on European mythologies: vampires, elfs, fairies, werewolfs, etc. That sort of naturally lends itself to writing white characters. Also keep in mind the audience, which is overwhelmingly female.


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## J.A. Cipriano (May 27, 2014)

I would postulate that Hispanic or native American, especially in the case of mercy Thompson, Dead Man, twenty sided, and some of the others mentioned, look pretty white to me from the covers at least as opposed to being obviously black and/or asian. Shei's book also looks doesn't reveal from the cover that the character is gay. You could pick any of those books up and assume incorrectly, the MCs are straight and white. 

If I was a new writer in a new series, I'd go with white or white seeming character, more so if it was male. 

Look, I have a cover in my sig with a black guy holding a magic hammer. I can't give that book away even though the readers on my mailing list who have read the book enjoy it. 

I'm not saying not to have black characters or whatever, but think about who your readers are and who they are likely to pick up books about. I don't sell very well, but I know what my mailing list looks like. It's mostly white men and women.


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## Matthew Stott (Oct 22, 2014)

Jim Johnson said:


> And that's probably the core of what I'm looking at. To take other writers' advice to target a genre/sub-genre with the intent of engineering a successful series from the ground level and building it, it could be that a white hetero female (or a pen name) writing white hetero MCs with more of a focus on PNR than non-romance UF might be the blueprint. And if a writer doesn't necessarily want to hit those specific elements, then they should be prepared for maybe more modest success. I don't know. Spitballing and musing while I outline and plan.


I'll be moving on to an Urban Fantasy series soon. I can't see me adding any romance, and I don't think it's essential. It's not really there in the books I read, at least. I don't think I could really write it either, without going way outside of what I do, and what I want to do. More scares, less smoochy.

I think you do have to balance 'what you do' and 'what seems to work'. It has to feel right to me and what I do, otherwise, it's going to be a struggle and I'll dislike what I'm putting out. Which would suck.


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## C. Rysalis (Feb 26, 2015)

One of my UF protagonists is Chinese-American, another is African-American. I also have a Russian main character. And a multitude of other characters from all over the world.

The main difficulty is keeping track of all those languages and accents, and showing the reader who is speaking what language while actually writing in English. It's a bit of a mess.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I read a lot of UF. Its in itself a fairly large genre so should be something for everyone. I never look at best sellers though to find my next read. I look for recommendations and then I start a series. If I like it, I continue. 
Eileen Wilks World of Lupi has a chinese-american female MC. Reminds me to pick the next up in the series. Its great. 
Mercy Thompson (Patricia Briggs) has native american heritage. 

I personally don't care. I just want a gripping story so I don't sit around doing a count. But then there has never been a lack of stuff to represent my group so to speak. 

I do think though that there is a lot more diversity overall now. Covers are probably a problem to find to represent all that diversity, especially for indy publishers as they all have to fight over the same stock.

So maybe don't look at the best sellers, which there is also a lot of mis categorizing. I go where other readers of the genre are and find the stuff that way.


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## aimeeeasterling (Sep 22, 2014)

Atunah said:


> Eileen Wilks World of Lupi has a chinese-american female MC. Reminds me to pick the next up in the series. Its great.


I'd forgotten that example. Although, I'd have to say, like with Mercy Thompson, Wilks' heroine reads as a non-ethnic American. Only her grandmother really showcases the Chinese side of her heritage.


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## jlstovall4 (Oct 6, 2015)

Sara C said:


> Completely agree with this. I do have "urban" characters in my books (using the term in regards to what the OP was asking), but my MCs are all white females. Part of me is a little worried that I might offend someone if I wrote a main character that's a different race, because logically I could never fully "get" that different viewpoint.





brkingsolver said:


> I would hesitate to try to write a black character because I don't think I could make him/her authentic.


While I understand these viewpoints. I think they are sad. I've had this discussion on a few message boards when it comes to diversity. Ultimately, I don't knock or beat up on anyone for who or who they write. This is after all a free country. Researching will lead a writer down many paths as well, so more power to the dollars.

However, I'd encourage everyone to understand that as a writer you can write from anyone's viewpoint. A person is just a person. Backgrounds are different. But people are the same. To write for any character you must understand their background. A "gamer's" background is totally different from "a princess."

I've written from the following perspectives: Asian Male (11y/o), Black Male (11, 35, 40 y/o), Black Female (11 y/o), Hispanic Female (11 y/o), White Female (9, 10, 11, 16, 40 y/o), Mixed Race (11 y/o)

When I'm done writing, I try to send the works to as many people (betas) as possible in those racial/gender categories to "check" the authenticity, but I rarely have any issues that a few minutes in front of the computer won't fix.

I make sure all my characters are round and have purpose. I don't force Diversity, but I try to ask myself why can't the pizza guy be something other than White and if so, where did he/she just come from? Why are they doing the job?

I'm not against anyone with this post. I'm just stating that anyone can do it. Most races/genders are more offended by the lack of a diverse person than they are if they notice you trying to create a real character (not a stereotype).

Just my .02


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## msdobing (Dec 8, 2015)

I never really considered when I wrote Message Bearer about diversity or anything like that if I'm honest. I just wrote what I wanted to read (as mentioned earlier in this thread) from Urban Fantasy. My story is fantasy (there's magic, demons etc) and it's set in urban England, so it definitely fits the genre. Although I have noticed that there is bit of a crossover been what I thought was Urban Fantasy but also with Paranormal Romance.  Alot of the UF titles on the Zon have a romantic element, and my first book doesn't have one jot of that.

It's for this reason I tagged the story into Dark Fantasy too, as it has demon elements and some horror, and the best sellers in that genre seem to be less romance inclined than the many of the big hitters in the UF chart.

In the end I wrote what I wanted to read and what I personally could relate (write what you know and all that) to, and hopefully there's others who feel/felt the same way too


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Jim Johnson said:


> And that's probably the core of what I'm looking at. To take other writers' advice to target a genre/sub-genre with the intent of engineering a successful series from the ground level and building it, it could be that a white hetero female (or a pen name) writing white hetero MCs with more of a focus on PNR than non-romance UF might be the blueprint. And if a writer doesn't necessarily want to hit those specific elements, then they should be prepared for maybe more modest success. I don't know. Spitballing and musing while I outline and plan.


That's probably right, though we can see some major exceptions. If you want to use a male pen name to write a male MC, I wouldn't shy away from that impulse for reasons of financial impracticality. If you want to write UF without a strong romance element, going with a male MC and male pen name might even be the best choice.

I do think straight, white readers are becoming more interested in/open to reading books with MCs who are different from them. It can feel more difficult to bond with a MC who seems radically different from you (differences of race and sexuality aren't big in any scientific sense, but our culture makes them big), but it's really just a matter of practice. Readers of color and LGBT readers have been "practicing" that skill for ages, since for so long, there weren't many books out there with MCs who were like them. Now we're starting to get some diversity among MCs, so the opportunity for expanding one's comfort zone is there for readers who belong to majority groups.

I do think UF without a strong romance element remains quite workable.


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## Matthew Stott (Oct 22, 2014)

Becca Mills said:


> I do think UF without a strong romance element remains quite workable.


The series I mentioned is not a romance and does very well. Ones with a heavy romance element are their own genre almost, it seems to me. UF Romance.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

This is a _slight_ derail, but still pertinent to the issue of how different races consume entertainment. The following table shows preferences with regard to films.










Source.

Note that neither "The Color Purple" nor "Glory" make the whites' list. Likewise, neither "The Sound of Music" nor "Gone With The Wind" make the blacks' list. All four films are terrific, of course. But it goes without saying that race identification is a major factor in marketing entertainment based on consumption trends.

To that end, a majority of UF books feature white female protags because a majority of readers of the genre are white females.

Diversity and pluralism are usually applauded in all circles. And there's certainly a stronger undercurrent of both in entertainment today than was the case 100 years ago. But when it comes to race, tribalism is a strong component of human nature.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Matthew Stott said:


> The series I mentioned is not a romance and does very well. Ones with a heavy romance element are their own genre almost, it seems to me. UF Romance.


Yeah, the line between UR and PNR is majorly blurry.


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## TBD (Mar 14, 2014)

Faith Hunter's Jane Yellowrock is Native American. I think that there is room for other directions, just be sure that you hit at least some of the expected tropes... 

And, thinking AGEISM ;-)  Many/most of the MCs are on the young side ;-) Jane Yellowrock being an exception... sort of... ;-)


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## noirhvy (Dec 29, 2015)

Ummm...about all those white covers. How do you know the characters are "white?" Do the authors say the characters are white? Do you know one when you see one? If I wrote a time-shifter novel and my lead character met Yul Brenner,a Wonder Woman (Lynda Carter), Margaret O'Brien and J. Edgar Hoover, would you say "all those white people"? In reality, they are two Hispanics, one Asian and an African-American. And, to redheads. I think you have heard of hair dye.
In reality, Americans treat race far differently than the rest of the world and venturing into getting inside the head of people from another race is a minefield. If the great sin here is that mostly white women write this genre what do you want to do, set quotas?
I watch little TV (I don't have cable, just broadcast) but when I do, I see diversity. Of course TV diversity is to throw African Americans in there and have them represent all races. Asians, Native Americans and many others are nowhere to be seen. That is dual race, not diversity.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

As someone that reads both, PNR and UF, I don't find the line as blurry as others. PNR being a sub genre of romance and UF being a different genre. Just because there are romantic themes in a book, does not make it romance. That goes for UF and any other genre out there. I read horror books that had some romantic themes and they were not romance. 

As long as there are humans involved in a book, there will be some romantic themes. Characters are married, are in relationships, might have children. Characters look at others, flirt. Its just human and its found in all kinds of genres. Honestly I would find it odd if there wasn't some of that. And sex does not equal romance or romantic element by the way. 

So within UF there are some that have stronger romantic elements than others, basically just like any other genre. I read mystery and some have stronger themes of some romantic element than others. Does not make them romantic suspense. Just like when I read historical mystery with such elements, does not make them historical romance. 

But for me its a fairly clear line as a reader. Different couple each book, with conclusion of that couple, would be PNR. Can and often does still have a over reaching element throughout. 

Personally, I just want a good story. But when I read UF, I have very different expectations than when I read PNR. For me they are not really interchangeable. But that is my personal experience as a reader. Miles may wary on that. 

I read the first three in the Dresden files and even there are some romantic themes believe it or not. He is after all still thinking and looking at women a certain way. I haven't read further yet as I find him a bit juvenile, but I wouldn't be surprised if he were to go start dating in between his fighting the evil, or whatever he does.  

But this is not really a discussion relating to the OP.


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## Matthew Stott (Oct 22, 2014)

Atunah said:


> As long as there are humans involved in a book, there will be some romantic themes. Characters are married, are in relationships, might have children. Characters look at others, flirt. Its just human and its found in all kinds of genres. Honestly I would find it odd if there wasn't some of that. And sex does not equal romance or romantic element by the way.


Sure, that's not what I think of when I say 'romance'. There's bound to be some of that in most stories.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Becca Mills said:


> That's probably right, though we can see some major exceptions. If you want to use a male pen name to write a male MC, I wouldn't shy away from that impulse for reasons of financial impracticality. If you want to write UF without a strong romance element, going with a male MC and male pen name might even be the best choice.


As an author of UF, it doesn't matter your gender for writing male characters. It is generally accepted, however, that men can't write female characters and many readers would not buy a book with a female protag written by a man. Part of the allure of UF for female readers is the depiction of "strong, kick-ass heroines". So writing a male MC can be done by either men or women, but a female MC must always be written by a woman.

This isn't true of some other genres. David Weber's Honor Harrington books come to mind, but I think the main readers of military SF are probably male.

Flame on...


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## J.A. Cipriano (May 27, 2014)

brkingsolver said:


> As an author of UF, it doesn't matter your gender for writing male characters. It is generally accepted, however, that men can't write female characters and many readers would not buy a book with a female protag written by a man. Part of the allure of UF for female readers is the depiction of "strong, kick-ass heroines". So writing a male MC can be done by either men or women, but a female MC must always be written by a woman.
> 
> This isn't true of some other genres. David Weber's Honor Harrington books come to mind, but I think the main readers of military SF are probably male.
> 
> Flame on...


I am male. Most of my books feature strong female protags, however, it was the reason I used my initials. Look at my reviews, many refer to me as female.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

J.A. Cipriano said:


> I am male. Most of my books feature strong female protags, however, it was the reason I used my initials. Look at my reviews, many refer to me as female.


I didn't say a man can't write from a female pov, but the perception is that they can't. I think your reviews reflect that sentiment.


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## Jane Killick (Aug 29, 2014)

Ben Aaronovitch!!!!!!!

Brilliant books starring a black, male detective. Start with Rivers of London.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

brkingsolver said:


> As an author of UF, it doesn't matter your gender for writing male characters. It is generally accepted, however, that men can't write female characters and many readers would not buy a book with a female protag written by a man. Part of the allure of UF for female readers is the depiction of "strong, kick-ass heroines". So writing a male MC can be done by either men or women, but a female MC must always be written by a woman.
> 
> This isn't true of some other genres. David Weber's Honor Harrington books come to mind, but I think the main readers of military SF are probably male.
> 
> Flame on...


There aren't too many big examples of male MCs by female authors. There's Rob Thurman's Leandros brothers series, but anyone would assume, from the book cover, that the author is male, because how many women are nicknamed "Rob"?


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## aimeeeasterling (Sep 22, 2014)

brkingsolver said:


> I didn't say a man can't write from a female pov, but the perception is that they can't. I think your reviews reflect that sentiment.


I read one of J.A.'s books, and I have to say it was close to the female mark...although not quite close enough to make me read book two. I didn't actually realize he was a guy, though, or I wouldn't have picked up the book in the first place.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Atunah said:


> I read a lot of UF. Its in itself a fairly large genre so should be something for everyone. I never look at best sellers though to find my next read. I look for recommendations and then I start a series. If I like it, I continue.
> Eileen Wilks World of Lupi has a chinese-american female MC. Reminds me to pick the next up in the series. Its great.
> Mercy Thompson (Patricia Briggs) has native american heritage.
> 
> ...


I do think every book can generally be placed on one side of the line or the other, but there's a lot of UF out there where the heroine's love life plays a huge role, occupying a great deal of her mental and emotional energy and sort of overshadowing whatever mystery/problem she's working on solving. These books don't hit enough tropes to count as romance, but they show heavy romance influence and generic cross-pollination. There's a middle space there where elements of the two genres are being mixed together -- often in a very enjoyable way, from my point of view as a reader.


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## Lou Harpr (Nov 5, 2014)

Jim Johnson said:


> Even if the character happens to be part demon, part shifter, part vampire, part-whatever beastie or part-some flavor of ethnicity, they're shown on the cover as white or off-white, generally brunette or redhead, and most seem to have a hot guy in some format involved in their life.
> 
> So, am I not looking in the right places for a more diverse spread of ethnic characters, LGBT characters, and more diversity? Would writing and publishing in these genres mean that a writer really needs to kinda sorta stick to the white, hetero female lead to find the largest potential reader base?
> 
> Other thoughts? Play nice.


You have a point, but the way I see it, having strong female protagonists in books that are not primarily romance is a step in the right direction. And I don't feel that added romantic element detracts from it at all. It adds another dimension, and having romantic entanglements doesn't weaken male protagonists. Of course, how well this works varies from book to book. You can find plenty LGBT character-led UF and PNR within m/m-the genre is generally considered romance or erotica, but it has many examples of strong story lines.

I must add, I'd love to see more UF covers with women who look more like Zoe from Firefly. Tough and dressed for ass kicking.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Lou Harpr said:


> I must add, I'd love to see more UF covers with women who look more like Zoe from Firefly. Tough and dressed for ass kicking.


There are countless covers of tough, ass-kicking women. I assume you mean wanting to see more tough, ass-kicking black women or other races?

For that matter, I'd love to see more UF covers whose models aren't armed with guns, swords, or glowy hands. Where are the Herminoes and Willows as MCs?


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Becca Mills said:


> I do think every book can generally be placed on one side of the line or the other, but there's a lot of UF out there where the heroine's love life plays a huge role, occupying a great deal of her mental and emotional energy and sort of overshadowing whatever mystery/problem she's working on solving. These books don't hit enough tropes to count as romance, but they show heavy romance influence and generic cross-pollination. There's a middle space there where elements of the two genres are being mixed together -- often in a very enjoyable way, from my point of view as a reader.


Absolutely. There are all kinds of UF. Some with more romantic elements than others. But what I trying to say and probably not being able to the right way is, that they still are UF. And I have heard those rumblings before where just because a UF might have strong romantic elements, it should be expelled from UF and must by PNR. It just feels a bit like ugh, cooties. 
Its all I am saying. Its still UF and not Romance. They are not one and the same.

And that is why I am saying that looking at the covers and blurb sometimes telegraphs the themes in a UF book. Or just reading reader reviews and forums. That is how I find the ones I like reading.


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## Lou Harpr (Nov 5, 2014)

Jim Johnson said:


> There are countless covers of tough, ass-kicking women. I assume you mean wanting to see more tough, ass-kicking black women or other races?
> 
> For that matter, I'd love to see more UF covers whose models aren't armed with guns, swords, or glowy hands. Where are the Herminoes and Willows as MCs?


I meant fewer bare midriffs. They remind me female armor from games. You know, chainmail bikinis. Of course, the context is different, but you don't see Harry Dresden in short shorts.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Lou Harpr said:


> I meant fewer bare midriffs. They remind me female armor from games. You know, chainmail bikinis. Of course, the context is different, but you don't see Harry Dresden in short shorts.


Ah yes, understood. And maybe not so many tramp stamps.  I've got tats and love them on women, but it seems like most every UF MC is inked up. I'd like to see a story about the tattoo artist in UFgenretown and their living large in an urban penthouse, cause they've got business going out the door and around the block.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Jim Johnson said:


> For that matter, I'd love to see more UF covers whose models aren't armed with guns, swords, or glowy hands.


And what's wrong with glowy hands? Hmmm?


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Atunah said:


> Absolutely. There are all kinds of UF. Some with more romantic elements than others. But what I trying to say and probably not being able to the right way is, that they still are UF. And I have heard those rumblings before where just because a UF might have strong romantic elements, it should be expelled from UF and must by PNR. It just feels a bit like ugh, cooties.
> Its all I am saying. Its still UF and not Romance. They are not one and the same.
> 
> And that is why I am saying that looking at the covers and blurb sometimes telegraphs the themes in a UF book. Or just reading reader reviews and forums. That is how I find the ones I like reading.


Yeah, I agree with you. There's plenty of room for strong romance elements within UF. On the other hand, some authors are definitely categorizing PNR in UF, now, to get more visibility, and I think that gets on some shoppers' nerves. Some of it is the ew-cooties reaction, which is too bad, but some of it is just the increased difficulty of finding UF as it gets pushed off the UF lists.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Lou Harpr said:


> but you don't see Harry Dresden in short shorts.


I want that on a poster.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

brkingsolver said:


> And what's wrong with glowy hands? Hmmm?


Nothing at all.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Becca Mills said:


> Yeah, I agree with you. There's plenty of room for strong romance elements within UF. On the other hand, some authors are definitely categorizing PNR in UF, now, to get more visibility, and I think that gets on some shoppers' nerves. Some of it is the ew-cooties reaction, which is too bad, but some of it is just the increased difficulty of finding UF as it gets pushed off the UF lists.


Oh totally. I talked about the mis-categorizing endlessly here that is going on in the kindle store. Usually I mention romance being a dumping ground for everything, but yes, it also goes on in other genres. There is no point in looking at the best seller in UF in the store for me really. I just checked and I do see Feverborn in there, and some Darynda Jones in the first 2 pages. Bella Forrest seems to fill up the rest of the slots. . Actually, I think they cleaned up some in the store because last time I looked in the UF section there were a lot more non UF in it than now. No PNR, before there was a lot of other stuff in there that was not PNR or UF. Oh wait, its because I am looking from the left bar and featured, I am not actually looking at the best seller list.

eta: First page of besteller is just Bella Forrest and Harry Potter.  Wait, Harry Potter is UF? I never read them so I didn't know that is what they were.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Jim Johnson said:


> Nothing at all.


I'll tell you what's really difficult. Finding stock photos of women with their clothes on. I can't tell you how many hours I've spent trying to find photos of young woman to portray as an elf for a UF cover that doesn't look like she stepped out of an LOTR movie.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

brkingsolver said:


> And what's wrong with glowy hands? Hmmm?


I have some glowy hands from time to time when I keep grabbing my cast iron pan handles without the covers on. 
Don't think that glow is as kick ass as useful glowy hands.


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## Lou Harpr (Nov 5, 2014)

I'm in defense of glowy hands.    Cover design has it's visual clues--tropes if you will--that help identify the genre at a glance. Tough guy with gun--thriller/suspense. Cat--cozy mystery. Glowy hands--UF.


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## Lou Harpr (Nov 5, 2014)

Becca Mills said:


> I want that on a poster.


Maybe if Kevin Kline from The Big Chill played him.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Lou Harpr said:


> I'm in defense of glowy hands.  Cover design has it's visual clues-tropes if you will-that help identify the genre at a glance. Tough guy with gun-thriller/suspense. Cat-cozy mystery. Glowy hands-UF.


Excellent points.  I suspect my UF covers will veer more toward glowy hands than guns and swords.


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## Lou Harpr (Nov 5, 2014)

brkingsolver said:


> I'll tell you what's really difficult. Finding stock photos of women with their clothes on. I can't tell you how many hours I've spent trying to find photos of young woman to portray as an elf for a UF cover that doesn't look like she stepped out of an LOTR movie.


OMG, yes. Ninety percent of stock women seem to belong to three groups: 1. smiling business woman 2. sex kitten 3. fashion model with vacuous expression.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Anarchist said:


> This is a _slight_ derail, but still pertinent to the issue of how different races consume entertainment. The following table shows preferences with regard to films.
> .....


According to this I am Asian, and under 25. Not so. My preferred films aren't even on any of these lists. I don't much like Hollywood films.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Atunah said:


> Wait, Harry Potter is UF? I never read them so I didn't know that is what they were.


A magician in contemporary England? Right along with a parallel world of magic boarding schools, muggles and all? I'd think that this is archetypical UF.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Atunah said:


> Oh totally. I talked about the mis-categorizing endlessly here that is going on in the kindle store. Usually I mention romance being a dumping ground for everything, but yes, it also goes on in other genres. There is no point in looking at the best seller in UF in the store for me really. I just checked and I do see Feverborn in there, and some Darynda Jones in the first 2 pages. Bella Forrest seems to fill up the rest of the slots. . Actually, I think they cleaned up some in the store because last time I looked in the UF section there were a lot more non UF in it than now. No PNR, before there was a lot of other stuff in there that was not PNR or UF. Oh wait, its because I am looking from the left bar and featured, I am not actually looking at the best seller list.
> 
> eta: First page of besteller is just Bella Forrest and Harry Potter.  Wait, Harry Potter is UF? I never read them so I didn't know that is what they were.


Hmm. You can make an argument for Harry Potter as UF -- it's magic in the real modern world. But since the characters spend most of their time in the world of wizarding, which is set kept fairly separate from the world of muggles, the books don't have a UF feel, IMO. UF is about the real world and magic/supernatural creatures occupying the same space. Also, they're MG moving into YA, which doesn't usually get classified on the adult UF list. I bet putting them on the adult UF list with those somewhat more mature covers is part of an effort to reach new groups of readers.

I haven't read the Bella Forrest series yet (on my TBR pile). They're PNR, aren't they? Boy is she ever kicking patootie.


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## Rebecca Frank Art (Jun 9, 2014)

In defense of bare midriffs on UF covers (though more often than not I try to avoid or cover them up), a lot of UF heroines are confident, sexy, and tough. A bare midriff is a good indicator of the first two, so I'm not surprised they're common on covers with women who hit those marks.

Also, I'm very guilty of liking glowy hands. As others have mentioned, they're a great visual cue.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Becca Mills said:


> I haven't read the Bella Forrest series yet (on my TBR pile). They're PNR, aren't they? Boy is she ever kicking patootie.


I read the first one as part of my research. Not my cuppa, but I'm glad I read it if only for the research.


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## C. Michael Wells (Feb 26, 2014)

Nic said:


> A magician in contemporary England? Right along with a parallel world of magic boarding schools, muggles and all? I'd think that this is archetypical UF.


I would think that Harry Potter is much closer to a portal fantasy type story a la The Chronicles of Narnia because while there is magic existing in the real world, the setting is so far detached from everything "muggle" that you never quite get the conflict between the fantasy elements and an urban setting.


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## Sonya Bateman (Feb 3, 2013)

Lou Harpr said:


> I'm in defense of glowy hands.  Cover design has it's visual clues--tropes if you will--that help identify the genre at a glance. Tough guy with gun--thriller/suspense. Cat--cozy mystery. Glowy hands--UF.


I must agree. Glowy UF FTW!


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

C. Michael Wells said:


> I would think that Harry Potter is much closer to a portal fantasy type story a la The Chronicles of Narnia because while there is magic existing in the real world, the setting is so far detached from everything "muggle" that you never quite get the conflict between the fantasy elements and an urban setting.


I read them all (yes, I have nephews and nieces!), and at least half of them deal with muggles and how the magic parallel world is impacting them. Some of the core conflicts deal with halfbreeds, their muggle families (Hermoine, Snape, Harry's family) and how Voldemort tries to govern and exploit the human side of mankind. There's a constant theme of not being discovered and keeping everything magic from "normal" people. It's between the poles of magicians and muggles that the whole story unfolds and strives. So, very contemporary, and very much urban fantasy. I agree it ranges from primary school to 6th form, but the books themselves have proven to be as well-received by adults as by youths.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Nic said:


> I agree it ranges from primary school to 6th form, but the books themselves have proven to be as well-received by adults as by youths.


The reader demographics Harry Potter crosses is mind-boggling. I was on backstage running crew for a children's show when Order of the Phoenix came out in June that year, and during intermission, almost everyone in the cast, adult and child alike, were hunkered down in the green room with a copy in hand. It was the quietest I've ever seen a green room. Must have been a hundred copies of the book right there. Crazy.


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## Greg Dragon (Jun 10, 2014)

Interesting discussion. Diversity is important but as a member of a minority group I find that a lot of this falls on us, not you. Since self publishing has evened a lot of the racial playing field we (non-whites) need to play in places where we aren't always represented. But let's be honest, many writers are just not that crazy (or brave), especially since it's a poor man's gamble. For instance, I started a UF series that has a black female protag. Didn't do it for diversity, but I thought about my daughter and wanted to write something that she'd love. I also write Science Fiction (because I love the genre) but it blows my mind how often people write me, saying that they are surprised I'm black. I still don't know what to think about that... It's kind of sad to be honest. 

I would encourage authors who represent the various invisible groups to write more in the genes they love. Guilting white authors to write non-white characters will not really address the issue in my honest opinion. The problem I see (my personal experience) is that this world pushes for us to stay in our lanes writing literary fiction, crime, or street lit romance. It's what sells and you don't stick out, so why change?

I'm a big fan of cleaning up my own house before asking for help and if this concern for diversity in a genre is strong, I think that we need to encourage people within that community to address that need. Getting positive feedback from threads like this is tough because people get defensive (standard race reaction) and the rest of us kind of quietly watch in silence. I would like for more "colored" people to move into the all-white neighborhood. There will be noise and vandalism, yes, but it is the only way that Jim's question will be addressed. 

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Jim Johnson said:


> The reader demographics Harry Potter crosses is mind-boggling. I was on backstage running crew for a children's show when Order of the Phoenix came out in June that year, and during intermission, almost everyone in the cast, adult and child alike, were hunkered down in the green room with a copy in hand. It was the quietest I've ever seen a green room. Must have been a hundred copies of the book right there. Crazy.


Exactly! I had a similar experience when "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" came out. I also have to admit I enjoyed the whole series myself.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Greg Dragon said:


> it blows my mind how often people write me, saying that they are surprised I'm black. I still don't know what to think about that... It's kind of sad to be honest.


Gee whiz! You don't sound black! I guess they expected a novel written in ebonomics. The same sort of thing I mentioned above about men writing women characters. In the 19th century, Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin had to adopt the pen name George Sand for people to take her writing seriously. At the current time, I would hate to try and publish a mainstream American novel if I had an Arabic name.

I remember when I was in university and it was revealed (gasp!) that a respected professor was publishing romance novels under a pen name. She actually had to defend herself to the university big wigs. They thought her "lack of dignity" harmed the institution.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

ゴジラ said:


> Look, you can write basically anything involving magic or the paranormal in a contemporary setting and call it UF, so go do that. Write whatever book you want to read, and stay away from the ones you don't. Everyone wins. Whee.


Kinda misses the point of the thread, but I do appreciate the insights. I know I haven't read enough UF--hence my research and this thread and the resultant wonderful recommendations that have come out of it. As with most genres, there's a lot I love in UF, and some stuff that I roll my eyes at. Fortunately UF is such a massive genre that there's a lot of wiggle room to fit a lot of different styles and stories. Your own backlist is evidence of that. I've read some of it as part of my research.


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## Lou Harpr (Nov 5, 2014)

Rebecca Frank Art said:


> In defense of bare midriffs on UF covers (though more often than not I try to avoid or cover them up), a lot of UF heroines are confident, sexy, and tough. A bare midriff is a good indicator of the first two, so I'm not surprised they're common on covers with women who hit those marks.


They are not necessarily bad, but it would be nice to see more variety, especially by mainstream publishers who can afford to hire a photographer and models. I keep coming back to Firefly--I loved that the show had multiple strong women but they were all different.


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## Matthew Stott (Oct 22, 2014)

ゴジラ said:


> And don't even get me STARTED on the kissing stories!"


I like Urban Fantasy, I read it. I don't care much for romance lead books, UF or not. I think that's okay.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

ゴジラ said:


> Most of what I'm getting out of this thread is "I want to write a genre but I don't like the genre."
> 
> "Guns? Swords? Glowing hands? Midriffs? Kickass half-vampire women solving mysteries with guns and swords and glowing hands and midriffs? UGH! And don't even get me STARTED on the kissing stories!"


Urban fantasy doesn't start with any of this, neither does it end with any of it. It's a huge genre. What you describe is but part of the whole. I'd say that indeed this is just as well.


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## Lou Harpr (Nov 5, 2014)

Greg Dragon said:


> Interesting discussion. Diversity is important but as a member of a minority group I find that a lot of this falls on us, not you. Since self publishing has evened a lot of the racial playing field we (non-whites) need to play in places where we aren't always represented. But let's be honest, many writers are just not that crazy (or brave), especially since it's a poor man's gamble. For instance, I started a UF series that has a black female protag. Didn't do it for diversity, but I thought about my daughter and wanted to write something that she'd love.


That's a great point. Write the characters, the type of story you want to see more of. At least with self-publishing you can get your story out there--better than Hollywood where you'd have to fight uphill battle with the whole establishment.



> I also write Science Fiction (because I love the genre) but it blows my mind how often people write me, saying that they are surprised I'm black. I still don't know what to think about that... It's kind of sad to be honest.


Yeah, that's mind-boggling.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Really, a lot of it comes from UF not being all that old as a genre with subgenres. Most modern UF are descended from two sources: Pulp detective stories and Anita Blake, but of which comprise the Ur examples of the Supernatural Detective and Paranormal Romance subgenres respectively.

The thing is, as is the case for most genres, if we minorities who write minority characters don't create the genre, we're often 'late' to join in, both from personal choice and by social and economic pressure to stay in 'safe' genres while presenting our characters. This goes double in speculative fiction, which has long been a bastion of... not exactly positive attitudes toward minorities in certain circles.

UF as we know it is only about 30 years old, which is a minute in genre ages. We've been seeing the emergence of minority characters for years now, but it's always slow going, especially with the (thankfully decaying) prevalent hostility of a sizable portion of the spec-fic audience toward minority characters. This is bolstered by the new audience that's coming up, a TON of millenial minorities that have grown up in the Age of the Geek and aren't about to be run off from spec fic and are also hungry for books featuring characters like them and their peers.

TLR - It's coming and in some cases, it's already here.


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## Victoria J (Jul 5, 2011)

I've always assumed urban fantasy simply meant a fantasy story placed in a modern, big city. As opposed to rural fantasy.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Victoria J said:


> I've always assumed urban fantasy simply meant a fantasy story placed in a modern, big city. As opposed to *rural fantasy*.


Now there's a genre waiting to blow up.

"Martha...that cow's got out the pasture agin and gone kilt three of them wolves."

"T'ain't just a cow, Henry. That there's a _touched heifer_." --excerpt from Touched Heifer (Heifer of the Gods #1, bovine magic, rural fantasy, lookithem udders, eyes up here farmerboy, erotica, dreamscape, BBH, were-cow)*

*series might not actually exist


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## Lou Harpr (Nov 5, 2014)

Jim Johnson said:


> Now there's a genre waiting to blow up.
> 
> "Martha...that cow's got out the pasture agin and gone kilt three of them wolves."
> 
> ...


*SNORTLE* I'd read it!


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Lou Harpr said:


> *SNORTLE* I'd read it!


Some cover art ideas:



















/end self-threadjack


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Jim Johnson said:


> "T'ain't just a cow, Henry. That there's a _touched heifer_." --excerpt from Touched Heifer (Heifer of the Gods #1, bovine magic, rural fantasy, lookithem udders, eyes up here farmerboy, erotica, dreamscape, BBH, were-cow)*


Straight to the top of my TBR pile!


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## Bbates024 (Nov 3, 2014)

I can tell you to me Urban only means that it is set in the real world instead of a fantasy world. It doesn't have anything to do with gender, color, or sexual preferences.

I can tell you there are some fantastic Urban fantasy books out with male lead characters, Steve Mchugh's Hellequin series being on of them. I mean you could probably also add in the Iron Druid by Kevin Hearne. For another fantastic read check out John Conroe and his Demon Accords series.

Dictionary

Urban fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy defined by place; the fantastic narrative has an urban setting. Urban fantasy exists on one side of a spectrum, opposite high fantasy, which is set in an entirely fictitious world. Many urban fantasies are set in contemporary times and contain supernatural elements.


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## Greg Dragon (Jun 10, 2014)

Vaalingrade said:


> Really, a lot of it comes from UF not being all that old as a genre with subgenres. Most modern UF are descended from two sources: Pulp detective stories and Anita Blake, but of which comprise the Ur examples of the Supernatural Detective and Paranormal Romance subgenres respectively.
> 
> The thing is, as is the case for most genres, if we minorities who write minority characters don't create the genre, we're often 'late' to join in, both from personal choice and by social and economic pressure to stay in 'safe' genres while presenting our characters. This goes double in speculative fiction, which has long been a bastion of... not exactly positive attitudes toward minorities in certain circles.
> 
> ...


Well stated. Thank you!


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## Melody Simmons (Jul 8, 2012)

Don't know if anyone mentioned this but people tend to write what sells.  I have the same problem with stock models - look at any main stock site and 90% of models are white.  Ask photographers why they don't shoot more diverse models and they give the same reply - we shoot what sells.  Maybe this will change over time


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## CJArcher (Jan 22, 2011)

iBooks are running an Urban Fantasy feature at the moment in CA and the US. If you click on the main scrolling banner at the top of the page it takes you to a list of featured books with the the iBooks definition of UF which includes this part: "Unfolding against recognisable urban and small-town backdrops..."

With that in mind, it explains why they included some of my books that I call Victorian-era Fantasy. I always considered UF to have a contemporary city setting so I was surprised they included mine. 

As to the diversity of of the genre - among the books featured, my book Ghost Girl is the only one with a person of colour on the cover. To be fair, it's not obvious from every cover what colour/ethnicity the main characters are. FWIW, that book and the rest of that trilogy sell reasonably well. It's neither a stellar performer or a cellar dweller.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Heh, yeah, try finding decent Native American stock photos to use. We got as close as we could and made a lot of alterations. It ain't easy. Whenever I get around to writing more Remy Pigeon books I'm seriously considering hiring a model, because most stock of PoC looks like dental ads or highly stereotyped bs. 

I've already pointed out to you elsewhere how many UF books with non-white main characters there are. I'd say you have a pretty good reading list now


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## Dom (Mar 15, 2014)

It's funny that the Peter Grant series was the first response here, because those covers had been accused of being "white-washed" in the US.
http://nethspace.blogspot.com/2011/03/another-white-washed-cover.html

To the main question, this is about audience. If the majority of your reader pool comprises white females, then you'll limit your reach if you do not consider that demographic. However, that doesn't mean your hero needs to be a white female. I think you can give your readers more credit than that. (My character Cisco is a Cuban dude.)

As to the assertion that there's not enough diversity, I agree with the posters who've said there's a bunch of it. Indies have democratized publishing. Those GoodReads lists of gay and black main characters are great. However, if you're looking on the Amazon.com (read: US) pop charts, consider the population of gay or black groups in the country. The pop lists may be the wrong places to look for diversity.

That doesn't mean there's not a market there. Smaller markets can be profitable if under-served. You don't always need to shoot for the largest one because you'll also find the most competition there. So there's plenty room to be diverse, but no matter what you need to always understand your audience/market.

There are lots of great points already made in this thread. I would disagree with JA about Annie Bellet's covers - they don't look white. I agree with Becca's thoughts that a lot of UF/PNR wears the trappings of romance. Just look for mention of a "mysterious hot guy" or a "jealous ex" in the blurb. I think this is the largest market of UF right now, but I could be wrong. Greg, you are spot-on with all your points. Sorry but that "surprised you're black" comment is hilarious. Hopefully they only meant it because there are less black authors in your genres.

On to the point of covers, the single-main-job a cover has is to communicate to a targeted audience that your book is for them. This is why covers often look alike and use "shortcuts" like glowy hands. You see that cover and you know exactly what that book is about. Job well done.

Btw, Sonya, congrats on your new book launch. Our books are pointing at each other in also-boughts, but I think you're helping prop mine up in its second (less visible) month, so thanks for that! Are you using paid promotion for that amazing rank?


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Melody Simmons said:


> Don't know if anyone mentioned this but people tend to write what sells. I have the same problem with stock models - look at any main stock site and 90% of models are white. Ask photographers why they don't shoot more diverse models and they give the same reply - we shoot what sells. Maybe this will change over time


I honestly don't subscribe to the 'what sells' excuse because most people who write or shoot or paint what sells never even bother trying and use the 'what sells' thing as an excuse not to leave their comfort zone. How do they know what sells if they only ever sold the one thing?

Look at Hollywood. They ALWAYS say they can't do female-headed action or minority-based movies because they don't sell. Never mind when such a film makes all the money.

"That was just a fluke, back to never giving Wonder Woman a movie."

Heck, sometimes they kill works _because too many women or girls like them_ (look up the cancellation of Young Justice where they said too many girl were watching the show and 'girls don't buy toys').


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## Mxz (Jan 17, 2015)

I only find diverse books by searching google, finding websites, but here is a book with a list of authors who write with black main characters: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019JBZ0F0?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

Hopefully, Amazon will add categories soon for diverse books for people of color (trying to get them to add them). They're hard to find unless you know who you are looking for.

Amazon has categories for the LGBT diverse SFF under the SFF sections
Fantasy: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_n_10?fst=as%3Aoff&rh=n%3A133140011%2Cn%3A!133141011%2Cn%3A154606011%2Cn%3A668010011%2Cn%3A158576011%2Cn%3A10886544011&bbn=158576011&ie=UTF8&qid=1454715454&rnid=158576011
Horror: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_n_5?fst=as%3Aoff&rh=n%3A133140011%2Cn%3A!133141011%2Cn%3A154606011%2Cn%3A157028011%2Cn%3A157060011%2Cn%3A7588836011&bbn=157060011&ie=UTF8&qid=1454715355&rnid=157060011
Science Fiction: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_n_12?fst=as%3Aoff&rh=n%3A133140011%2Cn%3A!133141011%2Cn%3A154606011%2Cn%3A668010011%2Cn%3A158591011%2Cn%3A10886545011&bbn=158591011&ie=UTF8&qid=1454715453&rnid=158591011


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## Key (Jan 6, 2014)

I think UF had its roots in Buffy, so there's lots of kick-ass white girls who are special in some way, and maybe have romantic complications in their paranormal- and action-filled lives.  For good or for ill, it's an easy hook.

I find nothing wrong with the trope.  Power fantasies are considered perfectly legit for white males.

It would be nice to see more diversity in all fiction, hopefully it'll happen in time.


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## IreneP (Jun 19, 2012)

Sara C said:


> Completely agree with this. I do have "urban" characters in my books (using the term in regards to what the OP was asking), but my MCs are all white females. Part of me is a little worried that I might offend someone if I wrote a main character that's a different race, because logically I could never fully "get" that different viewpoint. I do see what the OP is saying though, to some the term "urban fantasy" might be misleading. I much prefer the blanket term of contemporary fantasy .


Hi Sara - I can totally identify because I SAID this exact same thing once. And a friend and black author very kindly and gently pointed out to me, "Wow, Irene. That's a little racist. We're just people."

You know what? She was right. I mean, I write from both male and female POV and I am definitely NOT male - so, skin color should be an issue for me?

Anyhoo - Jim - it isn't just UF where this is a problem. In the romance industry, it has been a HUGE issue lately. If you are on twitter you might check the hashtag #weneeddiverseromance

AND - diversity on covers has long been a problem. Apparently covers with "ethnic" models don't sell as well? But a lot of readers are becoming aware of this issue and looking to change that.


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## JLCarver (Sep 13, 2015)

Deleted. My words are not yours.


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## Sonya Bateman (Feb 3, 2013)

Domino Finn said:


> Btw, Sonya, congrats on your new book launch. Our books are pointing at each other in also-boughts, but I think you're helping prop mine up in its second (less visible) month, so thanks for that! Are you using paid promotion for that amazing rank?


Thanks, Domino! I was really thrilled when you were one of the first also-boughts that showed up. 

I've got a Facebook ad running ($5/day) that is getting clicks, but I have no idea if it's selling through... right now I'm pretty sure I'm just blessed with algos. (Shhh, don't tell the luck gods!) It's been humming along amazingly well since I raised the price -- I'd asked you about launching at 99 cents, so thanks for replying to that. It helped me decide. Then I did Bargain Booksy and BKnights while it was still 99 cents and it must've caught the algos in there somewhere.

Currently trying to write my brains out to finish book 2.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

IreneP said:


> Hi Sara - I can totally identify because I SAID this exact same thing once. And a friend and black author very kindly and gently pointed out to me, "Wow, Irene. That's a little racist. We're just people."
> 
> You know what? She was right. I mean, I write from both male and female POV and I am definitely NOT male - so, skin color should be an issue for me?


I understand up to a point. Any black person I write is either going to be an oreo, or I'm going to piss someone off by getting some little thing slightly wrong. The only way to avoid it is to have beta readers of that ethnicity who are willing to help you.

An example (though not about race): Darynda Jones has a UF Charlie Davidson series set in Albuquerque. In "First Grave on the Right", she mentions the mesquite in the landscape. I almost threw the kindle against the wall. There ain't no damned mesquite in New Mexico. It's in Texas.

Now, you may think that's a minor thing. It showed me that the author didn't know anything about her setting. I spent the rest of the book looking for more errors.

Unless I know what I'm talking about, I'm not going to write it. Pulling the reader out of the book due to some picky little thing isn't worth it.


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## RomanceWriter77 (Mar 10, 2014)

JLCarver said:


> Umm... LGBTQ people are more than just who they sleep with. Thank you.


I didn't say that. I said it has nothing to with the story. You're free to write what you want, of course, but many UF readers don't want romance or relationship subplots in their stories, of any orientation, in very much the same way that mystery readers will not read a mystery that has romantic elements in it (think Nora Roberts/JD Robb).

I even read an article once how there's a small subset of mystery readers who won't even read a mystery written by an author who also writes romance because they feel that a romance author can't possibly abstain from adding a relationship subplot in a novel of a different genre, even though many authors can and do.

A significant subset of readers won't read a UF book if it's not just about the plot. I wouldn't read a UF book that had too much relationship "stuff" in it. That's not the reading experience I'm looking for when I pick up a UF title.

_People_ are more than who they sleep with. Describing someone specifically as LGBTQ is _only_ focusing on who they sleep with, otherwise you don't need the qualifier. I myself am bisexual and my brother is gay. Does our LGBTQ status somehow affect how we take our coffee in the morning or how we would plot to take out a nest of vampires if they suddenly descended on our city? No. It does not.

I prefer UF titles without romance or relationship elements. That's just my preference.


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## JLCarver (Sep 13, 2015)

Deleted. My words are not yours.


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## 77071 (May 15, 2014)

RomanceWriter77 said:


> I didn't say that. I said it has nothing to with the story. You're free to write what you want, of course, but many UF readers don't want romance or relationship subplots in their stories, of any orientation, in very much the same way that mystery readers will not read a mystery that has romantic elements in it (think Nora Roberts/JD Robb).
> 
> I even read an article once how there's a small subset of mystery readers who won't even read a mystery written by an author who also writes romance because they feel that a romance author can't possibly abstain from adding a relationship subplot in a novel of a different genre, even though many authors can and do.
> 
> A significant subset of readers won't read a UF book if it's not just about the plot. I wouldn't read a UF book that had too much relationship "stuff" in it. That's not the reading experience I'm looking for when I pick up a UF title.


Would you feel comfortable reading a UF if the gay person wasn't in a relationship? I mean, everyone is assumed to be straight in most fiction, but just because they're not doesn't mean it's actively a romance.

(I do write romance actively and I'm not ashamed of that, but I can understand not wanting to read it sometimes or included in every genre.)

It's just that being gay is no more about romance or relationships than being straight is, though obviously it influences whom one would date. 

It seems worth mentioning because there's a common idea in society that anything about gay people is about sex. Which is only sometimes true, the same as for straight people.


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## Lou Harpr (Nov 5, 2014)

Annie B said:


> Heh, yeah, try finding decent Native American stock photos to use. We got as close as we could and made a lot of alterations. It ain't easy. Whenever I get around to writing more Remy Pigeon books I'm seriously considering hiring a model, because most stock of PoC looks like dental ads or highly stereotyped bs.
> 
> I've already pointed out to you elsewhere how many UF books with non-white main characters there are. I'd say you have a pretty good reading list now


I can imagine. I've seen probably tens of thousands of stock photos by now, and can't recall a single good native American, male or female. There were some white girls in costumes straight out of the Lone Ranger.


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## RomanceWriter77 (Mar 10, 2014)

JLCarver said:


> You did, however, imply that a book with an LGBTQ character has to have some sort of romantic element.
> 
> 
> > Then why bother mentioning that the MC is LGBTQ? I haven't read any UF wherein the author feels it necessary to let the audience know that MC is hetero if a relationship plays no part in the story. It would be like an MC saying, "I live in Miami; however, apropos of nothing, I also enjoy snowshoeing." There's no reason to mention it if it doesn't further the story or a subplot. Any author who does mention an MC being LGBTQ when it's not part of the story, is just doing so to make a sociopolitical statement.
> ...


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## Lou Harpr (Nov 5, 2014)

Domino Finn said:


> It's funny that the Peter Grant series was the first response here, because those covers had been accused of being "white-washed" in the US.
> http://nethspace.blogspot.com/2011/03/another-white-washed-cover.html


While the original UK covers that had no character on them looked so much better. www.amazon.co.uk/Rivers-London-1-Ben-Aaronovitch/dp/0575097582/ Though I must admit, it doesn't look at all like a typical UF cover. I wonder if the publisher assumed that US audience demanded a character-centric cover, and if it's true.


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## JLCarver (Sep 13, 2015)

Deleted. My words are not yours.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

There are plenty of readers, period, who don't mind (and even seek out) romantic subplots in their fiction. Urban fantasy is no exception. I actually can't think of a single popular UF series that doesn't have a romantic subplot showing up now and again. Nor can I think of a successful thriller series without one, either. Having relationships with other humans (or angels or werewolves or whatever) is normal and a part of the human experience. Some of those relationships are likely to be romantic and/or sexual in nature. It's called emotional depth and good storytelling.

Anyway... my thought on UF and diversity is that if you aren't finding the growing amounts of popular UF written with diverse characters, you need to do better research (reaching out to other readers and writers is a great start) and get reading to familiarize yourself with the genre better.


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## RomanceWriter77 (Mar 10, 2014)

HSh said:


> Would you feel comfortable reading a UF if the gay person wasn't in a relationship? I mean, everyone is assumed to be straight in most fiction, but just because they're not doesn't mean it's actively a romance.


I don't feel _uncomfortable_. I'm bi and I write bisexual and gay romance titles. I just love a really awesome UF mystery with action and a plot that's built like a bullet train that keeps me turning pages in a good way. If you slow down my reading experience with relationship subplots, I'm going to skip those scenes (turning pages in a bad way). And if you do it too much in one title, I just won't pick up the next one.

I would be as put off by a novel in which a male protagonist was about to raid a sewer full of vampires and then stopped to tell me he likes long-legged blondes in high heels. Probably especially if no long-legged blondes even appeared in said novel and there was no relationship arc anywhere. It'd be a jarring comment and knock me right out of the narrative.

"So, here we are. All those bloodsuckers are down there, asleep, vulnerable. I've got my sword and my .45, in case things get dicey. I'm ready for anything. By the way....I'm straight."

What?


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## JLCarver (Sep 13, 2015)

Deleted. My words are not yours.


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## JeanetteRaleigh (Jan 1, 2013)

I'm pretty minimum in terms of what I expect out of a marketing definition.  Fantasy as a genre  typically meant, "Somewhere back in time when castles dotted the landscape and knights roamed the countryside."  Urban fantasy comes from moving the fantastical elements to the modern age where it is more likely they will find themselves in a city or at least a less than sparsely populated town. It seems to me that the current stable of fantasy has a lot more variety in characters than the classic fantasy and is often more interesting for that reason.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

RomanceWriter77 said:


> I would be as put off by a novel in which a male protagonist was about to raid a sewer full of vampires and then stopped to tell me he likes long-legged blondes in high heels. Probably especially if no long-legged blondes even appeared in said novel and there was no relationship arc anywhere. It'd be a jarring comment and knock me right out of the narrative.
> 
> "So, here we are. All those bloodsuckers are down there, asleep, vulnerable. I've got my sword and my .45, in case things get dicey. I'm ready for anything. By the way....I'm straight."
> 
> What?


I'd be put off by that because it's terrible writing. Information flow is one of the key things in good storytelling... So... maybe you need to read better books if you are running into that a lot?


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## RomanceWriter77 (Mar 10, 2014)

JLCarver said:


> Why can't a hero in a story also happen to be gay?


My criteria for reading a UF book is no relationship subplot, no romance. Can you come up with a natural sounding narrative for that book in which the hero just happens to mention that he's gay? Because I can't come up with one scenario in which it's pertinent to mention it. It's also not pertinent to mention where he goes on vacation or whether or not he prefers mints to gum.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

The Dancing Squirrel said:


> I agree. I'd love to include people who don't match my personal white-hetero profile in my casts of characters, but I am certain I would do a horrible job of portraying someone when I don't know exactly what it's like to be inside their heads (or bodies, or whatever).


So... all your characters are the same gender, same socio-economic class, same exact childhood experiences and education, born in same town etc as you with exact same family structure? Doesn't that get boring after like a page of writing it?


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## RomanceWriter77 (Mar 10, 2014)

Annie B said:


> I'd be put off by that because it's terrible writing. Information flow is one of the key things in good storytelling... So... maybe you need to read better books if you are running into that a lot?


My point is, I've never run into it. It's not a relevant part of the story. But somehow if the MC is gay, it's suddenly okay to start mentioning details that aren't relevant to the story, just for the sake of it?


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

RomanceWriter77 said:


> My point is, I've never run into it. It's not a relevant part of the story. But somehow if the MC is gay, it's suddenly okay to start mentioning details that aren't relevant to the story, just for the sake of it?


Um... in good storytelling, you'd run into it. That vampire hunter you mention would, in a well-written story, have different opinions when viewing a hot blonde woman if he were straight than if he were gay. It'd be subtle, but not missing. A good character has opinions about everything and those change how they are written, how they think about things, etc.


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## JLCarver (Sep 13, 2015)

Deleted. My words are not yours.


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## RomanceWriter77 (Mar 10, 2014)

Annie B said:


> So... all your characters are the same gender, same socio-economic class, same exact childhood experiences and education, born in same town etc as you with exact same family structure? Doesn't that get boring after like a page of writing it?


Mine are. I'm 13 books in and it hasn't gotten boring so far. Interesting writing challenges for me are better pacing and storytelling, experimenting with story structure, not using madlibs to come up with as many varied characters as possible to stick into plotlines.


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## RomanceWriter77 (Mar 10, 2014)

Annie B said:


> Um... in good storytelling, you'd run into it. That vampire hunter you mention would, in a well-written story, have different opinions when viewing a hot blonde woman if he were straight than if he were gay. It'd be subtle, but not missing. A good character has opinions about everything and those change how they are written, how they think about things, etc.


Each to their own. The second he mentions the hot blonde instead of the vampire stalking them, I'm out. I'm not there for the hot blonde. I'm there for the vampires.


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## RomanceWriter77 (Mar 10, 2014)

JLCarver said:


> Yup. My own, for one. Would you put a book down if the male character mentions his wife at home, even if their marriage doesn't figure into the story? My guess is no. So why can't a character talk about and interact with his boyfriend? Why can't a woman put off a handsy bar patron by saying, "I'm a lesbian." I don't understand the double standard.


Why is he telling me things that aren't relevant to the story? Honestly, yeah. If he kept mentioning things that derailed the plot, I'd close the book.

It's probably because I write romance and relationships (of all orientations) and I just don't want to read about it on my days off. When I sit down to read, I'm looking for a specific experience based on the book I've picked up. If I don't get that experience, or the author is trying to be all things to all people (It has vampires! And detectives! And a love story! And magic! And the kitchen sink is in there somewhere, too! And it's _shiny_!)

No, thanks. Just, no thanks.

There are so many ways to round out a character and for me romantic relationships are just played out as a tactic. It feels like some kind of variation on a failed Bechdel test.

"How do you round out a character?"
"Well, you give him a love interest and _then_...."

Sidenote: Have you watched Brandon Sanderson's lectures on YouTube? I remember one specifically in which he was doing a lecture on well-rounded characters and he had to stop the class when they got to the first female character and all any of the students could come up with was a romance plot.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

RomanceWriter77 said:


> Mine are. I'm 13 books in and it hasn't gotten boring so far. Interesting writing challenges for me are better pacing and storytelling, experimenting with story structure, not using madlibs to come up with as many varied characters as possible to stick into plotlines.


Well, enjoy that. I prefer to write people who are people, not just me carbon-copied over and over.


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## JLCarver (Sep 13, 2015)

Deleted. My words are not yours.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Folks,

Let's avoid making comments about each other, OK?

And, those involved the discussion on whether there should be characters identified as LBGT in urban fantasy--let's agree to disagree on this one. It's derailing Jim's thread.

_EDIT to clarify, JLC and RW, discussion that goes in circles derails the conversation; at some point you have to agree to disagree on a specific point. I should have been more specific. _

Thanks,

Betsy
KB Mod


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## JLCarver (Sep 13, 2015)

Deleted. My words are not yours.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

JLCarver said:


> And, Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series has a romantic subplot in some of the earlier books. Just saying.


Yep; I've read it. Good read. Not something I'd ever see categorized as PNR though.


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## JLCarver (Sep 13, 2015)

Deleted. My words are not yours.


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## My Dog&#039;s Servant (Jun 2, 2013)

ゴジラ said:


> Most of what I'm getting out of this thread is "I want to write a genre but I don't like the genre."
> 
> "Guns? Swords? Glowing hands? Midriffs? Kickass half-vampire women solving mysteries with guns and swords and glowing hands and midriffs? UGH! And don't even get me STARTED on the kissing stories!"





Nic said:


> Urban fantasy doesn't start with any of this, neither does it end with any of it. It's a huge genre. What you describe is but part of the whole. I'd say that indeed this is just as well.


I'd say the key to this point of the discussion [ETA: of this whole thread, actually] is the difference between perception of the genre based on Amazon's top 100 in the category, and perception of the genre based on reader discussions such as Atunah mentioned upthread. If you put the two side by side, I'm pretty sure you'd think you were looking at different animals entirely. The Zon bestseller list is based primarily on "what's out lately and selling best". The reader list is "what I've found over the years that I enjoyed reading."

Whenever market concerns shape a creative decision, this kind of difference (and what it might imply financially) can be tough to sort out.


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## JalexM (May 14, 2015)

brkingsolver said:


> I understand up to a point. Any black person I write is either going to be an oreo, or I'm going to p*ss someone off by getting some little thing slightly wrong. The only way to avoid it is to have beta readers of that ethnicity who are willing to help you.
> 
> An example (though not about race): Darynda Jones has a UF Charlie Davidson series set in Albuquerque. In "First Grave on the Right", she mentions the mesquite in the landscape. I almost threw the kindle against the wall. There ain't no damned mesquite in New Mexico. It's in Texas.
> 
> ...


Thinking you are going to write someone as an 'oreo' is a bad way of going about it. Write them as human's, don't think about color, sexual orientation or gender unless it matters for the story or you really want to.
I hate the term Oreo because it implies that if a black person acts 'proper' they are acting white. Why does a black person have to act within a certain social construct to please somebody? 
Can I only write a good female character if my dick falls off?
Can I only write a good white, Mexican, Asian character if I write them stereotypically? Or if hop down to South LA, or china town, or beverly hills and only take the face value of what I see in those areas and turn them into characters?
Because when you say you would write them as an 'oreo' and you try to afford that it implies that you don't get the stereotypical things about a race right so you don't write them without help.
Being a person of 'color' doesn't make them different than anybody else. Don't write your characters thinking that unless their skin color matters to the story. In America the color of a person's skin doesn't make their culture. How, where, and when they were raised do. That makes a person.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

On identifying LGBT characters -- it's a pipe dream to imagine that you can just say nothing and have the whole issue of sexual orientation not be present in your book.

By way of example, if you don't mention a character's race or skin color, readers will tend to assume he or she is white. Even if you DO mention it, many readers will fail to absorb the info. Great example: the furor at the way the first_ Hunger Games_ movie supposedly changed characters to make them black. But in most cases, the movie didn't _make _those characters black. They _were _black; that is, the book explicitly described them as black. Readers just skipped over that info because it didn't mesh with their assumptions.

So, if you have a character of color, and you want readers to *know* he/she is a person of color, you have to tell them. You probably have to do it several times in several different ways. Otherwise, they're apt to miss it.

Some will say books that do the above are silly because books with all white characters don't go to all this effort trying to let readers know about the characters' whiteness. But that's because they don't have to: the powerful assumption of whiteness makes it so that you don't have to mention whiteness. It magically IS until you pry it off and replace it with something else.

The same thing goes for straightness. Readers get introduced to a new character, and the vast majority assume he or she is straight. That works out fine if he or she actually is straight. If he/she briefly appreciates the nice ass of a person of the other sex in Book 4 of the series, it won't come as a shock because the new info fits the reader's existing assumptions. But if the appreciated ass belongs to someone of the same sex, then the reader is surprised. Maybe shocked. Should the reader be shocked? No, not if the author has managed not to provide *any* hints about the character's sexual orientation in Books 1-3. Nevertheless, the reader very likely is shocked, because they _assumed_, and these assumptions are powerful.

So, if you have a character who fits "default" assumptions, you have the freedom not to mention certain pieces of information about them. But if you have a character who bucks the defaults, then you have to go out of your way to help the reader form an accurate understanding of the character early on.

Why bother helping the reader form an accurate understanding of a character's sexual orientation if there's going to be ZERO romantic/sexual content in the book? Well, sexuality is a key aspect of a person's identity, as are gender, race, nationality, language, faith, and a number of other biggies. Traits like these pervasively shape our experience of the world. You are who you are in large part because you grew up _________, __________, _________, and ________. (I'd fill in "white," "female," "straight," "economically privileged," and a few others.) So if you withhold info about a character's sexuality, you're failing to tell the reader about one of the central forces shaping that person's character. I think it's hard to develop character richly or even coherently if you withhold such important info.

Plus, it's not like your character will be without a sexual orientation if you don't mention it. Saying nothing renders the character straight in the reader's mind, not orientationless. Either they get the info about the character's orientation from the author or they get it from their assumption. Either way, they get it.


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## Cheryl M. (Jan 11, 2011)

Key said:


> I think UF had its roots in Buffy, so there's lots of kick-ass white girls who are special in some way, and maybe have romantic complications in their paranormal- and action-filled lives. For good or for ill, it's an easy hook.
> 
> I find nothing wrong with the trope. Power fantasies are considered perfectly legit for white males.
> 
> It would be nice to see more diversity in all fiction, hopefully it'll happen in time.


Oi. UF has been around much longer than Buffy. Much.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk


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## Cheryl M. (Jan 11, 2011)

Vaalingrade said:


> Really, a lot of it comes from UF not being all that old as a genre with subgenres. Most modern UF are descended from two sources: Pulp detective stories and Anita Blake, but of which comprise the Ur examples of the Supernatural Detective and Paranormal Romance subgenres respectively.
> 
> The thing is, as is the case for most genres, if we minorities who write minority characters don't create the genre, we're often 'late' to join in, both from personal choice and by social and economic pressure to stay in 'safe' genres while presenting our characters. This goes double in speculative fiction, which has long been a bastion of... not exactly positive attitudes toward minorities in certain circles.
> 
> ...


Just because you give it a name, it doesn't mean it didn't exist before then. There was a time when it was just called literature or fantasy. Bram Stoker's Dracula would be considered UF today, and that was written in 1867. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, 1820. Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, 1843.

It's kind of like how many literature snobs like to say they don't read science fiction but express their for love H.G. Wells. You can call it classic literature all you want; it doesn't make it any less science fiction. :/

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk


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## Dom (Mar 15, 2014)

Becca Mills said:


> By way of example, if you don't mention a character's race or skin color, readers will tend to assume he or she is white.


Eh, I was never sure I bought this argument. Sure, *white* readers might assume a raceless character is white, but black readers might assume a raceless character is black. And why not? That sounds fairly natural to me.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

Jim Johnson said:


> Even if the character happens to be part demon, part shifter, part vampire, part-whatever beastie or part-some flavor of ethnicity, they're shown on the cover as white or off-white, generally brunette or redhead, and most seem to have a hot guy in some format involved in their life.
> 
> So, am I not looking in the right places for a more diverse spread of ethnic characters, LGBT characters, and more diversity? Would writing and publishing in these genres mean that a writer really needs to kinda sorta stick to the white, hetero female lead to find the largest potential reader base?
> 
> Other thoughts? Play nice.


You're describing what's generally considered Urban Fantasy Romance. It's a subgenre of Fantasy, not Romance, so it follows those guidelines as oppose to Romance (i.e. no HEA required, etc.). The Romance distinction is because it it typically has more romance in it than more traditional Urban Fantasy does. The other flavor of Urban Fantasy (and there are more than two, but they're two big ones), tend to feature a male protagonist and are a bit more... hard-boiled? in flavor. The Harry Dresden books by Jim Butcher and Vlad Taltos books would be examples of this. Both characters are white, though, I'm afraid 

As for sticking with a female lead--I'd say decide what audience you're shooting for first. Female leads tend to signal UFR in my experience and tend to attract female readers more, whereas I think Harry Dresdens and those types tend to skew a bit more male. Not saying you won't have crossover, but that's been my experience.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Domino Finn said:


> Eh, I was never sure I bought this argument. Sure, *white* readers might assume a raceless character is white, but black readers might assume a raceless character is black. And why not? That sounds fairly natural to me.


Maybe, but I'm not sure people of other races are immune to these assumptions. We've had so many decades of "raceless" equaling "white." Of whiteness being treated by the cultural mainstream as the "normal" state of affairs and therefore not worth remarking on. And, more pragmatically, of people of color being underrepresented in fiction. That alone could train readers to assume characters are white.

Most of us have probably seen videos from the many studies where majorities of both white children and children of color identify pale-skinned dolls as good, smart, and pretty while identifying dark-skinned dolls as ugly, dumb, and bad. Those sorts of findings have been replicated so many times. It wouldn't surprise me if people of color get all kinds of negative cultural messages drilled into them. I hope that's not true, but I worry that it is.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

RomanceWriter77 said:


> My criteria for reading a UF book is no relationship subplot, no romance. Can you come up with a natural sounding narrative for that book in which the hero just happens to mention that he's gay? Because I can't come up with one scenario in which it's pertinent to mention it. It's also not pertinent to mention where he goes on vacation or whether or not he prefers mints to gum.


There's more to being gay than just having sex with men. I have absolutely no trouble seeing a flamboyant queen being written up in an UF or mystery.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

JalexM said:


> Thinking you are going to write someone as an 'oreo' is a bad way of going about it. Write them as human's, don't think about color, sexual orientation or gender unless it matters for the story or you really want to.
> I hate the term Oreo because it implies that if a black person acts 'proper' they are acting white. Why does a black person have to act within a certain social construct to please somebody?


She has a point, though, and I've watched it happen and become very ugly fast. People to whom this happens, or who stand on the sidelines and wince, won't be trying any of this soon again. There's a reason why this can get toxic so fast, all right. As long as you, the author, are white, there's no chance at avoiding it either, regardless of how much research you put into it, or how many people of that ethnicity have betaread the story.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Becca Mills said:


> On identifying LGBT characters -- it's a pipe dream to imagine that you can just say nothing and have the whole issue of sexual orientation not be present in your book.
> 
> By way of example, if you don't mention a character's race or skin color, readers will tend to assume he or she is white. Even if you DO mention it, many readers will fail to absorb the info. Great example: the furor at the way the first_ Hunger Games_ movie supposedly changed characters to make them black. But in most cases, the movie didn't _make _those characters black. They _were _black; that is, the book explicitly described them as black. Readers just skipped over that info because it didn't mesh with their assumptions.
> 
> ...


This is really well-said, and makes me want to read your books!


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## JLCarver (Sep 13, 2015)

Deleted. My words are not yours.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Thank you, JL and Nic. 



oakwood said:


> I agree with Domino. Here's a thought experiment. If you read a book where you liked the MC but the sex, color, age etc of him/her/it (might be a robot) was never mentioned (no indication of hair or eye color, no facial structure/no, no mention of freckles, etcetcec)... how would you identify with the MC? The probable answer is in a semblance of yourself, as in I can identify myself with this MC (the eternal author's ticket to success).
> 
> Experiment nr.2: take 100 books you read. In how many of them is the race/color of the MC explicitly stated? Very few. So take the bestsellers where race isn't a stated fact and remove the cover (which as mentioned in this thread predominantly tend to have white characters). Without the cover influence, if the character is someone you emotionally root for, he/she/it will very probably have a shade of skin close to yours.


This seems logical, but I'm still doubtful. Dunno. I'll see if there's any research out there on this sort of thing. It seems like it'd be pretty easy to test: give a bunch of people passages that have been stripped of possible race identifiers and then ask them what race they think the characters are.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Um... Dresden Files has romance in it. He ends up having a kid (spoiler, I guess). He has multiple relationships with multiple women over the course of the series...

It's not romance. It is urban fantasy. Just because there is a romance subplot doesn't make it romance. My books have a romance (actually a couple subplots) but they aren't romance either. If you took the romance out, you'd end up with the same story. The romance isn't even remotely the focus. Thus, urban fantasy, not PNR.

Saying that if there's a female character having a romance subplot makes something UFR or PNR but if there's a male character and the book has one it's UF is sexist. Also, it's wrong. 

Also, women are the majority of readers. Period. Full stop.  It'll vary by series a bit, of course, but in general for pretty much all major fiction genres (yes, even thriller) women are the majority.  Keep that in mind.  My own mailing list shows that I have about a 50/50 split from what I can tell, but I imagine my actual audience is majority women, because women read more. That's the data anyway.  Men will read about female characters. Women will read about male characters. 

Write good books. Try to write real characters with depth. IF that means writing romantic subplots, don't worry... most readers aren't awful about it. They like it. That's why pretty much every bestselling genre novel you will find has romantic subplots. It's part of being human.

Know what else is part of being human and that people love to read? Diverse characters.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Tulonsae said:


> Luckily, the books I read now let me know (usually in the blurb) who the MC is so I don't have that problem. (Also, I definitely picked up on the black characters in Hunger Games. So, if the character is described, I don't usually miss it.)


Rowlings hinted at Hermione being black, and Dumbledore definitely was gay.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

Annie B said:


> Um... Dresden Files has romance in it. He ends up having a kid (spoiler, I guess). He has multiple relationships with multiple women over the course of the series...
> 
> It's not romance. It is urban fantasy. Just because there is a romance subplot doesn't make it romance. My books have a romance (actually a couple subplots) but they aren't romance either. If you took the romance out, you'd end up with the same story. The romance isn't even remotely the focus. Thus, urban fantasy, not PNR.
> 
> ...


Not sure if this was in response to my post. But yes, there's a tiny romance subplot in the Dresden books. Yes, he has a kid that he finds out about several books down the road. But you can't compare the amount of relationship "stuff" in the Dresden books to, say, the Kate Daniels books or the Night Huntress books. UFR series wouldn't be the same without the relationship. Can you imagine Kate without Curran or Cat without Bones? Wouldn't be the same series, not even remotely. Comparatively, Harry's love interest plays a fairly minor part.

I don't think either stripe of UF is right or wrong and enjoy both types immensely, but I think that some of the UFR books concentrate too heavily on the relationship aspect of the book _for some readers_. Of course, some readers feel that the books don't concentrate enough on that aspect ;-). And I think male readers are more likely to not care as much whether there is or isn't a relationship aspect, whereas female readers tend to start shipping characters from the get-go.

As you say, Harry has multiple relationships with multiple characters. Compare and contrast with Mercy, Kate, and Cat (and I could go on and on) who basically have their love interest introduced in book 1, get together by book 3, and it's a done deal for the rest of the series. It's a different dynamic. And again, there's nothing wrong with either one. Never said there was. Also, I _never_ said that a female protag with a romance subplot makes a book UFR but a male character with a romance subplot is straight-up UF. Hell, Vlad in Steven Brust's series is married through half of the books. No, what I said was that UFR titles tend to have a female protag whereas the hard-bolied detective type UF tends to have a male lead. If someone is shopping for one flavor of UF over the other, that's a quick litmus test.

Also, I _specifically_ said that Urban Fantasy Romance falls under the Fantasy genre, not the Romance genre and specifically pointed out that it doesn't have the same genre expectations as Romance. I didn't coin the term. It was actually coined why? Because when the female-protag UFR flavor of Urban Fantasy started becoming really popular, there was some pushback from UF fans saying it was too "romancey."

That aside, there is a difference in feel and focus between the two sub-genres. And yes, some people complain about too much focus on the relationship in what's billed as UFR. Can't please all the people all the time and all that. But I think we can all agree on write good books with characters that engage the reader  And finally, sorry this post was all over the place. It's close to my bedtime, but hopefully it makes some kind of sense


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Tulonsae said:


> (I'm rather puzzled why you quoted me and said this. I mentioned Hunger Games, not Harry Potter.)


Because Hunger Games is obviously not the only book where the author hinted at a different ethnicity than what was shown in the subsequent movie.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Actually, no, I can't imagine Dresden Files without the romance plots.  Without Susan to teach him about his own fallability and later about responsibility, he wouldn't be the same. Without Luccio, there's an entire multi-book antagonist plot that would completely be made irrelevant. Without Karrin, Harry would come off as even more sexist than he already does (he pretty much lusts after every woman he sees, even Molly when she's just a teenager, it gets a little creepy sometimes but I figure it is a part of his char and hopefully intended). 

So... nope. Without the romances, even though they don't necessarily get a HFN/HEA like in some books, Dresden Files would not be nearly the same. That doesn't make them romance, of course, any more than something like Elemental Assassin is romance despite having her in multiple relationships etc.

I can't imagine Kate without Curran... however, I can imagine the plots without the romance subplots. It wouldn't be the same of course (same as Dresden wouldn't), but the plots would still hang together (it takes four books for them to finally even admit they might be able to have a relationship). The plots hinge on mysteries nad her past, not on her romance with Curran. His character is awesome and helps round out the books, but ultimately, the plots would still work if they weren't romantically involved, especially in the first books.  And that, to me, is the difference between PNR and UF. 

Anyway... returning the thread to its topic. I think Jim has a decent reading list on offer now, so hopefully he learned what he wanted to know.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Tulonsae said:


> Okay. But I've never seen the Hunger Games movie, and the author didn't hint they were black. She described them that way. So, does that mean the characters weren't black in the movie?


They weren't.

Just as Hermione wasn't black in the movies, though she has been described as would be fitting more a black than a white person. In a stageplay she now is played by a black actor, and Rowlings confirmed - when asked - that Hermione wasn't written to be unequivocally white. Rather the opposite.



> I can't really comment on the Harry Potter books. And since I was giving my own experience - as a thought experiment - I didn't mention them.


Why should anyone expect you to comment on the Potter books? I can't follow there.


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## Kalen ODonnell (Nov 24, 2011)

As a white author, I'm fully aware that when I write characters who are different races, different sexualities....inevitably, at some point, no matter how well I do my research or how many beta readers I get anecdotal experiences from, I get it wrong. Sooner or later, there is a black reader who takes offense at my misrepresentation of a character whose experiences I can not claim personally, or an Asian reader, or a transgender reader.

But here's the thing though. That's okay.

Because you know what? They're right to take offense at whatever I get wrong. Just because I may have the best intentions in trying to write more diverse viewpoints, add more diverse characters, doesn't mean I should be free of criticism (however volatile) when I get it wrong.

So I don't take it personally, and I don't dismiss what they have to say. I listen, I see what I learn from it and apply to my future efforts, and I move on to the next thing and try and do better. 

What I haven't had happen, is ever see someone tell me I shouldn't even try. Not saying that's never going to happen, but in my experience the vast majority of people would prefer to see sincere, GENUINE efforts at including them and their experiences than just shut them out entirely because they'll never get it right. Of course they're critical of these efforts. Of course they're going to have something to say and some anger to express if the execution is particularly galling or triggers something the author may not have ever intended. Why shouldn't they? I'm bisexual and see very few male bisexual viewpoints included in fiction, and as much as I want to see more, I'm going to roll my eyes at poorly executed, stereotypical bi characters who can't commit to a single person of one gender without redefining themselves or who go back and forth between boyfriends and girlfriends like there's a quota to reach. But when I do see those, I don't think to myself ugh I don't want that author to ever attempt a bi character again. I think ugh, I have a lot of opinions about this and hope they'll be heard by the author and worked into their future books, and if not, I'll probably just stop reading him/her.

In the end, for me personally, because of how much I want characters like myself reflecting my experiences to be represented well in fiction, it's more important for me to include diverse characters and viewpoints than it is to stay free of criticism. Everyone has to make their own choice on this, I would rather just try and screw it up and learn from that than play it safe.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Kalen ODonnell said:


> What I haven't had happen, is ever see someone tell me I shouldn't even try.


I don't know where you've looked, but I have seen quite a few of those around, and from every where on the spectrum: black, asian, gay, and bi people, transsexual and asexual people, and just about any minority you could care to name.


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## Dominique Mondesir (Dec 15, 2015)

Growing up I loved reading, but like many of you know, all the great books are mostly based on Caucasian characters. Now that fault doesn’t lie with the authors who wrote those books, it lies on me. As I should have searched out the type of books I wanted to read a bit better. Just everything published trad, seemed to be written for just one audience in mind. 
All my favourite books growing up from Harry Potter, to the Discworld series, to His Dark Materials, all had white faces. But I still loved the books just the same, I could still relate, because they were no different than me. 
Just a different skin tone.
I think people have been told how to think, and act for so long, that we believe the stereotypes that we are shown. If the images that are shown to you from birth till now, are all one way, then should we really be surprised that we don’t want to step out of our lane.
I am a black male under thirty and I like to:
Write
Fish
Swim
Ride motorbikes
Watch anime/ cartoons
Do Martial Arts 
Travel
Not different, to anyone else with or without colour. We are all the same, with just different hopes, and fears, and desires. That’s the only thing that makes any of us different. As indie authors we are on the fringe of what we do anyway, so why not push that further. 
We are the creators, we make the world as we see fit.
Yes you should always write for a known audience, but sometimes we can create something, that changes how the world views itself. From Fifty Shades of Grey, to Harry Potter, all the way back to the era of Dickens. I know it’s a big ask, but if I can create something that makes the world a better place, that makes the world see that we ain’t that different after all, then I can die a happy man.
I guess that is what most of us want in the end really. 
To leave the world a better place, then when we arrived.


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## Matthew Stott (Oct 22, 2014)

Annie B said:


> There are plenty of readers, period, who don't mind (and even seek out) romantic subplots in their fiction. Urban fantasy is no exception.


Well of course. There's a large amount of readers to aim at there, if that's the kind of thing you want to write.


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## Nikki Vaughn (May 21, 2014)

Coming out of lurk mode because I find this discussion interesting and also because I happen to be working on an urban fantasy novel set in Detroit.

What really drives me nuts about the lack of diversity in urban fantasy is when an author creates a story in a setting (usually a city) that would naturally have a lot people of color around and then almost completely ignores their existence. To me that's lazy and boring writing.

I'm in the middle of writing the first of a UF series set in Detroit with a black female main character. There's going to be Hispanic, Black, Arab, Indian and White people in that story. Why? Not because I'm trying to win the diversity sweepstakes or anything, but because a) if there is any city in the US that screams for some urban fantasy, it's Detroit and b) *that's who lives and/or works there.* It would be supremely disingenuous for me to write this novel in this setting and have only white people in it.

As a white lady, am I going to get stuff wrong? Probably. (Actually, almost certainly.) And someone will someone eventually call me out on it, quite rightly? Probably. I'll try to listen, try to learn and do better the next time around. But the fear that I might screw something up is not going to stop me from writing the series I want to write.



brkingsolver said:


> Keep in mind that the grand majority of UF/PNR is based on European mythologies: vampires, elfs, fairies, werewolfs, etc. That sort of naturally lends itself to writing white characters. Also keep in mind the audience, which is overwhelmingly female.


Why? This makes no sense to me at all.



brkingsolver said:


> An example (though not about race): Darynda Jones has a UF Charlie Davidson series set in Albuquerque. In "First Grave on the Right", she mentions the mesquite in the landscape. I almost threw the kindle against the wall. There ain't no damned mesquite in New Mexico. It's in Texas.
> 
> Now, you may think that's a minor thing. It showed me that the author didn't know anything about her setting. I spent the rest of the book looking for more errors.
> 
> Unless I know what I'm talking about, I'm not going to write it. Pulling the reader out of the book due to some picky little thing isn't worth it.


Interesting that you should mention this, because what's probably the best selling urban fantasy series out there right now, The Dresden Files, gets so many things about Chicago wrong that it's incredible. And yet somehow it manages to do okay in the sales department.


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## Kalen ODonnell (Nov 24, 2011)

Nic said:


> I don't know where you've looked, but I have seen quite a few of those around, and from every where on the spectrum: black, asian, gay, and bi people, transsexual and asexual people, and just about any minority you could care to name.


*Shrugs* Not saying you're wrong, just relating my own anecdotal experiences. Not to mention, for every one of those who did say 'don't even try', how many other readers of those demographics were there who maybe were just as glad you did try, even if they didn't think you fully got it right and there was room for improvement?

Look, how often as writers do we talk about how you can't please everyone and your work isn't going to reach or appeal to everyone equally? Whether in regards to genre conventions, themes, content, topics, etc....over and over again the message is no matter what you do, no matter how well you write, there is no such thing as 'the right thing to do' in writing, there is nothing that will grant you universal appeal or affirmation or draw you no criticism from no quarters. Do what's best for you and your story, be confident in your decision and why you made that decision, and accept that not everyone's going to like or agree with it.

So I'm just saying...isn't it a tad convenient that the one time so many writers seem to agree they should be quiet and respect however many voices tell them 'this is the thing you shouldn't write because you're not the right color/gender/sexuality'....is the one time those voices are essentially giving them permission or an excuse not to do the thing they're already wary of doing?

And yeah, if a writer's getting dozens of black readers p*ssed off at their depiction of a black character and saying they don't want them writing black viewpoints, maybe it's because that writer's execution, intentionally or not, really was vastly more terrible and offensive than they realized and the reason so many readers want them to sit down is because that writer honestly doesn't seem to grasp or care about their complaints?

Also, it's important to not write all such 'stay in your lane' arguments off as one and the same. For instance, if I'm a white writer including black characters in a sf/f genre story and trying not to simply white wash those characters and still stay true to how their lives and cultural experiences aren't interchangeable with white ones....that's still an entirely different matter from say, writing black characters in a story about racial segregation and struggles that as a white man, really aren't mine to appropriate and exploit for dramatic story fodder. I know a lot of black readers who would have zero problem with me attempting the first kind of story and character, and massive problems with me attempting the second. But all of those readers saying 'leave THAT kind of story to black writers who know firsthand what they're talking about' is not necessarily all those readers saying 'don't include any black characters or experiences ever', you know?

I don't know, I'm just saying...there is no right answer. Just like with everything else in writing, you have to do what's best for you and the stories you want to tell. And the fact is, if you're a writer with a certain amount of privilege writing a minority viewpoint outside of your own personal experiences....this is one of the few places where your privilege actively works against you. The very thing that means the cards usually aren't stacked against you means that when it comes to this, they are.

Yeah, if I'm a white writer writing minority characters and viewpoints? I can't win. I literally can not win. No matter what I do, someone will have issue with it. If I choose not to write or include diverse viewpoints for fear of getting them wrong, I'm going to p*ss off minority readers who are sick of being excluded. If I choose to write or include diverse viewpoints because that's more important to me than getting them wrong, I'm going to p*ss off minority readers who are sick of white or straight or male writers getting it wrong.

And like...if I can't win anyway? I'm still going to go with the path that's in line with the kind of stories I want to tell, the one that reflects the real, diverse world I live in, rather than the path that gives me an excuse to not do anything at all.


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## Kalen ODonnell (Nov 24, 2011)

RomanceWriter77 said:


> My criteria for reading a UF book is no relationship subplot, no romance. Can you come up with a natural sounding narrative for that book in which the hero just happens to mention that he's gay? Because I can't come up with one scenario in which it's pertinent to mention it. It's also not pertinent to mention where he goes on vacation or whether or not he prefers mints to gum.


Scenarios in which it's pertinent to mention a gay character's sexuality in an UF:

- How he or she interacts with their family or close friends, and whether or not they're open about their sexuality
- How he or she casually references exes and previous relationships
- How he or she jokes with close friends or colleagues, if those jokes are sexual in nature (as they frequently are in UF)
- What kind of supporting cast he or she is surrounded by, as it's not remotely atypical for a gay person to have other gay friends or live in a gay-friendly neighborhood, even if they're not sleeping with any of them or dating or even interested in dating at the moment
- Whether he or she views the book's smooth-talking diabolical mastermind villain as seductive, sexually appealing or merely a grade A d**chebag
- Whether he or she views the book's smooth-talking, diabolical femme fatale as seductive, sexually appealing or merely an irksome blonde
- How his or her personal history (filtered through the lens of how their sexuality helped shape their life) led to their career path or proficiency with certain skills or weapons. A gay cop is going to have a different experience coming up through the ranks of a police force, whether or not they were subjected to any kind of homophobia in the process
- How he or she comes out to any new characters they're introduced to, because any gay person knows that you don't just come out once, it's an experience you repeat with literally every new person you let into your life as you make the choice whether or not they need to know you're gay and when and how you reveal it
- How he or she views organized religions with a history of anti-gay sentiments, particularly in books with plots revolving around angels and demons and secret church sects devoted to hunting vampires
- How their sexuality impacts any non-human nature or characteristics they might have, for instance if they're a were or shapeshifter of some kind with animal instincts or pack hierarchies or matings or arranged marriages

I mean, I could go on? Sorry, but I just don't buy any variation of 'there's no reason for an LGBT character's sexuality to come up if they're not actively dating/sleeping with someone'.


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## Nancy_Bout (Nov 13, 2014)

Urban fantasy has nothing to do w skin color. 



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

My main series is a modern retelling of the Sidhe, the mythology of the Irish clans. Inserting blacks or hispanics or jews into stories set mainly in Ireland would be silly. One of the books is partially set in South America, and one of the main characters marries a man from Ecuador of Spanish heritage. I have a short story in a shifter anthology and the MC is Aztec from Mexico. Where else would a jaguar shifter come from?



NPrestin said:


> Why? This makes no sense to me at all.
> 
> Interesting that you should mention this, because what's probably the best selling urban fantasy series out there right now, The Dresden Files, gets so many things about Chicago wrong that it's incredible. And yet somehow it manages to do okay in the sales department.


Why are elfs and fairies from Northern European mythology white? Probably because when the myths were developed the people doing it had never seen anyone with dark skin.

As to Darynda Jones getting her facts wrong on the background of her books, I don't care if she's the all time best seller. It's sloppy, and it angers people who actually grew up and live in the setting she mis-describes. It's inexcusable.

If gender or race or any other factor fits into the story I'm trying to tell, then I'll use it. Simply throwing a black person into a book set in Ireland just to have a black person doesn't make sense. If I was writing about Baltimore, where 60% of the population is black, it would be silly to not have any black people. But the black people I would write would be like me, college educated and middle class. I'm not going to try and write a book from the POV of someone who grew up in the ghetto. I would consider that presumptuous. Could I write one of someone who grew up in Santa Fe's barrio? Yes. I lived there, grew up there. I'm comfortable with the way people think, how they view the world, the customs, the speech.

I've had a story sitting on the back burner for over a year (not UF) about an intersexed college student. I haven't written it because I'm not sure there's a market. I know there's a LGT market, I know there's a New Adult hetero market, but considering the prejudice against bisexuals from both hetero and gay, is there going to be a market for someone who not only swings both ways, but whose body is confused? I'd probably have to market it as "literary fiction", and we all know how many copies that will sell from an indie author.


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## Lou Harpr (Nov 5, 2014)

Having relationships, emotional entanglements is a normal part of the human experience. It would be strange not having any of it, especially in a series. In the Rivers of London books the protagonist's involvement with two women is an integral part of the plot without making the book in any form a romance.


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## Nikki Vaughn (May 21, 2014)

brkingsolver said:


> Why are elfs and fairies from Northern European mythology white? Probably because when the myths were developed the people doing it had never seen anyone with dark skin.


Heh, no that's not what I was asking. I get why a fairy from Ireland would be white. I get why if you set your book in a place like Sweden or the UP of Michigan, you might have almost entirely white characters. What I don't get is why Urban Fantasy that deals with Vampires, Werewolves, Faries or whatever would automatically lend themselves to mostly white protagonists. Like... black people can't be vampires? POC can't be witches? Nothing about those myths, stories or legends says to me that they automatically lend themselves to white protagonists over poc.

I mean look, I've writing UF where Greek gods come to Motown. Are the gods themselves they way they are described in greek mythology? Yes. That doesn't stop me from having a black main character tho.



brkingsolver said:


> If gender or race or any other factor fits into the story I'm trying to tell, then I'll use it. Simply throwing a black person into a book set in Ireland just to have a black person doesn't make sense. If I was writing about Baltimore, where 60% of the population is black, it would be silly to not have any black people. But the black people I would write would be like me, college educated and middle class.


And since there are a lot of middle class, college educated black people out there, I don't see why that would be a problem.



brkingsolver said:


> I'm not going to try and write a book from the POV of someone who grew up in the ghetto. I would consider that presumptuous.


How is it more presumptuous than writing your average science fiction novel? I mean, I don't know what it would be like to be raised in a colony on Mars, but I can try to figure it out. I also don't know what it's like to be an Empress in charge of a fantasy empire or what it would be like to be Zeus, but you know, I have a brain and an imagination, I can do some research and I can take my best shot. So this is an argument that's never made a hell of a lot of sense to me.


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## JLCarver (Sep 13, 2015)

Deleted. My words are not yours.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

Annie B said:


> So... nope. Without the romances, even though they don't necessarily get a HFN/HEA like in some books, Dresden Files would not be nearly the same. That doesn't make them romance, of course, any more than something like Elemental Assassin is romance despite having her in multiple relationships etc.
> 
> I can't imagine Kate without Curran... however, I can imagine the plots without the romance subplots. It wouldn't be the same of course (same as Dresden wouldn't), but the plots would still hang together (it takes four books for them to finally even admit they might be able to have a relationship). The plots hinge on mysteries nad her past, not on her romance with Curran. His character is awesome and helps round out the books, but ultimately, the plots would still work if they weren't romantically involved, especially in the first books. And that, to me, is the difference between PNR and UF.


Well, exactly. That's because the romances are serving a purpose in character building / plot even if they aren't the focus of the story, which is as it should be in good stories. And yes--PNR is part of the Romance genre. Urban Fantasy is part of the Fantasy genre, and Urban Fantasy Romance is specifically a sub-genre of Urban Fantasy.

But in UFR the relationship does get a bit more focus than it might otherwise and, I think, there is an implied promise of an (eventual) HEA for the couple. What I mean by that is that there would be hell to pay if the love interest in an UFR died. Rioting among the readership. And granted every author (and every series) has a different readership, but a lot of UFR authors spend some time (especially early days in the series) telling the reader that eventually the couple will get their HEA, it just might take a bit, etc. etc. Why? Because they were getting crossover from PNR and they were getting complaints about the books not following the Romance playbook. Early days (ten or so years ago), there was a bit of a "You got your romance in my Urban Fantasy" and "You got your Urban Fantasy in my Romance." I think that's mostly settled itself now (at least with anyone who's actually been reading over the past fifteen years), but the distinctions in the subgenres came about for the reason they always do--to help readers find what they want to read-and it has nothing to do with sexism.

And Dresden--making eyes at Molly? When she was younger? What? I must have missed that. I also didn't see him looking at all women lustfully. Bob, maybe... LOL


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

NPrestin said:


> Heh, no that's not what I was asking. I get why a fairy from Ireland would be white. I get why if you set your book in a place like Sweden or the UP of Michigan, you might have almost entirely white characters. What I don't get is why Urban Fantasy that deals with Vampires, Werewolves, Faries or whatever would automatically lend themselves to mostly white protagonists. Like... black people can't be vampires? POC can't be witches? Nothing about those myths, stories or legends says to me that they automatically lend themselves to white protagonists over poc.
> 
> I mean look, I've writing UF where Greek gods come to Motown. Are the gods themselves they way they are described in greek mythology? Yes. That doesn't stop me from having a black main character tho.
> 
> ...


I don't understand why you want to argue with me. I haven't disputed anything you have said, but you seem to want to tell me what to write. I have simply stated my position and my reasons for what I write, and my understanding as to why, with a majority white, female audience, I thing UF books are the way they are. That doesn't stop me from reading about characters who are not white or female or green goblins. Write what you want to, but please stop telling me what you think I should do.


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## Nikki Vaughn (May 21, 2014)

brkingsolver said:


> I don't understand why you want to argue with me. I haven't disputed anything you have said, but you seem to want to tell me what to write. I have simply stated my position and my reasons for what I write, and my understanding as to why, with a majority white, female audience, I thing UF books are the way they are. That doesn't stop me from reading about characters who are not white or female or green goblins. Write what you want to, but please stop telling me what you think I should do.


I'm not trying to tell you what to write. That was not my intention at all. Write the books you want to write.

But you made some statements that I didn't understand and disagree with such as urban fantasy lending itself to white protagonists because of the supernatural subject matter and how it's presumptuous to write outside of your own personal experience. Since these are things that baffle me (and we're on a discussion forum), I was asking about it.


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## JLCarver (Sep 13, 2015)

Deleted. My words are not yours.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Annie B said:


> Actually, no, I can't imagine Dresden Files without the romance plots. Without Susan to teach him about his own fallability and later about responsibility, he wouldn't be the same. Without Luccio, there's an entire multi-book antagonist plot that would completely be made irrelevant. Without Karrin, Harry would come off as even more sexist than he already does (he pretty much lusts after every woman he sees, even Molly when she's just a teenager, it gets a little creepy sometimes but I figure it is a part of his char and hopefully intended).
> 
> So... nope. Without the romances, even though they don't necessarily get a HFN/HEA like in some books, Dresden Files would not be nearly the same. That doesn't make them romance, of course, any more than something like Elemental Assassin is romance despite having her in multiple relationships etc.
> 
> ...


I think you're right that the various romances Dresden has had couldn't be extracted from the books without damaging them. But I also think the distinction Anne V. is drawing is a valuable one. You could put the Night Huntress, Kate Daniels, and Dresden series on a continuum. With Dresden, romance is not the focus. It's not weirdly absent or anything -- the guy isn't a monk. But it's definitely not the point. Even in that early book where he gets involved with Susan, which had the strongest romance plot so far, the romance wasn't the main engine of the narrative. In contrast, Night Huntress series really emphasizes the relationship. I read a few of the books and then stopped. The focus on sex and relationship angst became tiresome for me. At this point, some years after reading the books, I can't remember what else was going on in them. "Will Bones's ex- tear him and Cat apart?" overwhelmed whatever else is going on in that particular book to the degree that I've forgotten the rest. Obviously, this subtype of UF isn't my favorite, though many people love it. The Kate Daniels series is in between -- the romance plot is WAY more central than Dresden's romances are, but there's also a strong mystery/problem plot in every book. Years after reading the books, I remember them primarily by the mystery/problem Kate was trying to solve ("the one with the magic flare," "the one where they had to be gladiators"), not by what was going on in Kate's relationship with Curran.

So, it's useful for me to be able to think of UF as having sub-subgenres like "UFR" inside it. There's a real difference in feel and emphasis in the way romance plots are woven into UF stories. Being able to categorize them seems helpful. I know categorizing carries risk because categories can be used to isolate and disparage. But if they're treated responsibly, they can be helpful and productive. I wish there were a few more sub-subgenres, actually.



Anne Victory said:


> And Dresden--making eyes at Molly? When she was younger? What? I must have missed that.


Sounds like an excuse to reread. 

And while I'm the last person who should be saying this, _why is the next book in that series taking so long_


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## IreneP (Jun 19, 2012)

HSh said:


> Would you feel comfortable reading a UF if the gay person wasn't in a relationship? I mean, everyone is assumed to be straight in most fiction, but just because they're not doesn't mean it's actively a romance.


This. Characters don't (shouldn't) exist in a vacuum. Even in fantasy/urban fantasy where there is not a strong romantic element they have wives/husbands, boyfriends/girlfriends, flirt with the cute guy/girl. These are people who make up their lives and help build the character even if they enjoy very little representation on page. So if a character is gay, those people might happen to be of the same sex. It doesn't mean there has to be a huge romance or big I AM GAY declarations. It's just who the character is in the same way that many fantasy MCs are white, straight men.

I mean, the characters you enjoy don't go around screaming I'M STRAIGHT, do they? And yet you probably have a clear idea that they are. Why should LGBT characters be any different?


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## Nancy_Bout (Nov 13, 2014)

Nope it doesn't say you can't have people of color in any book lol
It can be whatever you wish! 
I'm mixed and I don't know what color has to do with books I'm lost!
A good book is a good book!
I love the characters white black Indian whatever the book is about!
Yes urban fiction absolutely has every right to put people of color IN!
All I said is its not about skin color 
I grew up in Husdon county NJ ... I can write a good urban fantasy right from that area lol

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

Becca Mills said:


> I think you're right that the various romances Dresden has had couldn't be extracted from the books without damaging them. But I also think the distinction Anne V. is drawing is a valuable one. You could put the Night Huntress, Kate Daniels, and Dresden series on a continuum. With Dresden, romance is not the focus. It's not weirdly absent or anything -- the guy isn't a monk. But it's definitely not the point. Even in that early book where he gets involved with Susan, which had the strongest romance plot so far, the romance wasn't the main engine of the narrative. In contrast, Night Huntress series really emphasizes the relationship. I read a few of the books and then stopped. The focus on sex and relationship angst became tiresome for me. At this point, some years after reading the books, I can't remember what else was going on in them. "Will Bones's ex- tear him and Cat apart?" overwhelmed whatever else is going on in that particular book to the degree that I've forgotten the rest. Obviously, this subtype of UF isn't my favorite, though many people love it. The Kate Daniels series is in between -- the romance plot is WAY more central than Dresden's romances are, but there's also a strong mystery/problem plot in every book. Years after reading the books, I remember them primarily by the mystery/problem Kate was trying to solve ("the one with the magic flare," "the one where they had to be gladiators"), not by what was going on in Kate's relationship with Curran.
> 
> So, it's useful for me to be able to think of UF as having sub-subgenres like "UFR" inside it. There's a real difference in feel and emphasis in the way romance plots are woven into UF stories. Being able to categorize them seems helpful. I know categorizing carries risk because categories can be used to isolate and disparage. But if they're treated responsibly, they can be helpful and productive. I wish there were a few more sub-subgenres, actually.
> 
> ...


Becca, exactly! Thanks for putting it better than I did  I also agree about sometimes needing more subgenres. I'd love to see something for romances stretching across multiple books. However, Annie's right that I've jumped the topic tracks  Oh! Butcher started a new series. I want to say steampunk. I haven't read it yet, but I believe it's out.

Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk


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## Dom (Mar 15, 2014)

JLCarver said:


> According to a 2012 study from the Cooperative Children's Book Center, in a survey of 3,600 books for children:
> 
> 3.3 percent of them were about African-Americans
> 2.1 percent of them were about Asian-Pacific Americans
> ...


Here's the problem with these statistics: they don't track the number of books about white Americans. From the organization's own website, they admit to not bothering: https://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/books/pcstats.asp

Someone who sees this list might assume "ok, 7.5% minorities, so it must be 92.5% white." But that's not true at all. It might turn out that 10% are cars, 35% are animals, 25% are monsters/ aliens/ numbers/ shapes/ other, and 22.5% are white. In that case, African-Americans might actually be OVER-represented.

Sure, I just made up those numbers. There might be a real problem here, but it's impossible to tell with thoese stats.


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## C. Rysalis (Feb 26, 2015)

Shei Darksbane's UF series takes place in the States, but some of the werewolves are of Scandinavian origin, and the vampire love interest is French. I loved that mix.


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## JLCarver (Sep 13, 2015)

Deleted. My words are not yours.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

Trying to get myself on target here... diversity. This is actually coming up a good bit now, in books and film. People are wanting to see characters of all backgrounds and cultures. But I understand why authors might be afraid to write outside their own background. There's a lot at stake, and some people are really outspoken if they think you got it wrong. Which is kind of ironic condidering more goes into developing someone's background and personality than just skin color and what revs your engine, so I tend to raise a brow when someone says the book doesn't match with their experience, so clearly the author got it wrong.

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## Dom (Mar 15, 2014)

JLCarver said:


> No, it does track the number of books about white people. All the books not listed are about white people. That's something to be inferred by they ellipses in that list.


JL, there is no wiggle room on this. As politely as possible, you are incorrect.

Here's a quote on their website about their methodology:


> Does that mean the remaining books are all about white people? No. Even though we don't document the number of books about white people, we know there are certainly picture books books published every year featuring animal characters or trucks or other high-interest topics; and nonfiction about aspects of the natural world, etc.


Which is why I think releasing those stats is disingenuous, because people (as you displayed) will have a tendency to assume the rest are white.

That's not to mention the other problems with their methodology. Does Indian and the Middle-East all fit into Asian-Pacific? Haitians and Zimbabweans are not African-Americans... are they being counted as such? What about characters lacking obvious ethnicity? I mean, I have a copy of Where the Wild Things Are. That boy is white, but there's nothing that says he isn't hispanic. (Which probably explains why Latinos are underrepresented compared to African-Americans.) Are books about Jewish girls not worth counting? Etc.

But don't trust my word for it. Read the website that I linked. Actual datapoints>Twitter datapoints.


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## JLCarver (Sep 13, 2015)

Deleted. My words are not yours.


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## Dom (Mar 15, 2014)

I get that you disagree on my other point. I don't know who's right or wrong there. There's no data. My only dog in this fight was about the statistics you posted.

We're probably not going to agree on the second point, which is fine. (No offense taken). I'll address it once to clarify, however.

You said this:


> the default that most people go to is white


And I absolutely agree. But that's _because most people are white_. So yes, white people will assume a raceless person is white. However many things can change that. If the book takes place in Zimbabwe, I wouldn't make that assumption.

Personally, I mention races in my books, usually based on the viewpoint of the POV character. So a black guy probably wouldn't constantly note black people. The exception is what's more important in my mind. It might be worth specifically pointing out that somebody is white from that POV. But yes, usually my POVs are white. I often mention this character is black or this one's Mexican or this one's Yavapai. I like fleshing out characters this way.

All I said was I was never sure I bought the argument that the default is white. I mean, if you're a black boy reading a story about a mom giving her son a Christmas present, I don't see why that boy would assume the character are white.


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## katherinef (Dec 13, 2012)

I never indicate the race of a character in my books because to me it just doesn't matter, and if I tried, I'm sure I'd make a mess of it. When I read, I mostly tend to ignore descriptions and imagine the characters the way I want them to look, especially when it comes to main characters.


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## 77071 (May 15, 2014)

I just want to say, and I'm not sure I'm a great example or anything, but I've been nervous about including African-American characters in my stories, but took the leap anyway a couple of times, even knowing I could "get something wrong."

There was no backlash. Nobody hated on me. I even received a couple of emails from African-Americans expressing *gratitude* that I'd included black people in my stories. That more than anything made me angry. *You shouldn't have to be grateful there are characters like you in a story or so in an entire genre!! *


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## MelodieRochelle (Jan 4, 2016)

Just my opinion. I much prefer covers that don't consist of half-naked men or women on the cover and I usually pass them by. If I ever find a book with a cover that has a fully clothed person in an incredible setting, white or not, then I'm intrigued. I agree with the OP. I'm sure some book covers are not what he describes, but I do find it difficult to find anything different from it in the genre of urban fantasy.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Domino Finn said:


> Here's the problem with these statistics: they don't track the number of books about white Americans. From the organization's own website, they admit to not bothering: https://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/books/pcstats.asp
> 
> Someone who sees this list might assume "ok, 7.5% minorities, so it must be 92.5% white." But that's not true at all. It might turn out that 10% are cars, 35% are animals, 25% are monsters/ aliens/ numbers/ shapes/ other, and 22.5% are white. In that case, African-Americans might actually be OVER-represented.
> 
> Sure, I just made up those numbers. There might be a real problem here, but it's impossible to tell with thoese stats.


This stuff does get complicated. But keep in mind how pervasive racial categories are. Watch the movie _Cars _again and note that several of the cars are given explicit racial/ethnic markers via the way they speak. There's Ramone the lowrider (sounds Latino) and Flo the gas station owner (sounds African American). The presence of these cars makes the other cars seem "white" by comparison.

Basically, race is such a overwhelming touchstone in the U.S. that, if something has been anthropomorphized in any way, it becomes subject to racial categories. It's sort of disturbing, if you think about it. It's a sign of how fundamental racial categories are to the way we think. There's really no escaping them.

So, I could see arguing that anthropomorphized animal/inanimate-object characters in children's books do have races, or at least racial associations, even absent the kind of obvious markers we see in _Cars_.



Anne Victory said:


> Trying to get myself on target here... diversity. This is actually coming up a good bit now, in books and film. People are wanting to see characters of all backgrounds and cultures.


I suspect U.S. demographics trends are strengthening the call for diversity. We're moving toward a "majority minority" nation (non-Hispanic whites as a percentage of the U.S. population will drop below 50% in 25 years or so). People of color are demanding their fair share of the cultural mainstream, as well they deserve.

It's worth noting that non-Hispanic whites have been in the minority in many of the U.S.'s largest cities for a while, now, which is why Jim used "urban" as a metonymy for "diversity" in this thread's title.


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## JLCarver (Sep 13, 2015)

Deleted. My words are not yours.


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## Sonya Bateman (Feb 3, 2013)

MelodieRochelle said:


> Just my opinion. I much prefer covers that don't consist of half-naked men or women on the cover and I usually pass them by. If I ever find a book with a cover that has a fully clothed person in an incredible setting, white or not, then I'm intrigued. I agree with the OP. I'm sure some book covers are not what he describes, but I do find it difficult to find anything different from it in the genre of urban fantasy.


Annie Bellet's heroine is fully clothed in a cool setting.


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## Dom (Mar 15, 2014)

Becca Mills said:


> This stuff does get complicated. But keep in mind how pervasive racial categories are. Watch the movie _Cars _again and note that several of the cars are given explicit racial/ethnic markers via the way they speak. There's Ramone the lowrider (sounds Latino) and Flo the gas station owner (sounds African American). The presence of these cars makes the other cars seem "white" by comparison.


Aren't some of the characters (like the tow truck) exaggerated Hicksville ********? To your point, does the presence of that car make the others seem less white by comparison?

For the record, I don't see a problem with applying racial markers to anthropomorphized characters. Especially in a movie (as opposed to a children's picture book), where the characters are being voiced by real (and often well known) actors. Of course, representations can reach offensive levels.


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## Dom (Mar 15, 2014)

To be clear, in my previous posts I'm speaking of the US population, which is where the statistics collected and the Amazon.com lists represent.


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## jazzywaltz (Jan 3, 2016)

brkingsolver said:


> Another male hispanic author writing UF is Mario Acevedo. Then there's the Black Dagger Brotherhood by Ilona Andrews


Er... the Black Dagger Brotherhood is by JR Ward.


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## jazzywaltz (Jan 3, 2016)

Although I'm not a fan of the term "write what you know", I think in the case of racial diversity that's pretty much what happens. A lot of the authors writing white characters are, well, white. It requires effort and a significant amount of research to write an MC with a cultural and racial background different from your own so I imagine this is one of the reasons.

But also, of the UF demographic, just how many readers happen to be white females? I bet if an analysis was done you would discover it was a large portion. So from a marketing standpoint that's a good reason to write white female characters.

I technically don't write UF, but my books nevertheless have an UF feel and my readers tend to compare it to the genre. If I had to describe my character's heritage in Earth terms, she'd be an American with Persian ancestry. So she's sort of white, but not quite.


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## Austin_Briggs (Aug 21, 2011)

I'm a male author, but about 50% of the 30 or so books I've written have a female protagonist. I actually enjoy writing 2 similar series in parallel: one from a male and one from a female point of view.

Most of my protagonists are of Russian or Ukrainian heritage for the very obvious reason of it being my own heritage. Although one series is written as an Irish-Mexican guy, and one as a Japanese American girl. These were fun to write.

My point is, I write what I know or can make sound credible. That's all there is to it.

Now, my kids, who are also of Japanese heritage, would write different kind of books, I'm sure. But I've never once heard them mention the subject of race. it just doesn't seem to bother them at all.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Domino Finn said:


> Aren't some of the characters (like the tow truck) exaggerated Hicksville ********? To your point, does the presence of that car make the others seem less white by comparison?


Maybe! It's an interesting question. There's also a car that speaks with an Italian accent, I think -- the one that sells tires. That's another one whose "whiteness" is more explicit than the main characters'.



Domino Finn said:


> For the record, I don't see a problem with applying racial markers to anthropomorphized characters. Especially in a movie (as opposed to a children's picture book), where the characters are being voiced by real (and often well known) actors. Of course, representations can reach offensive levels.


I don't have a problem with it either. But it does mean that, in a study like the one JL cited, you might not be able to exclude en masse all books with non-human characters. Some of those characters might be racialized despite their non-humanness.



JLCarver said:


> Whites only account for 16% of the world's population.


I'm glad to get this figure! Since I write portal fantasy, with an other world that was colonized by humans from our world, I wanted to figure out about what percentage of people my MC met over there would be of European, Asian, African, etc. heritage. My rough math told me only about one in five people she meets in the other world should be white. Sounds like it should even be a bit lower than that.


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## jlstovall4 (Oct 6, 2015)

jazzywaltz said:


> Although I'm not a fan of the term "write what you know", I think in the case of racial diversity that's pretty much what happens. ... It requires effort and a significant amount of research to write an MC with a cultural and racial background different from your own so I imagine this is one of the reasons.


Like I said earlier, this is the part that I disagree with. I don't think you have to. It helps, but it's not necessary. Almost every book has at least both sexes in them. Very few people say, "Hey let me study the opposite sex to write them." It's smart to at least have "scenes of concern" screened. I think the same issue applies to diversity.

Let's take Blacks/African-Americans. There's a huge difference between Barack Obama and Ice Cube. They have two totally different backgrounds even though they are both considered "Black." If a white person happens to be say Middle Class, then if they decide to write a Black character they can easily make the character middle class too. Most Black people aren't that different than White people.

Latinos, Asians, Indians, etc really aren't that different. It's up to the writer to determine how much "culture" goes into the book. What if someone wrote about a 3rd generation Asian orphan that is raised by Middle Class whites. Or a Black person who was in foster care, but was actually a good kid.

I think part of the problem is that people get caught up in stereotypes, instead of understanding that people come from lots of different walks of life.

_I will say this, however, from going to several diversity panels at several book fairs and conventions. The subject is sensitive for many people. While some Minorities are excited about anyone writing stories with them as leads or secondary characters, there are some who are not. I think ultimately it's up to the writer what they want to do._

I'm in the Southeast, so I like to write what I see. I like to have rich Whites and poor Whites and country-as-heck Whites. I like to see Black people and Asians and Latinos. I don't write as many Middle Easterners or Indians because I don't see them as much. But I love the fun of writing Science-Fiction with a southern twang. Where you have someone listening to Carrie Underwood or OutKast in a hovering pickup truck as they pull sawed off laser canons out of the back to go deer hunting. My goal is to represent the Southeast. I've decided not to worry about "race" as much as to show that Southerners can do Sci-Fi with the North and West Coast. But even that means I have to give respect to everyone in the South and think how would the cultures/races change over the next 100 to 1000 years.


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## jlstovall4 (Oct 6, 2015)

ゴジラ said:


> Generally true. However, I am white as the driven snow and often write non-white characters without tons of research. I just write them to be culturally similar to me. Lots of people with low-income working class backgrounds from Western America in all colors, shapes, sizes, and preternatural breeds.  I don't wanna be like "hey I am friends with people of color" but, uh, I am friends with people of color who are culturally indistinguishable from me in most ways. We all grew up together, in apartment complexes two blocks apart, dealing with the same crap, but everyone who looks at us at a glance would say "she's white and she's black and he's Latino." I just don't think you can generalize what a person's life experience will be based solely on race.
> 
> If I can put myself in the shoes of a vampire hunter, I think I can put myself through the vigorous effort required to put myself into the shoes of a vampire hunter who also happens to be Asian American, for instance.


Thank You, Thank You, Thank You 

"People of color" are not that different from white people. It's almost scary to hear so many people say that minorities are that different. It's like they are aliens. Instead of "Americans" or "Europeans" or whatever. Every black person I know wants to take care of their kids, have a good job, pay their taxes, and be safe. The same goes for every Asian, Latino, and White person I know. There may be a few songs that people listen to a little differently on the radio. But almost everyone i know watches football, the Olympics, watches movies, television, etc. We have more in common than we have that's different.


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## Dom (Mar 15, 2014)

Becca Mills said:


> I don't have a problem with it either. But it does mean that, in a study like the one JL cited, you might not be able to exclude en masse all books with non-human characters. Some of those characters might be racialized despite their non-humanness.


Probably true overall. In the study cited, they did exclude animals. There is admittedly (by me and the organization that collects those statistics) a lot of subjectiveness here, like what exactly counts as a major character.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Yeah. Geez. Human is human. Skin color can alter some things, mainly social stuff like how someone is treated or percieved (we see that going on right in this thread, alas), but soooooooooo many other things ALSO make characters different from one another. Socio-economic status, where they were born (city, country etc), if they were raised in a one or two (or more) parent household, if they like girls or boys or nobody or everybody, how much education they have, if they have learning disorders or social disorders or depression or chronic illness... so many factors.

My personal view is that if you don't know how to write people who aren't you, you aren't trying hard enough and should work on your craft, because you will run into limitations pretty quickly in what you can do.

Don't OTHER people just because they don't look like you, it's lame. Humans are humans. FFS.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Domino Finn said:


> Probably true overall. In the study cited, they did exclude animals. There is admittedly (by me and the organization that collects those statistics) a lot of subjectiveness here, like what exactly counts as a major character.


Yeah, that's true as well. "Major" is quite subjective.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

N. D. Iverson said:


> The very first "urban fantasy" series I read was the Novels of The Nightside series by Simon Green, which isn't a female lead. He is white though... And I started in on Richard Kadrey's Sandman Slim, also a white MALE. I can say for me, I picture urban fantasy as male dominated.
> 
> Unless romance is a huge part in it, then females leads dominate. Which makes sense to me.


Then... maybe you need to better educate yourself on the genre. There's romance subplots in UF with male leads. There's romance in UF with female leads. Female leads are actually the majority of Urban Fantasy. One of the awesome things about the genre is that women get to be kickbutt and do stuff.

So... yeah. This whole "if a female char is main and has a love interest, it must be more romancy but if it is a guy with a love interest it's still just UF" thing should die in a fire. It's sexism rearing its ugly head.


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## JalexM (May 14, 2015)

Annie B said:


> Yeah. Geez. Human is human. Skin color can alter some things, mainly social stuff like how someone is treated or percieved (we see that going on right in this thread, alas), but soooooooooo many other things ALSO make characters different from one another. Socio-economic status, where they were born (city, country etc), if they were raised in a one or two (or more) parent household, if they like girls or boys or nobody or everybody, how much education they have, if they have learning disorders or social disorders or depression or chronic illness... so many factors.
> 
> My personal view is that if you don't know how to write people who aren't you, you aren't trying hard enough and should work on your craft, because you will run into limitations pretty quickly in what you can do.
> 
> Don't OTHER people just because they don't look like you, it's lame. Humans are humans. FFS.


This.
Skin color isn't what makes me, me. It's everything else.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

ゴジラ said:


> On the general note of how having racial diversity in fantasy is "silly,"


On this note, I'm leaving this thread. I didn't say that. But the fact that people want to twist what you say, and are so quick to jump on perceived slights is the reason, as I cited earlier, to be cautious about writing about cultures with which you're not familiar.


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## JalexM (May 14, 2015)

brkingsolver said:


> On this note, I'm leaving this thread. I didn't say that. But the fact that people want to twist what you say, and are so quick to jump on perceived slights is the reason, as I cited earlier, to be cautious about writing about cultures with which you're not familiar.


The thing is skin color/race has nothing to do with a culture. In your post you cited skin color/race specially and not about different cultures. Skin color/race does not make a person.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Annie B said:


> Then... maybe you need to better educate yourself on the genre. There's romance subplots in UF with male leads. There's romance in UF with female leads. Female leads are actually the majority of Urban Fantasy. One of the awesome things about the genre is that women get to be kickbutt and do stuff.
> 
> So... yeah. This whole "if a female char is main and has a love interest, it must be more romancy but if it is a guy with a love interest it's still just UF" thing should die in a fire. It's sexism rearing its ugly head.


Thank you. I think I was trying to say something like that earlier in the thread, but you are much better with words than I am. Well, I am good with words, reading them that is. .

I am staying out of the diversity stuff though. I just read. If its good, I read it.

I don't know how you guys strike the balance on stuff.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

jlstovall4 said:


> I'm in the Southeast, so I like to write what I see. I like to have rich Whites and poor Whites and country-as-heck Whites. I like to see Black people and Asians and Latinos. I don't write as many Middle Easterners or Indians because I don't see them as much. But I love the fun of writing Science-Fiction with a southern twang. Where you have someone listening to Carrie Underwood or OutKast in a hovering pickup truck as they pull sawed off laser canons out of the back to go deer hunting. My goal is to represent the Southeast. I've decided not to worry about "race" as much as to show that Southerners can do Sci-Fi with the North and West Coast. But even that means I have to give respect to everyone in the South and think how would the cultures/races change over the next 100 to 1000 years.


I'm sold. Don't often see Southerners treated nonstereotypically--we're usually depicted as being dumber than dirt or the villain. And that's probably at the heart of the issue... it sucks to either not see yourself represented, or when you are, it's as a crude caricature. It's even worse when that portrayal is bad.

Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Cheryl M. said:


> Just because you give it a name, it doesn't mean it didn't exist before then. There was a time when it was just called literature or fantasy. Bram Stoker's Dracula would be considered UF today, and that was written in 1867. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, 1820. Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, 1843.
> 
> It's kind of like how many literature snobs like to say they don't read science fiction but express their for love H.G. Wells. You can call it classic literature all you want; it doesn't make it any less science fiction. :/
> 
> Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk


While this is absolutely true, the point I was trying to make is more about when it solidified as a genre on its own. Steampunk elements have existed since before the era most Steampunk seeks to emulate (I've got reproductions of books from the 1700s that are clearly Steampunk), but it wasn't a thing on its own until very recently too.


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## katherinef (Dec 13, 2012)

This thread is starting to become confusing to me. People are talking about race and then mention Hispanic/Latino, which isn't a race at all. Why are you guys fighting over Ireland? Just because diversity exists in some country doesn't mean people of different races have to appear in a story that focuses on a limited number of characters. What I want to say is that it wouldn't surprise me that there aren't any non-white characters in a story set in Ireland, just like it wouldn't surprise me that there are, but I wouldn't expect a lot of them (unless that's the focus of the story). Also, the Spanish and Irish are both white, so I don't see that as diversity at all. Cultural, maybe, but probably not much. 

Then again, I have a headache and maybe I misunderstood everything.   At this point I'm starting to think my werewolf Juan would get me points for diversity, even though he's white and his ethnicity doesn't really matter much because he's just like any other white character in the story. No, forget it. I don't understand anything anymore. As long as my readers are happy, I am too, and they're free to imagine my characters however they want.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

*pokes head in from finishing packing for trip to San Diego tomorrow*

Folks, let's keep it calm.  Don't spoil my good mood.

SMR, and everyone else--if you feel that you have to apologize to me or anyone else on the mod staff about what you're about to post, that's a sure sign that you shouldn't hit "Post."  Seriously.

I'm going to review and ponder...

Betsy
KB Mod


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

I'm sympathetic to the claim that it's hard for white writers to do justice to the experiences of people of color.

I don't want to go down the "othering" route -- the danger Annie B. mentioned. And it's easy to get to that place: "Wow, y'all are soooo different that I can't *possibly* understand you! It's almost like you're another species or something! Also, I know you'll bite my head off if I get the slightest thing wrong. (Y'ALL ARE SCARY!!!) I'll just keep my distance." That's obviously not good. It ignores the promise that the common ground of shared humanity holds out to all of us -- the possibility for connection, sharing, and empathy.

On the other hand, I do think there are aspects of being a person of color (or a member of another oppressed group) that I cannot understand in the visceral way a person of color would understand her/his own experience. I just have had not had to grapple with the same things or any equivalent of them. I can hear about them, do my best to learn about them, but it's always going to be secondhand. I don't want to glibly write off the difficulty of understanding and representing the repercussions of these experiences and approach it as though it were easy. I don't think it's easy. I think it's hard and that it should be hard.

But the hardness of representing very different experiences does not justify refusing to attempt it. Art shapes the world, so to me, representing diversity is a responsibility, not a choice. That said, I do understand why that responsibility can make good people anxious. They worry about hurting people -- increasing rather than decreasing suffering with a botched attempt. To some extent, worrying about it is a sign that you take it seriously, and that's good. Worrying about it too much, though -- to the extent that the worry stops you from trying -- that's counterproductive. Like ゴジラ said, you try. If you fuck up, you fuck up. We're indies. We can revise.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Being female perhaps goes a ways toward understanding discrimination and oppression, Becca. Particularly if you were born in or before the 1960s.

I wrote a Filipina character into my serial. She turned out to be the main character for five of the 18 episodes. I based her name and her nickname on a Filipina woman I often spoke with on the phone back in the 1980s, because of work. It was fun pretending to 'be' her as a young woman. I hope some Filipina readers enjoy the story.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Cherise Kelley said:


> Being female perhaps goes a ways toward understanding discrimination and oppression, Becca. Particularly if you were born in or before the 1960s.


I'm sure that's true, Cherise. Personally, I've been fortunate on that front: I don't feel that I've suffered notably from sexism. I was born in 1970 to parents who embraced feminism, and I went into a profession where women are well established. I've been shielded from discrimination more than many women.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

ゴジラ said:


> Ireland DOES in fact have racial diversity, both in modern day and historically! I mean, for the love of God, Ireland is all of three inches from Spain, which means that hispanic people are there _all the freaking time_. I can't believe I was so rude. Apologies.


Part of the problem is that few would consider someone from Spain and someone from Ireland to be of two different races, or not to be both white. The historically and probably even currently most disdained group of people in Ireland is white as per their skin colour. Race and skin colour don't work exactly the same way in Europe as they do in the USA, which is why there's often a lot of disconnect when discussing such topics. It's also one reason why sometimes diversity in US media is perceived as tokenism.


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## Charmaine (Jul 20, 2012)

Just to reiterate what others have said.
People of different ethnic backgrounds going to have almost exactly the same life experiences as long as they are in the same class. Even beyond religion, sexuality, etc, I think the defining difference people experience in life is a person's class/ economic status.

So, I don't even try write characters vastly different, just because they're from a different ethnic background.
If you're American and middle-classed, chances are your life is interchangeable with other middle-classed Americans.

It's already been said, but the reason Urban Fantasy is mostly white, is because it's readership is mostly white women in their 20s-30s. With that said though, ignoring the main character (who is usually white), UF has always seemed to me to be one of the most diverse genres.


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## Austin_Briggs (Aug 21, 2011)

Nic said:


> Part of the problem is that few would consider someone from Spain and someone from Ireland to be of two different races, or not to be both white. The historically and probably even currently most disdained group of people in Ireland is white as per their skin colour. Race and skin colour don't work exactly the same way in Europe as they do in the USA, which is why there's often a lot of disconnect when discussing such topics. It's also one reason why sometimes diversity in US media is perceived as tokenism.


Precisely. In my home country (Russia), we have 180+ ethnic groups. Everything from the Finnish-looking people in the Northwest, to Georgian-looking folks in the Southwest, to Mongolian-looking ones in the middle, to Chinese-looking ones in the far east. We also have pretty much every religion and a large number of Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Communist (I kid) and so on temples across the land.

And the thing is, all these folks are locals. They've been there for thousands of years. In some of our republics, we have up to 5 (or maybe more) official languages.

If I write from any of these folks' perspectives, or place any of them on my cover, they'll probably be assumed "white" or "Russian" by an American or a British audience. Such a sweeping assumption would totally ignore the inherent diversity of the people. And I'm totally fine with that. After all, it took me a couple of years of living in England to understand how different the Geordies are 

My point is that the simplified understanding of diversity (black, white, hispanic...) is as daunting as the rejection of diversity. I do find it amusing to explore the diverse backgrounds of my characters, but the main point of my writing is to write gripping stories that entertain people.

And you know what? When I read Japanese authors, I don't expect them to write from the "black" or "white" perspective. Kazuo Ishiguro does it very well, but one can consider him a British author by now. I just want to enjoy a story.


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## susan_illene (Aug 10, 2014)

There are definitely urban fantasy series out there with racially diverse characters if you look hard enough. For my Dragon's Breath series, I wanted a female lead who was racially ambiguous because I think it's just as important to recognize you can't put a specific label on everyone. We've become a melting pot. So I gave her a background where she is part Malaysian, part Cherokee Indian, and part white. To top it off, since my story takes place in Oklahoma, I had her grow up on a ranch. People are right that it can be tough to find models to fit the looks of their characters. I was lucky I found a model who could pass for anything from Asian to Pacific Islander to Hispanic to American Indian (depending on her hair/make-up and pose). She was really excited about the project because she had never been asked to be on a book cover and that was one of her dreams. For my first novel, her face doesn't show that well due to the positioning, but in future novels her features will be clearer. My book trailer has a couple of good shots of her face that we got (example of one below). So it is possible to find those models if you're willing to put a little more effort into it.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Austin_Briggs said:


> And you know what? When I read Japanese authors, I don't expect them to write from the "black" or "white" perspective. Kazuo Ishiguro does it very well, but one can consider him a British author by now. I just want to enjoy a story.


He certainly proved this with his "The Remains of the Day".


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## Lou Harpr (Nov 5, 2014)

JLCarver said:


> Whites only account for 16% of the world's population. I'm not sure where you're getting that most people are white. White culture dominates, however, and that is precisely the issue we are talking about. Everywhere we look, in books, movies, television, advertising, and so on, we see depictions of white people. A person of color sees these images too. They see that people who look like them aren't represented on the same level as white people.


Neither the political establishment nor popular culture represents proportionally the country's ethnic or even gender makeup. Of course it has an effect. The dominant POV of movies, TV, etc. is still straight white male, and it was even more so when I was growing up. When you watch a movie you put yourself in the place of the protagonist. When I watch the latest Bond movie, I'm Daniel Craig, not whatsherface. We are conditioned from early age to be able to identify with characters different from us. In itself it wouldn't be a bad thing but I doesn't work the other way around, thus you have the male reader who will only read books with male protags. And yes of course, not all male readers are like that, but the symptoms are all over. Movie genres aimed at male audience attract female viewers in similar numbers. Meanwhile, those aimed at female viewers are regarded as "chick flicks" to which boyfriends have to be dragged kicking and screaming.

After a while it becomes frustrating not to see yourself represented, and if it's bad for a straight white female, it can be only worse for gays or people of color.


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## jlstovall4 (Oct 6, 2015)

Anne Victory said:


> I'm sold. Don't often see Southerners treated nonstereotypically--we're usually depicted as being dumber than dirt or the villain. And that's probably at the heart of the issue... it sucks to either not see yourself represented, or when you are, it's as a crude caricature. It's even worse when that portrayal is bad.


  Hey maybe there's one book I've sold. hahaha But I agree anyone can be misrepresented. Southerners unite. LOL We can do more than historical romance.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

Annie B said:


> And that, to me, is the difference between PNR and UF.


For the record, because honestly, this is STILL cheesing me off. I never, ever said that Urban Fantasy featuring a female lead is part of the Romance genre. Nor did I say that just because it has a female lead that it's in the UFR subgenre. In fact, I specifically said the exact opposite, that UFR falls under the Fantasy genre and therefore doesn't have the same genre expectations as Romance. And you're exactly right that the difference between Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance is that in PNR the relationship is central. But I never, ever, in the history of my posting on Kboards, have said that "Urban Fantasy Romance" (again, I didn't make up that term) falls under the Romance umbrella. It does not, for the very reasons that you point out (that the romance / love interest is not the central thrust of the story). There's a whole host of other differences, too--same protagonist throughout the series (PNR features a different couple in each book, it's the world setting / overarching plot that binds them together), and no HEA in each book (requirement for Romance genre).

So again, to say that I'm conflating the two subgenres is absolutely not true and is, in fact, a misunderstanding and misrepresentation of what I did say.

And finally, editing to add that just because an Urban Fantasy book has a female lead, it's not automatically UFR. As Becca said, it's kind of a sliding scale.


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## Tuttle (Jun 10, 2010)

Charmaine said:


> People of different ethnic backgrounds going to have almost exactly the same life experiences as long as they are in the same class. Even beyond religion, sexuality, etc, I think the defining difference people experience in life is a person's class/ economic status.


Except that's not true - sure class matters, but that doesn't mean race doesn't. Two people of the same class and different races will have had drastically different experiences. Two people of the same race and of different classes will have drastically different experiences. Details like gender and sexuality, disability, what class someone was in as a child as well as now that they're an adult...these things matter.

There isn't one defining difference - there are a lot of differences, because people have a lot of aspects to them. There are a lot of things which affect who someone is, what their experiences were, and with all of that, how they act.

And people from marganalized groups don't see characters which look like them frequently enough. Sure, there are some PoC characters. But are there PoC transwomen? Are there disabled characters who aren't treated as a pity-party? Are the PoC characters ones which are more than had a skin color pasted on to what was written as a white character?

Things are getting better, and it varies by genre how much and how fast. Urban Fantasy isn't the best or the worst in my experiences reading it. It still has far to go to get where it should be. We need diverse books, we need it to not be a thing we question, we need it because art is huge in what society sees and thinks, and recognizes as a norm.

But people aren't one aspect of themselves - be it race, class, or sexuality. People are complex. And sometimes that means someone who is a stereotypical white male, and sometimes that means a black wheelchair using transwoman. Characters are who they should be for the story - but who is represented needs to include everyone, not only some people.


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## susan_illene (Aug 10, 2014)

One of the most diverse urban fantasy series I've ever read was written by Dicey Grenor. Her main character is a black female vampire with narcolepsy who works in a fetish club. You can imagine the sort of interesting challenges she faces. The entire cast is a variety of races, most with a quirk of some sort (health, mental or sexual). One of the guys her main character dates has multiple personality disorder. The series certainly has its funny moments, but it also covers some serious topics. I enjoyed how well the author handled such a colorful cast.

http://www.amazon.com/Sleepy-Willows-Bonded-Narcoleptic-Vampire-ebook/dp/B005P0AHNU/


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## Charmaine (Jul 20, 2012)

Tuttle said:


> Except that's not true - sure class matters, but that doesn't mean race doesn't. Two people of the same class and different races will have had drastically different experiences. Two people of the same race and of different classes will have drastically different experiences. Details like gender and sexuality, disability, what class someone was in as a child as well as now that they're an adult...these things matter.
> 
> There isn't one defining difference - there are a lot of differences, because people have a lot of aspects to them. There are a lot of things which affect who someone is, what their experiences were, and with all of that, how they act.
> 
> ...


I wasn't implying only some people should get representation.

It may be a generational difference, but I've always found that my classmates, co-workers, peers, etc have seemed to have very similar and easily relatable lives (and we all ranged from different races, abilities, and genders).

I am also saying this as someone who is from a large and incredibly diverse city. I still say with confidence that a Black woman, a White woman, and an Asian woman who have been neighbors their entire lives, are going to have extremely similar lives.

Of course people have different experiences. As authors we should take care to flesh characters out. But I'd be careful of assuming that a Black or Trans or disabled character has to be written just so, because:

1) It'll discourage writers from attempting to write them, because it makes the task so foreign and daunting.

2) You become greatly at risk of encouraging tokenism.

Also, I'm contemplating your statement of writing a White character and pasting Black skin over it. I don't set out to write a "White" character. What experiences would a Black character have that are unique? Racism/ stigmas/ prejudices?

But delve even further and your looking at a character with the results of those prejudices, which would be the trauma of them.

So in this instance, we have a character with a particular trauma that will influence their actions. Trauma like being the fat kid? Trauma like having an abusive parent? Trauma like being bullied for being the weird kid?

My point is, trauma is not a unique experience, neither is the way people handle it. When you make statements about "blackening" White characters and that diverse characters have to be written a special way, I don't think it helps your goal of diversity, I think it impedes it.

If Harry Potter was written to be a young Black man, would it have changed the story? Should it have changed the story?

I say Nope and more Nope.


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## JLCarver (Sep 13, 2015)

Deleted. My words are not yours.


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## Tuttle (Jun 10, 2010)

1. I never said you need to write characters a special way. Do not say I said things I never said. That is not acceptable.

2. Not all trauma is the same. Not all responses to trauma are the same. People do have different reactions to situations, and those differences matter.

3. Privilege exists. Intersectionality exists. There is more than one axis of oppression. Characters should represent this, both in terms of who is written, and in terms of who those characters _are_.


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## Charmaine (Jul 20, 2012)

Tuttle said:


> 1. I never said you need to write characters a special way. Do not say I said things I never said. That is not acceptable.


You implied that when you wrote, "Are the PoC characters ones which are more than had a skin color pasted on to what was written as a white character?" 
You are clearly stating a difference in white characters vs a PoC with skin color pasted on over a white character. 
So for a character to NOT be a "PoC with skin color pasted on over a white character" it would need to written in a specific/special/different way.



> 2. Not all trauma is the same. Not all responses to trauma are the same. People do have different reactions to situations, and those differences matter.


I never said trauma was the same, I said trauma is not a unique experience. Everyone in this world has suffered a trauma throughout their lives. Also, every reaction is not original or unique either. There are people that lash out at the world in anger, that cower at a loud voice, turn to substances to dull the pain, or even paste a smile over their faces.

I also never said that those differences don't matter. I meant that none of them are unique to a certain group. There are probably a few dozen common responses to past trauma. Chances are most of the people you encounter will react in these ways, because even if it's not a few dozen, but rather a few hundred, those reactions to those traumas are still not unique(or one of a kind/ original/ never seen before).



> 3. Privilege exists. Intersectionality exists. There is more than one axis of oppression. Characters should represent this, both in terms of who is written, and in terms of who those characters _are_.


Yes, they exist. But in terms of fiction, I don't feel as though characters have to represent this.
I think it's much more important to have diverse characters present than behaving a certain way or having a certain role.
In my opinion, privilege and oppression probably shouldn't have a place Urban Fantasy/ Fantasy, I think it becomes a slippery slope to tokenism and tokenism's Super list of diversities, that authors feel pressured to have to check off.

It's clear you think your fiction benefits from privilege and oppression in relation to a character's motives and actions. That's perfectly fine. 
And I disagree.


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## jlstovall4 (Oct 6, 2015)

Tuttle said:


> 1. I never said you need to write characters a special way. Do not say I said things I never said. That is not acceptable.
> 2. Not all trauma is the same. Not all responses to trauma are the same. People do have different reactions to situations, and those differences matter.





Charmaine said:


> You implied that when you wrote, "Are the PoC characters ones which are more than had a skin color pasted on to what was written as a white character?"
> You are clearly stating a difference in white characters vs a PoC with skin color pasted on over a white character.
> So for a character to NOT be a "PoC with skin color pasted on over a white character" it would need to written in a specific/special/different way.
> 
> I never said trauma was the same, I said trauma is not a unique experience. Everyone in this world has suffered a trauma throughout their lives. Also, every reaction is not original or unique either. There are people that lash out at the world in anger, that cower at a loud voice, turn to substances to dull the pain, or even paste a smile over their faces.


I once wrote a screenplay about a guy who worked at an IT firm. His boss laid him off and he lost his job. He went home and got angry and decided to go back to his job and kill everyone at his job. The lead was played by a black guy and so was the boss. When I was working on the movie, I wrote about my trials on a message board for filmmakers. One of the filmmakers chimed in and said "What's the big deal it's just Falling Down with a black guy in the lead." Over ten different people yelled at the one guy for his comment, almost all of them were white.

A story that has a POC as a lead doesn't mean the story will be about the person's struggles as a POC. It should be about the MCs struggles as a character. It's up to the discretion of the writer to determine the race/culture/height/weight/etc just because they want to write it. I think the point of POC characters is missed if as soon as they hit the page, they must struggle with some kind of "minority issue."


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## JalexM (May 14, 2015)

jlstovall4 said:


> A story that has a POC as a lead doesn't mean the story will be about the person's struggles as a POC. It should be about the MCs struggles as a character. It's up to the discretion of the writer to determine the race/culture/height/weight/etc just because they want to write it.* I think the point of POC characters is missed if as soon as they hit the page, they must struggle with some kind of "minority issue."*


This


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## Charmaine (Jul 20, 2012)

jlstovall4 said:


> I think the point of POC characters is missed if as soon as they hit the page, they must struggle with some kind of "minority issue."


You summed up everything I was trying to say into this one sentence. 



JalexM said:


> This


You beat me to it


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## Tuttle (Jun 10, 2010)

Charmaine said:


> It's clear you think your fiction benefits from privilege and oppression in relation to a character's motives and actions. That's perfectly fine.
> And I disagree.


What I'm trying to say is that if you are leaving out that privilege and oppression are part of people's existence in the modern world you are making characters which aren't completely well rounded characters. Books don't have to be about that - and there should be many books which aren't about that - but to me, characters should be completely well rounded characters, including recognizing that if you're writing a character in a city in 2016, then these small things are part of people's experiences. (Or really, in any other environment, but then in those other environments, you have the environment to take into account as well).

That representation matters, that it matters to see people that look like us, that move like us, that love like us, that deal with what we deal with.

And that characters shouldn't be token characters. That characters should be accurate characters for who they are, whoever that is. That characters should recognize what their experiences are likely to be in those situations, even if only small details will make it to the page. That ignoring who someone is, beyond only writing down what they look like, weakens who a character is.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

The Dancing Squirrel said:


> Okay . . . I'll tell you why I worry to the extent that I won't try to portray African-Americans. (For the record, I have black characters in the book I'm writing now. It's another world: a place where racism and discrimination don't exist.) I'm older than you by quite a stretch. When I was a child, the Jim Crow laws were still in effect. I've had a lot of close interactions with ghetto dwellers, and I experienced first-hand the nightmarish atmosphere where racism and severe discrimination were the accepted norm. It broke my heart, and it still breaks my heart. I can't get over that history. It's not white guilt, since I sure as heck didn't support these horrors. For personal reasons which I'd rather not share, I can't let go of it.
> 
> I am offended by your imitation of people you accuse of "othering."


If you don't think that way, there's no reason to be offended by my criticizing those who do.

My post was intended to extend sympathy to those who have said (on this thread) that they shy away from creating a diverse set of characters out of anxiety about "getting it wrong." That's not your reason for excluding diversity, so most of the rest of I was saying doesn't apply to you either.

People, including writers, have a very wide variety of experiences. I'm sure there are others out there who can point to particular experiences they've had as explaining their not including a diverse cast of characters in books whose settings would lead readers to expect diversity. For instance, I imagine it's possible to become phobic of people who fit into a certain category following a traumatic experience, such as an assault, and to have a great deal of trouble getting past that reaction. No one should feel pressured to write material that's going to exacerbate trauma.

Unfortunately, a reader's experience of a book won't hinge on _why_ the author felt unable to include a diverse cast of characters. The reader won't know that reasoning. They'll just see a New York or a Paris or a Detroit or a Vancouver where, weirdly, everyone is white or where one expected group is missing.

It sounds like you've found a way to include diversity in your new book in a way that can coexist with the traumatic experience of living in the Jim Crow South, which is great. (Sort of reading between the lines, there, on the source of your feelings. Sorry if I'm jumping to conclusions.)


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## JLCarver (Sep 13, 2015)

Deleted. My words are not yours.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

JLCarver said:


> I think Tuttle makes a good point that sometimes it's relevant to recognize the real experience of different sexualities and POC. But Charmaine and others also make a good point in that not every piece of fiction needs to have that reality brought up. Fiction is an escape, and a lot of people want to leave the reality behind. And not every situation in fiction is going to trigger a thought based on sexuality, race, ethnic origin, or skin color. Have your character react as characters. Normally it's not going to be present in their thought process. But if a gay character meets the street preacher, have them react to the hateful message as a gay character. If a POC sees the rebel flag and a bunch of yahoos screaming racial epithets, have them react as a POC. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense to have those diverse characters dwell on what it is that makes them diverse.


I suspect the primacy of sexual/racial/gender identity as part of someone's mental landscape varies a lot from person to person. I think for some people, it's front and center a lot of the time. For others, it's not. I'm sure there are also quite a few people who think about it a good deal but keep most of those thoughts private. And there are probably people who think about it rarely and feel guilty about not being "more political." And a bunch of other possible positions. These are ways in which people who all belong to a particular group can be radically different from one another. Doing a good job writing a diverse cast of characters means capturing this variety, so that people feel real in their differences.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

JLCarver said:


> ...I don't sit around and think about how gay I am. If I read a gay character having those thoughts, actively thinking about their sexuality in their daily life (beyond those first months of dealing personally with sexual orientation and coming out--that's a time when active thoughts on sexual orientation are pretty pervasive), I would see it as a misrepresentation. In that same regard, I imagine POC don't sit around and actively think about their skin color or ethnicity. It's simply a part of who they are. It's a fact of living their life that doesn't require thought.
> 
> But, there are some situations where I might react as a gay male...


Fascinating discussion. Truly.

It brings up resentment in me.

*Resentment at society for making me dwell on the fact that I am female.* For making that a dominant subject in my thoughts throughout most of my teens and twenties through advertising, merchandising, magazines, TV shows, clothing design and sizing, and a pervasive myriad of other assaults on my psyche.

I wish my mind had been more free to devote to academics. One might say I chose not to, that I chose to pay attention to all the makeup advice and the clothing advice and the etiquette advice and the dating advice and the admonitions to watch my personal image. I submit that now I am able to ignore all that input, but that back in my youth, I was far too naive to escape it.


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## JLCarver (Sep 13, 2015)

Deleted. My words are not yours.


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## Tuttle (Jun 10, 2010)

Becca Mills said:


> These are ways in which people who all belong to a particular group can be radically different from one another. Doing a good job writing a diverse cast of characters means capturing this variety, so that people feel real in their differences.


Absolutely. This is a really important point.


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## MicaK (Feb 17, 2016)

I see that this thread has been abandoned for several days, but I was quite interested in the discussion (which was largely very respectful; kudos to those involved). 
My two cents: 

1) After 30+ years of fiction reading when a character's race is not specified, the default assumption is that that person is white. In much genre writing, I am still surprised when I realize that is not the case. 
(FTR, I am black, female, and a former English major with parents who raised me to adore books; I've read a fair amount.)

2) When a POC is mentioned, I have noticed that non-diverse writers will often say "black guy","Latina girl", "Indian woman," etc., but white characters get much more thorough descriptions. 
This annoys me quite a bit. A "black guy" could be as brown as Djimon Hounsou or as pale as Wentworth Miller. Black and Latina are not mutually exclusive. Some East Indians can have green eyes and freckles. Etc., etc., etc.

3) Intersectionality is real. Race *and* class do matter and no, they are not the same thing. We are not a monolith. 
But please, please don't exclude characters of color out of fear of getting it wrong. We will tell you. Some of us are gentler than others in the telling, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try.

4) You know what would be awesome? If white writers who don't happen to know POC could figure out a way to do so. So we don't end up with books or shows like, say, "Friends" with it's incredibly white version of NYC. 
Now don't go searching for your "one black friend," but honestly: We are everywhere. A lot of us like the same things you do. A lot of us love to read and dearly appreciate to see ourselves reflected in the genres we love.


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## KeraEmory (Feb 8, 2016)

MicaK said:


> I see that this thread has been abandoned for several days, but I was quite interested in the discussion (which was largely very respectful; kudos to those involved).
> My two cents:
> 
> 1) After 30+ years of fiction reading when a character's race is not specified, the default assumption is that that person is white. In much genre writing, I am still surprised when I realize that is not the case.
> ...


Hmm, as the non-diverse, could I ask you a few questions?

As far as describing skin shade, I always trip up, both with the typical fear of getting it wrong, and also the cliche that we (you know, "we") have a weird trope of using food items for description. I've seen chocolate, caramel, cocoa used many times. And milk and dark chocolate. And cappuccino. It's nice that they're all delicious, but does that get as annoying as I fear it does?

Also, when I was writing my upcoming novel, I included some multi-ethnic characters because there are a lot in my industry (the industry the novel is set in) for some reason. (Or maybe that's the new reality, which: cool.)

But after the fact, this meant that my murdered character for the mystery arc was multi-racial. This has me worried that I entered into "cannon fodder" trope territory. (Kill the minority.) I did some character work, don't get me wrong, but do you think this is still something that should be outright avoided?

Thanks for your insights.


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## JBoyett (Nov 10, 2015)

It's great to have more diversity, but I wonder if adding it in a self-conscious way might not wind up inadvertently perpetuating stereotypes. Like, someone might say, "I'll make this MC a Native American; and because he's Native American he's especially in tune with nature, etc.," or "I'll make this MC a black male--a really street-smart black male," and so on. It seems to me that if you start right off the bat thinking up which minority the character ought to be, you're more likely to unconsciously assign the character whatever preconceived notions you have that you associate with that minority, because from the very beginning you've been thinking about them under that label. I would just write the character as whatever feels right to you, and if that's a white hetero I would trust that there are enough non-white, non-hetero writers out there that any gap will be more or less filled.

All that having been said, I find it kind of depressing (even if, probably, true) that white readers who love UF would decline to read a UF book because the hero was a different race or gender.


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## JBoyett (Nov 10, 2015)

It's great to have more diversity, but I wonder if adding it in a self-conscious way might not wind up inadvertently perpetuating stereotypes. Like, someone might say, "I'll make this MC a Native American; and because he's Native American he's especially in tune with nature, etc.," or "I'll make this MC a black male--a really street-smart black male," and so on. It seems to me that if you start right off the bat thinking up which minority the character ought to be, you're more likely to unconsciously assign the character whatever preconceived notions you have that you associate with that minority, because from the very beginning you've been thinking about them under that label. I would just write the character as whatever feels right to you, and if that's a white hetero I would trust that there are enough non-white, non-hetero writers out there that any gap will be more or less filled.

All that having been said, I find it kind of depressing (even if, probably, true) that white readers who love UF would decline to read a UF book because the hero was a different race or gender.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

JBoyett said:


> It's great to have more diversity, but I wonder if adding it in a self-conscious way might not wind up inadvertently perpetuating stereotypes.


There is more to it yet. I recently followed an interesting discussion about how skin colour perception of North Americans have come to dictate how everyone else _ought _to perceive things. For quite many Europeans the tone of someone's skin doesn't convey ethnicity, or whether or not someone is PoC or not. This may be the case for other cultures as well. So why should people be forced to differentiate according to skin colour who didn't do so up to now? Is that even as good a thing as some seem to think? Is it acceptable that people should be harassed into changing such a very basic cultural thing?


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

JBoyett said:


> It's great to have more diversity, but I wonder if adding it in a self-conscious way might not wind up inadvertently perpetuating stereotypes. Like, someone might say, "I'll make this MC a Native American; and because he's Native American he's especially in tune with nature, etc.," or "I'll make this MC a black male--a really street-smart black male," and so on. It seems to me that if you start right off the bat thinking up which minority the character ought to be, you're more likely to unconsciously assign the character whatever preconceived notions you have that you associate with that minority, because from the very beginning you've been thinking about them under that label.


I think this problem is fairly easy to avoid if you're aware of the danger. Personally, I let the plot generate the characters it needs. Some of those characters are going to bruisers and some are going to be historians and some are going to be nurses and so forth. If I were to find myself wanting to make all the bruisers black men, all the historians white men, and all the nurses women, that'd be a problem. It just doesn't happen, though. One would have to be pretty unaware of one's internal biases to fall into those major stereotypes without noticing, I think.



The Dancing Squirrel said:


> There's the rub: doing a good job.
> 
> I'm a member of a marginalized, persecuted, and tiny minority. I am accustomed to dealing with fictional characters outside of my minority group I absolutely cannot relate to; that's not a problem for me. What is a problem for me: when someone attempts to portray a member of my minority and they royally screw it up (which they always do). I'd rather see no one attempt to portray a member of my group than have to watch someone misrepresent people like me.


It's hard. Some people in underrepresented groups feel as you do, while others feel like MicaK: "please, please don't exclude characters of color out of fear of getting it wrong." I guess there's no one approach that will feel right to everyone. I suppose one might counter that getting it wrong won't be an issue if the writer _gets it right_, but it's probably hard to find a "right" that will feel right to every reader, due to intragroup diversity.

I'd be very interested to know what writers tend to get wrong about your group, Dancing Squirrel. I recognize you probably want to remain anonymous and therefore can't get into specifics, but if you could speak generally ... do they mess up language patterns? mental reactions and emotions? historical facts? values? appearance, clothing norms, or other facets of external presentation? cultural activities -- cuisine, art, music? religious practices? It'd be good to know if there are certain areas where writers tend to do an especially poor job.


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## MicaK (Feb 17, 2016)

KeraEmory said:


> Hmm, as the non-diverse, could I ask you a few questions?
> 
> As far as describing skin shade, I always trip up, both with the typical fear of getting it wrong, and also the cliche that we (you know, "we") have a weird trope of using food items for description. I've seen chocolate, caramel, cocoa used many times. And milk and dark chocolate. And cappuccino. It's nice that they're all delicious, but does that get as annoying as I fear it does?
> 
> ...


Skin described in terms of food is definitely A Thing. It's not always a *bad* thing, but IMO it is overdone. Something to consider is that there are industries where black people were forced to labor to grow these foods, so some readers may find it problematic. 
NK Jemisin has a great series of posts on this, starting here: http://nkjemisin.com/2009/04/ways-to-describe-characters-of-color/
Well worth reading.

As to the other question, I don't think you can *never* kill off POC characters, but it's worth taking a look. How many *other* characters of color are in your story? Is this person the only one? That's a lot of weight for a single character to bear.

I hope this helps.


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## KeraEmory (Feb 8, 2016)

MicaK said:


> Skin described in terms of food is definitely A Thing. It's not always a *bad* thing, but IMO it is overdone. Something to consider is that there are industries where black people were forced to labor to grow these foods, so some readers may find it problematic.
> NK Jemisin has a great series of posts on this, starting here: http://nkjemisin.com/2009/04/ways-to-describe-characters-of-color/
> Well worth reading.
> 
> ...


Thanks for your insights. I wrote that post last night while I was tired and a little out of it, and woke up with that "did I say something dumb on the Internet last night?" dread. Your feedback is very helpful.


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## jlstovall4 (Oct 6, 2015)

MicaK said:


> Skin described in terms of food is definitely A Thing. It's not always a *bad* thing, but IMO it is overdone. Something to consider is that there are industries where black people were forced to labor to grow these foods, so some readers may find it problematic.
> NK Jemisin has a great series of posts on this, starting here: http://nkjemisin.com/2009/04/ways-to-describe-characters-of-color/
> Well worth reading.


Thanks for the article. I usually describe as real objects, sometimes using food or woods. But I'll say "Tanned", "deeply tanned", "pale" etc also get old quickly too. Lucky for all of us we only have to describe a character once per book. 

I also believe the characters are just characters. You kill off, marry off, put in jeopardy those who you need to.

As far as "


JBoyett said:


> I wonder if adding it in a self-conscious way might not wind up inadvertently perpetuating stereotypes. Like, someone might say, "I'll make this MC a Native American; and because he's Native American he's especially in tune with nature, etc.," or "I'll make this MC a black male--a really street-smart black male," and so on.


I do think things like these can be a problem. I purposely try to find ways to make characters go against the grain of stereotypes, even with White characters. One of the reasons I ended up going to a seminar about indie publishing (long story) is because one of my characters in the first book that I wrote was a twenty-something, attractive school teacher, but she was a total B***h. She acted like what we usually read as unattractive, old spinster woman. I didn't want the stereotype. I wanted a new image in my readers minds. I wanted them to see that anyone is capable of being evil and hateful.

I do this often in my writing. When you think "Hey that sounds like an XYZ character" it ends up being an "ABC character."

I know Black people who listen to country and rock and roll music.
I know White people who don't hunt and believe Michael Jackson was God's gift to music.
I know Latino's who can't speak Spanish.

I've seen so many exceptions to the "Rules" that I recognize there are no rules but the ones we put in our head.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Honestly, it's just as simple as asking the question 'does this character actually need to be white? Is there any reason why they aren't another race? Does European heritage add something here?

And if not... maybe make them not white?

The assumption a lot of writers labor under--consciously or not--is that white is the generic default and all other races represent a particular 'flavor', which usually comes with all manner of racial stereotypes. And given that racism is older than writing, there's enough stereotypes to give the illusion of variety.

The grand secret is that unless you're going to load the character down with white stereotypes (those exist, yes), no one who isn't already kinda racist in the Avenue Q way is going to have a problem with it.

In context, take the bog standard Urban Fantasy protagonist (I'm not saying this is the only character from UF, just the one you see a LOT because again, a lot of these characters are descended from Anita Blake): she's a sarcastic, no nonsense 20-something who makes easier friends with men than women but totally isn't a tomboy. She has a leather jacket, drives a motorcycle and works as some kind of detective. She has magic powers with unexplored limits and doesn't know her parents. Her love interest will be something out of the first Monster Manuel of whatever is the current version of D&D.

Does any of that honestly say 'her ancestors interbred with Neandertals and didn't get enough sun to develop dark skin'? Really?

Why _can't_ she be black or Mexican or Chinese or maybe even bi-racial? Vampire, dragon, elf or witch species don't count for this purpose.


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## C T Sinclair (Mar 1, 2016)

Maybe its just how i am inspired and such, but everysingle one of my books features in some way (mostly a BW/WM couple like me and my wife) interracial couples. I currently dont have any books published yet as i am still writting them but just though i would put that out there.  I dont really see interracial couples in books alot, and i find it kind of sad personally. Honestly, and this is just my opinion, but i feel like interracial couples are probably the least featured couple in books. Now maybe i havent read enough books like that, just stating what i have seen.


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## I&#039;m a Little Teapot (Apr 10, 2014)

brkingsolver said:


> An example (though not about race): Darynda Jones has a UF Charlie Davidson series set in Albuquerque. In "First Grave on the Right", she mentions the mesquite in the landscape. I almost threw the kindle against the wall. There ain't no damned mesquite in New Mexico. It's in Texas.


Darynda lives in NM, and as far as Google is concerned, mesquite is also native to NM. So there's that.


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## Moist_Tissue (Dec 6, 2013)

ゴジラ said:


> btw, there are totally black people in Ireland. There have always been black people in Ireland, and Europe in general. That's why I linked to that blog. It talks about that perception a lot. However, even if there weren't people of color in xyz country: If you can think of a convincing reason for there to be faeries in Ireland, you can PROBABLY come up with a convincing reason for there to be blacks, or people of hispanic descent, or whatever.


I know this is an older post, but I wanted to co-sign.

I'm Black American. I lived and studied in Ireland. There was another Black American in my cohort. If you walked into a Dublin hospital, you'd find that many of the doctors and nurses were from Nigeria or other African nations. There's an Irish mayor of a Dublin suburb. Afro-Irish kids walking about with thick Irish accents.

Yes. There are black people in Ireland. Yes. There are Jewish people in Ireland. Yes. There are Chinese, Vietnamese, and Pakistanis in Ireland.

I have an Irish first name. One of my great-grandfathers was from Ireland. Funny enough, here in the US, when I meet an Irish-American and they learn my name, their reaction is: cool, did you know your name is Irish? Contrast that to my experience while living in Ireland. Irish folk reacted with: you must have some Irish in you.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Here's a fun story about the problem of white being the default:

I just realized I forgot to 'make' a character black.

She was introduced two years ago and now that I'm planning to make more prominent use of her, I went back and found out I described her hair but not her skin. So basically, for the past 25 stories and two years she's existed, my audience has thought she's white.

And there is literally no way I could have done the reverse and forgot to make a character white.


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## JamesOsiris (Mar 23, 2014)

My urban fantasy series is set in New York, in a minority immigrant community. I'm quite aware of the 'red-lining' that occurred in parts of NYC over many years, and that legacy of 'ghettoization' and immigration plays a background role in Alexi's story.

The first novel is set in and around Brighton Beach, specifically within the Russian mafia - who are, in fact, mostly Ukrainian, Chechen, and Central Asian, not 'Russian' at all. Alexi himself has a strong Ukrainian-American identity that conflicts with his immigrant elders who grew up in Europe. Like most second gen immigrants, he speaks several languages (Ukrainian, Syrzyk, Russian, Yiddish, some Hebrew, and English) and it is implied that he and his best friend switch easily between Ukrainian/Russian and English.

The second novel involves Alexi leaving the nest and being forced into parts of the city where he is not 'native' in the way he is in Little Odessa... an experience that he finds challenging, sometimes disturbing, not because of the differences but because of the way he notices things he never had to notice before. There's multiple black characters in the novel, multiple East and South East Asian characters. He flounders around with far fewer bearings than he ever expected to have.

I think Anglo-Whitewashing is a real problem in fiction, and don't even get me started on LGBTI representation. Trying to find blog reviewers for this series has been difficult, because it is LGBTI inclusive (Alexi is gay, though he doesn't really get that for a while: the mafia is not a good place to acknowledge, let alone develop his identity), but there's no romance plot and the gay and trans characters aren't included in the narrative for sexual or gender-focused purposes. For some reason, LGBTI characters are either niched into (tragic) literary fiction, or shoehorned into romance (nearly always white M/M romance). They don't want books that aren't also a romance and/or a tragedy where everyone gets AIDs and dies. Frustrating stuff.


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