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## 978675 (Nov 2, 2014)

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## MyraScott (Jul 18, 2014)

Thank you for this thread, I hope you get detailed answers.

I keep wanting to put more diverse characters in my writing but I am afraid it may come off as insincere or worse, stereotyped.  Or anti-stereotyped to blandness.  I still write a few but I don't give them huge parts because I'm afraid I'll get their personality wrong and end up with Jar Jar Binks. 

No one wants Jar Jar Binks.


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## Allyson J. (Nov 26, 2014)

I'm a white American girl who writes historical fiction set in the British colonial period--1900s India, Egypt, etc. I live in constant fear of offending readers--1) because of the way I may inaccurately portray their race/religion/etc. but mostly 2) that they might mistake the views of my characters in that more narrow-minded time period as my own. 

Writing what we don't "know" is certainly a challenge, but at least we're trying!


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## Julz (Oct 30, 2014)

I'm half Japanese, half Caucasian living in Hawaii. My husband is part Hawaiian, I have one brother in law with roots in Guatemala and Honduras, one from Ghana, and one that has Native American blood. Even with that pot of knowledge to glean from, I would still love more perspective into each of these cultures and it would be great to hear from the group at large. 
Stereotypes that I hear a whole bunch about Asians and aren't necessarily untrue,
-education above all
-school and book work come easy 
-but aren't streetwise and can be socially inept/insensitive
-slanted eyes (can we describe an Asian without pointing out their eyes  )

Thanks for starting this thread and I look forward to learning


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## EmmaS (Jul 15, 2014)

> (I am very often asked if I was depressed because I can't walk. Eh, no. I was depressed because I have depression. I couldn't care less that I can't walk, walking is way overrated IMO. My life is awesome. And when I explain this to people, they often respond with pity as though I can't possibly understand how terrible my life is. *sigh*)


Confession: I'm secretly jealous of people in wheelchairs. Wheelchairs are awesome and I suspect using one isn't the melodramatic tragedy it's cracked up to be.

Thanks for starting this thread! I've wanted to write a transgender character for a while, but am so hesitant because I'm not trans and really don't want to misrepresent an already stereotyped group of people. Will be keeping an eye out here for any advice!



> I'm not saying a black character must have caviar instead chicken, listen to classical instead of r'n'b, or be called William Henry James VIII instead of Tyrone, but just don't create a character that's 100% pure organic stereotype.


I like this. Looking at real people, few of them live up to all the stereotypes. They'll live up to some stereotypes, sure, but not all, and that's where things get interesting. Something I love as a reader (and a friend) is when someone fits some of the stereotypes but then diverges in surprising ways. I have a super-ghetto Hispanic guy friend who's a feminist activist, and a conservative Mormon mom friend who sells sex toys. They embrace some stereotypes but totally defy others, and it makes them so interesting (and real).


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

I think I know where the chicken idea came from.    Chickens were cheap to raise.  They provided both breakfast and dinner.  The mother usually fried it after the older kids had caught, killed and skinned it.    

Note I am not black but my dad would not let my mom buy/cook a chicken.  Reason being: my dad and his brothers and sisters were very poor growing up and had chicken nearly every day.


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## Christine_C (Jun 29, 2014)

If I remember correctly, someone asked Neil Gaiman how to write strong female characters. And he said "maybe you should hang out with some women." I think the same is probably true of writing about characters who are ethnic minorities or people with disabilities.


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## RJ Crayton (Feb 6, 2014)

carinasanfey said:


> Thank you for your insights.  I think what I find most helpful is when I find out about stereotypes of which I was not aware - for example, I recently read 'The Help' and found myself quite weirded out by the implication that all black families have absent fathers, and the implication that a white woman is the best person to tell the stories of black women, so I did a quick google search to see what other readers, particularly black readers, thought of it. As well as the things I mentioned above, there were mentions of a character's love of fried chicken as coming from an offensive stereotype. I had *absolutely* no idea that eating a lot of chicken was a 'black' stereotype, and I could have very easily inadvertently created a black character who loved chicken by coincidence, not realising the negative connotations of the character's culinary tastes. I wouldn't have known that it was a hurtful stereotype, but thankfully I know now. That's what I had in mind when I created this thread - things that I and others don't realise *are* relevant to race.


I'm black and I find the most disturbing thing that tends to come up is the white savior motif that appears so often in fiction. Black people have problems for many years and don't seem to be able to figure out how to solve them until an enterprising whit person comes along. It's a bit condescending, and annoying.

But, that may just be my issue.

The only other thing I think people need to be cognizant of is equity within the story. If your story is about 4 orphans, and three of them are white, and the fourth is black and you decide to make that the one with all the problems, a drug addict, illiterate, etc, you have to ask yourself what the rationale is behind that and if it unduly brings race into the issue or it's truly legitimately important to the story.

I think the nice thing about a thread like this is that it leaves the door open for discussion. Sometimes people have issues that are their own, and sometimes they have legitimate concerns. If there's a place where they can get some feedback, it's always good.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

carinasanfey said:


> I'll start with a question for any authors who are not caucasian: What generalisations do you find white authors tend to make when writing about non-white characters, particularly black or Asian characters living in predominantly white societies?


It's always easy to assume that you understand one group and it's just other ones you have problems with. You are in the London (UK) and you equate Caucasian (a wide-ranging collation of ethnicities) and white (a political designation signifying the powerful ethnicity), but in Britain my ethnicity White Irish is legally separate from white as we certainly are not a powerful ethnicity in Britain. So what the whites get wrong is assuming that we are white just because we have paler skin than most of them.


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## books_mb (Oct 29, 2013)

Reminds me of a study I came across recently. In general, people greatly overestimate the duration of the emotional impact a positive or negative event has. Many think that losing the use of your legs would leave you depressed for years and winning the lottery would make you happy for just as long, but both is incorrect. The study showed that after a life-changing event people usually return to their "equilibrium emotional state" surprisingly quickly (within months or even weeks). Of course the impact of the event on life persists, but this isn't true for the emotional state. I guess that's something fiction authors should keep in mind instead of exploring the uncommon extremes (the always depressed handicapped person or the millionaire party animal).

Edit: Found the book again. You can read about the study here: "Experiments With People: Revelations From Social Psychology" Abelson / Frey / Gregg


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## Moist_Tissue (Dec 6, 2013)

cinisajoy said:


> I think I know where the chicken idea came from. Chickens were cheap to raise. They provided both breakfast and dinner. The mother usually fried it after the older kids had caught, killed and skinned it.
> 
> Note I am not black but my dad would not let my mom buy/cook a chicken. Reason being: my dad and his brothers and sisters were very poor growing up and had chicken nearly every day.


Partially true.

I'm mostly Black, but I'm about 3/8ths Native and a pinch of Irish. I'm rather lucky to have access to my 101 year old grandmother who was the granddaughter of slaves and Natives whose tribes were relocated to Indian Territory.

Fried Chicken is something that began within the slave community. Pork and beef were considered prime meats, so they were reserved for the master and his family. Chicken, on the other hand, was more abundant. Slave owners permitted their slaves to raise unlimited amounts of chicken. When Scots arrived in the 1700s, they introduced the concept of fritters. Slaves began to incorporate this method of breading meats to their menus, and fried chicken was born. Cutting up and frying chicken was a cheap meal that could feel several people, so the concept began to spread to the poorer members of the White community.


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## Dolphin (Aug 22, 2013)

RJ Crayton said:


> I'm black and I find the most disturbing thing that tends to come up is the white savior motif that appears so often in fiction. Black people have problems for many years and don't seem to be able to figure out how to solve them until an enterprising whit person comes along. It's a bit condescending, and annoying.


An attitude by no means limited to fiction, sadly. Compare and contrast with the Magical ***** trope (Wikipedia, TV Tropes).

My favorite topical article is probably I Hate Strong Female Characters. It's about how to write a demographic majority, mind you, but no less useful for that. Womenfolk don't fare much better in most fiction than racial, ethnic, or religious minorities, and much of it can be extrapolated to any status or experience that's unfamiliar to an author.


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## MyraScott (Jul 18, 2014)

I am probably oversensitive to this in my writing because when I first started getting critiques, I had happily built in characters of all races(major and minor) without really thinking about the implication.

The fact that I mentioned that the attractive black television reporter asked my character a question erupted into a massive thread about why I had to say she was black.  Why did I mention that the porter was young and Asian, wearing hi-top sneakers?  Was there a reason to detail that the old lady who got splashed by the truck going through a mud puddle was Indian? 

I wanted to build a world that was naturally multi-cultural and the argument was that defining people by their cultural heritage was unnecessary.  Others argued that unless you define them more clearly than just looks, you have made them all a bunch of white people with different skin color. 

It all got very heated on both sides of the argument. I didn't take the descriptions out, I abandoned the work.


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## Moist_Tissue (Dec 6, 2013)

What's fascinating to me is that if a character's skin isn't described, the reader tends to make them white by default.


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## kyokominamino (Jan 23, 2014)

carinasanfey said:


> As a wheelchair user, I find myself inwardly bristling most times I read any work by an able-bodied author writing from the perspective of a character with a disability. Why? Because nine times out of ten, they will not have done their research. I'm not talking about physical symptoms of a particular impairment, I'm talking about perceived emotional effects of having a disability. All too often, these characters are entirely focused on their disability, are self-pitying, bitter and have no other defining characteristics. In fact, because of the general public's perception of wheelchair users as rolling tragedies, I *completely* left my physical disability out of my memoir, because I didn't want readers' possible prejudices to colour their view of my experiences of mental illness - the book was about mental illness, and I didn't want other aspects of my life to make my experiences of mental illness less clear. (I am very often asked if I was depressed because I can't walk. Eh, no. I was depressed because I have depression. I couldn't care less that I can't walk, walking is way overrated IMO. My life is awesome. And when I explain this to people, they often respond with pity as though I can't possibly understand how terrible my life is. *sigh*) I imagine the situation is probably quite similar for people with other disabilities, for black people, Asians, Muslims, transgender people, etc.
> 
> So I thought maybe it would be nice to start a thread where people writing minority characters could ask other authors questions, and authors from the relevant demographic could answer. We're a diverse bunch, and I, for one, would not mind answering questions about my experiences of disability, and I would be delighted if I can help people to write more believable characters with disabilities. On top of that I'd love some help writing believable characters whose lives and experiences are quite different to my own.
> 
> ...


You're awesome for starting this thread. I hope not too many people step on each other's toes.

The only thing I find that irks me about people writing minorities who are not themselves the same ethnicity as their character, as a black woman, is that too many authors assume race is an issue all the time for black people. I'm 26. I grew up in metro-Atlanta. I spent childhood to 18 years old surrounded by black people and then I attended UGA, a predominantly white college. I encountered zero problems at UGA. To this day, I have never had a white person call me the N-word, nor have I had a white person overtly do anything aggressive towards me because of my skin color. Granted, I am an educated intelligent woman raised by a middle class family, but I think the black nerd girl demographic is woefully underrepresented. Too many authors think we have chips on our shoulders, when some of us rarely encounter overt discrimination from other races. If you want me to be brutally honest, I've been harassed by black people my entire life because I'm a nerd and an intellectual and I don't talk like how ghetto black people think is the only way a black person should talk.

What I would say non-black authors should take away from this is simply that it's not 100% required to write a black character with a chip on their shoulder unless you're writing for a specific time period where tensions are high and it's important to the overall story. Don't assume it's present for every black person, especially based on their background and upbringing. It would also be smart to discuss the subject of class issues between black people because that's another issue that tends to get swept under the rug a lot.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Moist_Tissue said:


> Partially true.
> 
> I'm mostly Black, but I'm about 3/8ths Native and a pinch of Irish. I'm rather lucky to have access to my 101 year old grandmother who was the granddaughter of slaves and Natives whose tribes were relocated to Indian Territory.
> 
> Fried Chicken is something that began within the slave community. Pork and beef were considered prime meats, so they were reserved for the master and his family. Chicken, on the other hand, was more abundant. Slave owners permitted their slaves to raise unlimited amounts of chicken. When Scots arrived in the 1700s, they introduced the concept of fritters. Slaves began to incorporate this method of breading meats to their menus, and fried chicken was born. Cutting up and frying chicken was a cheap meal that could feel several people, so the concept began to spread to the poorer members of the White community.


Thank you. Great history lesson.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Here is the thing: in the right setting anyone (regardless of color) can be in the minority. 
Example: the high school I went to had 950 students of those there were 19 whites, 2 Indians (from India), one that was white but no group liked him and the rest were either black or Hispanic. 

Now we all had one thing in common.  No money.  
There were less problems there than the other schools.


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## Moist_Tissue (Dec 6, 2013)

This blog post is rather timely:

http://www.forharriet.com/2015/01/bye-felicia-its-time-to-get-rid-of_6.html


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## Will C. Brown (Sep 24, 2013)

MyraScott said:


> I am probably oversensitive to this in my writing because when I first started getting critiques, I had happily built in characters of all races(major and minor) without really thinking about the implication.
> 
> The fact that I mentioned that the attractive black television reporter asked my character a question erupted into a massive thread about why I had to say she was black. Why did I mention that the porter was young and Asian, wearing hi-top sneakers? Was there a reason to detail that the old lady who got splashed by the truck going through a mud puddle was Indian?
> 
> ...


I think it depends on the scene on how much you point out race and how you point it out. For example, was it necessary for the scene to state that it was an Indian lady that was splashed by the truck? If she wasn't Indian would you have mentioned that she was white? If you said simply that "a truck swerved into a puddle ahead of us and splashed an Indian woman standing on the corner", then I would ask the same question. Perhaps a better line would be "a truck swerved into a puddle ahead of us and splashed an Indian woman standing on the corner soiling her pink sari. The pink silk now dripped with the sludge and dirt of the city streets". Then it isn't so much about the race, but the act. You get your multicultural aspect of your story, but aren't over the top.

Race has come up in my book, but very little is about the "black culture". They are just people that happen to be black. The editor for my second book pointed out that she didn't realize until later in the book that my female lead was supposed to be black, so I dropped a few hints here and there to point it out. But, they were all physical descriptions that didn't really matter to the plot or her personality. In my opinion, physical descriptions should be the primary way to differentiate race.

Blacks, or any race, can't be painted with a broad brush on how they communicate, what they eat, what sports they play, etc.


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## Will C. Brown (Sep 24, 2013)

kyokominamino said:


> ...
> What I would say non-black authors should take away from this is simply that it's not 100% required to write a black character with a chip on their shoulder unless you're writing for a specific time period where tensions are high and it's important to the overall story. Don't assume it's present for every black person, especially based on their background and upbringing. It would also be smart to discuss the subject of class issues between black people because that's another issue that tends to get swept under the rug a lot.


Good points. Thanks for sharing.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Will C. Brown said:


> I think it depends on the scene on how much you point out race and how you point it out. For example, was it necessary for the scene to state that it was an Indian lady that was splashed by the truck? If she wasn't Indian would you have mentioned that she was white? If you said simply that "a truck swerved into a puddle ahead of us and splashed an Indian woman standing on the corner", then I would ask the same question. Perhaps a better line would be "a truck swerved into a puddle ahead of us and splashed an Indian woman standing on the corner soiling her pink sari. The pink silk now dripped with the sludge and dirt of the city streets". Then it isn't so much about the race, but the act. You get your multicultural aspect of your story, but aren't over the top.
> 
> Race has come up in my book, but very little is about the "black culture". They are just people that happen to be black. The editor for my second book pointed out that she didn't realize until later in the book that my female lead was supposed to be black, so I dropped a few hints here and there to point it out. But, they were all physical descriptions that didn't really matter to the plot or her personality. In my opinion, physical descriptions should be the primary way to differentiate race.
> 
> Blacks, or any race, can't be painted with a broad brush on how they communicate, what they eat, what sports they play, etc.


The only time I think race should be an issue is if I am reading a book about a specific culture . Or some erotica, example if I am reading Beast (author), I know race is important.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

RJ Crayton said:


> I'm black and I find the most disturbing thing that tends to come up is the white savior motif that appears so often in fiction. Black people have problems for many years and don't seem to be able to figure out how to solve them until an enterprising whit person comes along. It's a bit condescending, and annoying.


Speaking as a white guy, this also drives me nuts. You see it a lot in stories about Asia, where the white guy comes over and quickly becomes a master martial artist and surpasses everyone else who has been training their whole lives.



Moist_Tissue said:


> What's fascinating to me is that if a character's skin isn't described, the reader tends to make them white by default.


Sometimes even if their skin color _is_ described. Remember the morons who complained about black people in the first Hunger Games film, despite the fact that those characters were described as black in the books?



cinisajoy said:


> Here is the thing: in the right setting anyone (regardless of color) can be in the minority.


That's a very good point. I moved to Japan several years ago and was a minority for the first time in my life. Not even a fraction of the problems other minorities have experienced in other countries, but it did give me a new perspective on things.


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## MyraScott (Jul 18, 2014)

Will C. Brown said:


> I think it depends on the scene on how much you point out race and how you point it out. For example, was it necessary for the scene to state that it was an Indian lady that was splashed by the truck? If she wasn't Indian would you have mentioned that she was white? If you said simply that "a truck swerved into a puddle ahead of us and splashed an Indian woman standing on the corner", then I would ask the same question. Perhaps a better line would be "a truck swerved into a puddle ahead of us and splashed an Indian woman standing on the corner soiling her pink sari. The pink silk now dripped with the sludge and dirt of the city streets". Then it isn't so much about the race, but the act. You get your multicultural aspect of your story, but aren't over the top.


I am so not reliving this particular fight. Those comparisons are paraphrased, not the actual writing. But I know you are being helpful, so thanks!

_(Backing quietly out of the thread, but watching from the shadows.) _


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## JR. (Dec 10, 2014)

Kid gloves, kid gloves. Has always annoyed me. Write the people that are in your story, not the people that you think SHOULD be in your story. Caution for Americans - sarcasm below (because I'm racist and think Americans don't get jokes without a laugh track).

Research people, not races. Frankly, if you have to research a 'race', than you're probably racist. If you are writing a book, and there are black ghetto drug dealers eating chicken while listening to Beyonce in your story, than write that. To think "but they're black, so I shouldn't" is racist. If you're character is an expensive defence attorney who married a white woman and only has white friends, than write that. If he's only there to be the token black guy - that is, if you think "I SHOULD have a black guy, _because black guy_" then you're probably racist. If you think it improves the story, a la TV comedy 'Psych', include him.

@disabled people. If there is one thing I've learnt in life, it's that an arsehole in a wheelchair is still an arsehole.



Will C. Brown said:


> Perhaps a better line would be "a truck swerved into a puddle ahead of us and splashed an Indian woman


Why say she's a woman? Is it because you're a man? Do you assume everyone is a man unless told otherwise? Sexist!



> I'm black.Assumptions:That we all live in the "ghetto".That we all use the n-word.That we all listen to gangsta rap.That we all have absent fathers.That we all like Beyonce.That we all like chicken.That we all have "ghetto" Jewish/European names like Lashonda, Lakeisha, Latoya, Latavia, etc.The angry black woman stereotype i.e. we're fat and angry.


 More assumptions. Not all white people think this, so why write it? Didn't you consider you might be offending me by writing this post? Racist.




> -slanted eyes (can we describe an Asian without pointing out their eyes )


 *********. This is how my Asian wife described our Asian military strongman dictator. He has Vietnamese blood. "He's Chinese," she said, pulling back the skin around her eyes to make them slanted. Racist! (you don't have to be white to be, though many people have told me exactly that (because they're racist)) She's racist because 'chinese' is an insult here, not because she thinks Chinese people have slanted eyes, which they do. Enough of them at least so that you can easily use it to describe a person without using a page where a word will do. I was at the shops the other day buying nail clippers. "This one is chinese," the old woman said dismissively. "This one is Thai," she said holding out the good one. I had a look. "They're both Korean." "Otay! Anung _chen_, anung _thai_." (she's racist (and illiterate) (but I'd still like to see her in a story, because she's interesting))




> If I remember correctly, someone asked Neil Gaiman how to write strong female characters.


 I ended up having to delete Neil Gaiman out of my twitter feed because he's such a coddled typical-actor arsehole. Famous entertainers should be forced to live in the real world a while. Or at least do a quick wikipedia search before linking to outright lies (advocating trial by media, rallying against chemicals and modified grain that save millions of lives in the third world, but are unfashionable in the first). Case in point: I said what I think about this guy, despite his being a god-figure in many literary circles. I didn't think about perceived notions, what my audience believes I SHOULD write, than say something to reflect that.



> Speaking as a white guy, this also drives me nuts. You see it a lot in stories about Asia, where the white guy comes over and quickly becomes a master martial artist and surpasses everyone else who has been training their whole lives.


 Gee, I'd love to read a story where the premise is a white guy that comes over and tries out at martial arts and finds he's not really all that good at it.

Here's a shock: books by Asians usually include either an Asian protagonist, or Asians reading the book assume he or she is Asian. They even include Asians going to America and being good at something the locals are usually good at. Racist! Even white people assume people born in Japan are Japanese, ever though this is merely a generalisation. Racist!

I'll say it again: Research people, not races (or whatever)


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## Greg Dragon (Jun 10, 2014)

Just remember that minorities come from all walks of life just like everyone else. The most offensive thing about black portrayals in books and television is the boring silo that comes from stereotypes--yes even the well meaning ones. It's perfectly okay to have a character be black that acts, talks, and identifies with the white characters (yes that person does exist), and it is okay to have a black person be less than perfect. I love when I see black characters that are complex (shades of gray) in stories and movies because it shows that the character was written as a person and not as a color. I will also add that if you are throwing in minorities just for the hell of it, you may end up creating a ridiculous token.

I liked what one poster added about getting to know people of the outside group that you are attempting to write. It would be easier to paint a caricature of a real person instead of ideas based on what and what not to do in regards to offenses. 

Anyway, that's all I got. I will also add that I read a lot, and I barely find a black character that pisses me off because of the things you fear (mostly because people just avoid it, which I guess is safe). My books are extremely diverse, but I just let people be people. Kind of making the personality type first and then assigning a color versus the other way around (works well for me, haven't pissed anyone off yet). 

Great question--and a brave one--to ask this forum. I say don't over think it, or get some minority beta readers for the all-clear before publishing.


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## Will C. Brown (Sep 24, 2013)

MyraScott said:


> I am so not reliving this particular fight. Those comparisons are paraphrased, not the actual writing. But I know you are being helpful, so thanks!
> 
> _(Backing quietly out of the thread, but watching from the shadows.) _


I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to bring up bad memories.  I was just generalizing the scenario, not trying to quote your actual writing. Poorly communicated on my part.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Very interesting thread. The characters I write are mostly white British (necessarily, because of the milieu the books are set in), but one of my earlier books contains several minority characters whom I did my best to treat sympathetically, but someone still complained. It's definitely something you have to be very careful with.


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## Marie Long (Jan 11, 2014)

This is such a great discussion! I encourage everyone to check out the We Need Diverse Books campaign. http://weneeddiversebooks.org/

I agree with many of the posters here about portraying race and stereotypes. The books I've written feature African American leads, and the supporting characters are of various races, genders and personalities. But I try and make an effort to not focus on what race the main character is, even though I drop hints here and there and may sprinkle a few known stereotypes that would let readers know without overtly offending them at the same time. Because it was interesting to note that some of the people who read the first chapter of my book immediately thought the character was Caucasian. I write New Adult Romance, and very rarely have I seen any in that genre (especially mainstream) that featured non-white characters.

In a scene in one of my books, there is a Latina who is angry and yelling at someone in Spanish that also had a lot of slang. I am not fluent in Spanish and had to ask my Hispanic friends how to accurately say a certain sentence in the most casual, everyday fashion and not textbook/Google Translate-ese.

Writing diverse books can be challenging, but that's what makes writing fun. And it's always helpful to have a diverse network of peers whom you can look to for information.


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## Will C. Brown (Sep 24, 2013)

Marie Long said:


> This is such a great discussion! I encourage everyone to check out the We Need Diverse Books campaign. http://weneeddiversebooks.org/


Thanks for sharing this, Marie!


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

JR. said:


> Kid gloves, kid gloves. Has always annoyed me. Write the people that are in your story, not the people that you think SHOULD be in your story. Caution for Americans - sarcasm below (because I'm racist and think Americans don't get jokes without a laugh track).
> 
> Research people, not races. Frankly, if you have to research a 'race', than you're probably racist. If you are writing a book, and there are black ghetto drug dealers eating chicken while listening to Beyonce in your story, than write that. To think "but they're black, so I shouldn't" is racist. If you're character is an expensive defence attorney who married a white woman and only has white friends, than write that. If he's only there to be the token black guy - that is, if you think "I SHOULD have a black guy, _because black guy_" then you're probably racist. If you think it improves the story, a la TV comedy 'Psych', include him.
> 
> ...


Maybe it's still early and this isagenix diet is making my blood sugar plummet or something, but I am asking this in all seriousness because it is not clear to me. 
Are you being sarcastically truthful and saying you're a racist and we're racist if we do character research? Or are you saying you are NOT racist and we are NOT racist and you are just pointing out the irony? 
Just checking, because I'm an American and I don't know if you are really making a blanket statement or just poking fun at the notion.


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## Guest (Jan 7, 2015)

MyraScott said:


> Others argued that unless you define them more clearly than just looks, you have made them all a bunch of white people with different skin color.


This is actually a very real problem. I'm not saying you did this as I haven't read the book in question. But I have read far too many books where the skin color of the characters is nothing more than cosmetic. Particularly when all of the minority characters are non-characters (or "extras", if we compared it to movies.). Great, you have a Hispanic waitress and an African American news anchor and an Indian woman that got splashed with mud. But what is the ethnicity of the main characters? We see this a great deal in media where there will be minority characters in the background, but the actual plot is driven by a white cast.


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## Dom (Mar 15, 2014)

Moist_Tissue said:


> What's fascinating to me is that if a character's skin isn't described, the reader tends to make them white by default.


It's not that fascinating, it's just playing the odds, right?

But even then, I don't think your statement is true. If Black Dude A is telling a story to Black Dude B about Dude C, it's likely that B will assume C is black. Or the assumption might depend on context. Just keep in mind that the USA has been mostly white (changing soon) and that is a hell of a context.

What I don't get is this whole "we need to see more minority main characters" thing. Coming from the video game industry, you hear the same thing there. The thing is, all things being equal, a white guy is _probably_ going to write about a white guy main character. Now, there's nothing wrong with that author branching out, but there's also nothing wrong with him not. The key isn't forcing white guys to write about minority women, it's to get more people involved in writing. And even then, you can't force it. The whole "women in gaming" push sometimes blames guys for the dearth of women in the industry, which is just ridiculous.

As far as mentioning race in character descriptions, I don't have a problem with it. If you don't do it, you are allowing the reader to make an assumption. As I mentioned above, a black reader may assume a character is black, a white one white. But if the author feels like mentioning the race is valid description, go for it. 
What I do is use the point of view of the narrator (pov character). A white person isn't likely to describe another person as white, so that's why descriptions mention black and Indian but not white. However, a black character would probably do the opposite and describe white people as white.

If it's not clear yet, I think too many people throw racist and sexist accusations around, which lessens the impact when injustices are really occurring.


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## Guest (Jan 7, 2015)

Domino Finn said:


> What I don't get is this whole "we need to see more minority main characters" thing. Coming from the video game industry, you hear the same thing there. The thing is, all things being equal, a white guy is probably going to write about a white guy main character.


So white guys creating orcs, trolls, elves, and dwarves are normal, but expecting a white guy to create a "gasp" BLACK HUMAN HERO is something we totally should not expect? The fallacy of this argument is the fact that white guys seem to be perfectly capable of creating all sorts of characters that aren't even HUMAN, but it is too much to expect them to create a black character (or a female character that wears functional armor...but a discussion for a different thread).

Complacency is no longer an acceptable excuse. It is now 2015. If nothing else, this is a marketing issue. There is an entire market out there that wants to see itself reflected in media. The world no longer needs to only reflect white, able-bodied, anglo-saxon straight males. There are other people in the world besides white, able-bodied, anglo-saxon straight males, and they want to buy your books and games. But they want to see themselves reflected as real people and not simply adornments for the white hero.

I'm not saying you should just throw a coat of minority paint on a character and call it a day. But I don't think we let people off the hook by simply saying "Oh, he's a white guy. So he's just gonna write white guys."


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## LanelleH (Jul 4, 2013)

kyokominamino said:


> You're awesome for starting this thread. I hope not too many people step on each other's toes.
> 
> The only thing I find that irks me about people writing minorities who are not themselves the same ethnicity as their character, as a black woman, is that too many authors assume race is an issue all the time for black people. I'm 26. I grew up in metro-Atlanta. I spent childhood to 18 years old surrounded by black people and then I attended UGA, a predominantly white college. I encountered zero problems at UGA. To this day, I have never had a white person call me the N-word, nor have I had a white person overtly do anything aggressive towards me because of my skin color. Granted, I am an educated intelligent woman raised by a middle class family, but I think the black nerd girl demographic is woefully underrepresented. Too many authors think we have chips on our shoulders, when some of us rarely encounter overt discrimination from other races. If you want me to be brutally honest, I've been harassed by black people my entire life because I'm a nerd and an intellectual and I don't talk like how ghetto black people think is the only way a black person should talk.
> 
> What I would say non-black authors should take away from this is simply that it's not 100% required to write a black character with a chip on their shoulder unless you're writing for a specific time period where tensions are high and it's important to the overall story. Don't assume it's present for every black person, especially based on their background and upbringing. It would also be smart to discuss the subject of class issues between black people because that's another issue that tends to get swept under the rug a lot.


YES TO THIS.

Growing up it was nearly impossible finding a book with a black female main character that didn't center around race. It's what prompted me to write my own stories. Not everything has to be some type of discrimination story, some people just want epic stories with a character they can identify with. Not just in real life but fantasy, science fiction, supernatural, etc. As a teenager (which was only 3 years ago) finding a YA in these genres with a black MC was IMPOSSIBLE. It was truly appalling.


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## MyraScott (Jul 18, 2014)

Domino Finn said:


> The whole "women in gaming" push sometimes blames guys for the dearth of women in the industry, which is just ridiculous.


When I game, I never use the mic. When I code, I post using a generic screen name. If others know I am female, the whole dynamic changes. I've learned the hard way.

I don't want to be a "girl gamer." I don't want to be a "girl coder." I'm a gamer, I'm a coder. I don't want special treatment. I don't want special attention. I don't want higher/lower expectations about my skills, my character or my attitude.

The only way to get equal treatment is to blend in.

The problem is real. Just letting you know. Sorry, I know it's off topic!


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

MyraScott said:


> When I game, I never use the mic. When I code, I post using a generic screen name. If others know I am female, the whole dynamic changes. I've learned the hard way.
> 
> I don't want to be a "girl gamer." I don't want to be a "girl coder." I'm a gamer, I'm a coder. I don't want special treatment. I don't want special attention. I don't want higher/lower expectations about my skills, my character or my attitude.
> 
> ...


I once created a male screen name. I used it for playing spades. I always got a kick out of some of the female players. About half played much better cards with a "male" partner.

Now back to races. The absolute worst book I ever tried to read had a white upper class woman and a (had been here 20 years but still spoke very broken English) Hispanic. It was so stereotyped I could not read it. 
I will give it if a person works around only people speaking his native language then yes, it is possible they will never learn English. But working 20 years with only English speaking people, you will learn the language.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

cinisajoy said:


> But working 20 years with only English speaking people, you will learn the language.


I assume you are talking about fluency here, in which case I'm afraid I have to contradict you. Yes, many or even most people who move to a foreign country will learn to speak that country's language fluently. However, I've worked in a language background all my career, and lived abroad working in that same language field, and I know for a fact that there are some people who can live in a country for 30 years and never learn to speak anything more than a broken version of the language of their adopted country - and I'm not just talking about non-native English speakers in English-speaking countries. I've seen British people living abroad for years who never pick the language up very well. There are some people who do not have and will never have an ear for languages. Whether or not it's a good idea to reproduce an imitation of their speech in a work of fiction is another, stylistic matter.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Lydniz said:


> I assume you are talking about fluency here, in which case I'm afraid I have to contradict you. Yes, many or even most people who move to a foreign country will learn to speak that country's language fluently. However, I've worked in a language background all my career, and lived abroad working in that same language field, and I know for a fact that there are some people who can live in a country for 30 years and never learn to speak anything more than a broken version of the language of their adopted country - and I'm not just talking about non-native English speakers in English-speaking countries. I've seen British people living abroad for years who never pick the language up very well. There are some people who do not have and will never have an ear for languages. Whether or not it's a good idea to reproduce an imitation of their speech in a work of fiction is another, stylistic matter.


I don't necessarily mean perfectly but don't make them sound like they crossed the river last night. 
I'm no expert on languages but I do know Hispanics. I happen to live in a Mexican neighborhood. Except for the one neighbor who has never been around whites, all of the males speak fairly decent English. Now if the wife works, she can usually speak English. Now the housewives usually don't.

But then with the book I was referring to, the Mexican actually had a boss job. I don't care color or language, you don't get those jobs by sounding like you don't know anything. I am assuming if a person works around cows for 20 years and speaks to English speaking person about them, they will have learned the word cow. Not say uhm ah that uhm ah


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

carinasanfey said:


> While the definition of a 'white' person differs according to geographical and social context, 'White Irish' is *not* legally separate from 'White' here in the UK. It's separate from 'White British', but both 'White Irish' and 'White British' fall under the heading of 'White'.


That White Irish bit on the equal opportunities form was added after the 1998(?) Equal Opportunities Commission Report into the Irish in Britain. The report found widespread discrimination in employment in comparison to other "whites" despite often highly than average educational attainment. It also found that widespread racist abuse was commonly suffered at the hand of other "whites." The report concluded that all equality monitoring forms should separate out White Irish from Irish on the grounds that employment discrimination cannot be tackled if you do not monitor the discriminated against group. This is because on a British equal opportunities form "White" and "Christian" are like wasted votes as they are interested in monitoring those who are not "white" or not "Christian." That is what I mean by "white" being a political designation as it is interpreted to mean "non-minority."


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## Genre Hoarder (Oct 4, 2014)

I'll weigh in as a person of Spanish descent. I was born in Cuba to a Spanish (as in, from Spain) mother and a Puerto Rican father. I spent many years living in Mexico because my parents were activists. When we moved to the states, we settled in an area heavily populated with people of Spanish descent. When I read books about people who are supposed to be like me, I am constantly disappointed. Like with many other cultures, there is a vast misrepresentation of what life is like for 'us'. 

Obviously, if you've read this far, you can see that I am by no means illiterate, yet many books will allude to the fact that I am. I also am not a Chola. My father has never been to prison. I don't have tattoos on my neck (if you do, that's fine, but I don't). My lips are not outlined with black lip liner. I speak English fluently, although my first language was Spanish. I don't only eat foods from my culture. In fact, there are a great many I don't eat at all.

As far as appearance goes, we are not all short, round people with black hair and dark brown eyes. My mother is a natural redhead with hazel eyes. My father is blond with green eyes and stands 6'2" tall. He likes baseball, but does not play baseball. He's never been a member of a cartel. My mother is college educated and continues to work full-time well into her late 60's. Both parents speak English fluently.

I guess the bottom line is no matter the background, we cannot be lumped into one ridiculous stereotype. We are just like everyone else. I'm happy to help should anyone have any questions.


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## TheWriter (Oct 1, 2014)

I was going to write in a minority character into one of my first books, but someone asked me one simple question that changed my mind, "Why?" I think it's important to not write minorities in just for fun. If they have a purpose to the story line and drive the plot forward, go for it. I agree with the comments here about not overdoing it on the stereotypes.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

Weighing in as a white guy from the U.S... I purposely neglected to include racial details in hopes of trying to get any reader to relate to him. I didn't necessarily have negative feedback about it but some people that have mentioned it assumed the MC is white. It's hard to say why. Maybe because I'm a white guy or the ones who mentioned it were white. The love interest is a red-head and there's no mention of hair coloring. I suppose that could be another reason why.

Disability is something I did struggle writing. The character suffered a leg injury, was young, and had a cane. It was the focal piece of some internal struggles and self-pity. And to carinasanfey's point, my hope wasn't to come across as one of those able-bodied people writing about something I didn't know about but instead use it for the purpose of his character development.

I consider myself a newbie to the writing world and I am curious about this: with all the talk about the need for diversity, how do you handle it without appearing to pander and without ticking someone off because you didn't include a certain group?


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## Maggie Dana (Oct 26, 2011)

I had this idea for a tween/YA time-travel story that wouldn't let me go: _Two girls, separated by two centuries, and the horse that brings them together._

One of my two main characters (the contemporary one) is a black girl from Connecticut and wants to be the first African American to represent the US in Olympic three-day eventing (a horse competition). She ends up time traveling back to Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1863 and lands in the canopy bed of a Southern girl who loves horses as much as she does.

My problem?

Where did I get off, a middle-aged white British woman, writing from the POV of an African American teen? So I asked several close friends (do I need to qualify that they are black?) who read my synopsis and told me to go for it. There weren't enough YA books out there with strong black protags, especially in the world of horse books.

After much soul searching, I decided to write it. Girls who love horses are the same all over the world no matter what their outer wrappings look like. OK, my black character was from a privileged background and at first she didn't care much about her history, despite her anthropologist mother's best efforts. But landing in the middle of the Civil War gave her a brutal heads up. She was now a slave, and . . .

One of the main characters in my other horse books, Timber Ridge Riders, is a girl in a wheelchair.


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## Mr. Sparkle (Oct 8, 2014)

The operating motive behind writing people of color and other marginalized groups should be for realism. Even in the U.S., a 78% white population (and dropping fast, because in 2029 there will be more people of color under 30 than white people under 30) doesn't mean that a story set in LA will, statistically speaking, be comprised of 78/100 white characters. Better to adapt character makeup to the environment, time period, location, and the level of knowledge you think you need to write them. Change the mindset that "white straight male" is the default setting for a character, and everything else will change as well. It's totally cool to say a character is black if there's a good reason to do so OR you identify all characters by their race when introducing them, which is what I do outside of erotica. Very simple.

For instance, if I write a story in a small town in Pennsylvania, there are going to me mostly white people in it, because that makes sense. If I set a story in Pittsburgh, not so much.

If the story is time-travel to the Civil War, anyone who doesn't look like David Hasselhoff could be subject to harassment or a lot worse, especially if they're mixed race but look white and someone in power finds out.

Sometimes it depends on age and context if you can "pass" as white. Very hard to do in, say Northern Colorado without people assuming you're Latino, whereas when I grew up in the mid-Atlantic, a lot of people were angry and confused when they discovered we weren't white because they had judged race by phenotype and their conception of what "white" looked like, not by how a person self-identified, or genotype, or culture, or ethnicity.

For those specifically trying to incorporate non-Western European folklore and myth structures, I highly recommend "Guardian of the Dead" by Karen Healey. The protagonist is white, but she managed to incorporate Maori mythology and main characters without (IMO) being disrespectful of a culture that fiercely protects its moral rights, even though I don't necessarily believe in the concept of moral rights in the legal structure. It's a YA book and it's really good.

[OT: I also game, and I would love more PoC / female / other protagonists, WITHOUT deadly breastplate armor. LOL.]


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## kyokominamino (Jan 23, 2014)

_Thank you so much for sharing your experiences. Also, nerd girl high five.

Would you mind elaborating a bit on the subject of class issues between black people? I know class is a very big deal in the US, but I'd love to hear about it from the perspective of an American._

WHOO HOO! *high fives back*

The issue I've come into contact most often is in three tiers: (1) lower class black people (2) middle class black people (3) upper class black people. All three of them have problems with each other because black people--again, in my experience--are all taught that we're supposed to have solidarity with each other, which somehow gets corrupted into "we're supposed to all act the same and if you don't, you're an uppity a-hole and we hate you." I grew up in a middle class family that has a huge background in education, and is multicultural, so I grew up a super nerdy kid who didn't have problems with anyone of any race because my whole family is a mix of different cultures. The town I grew up in started out as a nice little suburb, but eventually, became a step above a ghetto, and its citizens followed suit. The lower social/economic classes in my town hate my guts because I "talk white" i.e. I use the occasional big words and I like comic books, anime, reading, and other nerdy things, because it was unfamiliar to them and were things they only associate with white people. Those particular people didn't know that it's just nerd culture, which has no one race attached to it, but thanks to mass media and various movies, they assume you "want to be white" if you're a nerd.

Let me hit you with another angle: my older brother has been with his girlfriend for 5-7 years, and they just got married this past September. At this point, my mother and father are closer to the middle-upper class social/economic class, and we found out that my brother's wife's family is still in the lower-middle class, so they really, really did not like us due to this bizarre inferiority complex. My parents grew up in lower class situations (both are from DC and grew up there until they went to college) and so it's not like they flaunt it or anything, but her family knows that our side of the family is largely filled with middle class folks and so they think we think we're better than them, so they act like they're better than us. The wedding ceremony was lovely, but seriously, her family sat on the opposite side of the dining hall and refused to talk or sit with anyone on our side. That's another example of social class issues between black people.

Overall, it comes down to expectations. Too many black people are brought up to believe that all black people should look and talk the same, so when they don't, they get angry at one another and reject them. If you want a good example in fiction, look up the movies "Soul Food" or "I Think I Love My Wife" to see some interactions of what I mean. And, if you also want to see a good example of the stress that comes along with black people dating outside their race, try "Something New" featuring Sanaa Lathan. That's an accurate portrayal of the social troubles between both races and classes of people.


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## 10105 (Feb 16, 2010)

Moist_Tissue said:


> What's fascinating to me is that if a character's skin isn't described, the reader tends to make them white by default.


And the writer too. In Cat's Cradle (I think) Vonnegut chooses one chapter to identify all references to most of the characters with the adjective "white," a way, I suppose, to make fun of the convention that unless otherwise specified, characters are assumed to be white.

I've seen it from the other side as a (once) youthful southern white jazz musician working in a mostly black society in the late 1950s. Stereotypical assumptions were routinely made, mostly about our playing, but there were others.

I just finished Irving Wallace's "The Man," published in 1964. His treatment of urban black dialect in one character was stereotypical like a caricature, embarrassing, actually. Good book though.


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## kyokominamino (Jan 23, 2014)

Barbie Hall said:


> YES TO THIS.
> 
> Growing up it was nearly impossible finding a book with a black female main character that didn't center around race. It's what prompted me to write my own stories. Not everything has to be some type of discrimination story, some people just want epic stories with a character they can identify with. Not just in real life but fantasy, science fiction, supernatural, etc. As a teenager (which was only 3 years ago) finding a YA in these genres with a black MC was IMPOSSIBLE. It was truly appalling.


YES. Oh my goodness, it's really difficult to find women of color stories, especially black women, that aren't either erotic or strictly urban stories talking about fashion and baby mamas and finding the ideal black man to save her from being a spinster. I'm the same as you--started my own urban fantasy series with a black protagonist just because it's hard to find stories with a black woman that aren't one of those two categories.

Consequently, have you seen this list before? https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/11395.Non_Caucasian_Protagonists_in_Science_Fiction_Fantasy_Horror_and_Paranormal_Romance?page=4#18242185. It made me really happy.


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## MorganKegan (Jan 10, 2013)

I have a YA series (big surprise) in the planning stage. The second MC character is a teen girl (wow, another big surprise) who's mixed-race, with a white father and a black mother, not affluent but comfortably middle class. There's no racial angst or bigotry surrounding her character. The biggest reason for it is this: when I first envisioned her, I had a powerful image of a girl with light-chocolate skin and a mass of loosely-curly brown hair. Now, her best friend the shape changing dragon is the *real* minority...


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## kyokominamino (Jan 23, 2014)

MorganKegan said:


> I have a YA series (big surprise) in the planning stage. The second MC character is a teen girl (wow, another big surprise) who's mixed-race, with a white father and a black mother, not affluent but comfortably middle class. There's no racial angst or bigotry surrounding her character. The biggest reason for it is this: when I first envisioned her, I had a powerful image of a girl with light-chocolate skin and a mass of loosely-curly brown hair. Now, her best friend the shape changing dragon is the *real* minority...


Awesome! But let me be the first to warn you of two things:
(1) Certain readers REALLY hate the coffee/chocolate skin description. I personally don't mind it--I think it's both accurate and it adds a really nice sensory evocation--but I've met a whole demographic of readers who violently hate it and may even stop reading if they see it. It's always your choice, but be careful.
(2) Don't imply that light-skinned girls or mixed girls are prettier than dark-skinned girls. Again, I've met readers who get incredibly angry about it because often the mass media perpetuates the myth that light skinned girls are more beautiful than dark-skinned girls. Same with girls who have straighter hair rather than thick curly hair.

Just thought I'd weigh in to be on the safe side. I've seen some authors learn the hard way.


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## Fishbowl Helmet (Jan 12, 2014)

Great thread. Glad that it's mostly going smoothly.

So, if I can summarize the high points for my own benefit, the gist seems to be--and correct me if I'm wrong--that writers should:

1. Avoid stereotypes entirely.

2. Not focus on race/culture unless it's a part of the story.

3. Do your research on the time and place you're writing about to get the demographics at least in the ballpark.

4. Write well-rounded characters with emotional and attitudinal diversity first, then worry about race/culture second.

It sounds great, but it also seems to lead to a few odd quirks that might not be intended.

Following the suggestions in the thread would preclude any "angry black person" in fiction, likewise it would preclude any "racist white person" in fiction. They're both negative stereotypes. But I think the difference is that as non-whites are underrepresented in fiction already, having those few depictions limited to more stereotypical depictions is far more damaging and quite easily labeled as racist. So basically the fat, white, donut-addicted cop is less of a damaging stereotype than the "angry black person" stereotype. So while both are bad, the former is easier to swallow than the latter for the community it purports to depict.


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## Will C. Brown (Sep 24, 2013)

kyokominamino said:


> YES. Oh my goodness, it's really difficult to find women of color stories, especially black women, that aren't either erotic or strictly urban stories talking about fashion and baby mamas and finding the ideal black man to save her from being a spinster. I'm the same as you--started my own urban fantasy series with a black protagonist just because it's hard to find stories with a black woman that aren't one of those two categories.
> ...


Yeah...I admit that my two books have lead black woman and fall into the erom category. At the time I was experimenting with trying erotica, but ended up with too much emotion for that.
I'll be moving into a whole new totally different genre next (Superhero). The lead will be a black male, but a few of the supporting characters in the series, including a black female, will get their own book.


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## RaeC (Aug 20, 2013)

I've never really minded a focus on race/culture, even if it's not a integral part of the plot, per se. If it adds a dash of setting and atmosphere, I say go for it. What I can't stand is the cliche that a minority character's background results in a shoulder-chip in every aspect of life. There are times I'm well aware of my color, and I act accordingly defensive, but more times than not it's irrelevant to how I approach my everyday life. I'll always be Black; I'm not always a color.

I'm also of the opinion that not every character of an underrepresented group has to be ultimately virtuous. Pepper up your stories with some weak, sinful, villainous, stupid, and downright unlikable ones. I believe in diversity in fiction, and that there's nothing wrong with a conscious effort to increase it. But I also believe that with support of such an effort comes a responsibility to embrace diversity that we might not necessarily like. I just want to seem more of everyone in fiction, whether they're good or bad.


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## kyokominamino (Jan 23, 2014)

Will C. Brown said:


> Yeah...I admit that my two books have lead black woman and fall into the erom category. At the time I was experimenting with trying erotica, but ended up with too much emotion for that.
> I'll be moving into a whole new totally different genre next (Superhero). The lead will be a black male, but a few of the supporting characters in the series, including a black female, will get their own book.


Oh, no shame in your game. It's a huge market and there are tons of women who specifically only read that. It's just tougher for nerdy girls to find what they're looking for, that's all. And that's awesome! I would adore seeing more black superheroes (Seriously, Sam Wilson in The Winter Soldier rocked my socks off last year; I am so proud of Anthony Mackie) and I wish you the best of luck there.


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## Krazykiwi (Oct 7, 2013)

I'd just like to reiterate something touched upon up thread - the overly positive stereotype can be just as damaging and demeaning as the overly negative one. The "magical *****" trope has been mentioned already, and I think the the orientalist "mighty ******" trope has been touched on, where a (typically young, rich and white male) westerner travels to some generically oriental setting and learns mystical feats from a master they ultimately surpass. 

But the one that really grinds my gears is when the token minority figure is the shamanistic "in touch with the spirits" or "in touch with natural forces" wise and mystical figure. 

It might not sound too bad, but it quite literally sets up a very weird expectation, when let's be honest, most of us brown folk out here spend most of our time being ordinary people trying to make a living and get along with the world. When asked to my face if a grass skirt is as uncomfortable as it looks-yes that has really happened-or if we maori still eat people-yes that has happened too-it's ridiculous enough that I get a laugh out of it (and possibly hint that yes, yes we do, and maybe even lick my lips). 

But when I get hit with "oh you're so cool and spiritual, just look at those tattoos" (yes THAT has really happened too, more than once), I don't know what to say. Would/do most people think it's ok to say that to someone with a cross necklace? or to walk up to a Hassidic jew and say that about their hair? maybe it's just me, but I think that'd be kind of rude, and those *are* in fact advertisements of adherence to faith. For the record, maori like to draw on themselves just for fun as much as anyone else. Ta moko, tattoos with spiritual / tribal significance are quite distinctive, but kirituhi, tattoos just for arts sake are very much more commonly found on any kiwi, no matter what our skin colour. And yet every book I ever picked up written by a non New Zealander, every tattoo in sight is a spiritual signpost, plastered on another magical brown person. Ok, sorry that example got away on me, but I think you probably got my drift. It's like because we're noble savages or something, everything is up for comment by outsiders, because we're just so cooooool and weird and exotic. 

I pretty much can't bear to read most fiction set in New Zealand and written by foreigners (or most anything involving native americans, because they get it too), because it's almost guaranteed to show up. In fact, even in a lot of pure fantasy settings, I'm happily reading along about all the nice white folks in their towns, when some "tribal" group with great connection to nature shows up and what do you know, they're kinda coppery brown coloured. Of course. Eyeroll. 

Why can't the brown people be happily living in the towns? Why can't some of the white folks have the mystical connection with nature, and all the funky deities or be the healers who rescue the hero from the wilderness and nurse him back to health? I'm really quite sure it doesn't come with the skin colour, but from a lifetime of fiction reading, you'd honestly think it did. 

It's gotten to the point where I don't want to read any of Rosalind James books because such a character is hinted at in some of the reviews of one of them, and I really really like Rosalind and her posts on the board, and I'd really hate to have to throw my e-reader at a wall (Rosalind, if you're out there, please tell me it's safe to read your books! I know you lived in NZ for a good long time, so I'm almost sure it is


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

For my third novel, I'm planning a new character -- a middle-aged Latino scholar/adventurer (sorta like Indiana Jones) with cerebral palsy. He sometimes has a little difficulty making himself understood verbally, and he needs crutches when he walks, but these aren't significant obstacles for him, since he mostly communicates in writing -- he's a scholar, after all -- and often rides a giant spider. I started out just thinking this would be an interesting person to put into a fantasy novel, where characters are all too often white, young, able-bodied, and prone to fisticuffs. But at this point, I've sort of fallen in love with him. He's brilliant and handsome and just a little bit nasty. Don't tell my husband.  

I hope this thread stays open.


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## eleanorberesford (Dec 22, 2014)

T.k. said:


> I was going to write in a minority character into one of my first books, but someone asked me one simple question that changed my mind, "Why?"


Okay, I'm going to be That Girl who jumps on this. When you write a white, cis, het, non-disabled guy from a majority culture, do you have to ask yourself "why" and come up with some special justification for writing about him? Do you need to ask yourself _why _ he is all kinds of privileged majority, or is that just your presumed default for "human being"?

This sounds hostile, and it's really not meant that way, just that I think this question is also worth answering so I want to open it up.

I think the "why?" leads to all of us outside the presumed default being invisible. My main characters are lesbian--why? Because I want to write about lesbians like me. One of my love interests is half-Chinese--why? Because I don't want my half Chinese son growing up thinking Mummy only cares enough about white people to write them unless I have a special reason. The Head Girl, a major character in the planned third of the series, has Aboriginal descent--why? Because one of my most loved and oldest friends is Aboriginal and I hate that her kids barely see themselves except in "issue" books.

But I don't think I actually needed the "why" justification. Because I don't think every character needs to be majority, that's why.


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## AJHolm (Feb 18, 2014)

What I've gathered from this thread.

Don't write the story you want to - instead pander to every minority that you can think of.

How about NO. If YOU want to write that kind of story, go ahead and write it. But once again I see a trend towards requiring everyone to write by the same rules and with the same conventions.

If your art requires stereotypes, write em. If it requires every single trope and cliche that exists, write em. For the love of all that is good don't try to conform to anyone's view of what your art SHOULD contain.


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## eleanorberesford (Dec 22, 2014)

Even if what they think books "should" contain is all majority, privileged characters in order to make them feel comfortable and unchallenged?


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## Krazykiwi (Oct 7, 2013)

That sounds like someone who has likely only ever read or written books that mirror their own privilege and recognised themself in it, railing against other people discussing rather politely and in a variety of contexts, how much they would like to read (and write) books that show a different, more diverse reality that they too can feel comfortable in. How unusual. Not.

Readers out there are (and right here in this thread) are clamouring for diversity, in all the many wonderful shapes and forms it can take that don't amount to tokenism or fetishism. If your art can't cope, whatever, you know you can click right on past a thread you don't like, right?


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## eleanorberesford (Dec 22, 2014)

It would be really cool, though, if everyone was "required" to write books with diverse characters and without relying on lazy stereotypes. Think how much more interesting and varied our reading choices would be. Not sure who would be doing the requiring and how, though--the Illuminati? 

I guess what I want isn't requirement but encouragement and support. To some minds, though, that is the same as coercion.


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## Claudia Lefeve (Dec 17, 2010)

graelily said:


> As far as appearance goes, we are not all short, round people with black hair and dark brown eyes. My mother is a natural redhead with hazel eyes. My father is blond with green eyes and stands 6'2" tall. He likes baseball, but does not play baseball. He's never been a member of a cartel. My mother is college educated and continues to work full-time well into her late 60's. Both parents speak English fluently.
> 
> I guess the bottom line is no matter the background, we cannot be lumped into one ridiculous stereotype. We are just like everyone else. I'm happy to help should anyone have any questions.


Hey, I'm of the short, dark hair/eye variety! LOL And I totally agree. The best advice my father ever gave me was, "You're not special. You're just like everybody else."

I grew up in an area that was 95%+ Hispanic, right on the Mexican border. There were poor people and rich people, pretty folks and ugly ones, the kind souls and the nasty, those incarcerated and others not, the smart and the daft, the educated and the dropouts&#8230;point is, there was no one stereotype where I lived&#8230;we're just like everyone else.

And an FYI to those who write Hispanic characters, be very careful on how you "label" us (Hispanic, Latino(a), Chicano(a), etc.) in books. Plus, there many different subcultures: Mexicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Spanish, Latin Americans, Central Americans, etc&#8230;we each have our own attitudes/beliefs/experiences (even of those born in the US&#8230;California vs Texan vs Florida)&#8230;again, very much like everybody else (Northern views vs Southern views, for example).


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## RaeC (Aug 20, 2013)

We're writers trying to convey a narrative or sell a book. Unless we're just writing for the ever-vague love of the art, we're pandering to someone, one way or another. I think everyone in this thread just wants to avoid tired stereotypes which might hinder reaching a larger audience. I don't see anything wrong with that. 

I mean, I love comics. Always have, always will. But one of the most irksome things is the reaction to the the introduction of women or minority characters into well-established roles or franchises. There's a sudden pushback and accusations of "an agenda". Inclusion these types of characters and trying to understand the nuances involved in their handling (if there are any at all) isn't anything negative, and I don't think anyone here is trying to force-feed a one-type-fits-all perspective in its implementation. Write what you want however you want to. But some readers just get tired of seeing the same types of characters all the time. I think that applies to characteristics of race, culture, sex, religion, etc., as it does everything else.


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## eleanorberesford (Dec 22, 2014)

AdrianC said:


> But one of the most irksome things is the reaction to the the introduction of women or minority characters into well-established roles or franchises. There's a sudden pushback and accusations of "an agenda".


Not just comics. I'm a (mostly indie and Japanese niche) gamer, and the rise of the hashtag that must not be spoken, as well as games doing interesting things and getting attention in gaming journalism, has dragged the same reactionary attitudes into the open in gaming. Which is why I am withdrawing from this thread; too tired. I will just go on trying to be inclusive and support others who are, and focus on the happy feelings and fun.

I will never understand why inclusiveness and sensitivity is so damn threatening.


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## kyokominamino (Jan 23, 2014)

AJHolm said:


> What I've gathered from this thread.
> 
> Don't write the story you want to - instead pander to every minority that you can think of.
> 
> ...


You might want to reread this thread. I'm pretty sure we're trying to discuss unhealthy stereotypes that happen because the author isn't trying to understand someone else's culture and just assumes that the character they're writing is the way this character should be represented based on pre-existing stereotypes that are often both inaccurate and offensive. Everyone with an iota of sense knows that everyone is allowed to write what they want to write, but this thread is simply discussing things we would like to see explored more fully within cultures not of our own. It's a learning exercise, not a pulpit of preachers.


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## kyokominamino (Jan 23, 2014)

eleanorberesford said:


> Not just comics. I'm a (mostly indie and Japanese niche) gamer, and the rise of the hashtag that must not be spoken, as well as games doing interesting things and getting attention in gaming journalism, has dragged the same reactionary attitudes into the open in gaming. Which is why I am withdrawing from this thread; too tired. I will just go on trying to be inclusive and support others who are, and focus on the happy feelings and fun.
> 
> I will never understand why inclusiveness and sensitivity is so damn threatening.


^THIS. Agreed completely, my friend. I think I might also retire for now because some of the nasty small minded people have caught a whiff of it.

This is why we can't have nice things.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

AdrianC said:


> I mean, I love comics. Always have, always will. But one of the most irksome things is the reaction to the the introduction of women or minority characters into well-established roles or franchises. There's a sudden pushback and accusations of "an agenda". Inclusion these types of characters and trying to understand the nuances involved in their handling (if there are any at all) isn't anything negative, and I don't think anyone here is trying to force-feed a one-type-fits-all perspective in its implementation. Write what you want however you want to. But some readers just get tired of seeing the same types of characters all the time. I think that applies to characteristics of race, culture, sex, religion, etc., as it does everything else.


Also a lifelong comics fan and this drives me nuts. Whenever it's another white guy who takes up the hero's mantle, then it's considered a great idea and promotes the legacy of the characters (Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes, Barry Allen/Wally West, Dick Grayson/Jason Todd/Tim Drake, etc). But if the new character has a different skin color or gender, then it's suddenly a massive controversy and all about pandering and marketing ploys. Horse-faced aliens and frogs can become Gods of Thunder, but better not give that hammer to a girl!



kyokominamino said:


> I think I might also retire for now because some of the nasty small minded people have caught a whiff of it.
> 
> This is why we can't have nice things.


On the plus side, threads like these show me who I can add to my ignore list.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

For all those asking why we should write minority characters, we should write them because the world is diverse.

Of course, if you want to populate your fiction solely with straight, white, cisexual, able-bodied, Christian, American men, you are free to do so. Nobody's stopping you. However, you may want to ask yourself why your fiction is so homogeneous, since the world around us isn't homegeneous at all.


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## kyokominamino (Jan 23, 2014)

CoraBuhlert said:


> For all those asking why we should write minority characters, we should write them because the world is diverse.
> 
> Of course, if you want to populate your fiction solely with straight, white, cisexual, able-bodied, Christian, American men, you are free to do so. Nobody's stopping you. However, you may want to ask yourself why your fiction is so homogeneous, since the world around us isn't homegeneous at all.


*"Hallelujah" music plays* And thank you for putting it so beautifully, as always, most darling Cora.


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## JKata (Dec 9, 2014)

kyokominamino said:


> Awesome! But let me be the first to warn you of two things:
> (1) Certain readers REALLY hate the coffee/chocolate skin description. I personally don't mind it--I think it's both accurate and it adds a really nice sensory evocation--but I've met a whole demographic of readers who violently hate it and may even stop reading if they see it. It's always your choice, but be careful.


I didn't know this. Thanks for the heads up. Is there a reason why such a description is offensive? In one of her books, JK Rowling had a character describe another character, who was mixed race, as having cafe-au-lait skin. And I thought it was an interesting description. Didn't even realize that some people might find it offensive. I just thought of it as the same way some authors describe a white character as having peaches and cream skin or something like that. That's why it's nice to have discussions like this. So we all can learn.


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## kyokominamino (Jan 23, 2014)

Justice Joy said:


> I didn't know this. Thanks for the heads up. Is there a reason why such a description is offensive? In one of her books, JK Rowling had a character describe another character, who was mixed race, as having cafe-au-lait skin. And I thought it was an interesting description. Didn't even realize that some people might find it offensive. I just thought of it as the same way some authors describe a white character as having peaches and cream skin or something like that. That's why it's nice to have discussions like this. So we all can learn.


From what I gather, some people feel as if it's insensitive to compare them to something "exotic" because it implies that their skin color is abnormal. Again, I don't personally see it that way at all, but some do, and so I usually try to find non-food related colors since "brown" can be a little boring. This is simply what I've seen in discussion boards, and I think a majority of readers won't mind, but it is something you need to be aware of just in case. Better safe than sorry! I'm excited for your book and I hope everything goes well.


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## Moist_Tissue (Dec 6, 2013)

For me, comparing skin color to food reminds me that Blackness remains a commodity that is packaged and sold for consumption.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

I have mental illness (depression).

I hate reading books where a character's mental illness gets fixed by love.

I love my fiance, and he makes my life much better, but I still have depression.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Moist_Tissue said:


> For me, comparing skin color to food reminds me that Blackness remains a commodity that is packaged and sold for consumption.


Uh-oh, I'm guilty of this.

I have a character whom the MC describes as "a tiny, caramel-complexioned woman with curly black hair and pretty, delicate features." She's actually from the ancient Middle East (as in Babylon), but the MC doesn't know that and probably never finds out where she's from.

And I have a Puerto Rican character. When first meeting her, the MC says, "She was young -- in her late teens, maybe twenty, tops. She was quite a bit shorter than me, five-foot-one or -two. Her hair was shaved close on the sides and bleached almost white. Her skin was the color of coffee with cream. I wasn't sure of her ethnicity. Latina, maybe."

Do you think it's better just not to be specific about the color of a character's skin?


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## Rin (Apr 25, 2011)

Crystal_ said:


> I have mental illness (depression).
> 
> I hate reading books where a character's mental illness gets fixed by love.
> 
> I love my fiance, and he makes my life much better, but I still have depression.


This annoys me so much (fellow depressive here). Mental illness doesn't go away because of love, or one good day, it's there, and you have to deal with that. If you don't want to have a character deal with it, or treat it seriously, just make them neurotypical.

My main character has a voice in her head, and I've had people argue till they're blue in the face that the voice has to be another entity, or someone else projecting their thoughts into her mind...rather than accept that she's insane. -_-


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## Dom (Mar 15, 2014)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> So white guys creating orcs, trolls, elves, and dwarves are normal, but expecting a white guy to create a "gasp" BLACK HUMAN HERO is something we totally should not expect?


To follow through with your analogy, it's fine for a white guy to write about elves and it's fine to write about black women. But to say that white people MUST write about black women is like saying they MUST write about elves.

For the record, diversity is awesome. I grew up in Miami which I feel is much more of a melting pot than Los Angeles is. I'm proud to not be a hateful, ignorant person. But I also don't think authors should be forced to make their next main character something other than what they planned just to be politically correct.

Yes, the world is diverse, and the growing diversity of authors will represent the growing diversity of the world. This is cool. Now, I'm certainly not advocating authoring racist material, but white guys should be able to write about white guys without being labeled racist, just like Americans shouldn't _need to_ write more stories that take place in China and India to better represent the population of the world. Some people will, and this is great.

The bottom line is, as an author, I don't think it's good business to dictate what people should write about.


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## Lexi Revellian (May 31, 2010)

In my novel _Ice Diaries_ one of the main characters, a charming middle-class sociopath, is black (actually his father is white, but this is only hinted at in the book). His race isn't an issue in the story.

One Goodreads reviewer said she docked one star because she didn't like the only black character being a baddie, and this was all too often the case (I haven't come across this myself...)

You can't please everyone, and shouldn't try.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

I've read all of the Alex Cross novels and it wasn't until about the fourth one that I realized Cross is black. It didn't change my perception of the character, rather it was more of a side note. I have a number of characters of color in my books and try to write it just like that, a side note as to who they are.

During a recent trip to Florida to help out on a Homes for Warriors project, I got to meet a bunch of guys with both visible and invisible wounds. We got together for beers the evening before I left and one of the guys mentioned I should include a bunch of Wounded Warriors in my book, going out on a fishing trip with the MC, when something happens and they instantly transform into the Warriors they are, regardless of their physical limitations. Several of the guys bounced ideas around the large table and one of them had us all laughing. A guy that lost both legs said that during a fight scene, one of the bad guys would grab his legs and try to pull him down a flight of stairs, only to have his prosthesis come off and the bad guy go tumbling down the steps holding his legs.

I'm currently trying to work this into Fallen King, due out in about a month.


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## Guest (Jan 8, 2015)

Domino Finn said:


> To follow through with your analogy, it's fine for a white guy to write about elves and it's fine to write about black women. But to say that white people MUST write about black women is like saying they MUST write about elves.


And nowhere in anything that I wrote did I imply or state you MUST do anything. You are making the same false argument that always comes up in these discussions. I simply said it is no longer acceptable to use "he's white so it is OK" as an excuse. Because for me, these are BUSINESS decisions.

Do you not WANT those customers? Do you (_Imperial you, not you personally_) not want women and minorities to engage with your work, or do you only care about white males? And look, if you honestly ONLY want to market to white males, admit that. That's cool. That is the demographic you want to target and you aren't interested in targeting other ones. That is a legitimate business decision. But don't insult, diminish, or dismiss those creatives who DO want to embrace those markets, and don't insult, diminish, or dismiss those demographics that are begging for representation. If you don't want to meet those market needs, that is your call. But don't cry reverse racism, reverse sexism, or "agendas" when the marketplace leaves you behind.

The whole point is that as creatives, we constantly need to leave our "comfort zones" if we want to create work that is relevant. Doesn't matter if we are talking about minorities in fiction, genre tropes getting broken, or even distribution trends. If we don't embrace change and that which is different, we will get left behind. The world isn't going to stop progressing because white guys only want to write white guys. Nor is it going to stop progressing because an unfortunately vocal population screams really loud that anyone who writes things other than white guys is pandering.


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## Dom (Mar 15, 2014)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> And nowhere in anything that I wrote did I imply or state you MUST do anything.


But I did, and that was my original point that you replied to. Maybe just a misunderstanding, but it sounds like we're in agreement here then.



Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Do you not WANT those customers?


I personally do, even though I don't write to market. Other authors may wish to write purely for themselves, or write to other markets. I never commented on the business sense of the issue - just that it wasn't racist to not write protagonists of another race.



Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> But don't insult, diminish, or dismiss those creatives who DO...


I don't think I ever did that. And besides, with my tiny backlist, I already have Hispanic and Native American pov characters, so I'd be insulting myself.


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## 10105 (Feb 16, 2010)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> ...and one of the guys mentioned I should include a bunch of Wounded Warriors in my book, going out on a fishing trip with the MC, when something happens and they instantly transform into the Warriors they are, regardless of their physical limitations.


That is a wonderful idea with great potential, and I'll buy that book. I wish I'd thought of it.

ETA: At the suggestion of a friend who entertains in nursing homes, I wrote a cozy where the amateur sleuths live in a nursing home. The book sold to a publisher after only one submission and earned out its advance right after it came out.

Talk about a minority...That'll change when the boomers get a few years older.


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## Guest (Jan 8, 2015)

Domino Finn said:


> - just that it wasn't racist to not write protagonists of another race.


And again, nobody said it was "racist." THAT is not the argument. The issue is white privilege, among other things. Too many people refuse to even acknowledge it, and claim that it is the equivalent of accusing people of racism. It isn't about racism. It is about recognizing that other races matter. That other races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations exist in the world. It is a request to open your eyes and recognize that there are other people out there.



> I already have Hispanic and Native American pov characters, so I'd be insulting myself.


And again, as it wasn't clear. I was speaking "Imperial you." Not you in particular. I was specifically addressing the _mindset_ that white guys are just going to write white guys and that we should just "accept that." So much of this is not a matter of conscious decisions. Often people don't realize they are excluding minorities or whatever because it just doesn't occur to them. So we need to point it out. I'm not going to just "accept" it. I'm going to point out "Hey, great book. But did you realize you didn't have a single female speaking character in the whole thing?" And I've done that, and quite often the response is "Crap, how did I do that?" And subsequent books included more female characters. Not because I was being "pandered" to, but because the author was now aware that he was doing it and thus could make better decisions about his characters. These discussions shouldn't be about people feeling that they are being called racist. It should be about raising awareness.

For me, I've never written a story with a handicapped character. Never occurred to me to do so. But I've seen a lot of discussion recently about people looking for stories with handicapped characters. I'm in the middle of working on a story, and now I'm considering how the story would change if I made a specific character handicapped. Not to pander, but because I'm now AWARE of the defect in my cast of characters and I'm thinking about it.

Nobody is saying anyone has to do anything. We're just asking people to think about it instead of just shrugging and accepting.


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## Guest (Jan 8, 2015)

To answer the OP,


> What generalisations do you find white authors tend to make when writing about non-white characters, particularly black or Asian characters living in predominantly white societies?"


I can't remember reading a book with an Asian protagonist or Asian anything in the genres that I read (fantasy/sci fi, some thrillers). That's probably because I haven't read that many books yet. But on a parallel train of thought; in movies (unfortunately I watch more than I read), I find that the generalizations on Asians are the usual stuff.

One of my WIP involves Chinese Triads, and it has got quite a bit of stereotypes in there. Is it wrong? Maybe. Haters gonna hate. Lovers gonna love. People on the fence might fall the wrong way from reading about a stereotype, but they will probably climb over to the right side when they actually meet a Chinese gangster that is tall, has Caucasian facial features, polite, kind, and generous. So I don't sweat over it too much because I believe that most people are decent, and they can see past the fact that not all Chinese are greedy, swindlers, studious, even if my book might have a few of those types.

Cheers...


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> I've read all of the Alex Cross novels and it wasn't until about the fourth one that I realized Cross is black. It didn't change my perception of the character, rather it was more of a side note. I have a number of characters of color in my books and try to write it just like that, a side note as to who they are.
> 
> During a recent trip to Florida to help out on a Homes for Warriors project, I got to meet a bunch of guys with both visible and invisible wounds. We got together for beers the evening before I left and one of the guys mentioned I should include a bunch of Wounded Warriors in my book, going out on a fishing trip with the MC, when something happens and they instantly transform into the Warriors they are, regardless of their physical limitations. Several of the guys bounced ideas around the large table and one of them had us all laughing. A guy that lost both legs said that during a fight scene, one of the bad guys would grab his legs and try to pull him down a flight of stairs, only to have his prosthesis come off and the bad guy go tumbling down the steps holding his legs.
> 
> I'm currently trying to work this into Fallen King, due out in about a month.


You must put that in one of your books. Your Wounded Warrior had a great idea.

On the other part of your post,
Morgan Freeman makes a much better Alex Cross than Tyler Perry.


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## 10105 (Feb 16, 2010)

There is a specific social bias in writing--and living--that I've observed most of my life. That is that all racists are evil or otherwise unacceptable people.

I was raised in a prejudiced society in an all-white southern community. My father was prejudiced against black people, and my grandfather was a hating bigot. Most of our friends and neighbors were one or the other too. My mother, however, did her best to keep discussions of those prejudices out of our home. Between her and Art Tatum (black jazz pianist, God, in fact) I was spared the influence of white supremacy. (Notice how I am obliged to disassociate myself from racial bias? That's part of the problem.)

That's the background. Here's the point:

I know from personal experience that some white racists are otherwise good people.

Yet I rarely read in contemporary literature of white protagonists and secondary good guys using the N-word, for example, and exhibiting racial prejudice in other ways. And, I confess, I never write them either, because to do so brings automatic judgment about social character down upon the writer by association. I've seen it in reviews. Yet to ignore that such people--likable racists--exist is to exclude from our art (when such a character would enhance the story) one more slice of reality.

Now I'm going to click Post and go pull the covers over my head.


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## kyokominamino (Jan 23, 2014)

Adly Teoh said:


> To answer the OP,
> I can't remember reading a book with an Asian protagonist or Asian anything in the genres that I read (fantasy/sci fi, some thrillers). That's probably because I haven't read that many books yet. But on a parallel train of thought; in movies (unfortunately I watch more than I read), I find that the generalizations on Asians are the usual stuff.
> 
> One of my WIP involves Chinese Triads, and it has got quite a bit of stereotypes in there. Is it wrong? Maybe. Haters gonna hate. Lovers gonna love. People on the fence might fall the wrong way from reading about a stereotype, but they will probably climb over to the right side when they actually meet a Chinese gangster that is tall, has Caucasian facial features, polite, kind, and generous. So I don't sweat over it too much because I believe that most people are decent, and they can see past the fact that not all Chinese are greedy, swindlers, studious, even if my book might have a few of those types.
> ...


^ Yep. This is precisely why for my NaNoWriMo project back in 2011 I wrote two Korean siblings as my protagonists. I was like, "Oh, man, there seriously aren't a lot of Asian main characters in science fiction so let's take a whack at it." Also, one of my best friends and roommates in college is Korean and I adore her and her culture, so that's another reason I wanted to try writing from that perspective. I learned quite a lot.

Ooh, by the way, have you ever heard of Cinder by Marissa Meyer? (Seen here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11235712-cinder?from_search=true) I know it's YA and there's a love story, but it's actually science fiction and Cinder is a Chinese cyborg who lives in futuristic Beijing. I've read the sample chapters and it's pretty darn good. I have it on my reading list for 2015.


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## Guest (Jan 8, 2015)

> ^ Yep. This is precisely why for my NaNoWriMo project back in 2011 I wrote two Vietnamese siblings as my protagonists. I was like, "Oh, man, there seriously aren't a lot of Asian main characters in science fiction so let's take a whack at it." Also, one of my best childhood friends (seriously, we've been friends since middle school and we were roommates in college) is Vietnamese and I adore her and her culture, so that's another reason I wanted to try writing from that perspective. I learned quite a lot.
> 
> Ooh, by the way, have you ever heard of Cinder by Marissa Meyer? (Seen here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11235712-cinder?from_search=true) I know it's YA and there's a love story, but it's actually science fiction and Cinder is a Chinese cyborg who lives in futuristic Beijing. I've read the sample chapters and it's pretty darn good. I have it on my reading list for 2015.


That's cool that you wrote about the Vietnamese siblings, I'll have to check it out. And I'll have to check out Cinder too! After my current fantasy binge. Thanks 

I think stereotypes can and will perpetuate hate/bigotry, but with the world going in the direction it is (diversification of cities/towns/villages, everywhere, ok not everywhere, but most places), it'll have less and less of an impact on book readers who are on the fence. Their personal interaction with minorities will have a more significant impact on their views. I'll use myself as an example, I watched a lot of MTV in college, and I thought it perpetuated that all young black males were rappers, but my personal day to day experiences showed me that that sure isn't the case.

I don't have any issues with non-Asian authors writing about/including Asian stereotypes in their work, whatever their motivations might be. I just hope that some research was done. If I don't like it, my problem. Go for it!

Cheers...


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## kyokominamino (Jan 23, 2014)

Adly Teoh said:


> That's cool that you wrote about the Vietnamese siblings, I'll have to check it out. And I'll have to check out Cinder too! After my current fantasy binge. Thanks
> 
> I think stereotypes can and will perpetuate hate/bigotry, but with the world going in the direction it is (diversification of cities/towns/villages, everywhere, ok not everywhere, but most places), it'll have less and less of an impact on book readers who are on the fence. Their personal interaction with minorities will have a more significant impact on their views. I'll use myself as an example, I watched a lot of MTV in college, and I thought it perpetuated that all young black males were rappers, but my personal day to day experiences showed me that that sure isn't the case.
> 
> ...


Oh, goodness, don't feel obligated to read my NaNoWriMo nonsense. It's discontinued because I won the contest and never went back to finish it because it was too flawed and I didn't know enough about science fiction to fix it up enough to sell. However, if you absolutely HAVE to satisfy your curiosity, you can read the whole thing free here: http://shewhowritesmonsters.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/The-Starlight-Contingency.pdf. But again, I don't recommend it. It's raw materials that need soooooooooo much work it's not even funny.

That's true. I think that's what drew me to this thread. It's great seeing that so many authors are interested in writing minority characters and are curious about how to do it well. That's encouraging to me, even if we did attract some jerks to the thread here and there. I hope everyone continues to expand their writing horizons and doesn't feel obligated to write diverse characters but rather excited to write them. The whole world is diverse. Why should fiction be any different?

Ooh, last recommendation, did you ever watch the CW show Nikita starring Maggie Q? It's not fantasy, but it is a spy thriller and Maggie is magnificent in it. I was so proud of her and the show made it four seasons. Loved it.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> For me, I've never written a story with a handicapped character. Never occurred to me to do so.


I have. Not because I thought I have too few minorities in my books. Besides I think I've done my bit for the gay minority. My books are set in a medieval-ish world in the far future. Battles happen. Legs need to be amputated. So, I thought, how does a warrior carry on after that? I also plan a short story, set in the same world, about a blind warrior. He might be a bit bitter, though.

I'm dying to write a contemporary novella that would have a paralyzed character. I've put it off because the story demands the paralysis would be temporary, and I haven't figured out yet how that could work medically speaking, or if it is at all possible. Also, I don't want to invoke the ire of people scoffing, "Of course, he recovers." Which wouldn't be all that irrational. I personally don't like stories in which the gay character suddenly sees the light and turns straight.


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## Carradee (Aug 21, 2010)

Rin said:


> Crystal_ said:
> 
> 
> > I hate reading books where a character's mental illness gets fixed by love.
> ...


Agreed. I have PTSD and associated anxiety, plus depression caused by things like a chronic vitamin D deficiency. (I have to take at least 10 TIMES the recommended daily amount of vitamin D to counteract it.)



Rin said:


> My main character has a voice in her head, and I've had people argue till they're blue in the face that the voice has to be another entity, or someone else projecting their thoughts into her mind...rather than accept that she's insane. -_-


Ulgh. I've read Rin's books, and Stef is insane. Period. She admits it outright. Her friends and family-by-choice accept it and her both, and they do their best to not call her out on it. ("I hate to ask, but did that sentence begin in your head?")

I haven't had anyone (yet) argue so vehemently that my homicidally insane character is entirely all right in the head, but I _have_ had readers protest that she isn't as insane as she thinks she is-even though this particular character has blackouts where she comes to her senses covered in blood, and when ticked off, she sometimes loses control over her own limbs as they kill someone. (It's a form of insanity innate to that particular fantasy world, a side effect of how magic works.) She controls/hides it reasonably well for years, but that's in part because she lives somewhere where there are very few of the kind of people that would innately set her off-and those few around her care enough to avoid triggering her. Her cousin has spent YEARS lying and building this entire persona of incompetence to avoid triggering a situation where one of them will have to kill the other.

I personally have chronic health issues that are generally invisible, the side effects of which currently make me look like a possibly-anorexic 22 instead of the usual enviably healthy 16-ish that I usually appear. (I'm nearing 30.) People comment things like, "Oh, you're young and healthy. You can [do something I actually CAN'T, not unless I want to be sick for a week]." I'm used to being expected to do things as if I'm healthy, to being called things like "lazy" for what I can't do. I'm getting better at not feeling guilty for what I can't do, but I do feel frustrated with myself, sometimes even angry.

Another zinger: I'm a young, gorgeous, witty female. I _can't possibly_ be an ace of spades (aromantic asexual). -_- I've only realized it and "come out" in the past year or so, but I've been told that multiple times already. I've also been told I can't know that because I've never had sex.

My aforementioned fantasy series is primarily white. There are reasons for that, related to the world geography and the specific setting. There are people of color and interracial marriages-it's just that the series starts in a tiny environment, and the realms involved are generally isolated. As the series progresses and broadens its lens, more variety enters the stage. Each book has a different narrator, and the narrators affect how people are viewed, based in their hobbies/jobs and how used they are to seeing various ethnicities.

My urban fantasy series, the main character is one of those mixed-ethnicity people who was raised without any particular ethnic background (like me), even though she's 1/4 Japanese. She doesn't speak Japanese and doesn't know any anime/manga-her Italian best friend does. She is something of a bookworm, but it's a side effect of her background. (Learning and memorization was her coping mechanism to escape the hell she lived in for a few years.) She dresses comparable to EGL (elegant gothic Lolita) because she thinks it's weird, not because she particularly likes it-it's another coping mechanism. I feel kind of bad for "Westernizing"/"Americanizing" her, but&#8230; That's what fit the character.

My sci-fi series (with the cover as my avatar at the moment) is white only because those stock photos were what was available. I don't think I described their skin in the books. Two major side characters are black, which the narrator notes only because she's used to thinking of people in terms of the resources they'd cost to keep healthy, and the darker your skin, the more sunlight you need to produce sufficient amounts of vitamin D-which is actually a hormone, produced from sunlight. (I'm allergic to the outdoors, which likely causes my chronic vitamin D deficiency, which in turn contributes to my health issues.)

Most of my series feature characters with allergies of varying types and severity, including contact dermatitis and celiac disease. Mental illnesses or problems are common. I have a WIP where the FMC is a hunchback with heart problems. One series where the MMC has a degenerative disorder (which is actually caused by the psychic abilities he was genetically engineered to have). One character has a world-specific "fibromyalgia"-that's the easiest way to term it, though that's not really what it is. (It's the result of a magic screwup that she unwittingly did to herself as a teen, and the effects don't go away, even centuries later. She _can_ walk, if she has to, but it's far less painful to use a wheelchair. The one thing she can take to counteract the symptoms is illegal and runs the risk of sending her into an insane killing frenzy.)

I'm sure I'll eventually have characters with asthma, diabetes, and other issues, too. 

I also figure that anyone who's PERFECTLY a stereotype is hiding, which I apply to my characters,.

Something that's interesting is to look at the literal translations of curses and idioms in a language, and the holidays of a culture. One of my friends married an Albanian, who has a hilarious but true spiel on how English idioms are so violent (due to ones like "break a leg").


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## Dom (Mar 15, 2014)

Julie, I don't disagree with most of what you said. It's great for authors to include a diverse set of characters, especially if they want their fiction to reflect the real world. But I would say that a story doesn't have a "defect" just because it doesn't include a handicapped character. All stories can't be all things to everyone.


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## Guest (Jan 8, 2015)

The easiest way to go about this is to avoid stereotypes. 

I was reading one indie book at it involved a Japanese or perhaps Chinese boy moving to America and the author had him speaking like "Me notee speekee good" it was terrible and so ridiculous that I couldn't even consider carrying on reading and deleted it. 

My stories take place in the part of the world I come from (Yorkshire in England) and since the people in my area are made up of people of both genders, all sexualities and races then my stories reflect this. 

Skin colour isn't referenced other than in passing when learning what the new character looks like and I hope I have managed to ensure that none of the characters from any minority group fit into the common tropes. 

The Muslim isnt any more radical than the Christian, the first person to use drugs wasn't automatically the guy with the darker skin  because whether he has ever used drugs isnt relevant to the story at this point. The woman doesnt always need rescuing, the main man isn't emotionally conflicted.


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## MyraScott (Jul 18, 2014)

I have a Pinterest board where I collect pictures of cool wheelchairs because I have a main character in a wheelchair (he also has albinism and he's adorable. His vision impairment and super wheelchair make for a lot of fun moments.)  Pictures on that board get more shares... but his condition is a primary part of the plot.  I have other characters with various ailments that make them cool, either in how they acquired them or how they use them. 

My Steampunk book has a whole subplot around artificial limbs, including an amputee with interchangeable mechanical mermaid tail/legs/wheels. 

I never thought of them as being inclusive, just as necessary characters to my story.  If that ain't right, so be it. I'm not arguing with people any more over whether my diverse characters are just crayon-colored white people.  They're characters.  I like them multi-cultural even if I don't draw upon various heritage stereotypes.  The only stereotype I really use is human. 

Unless I'm writing fantasy.  Or alien sci-fi.  Or futuristic horror.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Carina,
When I was a special needs helper, one of my students was telling me about his sister.  He literally said she is not disabled just deaf.  I did not bother to correct him since his ability was limited use of his left hand.  He was also getting better at speaking.  Last time I saw him, he had a service dog and had moved up at the company he works for.    He now answers the phone and does other office tasks.


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## 10105 (Feb 16, 2010)

Among my nursing home sleuths, the MC walks with a cane, the other gentleman uses a walker, and the female in the trio rides a wheelchair. I also have a blind character and a mute character who are best friends. They communicate with sign language. The blind man holds the mute man's hand to read his signs.

The characters' physical challenges are part of the story and are a natural element in the lives of our elderly citizens. Their disabilities aren't the story, however, they're just part of it. When the characters discuss their impairments, they mostly just joke about them.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

That is why I said his ability because literally the rest of his body did not function. 
So what word if you had to choose one for say a wheelchair bound person would you like?


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

carinasanfey said:


> FYI to the authors who mentioned having 'handicapped' characters in their books - that's a really outdated and offensive word. My personal preference is 'person with a disability', although some others prefer 'disabled person', but the community of PWDs is pretty universal in our strong dislike of the term 'handicapped'.


In Britain it's definitely considered offensive, but it's still a commonly used term in the US AFAIK. Last time I was there they had "handicapped" toilets etc.


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## 10105 (Feb 16, 2010)

Cin, your choice of words is just fine. I have disabilities. I will not go chasing after a more acceptable word du jour every time someone takes umbrage at my current choice. There just isn't enough time.

I like "wheelchair user." In one of my titles I refer to myself as an "Insulin Junkie."


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

carinasanfey said:


> When it's necessary to disclose my disability, I say I'm a wheelchair user. Both 'wheelchair bound or 'confined to a wheelchair' come off as misleading and condescending, and 'in a wheelchair' seems odd, because nobody is in their wheelchair all the time. (Although you'd be surprised at the number of people who think we are - many people, often complete strangers, have asked me out of the blue if I shower in my wheelchair, or if I sleep in my wheelchair. Eh, nope. I shower in my shower and I sleep in my bed.)
> 
> Thank you for asking.


That student I was telling you about, his biggest complaint was apartments have tubs and not showers. He wanted to live on his own, but because of that, he couldn't. 
Now his dad decided he could live in the dorm at the college to give him a taste of freedom. I think he managed one semester. Now he did have to have a helper for personal hygiene.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Al Stevens said:


> Cin, your choice of words is just fine. I have disabilities. I will not go chasing after a more acceptable word du jour every time someone takes umbrage at my current choice. There just isn't enough time.
> 
> I like "wheelchair user." In one of my titles I refer to myself as an "Insulin Junkie."


Just don't drink too much. Alcohol and Insulin don't always play well together.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

carinasanfey said:


> I know you didn't ask for opinions, so I'm sorry if I'm being overly intrusive, but please be aware that this is something that *really* angers readers with disabilities. In real life, in a very, very small percentage of cases, people can almost fully recover from paralysis. VERY small. Unfortunately, in fiction, about 98% of people seem to fully recover from paralysis. It's incredibly irritating - this idea that the story can't resolve without the character's disability going away, that the ending can't be fulfilling if the character still has a disability. It also adds fuel to the common misconception that wheelchair users are still sitting in their chairs because, unlike the magical people who recovered, they didn't work hard enough and/or embrace Jesus. People who recover from spinal injuries do so because they have what's called an incomplete spinal cord injury, which are often misdiagnosed as complete SCIs at first, which is why you occasionally hear about people who recovered despite their doctors telling them they would never walk again. That aside, spinal cord injury is only a cause of a small percentage of cases of paralysis - other causes include brain injury (such as TBI or cerebral palsy) and a wide range of neurological illnesses.


Actually I was sort of asking for informed opinions without wanting to make it too obvious. So, thank you. 

As to the heart of the matter: I was afraid it would anger people and that's why I didn't write it yet. OTOH, misdiagnoses happen you say, and this was what I was thinking of. The story wouldn't be about people being happy because they recovered, although I can imagine they would. in fact, I can't imagine they wouldn't. My take would be how a popular jock gets deserted by his friends after a motor accident leaves him seemingly paralyzed. Among other things.

I'll consider my options carefully. I don't want to be ableist, but I also don't believe stories should adhere to any politically correct agenda. Sometimes good things happen to bad people. Sometimes the villain wins. Sometimes the gay guy is a PITA in more sense than one.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Al Stevens said:


> There is a specific social bias in writing--and living--that I've observed most of my life. That is that all racists are evil or otherwise unacceptable people.
> 
> I was raised in a prejudiced society in an all-white southern community. My father was prejudiced against black people, and my grandfather was a hating bigot. Most of our friends and neighbors were one or the other too. My mother, however, did her best to keep discussions of those prejudices out of our home. Between her and Art Tatum (black jazz pianist, God, in fact) I was spared the influence of white supremacy. (Notice how I am obliged to disassociate myself from racial bias? That's part of the problem.)
> 
> ...


Is there room in fiction to explore the details of white racism and the complexity of characters who combine that wretched trait with more admirable ones? Sure. Authors have been doing it at least since _Huck Finn_. (In fact, I'm sure some would argue it's been done to death.) But it's a serious business. Just tossing in some white guy who uses the N-word (a sign of very major racism, in today's America) but is otherwise a nice person? That's too cursory. It's like tossing in some guy who beats his wife but is otherwise a nice person. The wife-beating is going to loom large in the reader's mind. They'll expect the abuse to be explored. They'll expect it to be a major issue. Because spousal abuse is horrible, and it overshadows everything else about that person. Racism works the same way -- it's so horrible that it will overshadow everything else about that character, so it had better be a major focus. If you don't devote attention to it, then you'll appear to be presenting racism as just one trait among many -- not significant, easily isolated from the rest of the character's personality and morality. Implying that racism is unimportant = taking a political stance, and readers will respond to it in a political mode, according to their own views.


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## 10105 (Feb 16, 2010)

Becca Mills said:


> Authors have been doing it at least since _Huck Finn_.


I don't consider HF to be "contemporary literature."



Becca Mills said:


> Just tossing in some white guy...


From there on you've missed the point. My fault. It's not an easy one to make.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Ember Forest said:


> Confession: I'm secretly jealous of people in wheelchairs. Wheelchairs are awesome and I suspect using one isn't the melodramatic tragedy it's cracked up to be.
> 
> Thanks for starting this thread! I've wanted to write a transgender character for a while, but am so hesitant because I'm not trans and really don't want to misrepresent an already stereotyped group of people. Will be keeping an eye out here for any advice!
> I like this. Looking at real people, few of them live up to all the stereotypes. They'll live up to some stereotypes, sure, but not all, and that's where things get interesting. Something I love as a reader (and a friend) is when someone fits some of the stereotypes but then diverges in surprising ways. I have a super-ghetto Hispanic guy friend who's a feminist activist, and a conservative Mormon mom friend who sells sex toys. They embrace some stereotypes but totally defy others, and it makes them so interesting (and real).


Interestingly enough, one of the best fictional transgender fictional characters I've run into was in a game. (Sadly I think the same game thoroughly screwed up on the lesbian character & included many stereotypes).


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Becca Mills said:


> Is there room in fiction to explore the details of white racism and the complexity of characters who combine that wretched trait with more admirable ones? Sure. Authors have been doing it at least since _Huck Finn_. (In fact, I'm sure some would argue it's been done to death.) But it's a serious business. Just tossing in some white guy who uses the N-word (a sign of very major racism, in today's America) but is otherwise a nice person? That's too cursory. It's like tossing in some guy who beats his wife but is otherwise a nice person. The wife-beating is going to loom large in the reader's mind. They'll expect the abuse to be explored. They'll expect it to be a major issue. Because spousal abuse is horrible, and it overshadows everything else about that person. Racism works the same way -- it's so horrible that it will overshadow everything else about that character, so it had better be a major focus. If you don't devote attention to it, then you'll appear to be presenting racism as just one trait among many -- not significant, easily isolated from the rest of the character's personality and morality. Implying that racism is unimportant = taking a political stance, and readers will respond to it in a political mode, according to their own views.


If you tell your daughter her birthday is N day, you might find yourself in an unmarked grave. And yes that comment hurt. 
@Becca Mills, when did you meet my biological father who was nice to everyone but his family?

Every few years I get the privilege of sharing my birthday with Mr. King's holiday. Some of his biographies say we share an actual birthday. 
Just had to share.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

cinisajoy said:


> You must put that in one of your books. Your Wounded Warrior had a great idea.
> 
> On the other part of your post,
> Morgan Freeman makes a much better Alex Cross than Tyler Perry.


Remember the guy Jesse spoke with in Fallen Out when Jesse went to the Anchor for the Marine Corps birthday? He was a retired Marine named Kevin Landeros, who runs a dive shop in Key Largo? I just wrote in the part where he contacts Kim to set up the charter. We'll have to wait and see if the guy gets his legs pulled off.


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## Maggie Dana (Oct 26, 2011)

Andrew Ashling said:


> Actually I was sort of asking for informed opinions without wanting to make it too obvious. So, thank you.
> 
> As to the heart of the matter: I was afraid it would anger people and that's why I didn't write it yet. OTOH, misdiagnoses happen you say, and this was what I was thinking of. The story wouldn't be about people being happy because they recovered, although I can imagine they would. in fact, I can't imagine they wouldn't. My take would be how a popular jock gets deserted by his friends after a motor accident leaves him seemingly paralyzed. Among other things.
> 
> I'll consider my options carefully. I don't want to be ableist, but I also don't believe stories should adhere to any politically correct agenda. Sometimes good things happen to bad people. Sometimes the villain wins. Sometimes the gay guy is a PITA in more sense than one.


Try researching hysterical paralysis.


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## Maggie Dana (Oct 26, 2011)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> Remember the guy Jesse spoke with in Fallen Out when Jesse went to the Anchor for the Marine Corps birthday? He was a retired Marine named Kevin Landeros, who runs a dive shop in Key Largo? I just wrote in the part where he contacts Kim to set up the charter. We'll have to wait and see if the guy gets his legs pulled off.


Have you ever heard of Douglas Bader, a British WW II fighter pilot who lost both legs before the war (flying accident) then managed to get back into the RAF and became a wing commander? He was eventually shot down over northern France and when he bailed out of his Hurricane, the angle was so awkward that both his prostheses got left in the cockpit. If he'd had real legs at that point, he'd have lost them.

By that time he was hugely famous and the Germans were "delighted" to have him. They even gave the Brits a "safe passage" over the hospital in St. Omer where Bader was incarcerated so the Brits could drop a pair of spare legs, but not bombs. But Bomber Command did anyway. Armed with his legs, Bader escaped but was caught a week later and sent to Colditz. Three years later when the Allies opened up the prison in April 1945, the first words Bader (supposedly) said were (paraphraing here) were, "Give me a Spitfire so I can bag more Jerries."

His wife talked him out of it.


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

Rhayn said:


> The easiest way to go about this is to avoid stereotypes.


Exactly.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

cinisajoy said:


> @Becca Mills, when did you meet my biological father who was nice to everyone but his family?


Jeepers. That's the stuff monsters are made of.


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## Charmaine (Jul 20, 2012)

Well, I'm Black. Although, technically multicultural, since I'm Ethiopian, Dutch, Italian, African American, and Native American... 
Anyway, growing up, most of my friends were black. Why? Because I went to an urban school, where majority was black.
In college, most of my friends were white. Again, because in my major (Illustration) most of the other students were white.
What I learned, was that everyone was the same. Different backgrounds, different experiences, but still they were all just people.

When I write characters, I sprinkle in all races and abilities.
Why? Because I can and Because I like people to know how I pictured them in my head.
Was the dark-skinned mage from an African Nation? 
Does the queen have the fine features of her Japanese Ancestors? 
Does the Indian woman with the long braid sprinkled with delicate, gold beads, have a vial of poison in her bag?
Does the deaf man feel the ground tremor as an ambush is sprung?

Doesn't have to be a reason to include them, other than that I want to include them.
I make no apologies for a character being this or that. I don't need to.
There doesn't need to be a reason to include someone in a story. Sometimes, they're just there.


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## Michael Buckley (Jun 24, 2013)

We live in a large world full of different religions, skin colors and cultures. We cannot write stories and always omit other people different than our self's.

My new book deals with the subject pretty heavily, the one which is called Our Turn. The book is fiction, but it deals with actual events that have happened in our lives or our parents lives. I don't sugar coat anything and bad language is used as it would have occurred in real life. I make sure I stress highly that it's wrong and the offenders are punished properly, erased from the earth.

If a book is sugar coated it's not worth reading, A book has to be written in a way that does have morale boundaries and it can be written in away that should not offend. Now not all books will have those boundaries such as dystopian stories. It then becomes hard not to offend. But in stories like dystopian if you can express your bad guys are out to get everyone it should not be a problem.

Books of war dwell in hatred for races different than their own, if the book is history it's not a problem, fiction can be a problem. I tend to make the fighters generic when I can and not to spend to much time dwelling on the color of their skin, but more on their actions.

I had one book I was slammed with bad reviews it was  war type book about America and China. I received bad reviews saying I was prejudice against China. It was an Invasion on American soil and the Americans defended the land and killed the attackers. I used no words that said anything bad about the Chinese people. It was war and of course people had to die on both sides.

Sometimes you just have to write the story, you will offend people, Try to not target people with attacks against their race or Religion, but tell the story and make it believable. You cannot tell about the war in Bosnia and leave out attacks against women. Every country has committed acts against others that have been inhumane to include the USA.

The stories have to be told in history and fiction both. I have worked with people of every color and many different religions throughout the world and the N- word does not bother most if you use it in the proper content, don't use it to just say the word, use it to tell the story if the word is needed, if not don't add the word just for glitter, added it only if it impacts the story.

Put yourself in the time frame of the story and do a little research on what types of words were used. You cannot go on a military base with US soldier and talk to them without hearing the word f*ck at least one time in every three or four words they say. In that case sometimes the truth has to be changed, who wants to read a book where the "F word" is said all the time? I don't and I am sure most people here don't want to hear it either all the time.

The key to remember there is beauty and ugliness in every nationality and ethnic group in the world. No one can be judged by where they live or the color of their skin, they have to be judged by the man upstairs not us. Treat people the way you want to be treated and don't sugar coat your stories it insults people, why did they buy a book that cannot even tell a story? Is the author afraid to insult me? I don't want to read a book like that. I want to read the good and the bad about the characters. In real life some people are idiots, books with characters should be no different. The reader will be able to see that and should not be offended.


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## TheWriter (Oct 1, 2014)

carinasanfey said:


> Why write a non-minority character?
> 
> Write minority characters because we exist; because if you have to alter the world in which we live in order to make it all fit into your comfort zone, you're writing for yourself, not for your readers.
> 
> I'm not suggesting anyone write minorities in just for fun. I'm suggesting people write us in because we exist, we are here, and we're not going anywhere.


I agree that minorities exist, but I want to connect with readers on an emotional/psychological level. The pain, the love and the human experience that connects us. That runs deeper than a wheel chair, skin color or cultural background and that's really where I wish to connect with readers.

However, I will admit that this thread has sparked me to think about adding some flavors of diversity into future books. I think it'll help flesh out the world building and create a more well rounded stories. I'm glad this thread was created.


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## MyraScott (Jul 18, 2014)

T.k. said:


> However, I will admit that this thread has sparked me to think about adding some flavors of diversity into future books. I think it'll help flesh out the world building and create a more well rounded stories. I'm glad this thread was created.


And there's my warm fuzzy for the day! One creative mind at a time until it becomes the norm.


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## D. Zollicoffer (May 14, 2014)

kyokominamino said:


> You're awesome for starting this thread. I hope not too many people step on each other's toes.
> 
> The only thing I find that irks me about people writing minorities who are not themselves the same ethnicity as their character, as a black woman, is that too many authors assume race is an issue all the time for black people. I'm 26. I grew up in metro-Atlanta. I spent childhood to 18 years old surrounded by black people and then I attended UGA, a predominantly white college. I encountered zero problems at UGA. To this day, I have never had a white person call me the N-word, nor have I had a white person overtly do anything aggressive towards me because of my skin color. Granted, I am an educated intelligent woman raised by a middle class family, but I think the black nerd girl demographic is woefully underrepresented. Too many authors think we have chips on our shoulders, when some of us rarely encounter overt discrimination from other races. *If you want me to be brutally honest, I've been harassed by black people my entire life because I'm a nerd and an intellectual and I don't talk like how ghetto black people think is the only way a black person should talk.*
> 
> What I would say non-black authors should take away from this is simply that it's not 100% required to write a black character with a chip on their shoulder unless you're writing for a specific time period where tensions are high and it's important to the overall story. Don't assume it's present for every black person, especially based on their background and upbringing. It would also be smart to discuss the subject of class issues between black people because that's another issue that tends to get swept under the rug a lot.


Yup, I agree with everything you just wrote. I'm a 28-year-old black dude from Ohio and I've never really had to deal with any racism, and I don't act "black" or "white" or like anything really. I just act like a person, and my skin color doesn't really play a major role in who I am as a person. I'm proud to be black, but I don't really think about it or walk around with a chip on my shoulder.

If you're writing a modern story race doesn't really matter. My advice to white authors is simple -- don't feel the need to make minorities act a certain way. I don't even mention race in my books unless it has something to do with the story.


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## kyokominamino (Jan 23, 2014)

D. Zollicoffer said:


> Yup, I agree with everything you just wrote. I'm a 28-year-old black dude from Ohio and I've never really had to deal with any racism, and I don't act "black" or "white" or like anything really. I just act like a person, and my skin color doesn't really play a major role in who I am as a person. I'm proud to be black, but I don't really think about it or walk around with a chip on my shoulder.
> 
> If you're writing a modern story race doesn't really matter. My advice to white authors is simple -- don't feel the need to make minorities act a certain way. I don't even mention race in my books unless it has something to do with the story.


*high five* Well said!

One of the points I also stress if people ask about my character's ethnicity is that Jordan is a Seer who happens to be black, not a black Seer. There is an important distinction there. She acts how she acts based on her personality and upbringing, nothing more, and that's what it's all about for me.


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## antares (Feb 13, 2011)

FWIW in _*Heart of Stone*_ I mentioned the race of only two characters directly. One is a half-Chinese Russian spy. She is drop-dead gorgeous which causes people to underestimate her. She is also smart and has an iron will.

The other is a black man. The only reason I mention his race is because he is a Coast Guard commander, and blacks are few in the Coast Guard. He has to choose between honor and duty. His choice costs him personally, but it reflects who he is.

I modeled him on my good friend and comrade Mike McGlockton, whom I served with in the Air Force. I covered for Mike and he for me. If you cut us, we bled Air Force blue.

In my experience, with black subordinates, black fellow officers, and black superiors, skin color did not matter. What mattered to us was the color of our clothes. Anyone who wore the Air Force blue was my brother. He took the same oath I did. It did not matter where we came from. All that mattered was where we were going. And we were going together.

William Able -- the Coast Guard commander -- is a person to me. I know this man. Because he is black, there is an extra burden on him. But because he and I share an oath and have lived dedicated to that oath for years, I know how he will react.

Besides, it's my story and my characters, and they're gonna do what I tell 'em to do.


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## Abalone (Jan 31, 2014)

Just stopping in to say that this is a fantastic thread idea! In fact, earlier this evening I was perusing Tumblr and came across this. Apparently this is a REAL project spearheaded by fellow authors to promote diversity.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/we-need-diverse-books


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## Colorwheel (Nov 21, 2014)

JRTomlin said:


> Interestingly enough, one of the best fictional transgender fictional characters I've run into was in a game. (Sadly I think the same game thoroughly screwed up on the lesbian character & included many stereotypes).


Video or tabletop? I'm too curious: what game?

I have a bit of a dare with myself to see how long I can go without using white, straight, male narrators and see whether anyone notices. (It's fantasy; you need special dispensation from the ghost of Tolkien to color outside any one of those lines.) Of course, I just said that out loud, soooo oh well. 

It is a bit easier to use made-up cultures, though. You just have to build them so that they don't fall into stereotypes in the first place, then remember that not everyone from your made-up culture is the same (Planet of Hats, as they say on TVTropes). In fact, "not everyone with a common trait/factor is the same" is pretty much the uniting force here.

Finally, I have to set this trio of sentences on the table and back away slowly: All bisexuals do not require threesomes 24/7. Some do; some do not. Thank you.

Signed, a reader who has regretfully marked off a swath of Romance with hazard tape.


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## Colorwheel (Nov 21, 2014)

carinasanfey said:


> I think there are actually some people out there who firmly believe that 'bisexual' means 'having sex with both a man and a woman at the same time'...  *bangs head off wall*


Yyyyyep. To be a little more helpful, though: It is that way for some people, but for others, it's more like "I like both blondes and brunettes." Now color in the entire spectrum between those two points.

Wait, we can't drop in one trait and expect the readers to make a boatload of assumptions about the character? Complexity is haaaaaard, you guys. It's not like we can form a whole personality for EVERY character. SIGH.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

carinasanfey said:


> I think there are actually some people out there who firmly believe that 'bisexual' means 'having sex with both a man and a woman at the same time'...  *bangs head off wall*


Just one of each? I think some people believe it would be sex with anyone and everyone and no one is safe. And here is a pillow to put on your wall.


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## 10105 (Feb 16, 2010)

carinasanfey said:


> I think there are actually some people out there who firmly believe that 'bisexual' means 'having sex with both a man and a woman at the same time'...  *bangs head off wall*


I met a woman in the 1970s who thought oral sex was talking about it.


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## H. S. St. Ours (Mar 24, 2012)

I write first-person adventure stories told by young women of different ethnic, racial, multi-racial backgrounds from all over the world. I am a white man, yet I've been around some and think I do a pretty good job of getting the different voices right. And I think my fans like it too. For me, each book is an adventure of research and (of course) my personal life experiences. And I get it as right as I can. But my belief is that in life, our circumstances are incidental to our story. And (to stretch this metaphor perhaps farther than it can go) if we can, in the end, weave a pretty good story, maybe others will say of us: that was a life well-told.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

Al Stevens said:


> I met a woman in the 1970s who thought oral sex was talking about it.


Hahaha! I guess that means every guy loses his virginity around the age of twelve.


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## RaeC (Aug 20, 2013)

Perry Constantine said:


> Hahaha! I guess that means every guy loses his virginity around the age of twelve.


And to other 12 y/o boys or crumpled mags.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Perry Constantine said:


> Hahaha! I guess that means every guy loses his virginity around the age of twelve.


Never mind.


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## Abalone (Jan 31, 2014)

I know a few bisexuals. They're fairly boring people with families. 


Stereotypes suck hard. Some people make comments they deem innocent only because they didn't know they were hurtful.


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## Bluebonnet (Dec 15, 2013)

Al Stevens said:


> I met a woman in the 1970s who thought oral sex was talking about it.


That's phone sex.


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## storyteller (Feb 3, 2014)

Eh, and some of us have known people who fit the stereotypes to a T.  Stereotypes are exaggerations of group behaviors, not made up out of whole cloth.  They're heuristics, general, broad wheel houses, and the problem with them is the way people try to make them fit too narrowly/tightly.


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## Marie Long (Jan 11, 2014)

I have a question for everyone here. How well do you feel books which contain diverse main characters and/or diverse settings are received in other countries? I have noticed especially in the movie industry, that they will change their movie posters to something totally different in order to market to another country.

One such instance comes to mind: http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-1227868/Race-row-black-stars-airbrushed-Couples-Retreat-film-poster.html

Do you think this sort of thing also happens in the publishing industry? Or do publishers just not market many diverse books internationally (for instance, would publishers not bother marketing a book containing Hispanic main characters to India)?


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## Guest (Jan 14, 2015)

Marie Long said:


> I have a question for everyone here. How well do you feel books which contain diverse main characters and/or diverse settings are received in other countries? I have noticed especially in the movie industry, that they will change their movie posters to something totally different in order to market to another country.


There is no all-or-nothing answer. It is going to be specific to the country. Some countries love all things America and eat up American culture. Other countries not so much. In some parts of the world, it doesn't matter what "race" the character is...he or she is still going to be interpreted as "American." A Hispanic American is still just an American in some countries, so it won't even register.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Trad pub certainly seems to believe so, because at least in Germany, genre fiction with diverse characters either deemphasizes the character's race (e.g. you get object covers instead of people) or sometimes isn't released altogether. For example, my Mom would eat up Jeannie Lin's Chinese set historical romances, because she loves historical fiction with Asian settings. But Harlequin just doesn't translate them or any of the other more diverse historical romances they've published, it's all Regencies and highlanders.  

Regarding cover art, if you see a black person on a German book cover, it's mostly non-fiction about Africa (because there obviously aren't any black people elsewhere   ) , often memoirs with titles like "I was a child soldier" or "I married a Massai warrior". There was something of a cottage industry of books about white women marrying Massai warriors for a while. Some also married Native Americans or Bedouins, if Massai warriors weren't available. The marriages inevitably failed and the women returned to Germany to write memoirs. There was often a creepy racist vibe about those books. So I think German trad publishers avoid putting people of colour onto covers, because it signals a certain kind of book.

Though when left to their own devices, German readers are happy to read about diverse characters and settings. Romances and adventure novels with "exotic" settings (well, for the average German) like Australia, New Zealand, Africa (Kenya and South Africa mostly), the Caribbean, China, Japan, India, etc... are popular. A translator pal of mine who runs a small press and specialises in translated fiction with diverse settings/characters has just had a surprising hit with a Nicholas Sparks type "tragic romance" set in contemporary China.
And talking to readers, many of them have said that they'd love to read about African-Americans or Hispanics or Asians or diverse characters in general, if those books were easier to find. 

So it's basically that big trad pub believes Germans won't read diverse books (except those about white women marrying Massai warriors), so they don't translate them and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.    

UK trad-publishing seems a bit more open towards diverse books, since I regularly see trad-pubbed books by African or Indian writers in UK bookstores and even on the promo tables.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> There is no all-or-nothing answer. It is going to be specific to the country. Some countries love all things America and eat up American culture. Other countries not so much. In some parts of the world, it doesn't matter what "race" the character is...he or she is still going to be interpreted as "American." A Hispanic American is still just an American in some countries, so it won't even register.


This, too. In Germany, books about Hispanic-Americans, African-Americans or Asian-Americans are primarily viewed as books about Americans. Race is secondary in those cases and may not even register with some readers.


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## Marie Long (Jan 11, 2014)

CoraBuhlert said:


> This, too. In Germany, books about Hispanic-Americans, African-Americans or Asian-Americans are primarily viewed as books about Americans. Race is secondary in those cases and may not even register with some readers.


That is a really interesting observation.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Marie Long said:


> That is a really interesting observation.


You have to remember that to readers in Germany (or elsewhere), any book set in US is a book set in a foreign culture, albeit one that's fairly familiar from movies and TV. Ethnic or racial diversity doesn't necessarily make the book any more "foreign", because even the lives of white, middle class, suburban Americans can seem pretty foreign to non-US audiences.


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## Dolphin (Aug 22, 2013)

CoraBuhlert said:


> Ethnic or racial diversity doesn't necessarily make the book any more "foreign", because even the lives of white, middle class, suburban Americans can seem pretty foreign to non-US audiences.


Come to that, the lives of middle-class Americans seem pretty foreign to most of us too.


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## Marie Long (Jan 11, 2014)

CoraBuhlert said:


> You have to remember that to readers in Germany (or elsewhere), any book set in US is a book set in a foreign culture, albeit one that's fairly familiar from movies and TV. Ethnic or racial diversity doesn't necessarily make the book any more "foreign", because even the lives of white, middle class, suburban Americans can seem pretty foreign to non-US audiences.


So that begs the question of how difficult do you think it is to market a diverse book about Americans (regardless of race/color) and American culture to a foreign country?


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

True Story from the mid 1990s: In our previous neighborhood, our next door neighbor had his Ukrainian nephew over to visit on a month long Visa. He ran a black market movie house out of the courthouse in his small town on the weekends. He and his wife lived in a small home with his parents and grandparents. They raised the meat they would eat in their "yard" and grew their own vegetables. 
Toilet paper was a hot commodity.

All he knew of America was what he saw from the American movies, and running his town's movie house, he saw a lot of American films.

He came to stay with his "Rich Uncle Sash" who was gifting him $3,000 US dollars, which was enough to build his own home back in the Ukraine.  His wife could not get a Visa as they were afraid they would defect. 

The first time we met him, he took out his movie camera and filmed our house and our Corvette to show his neighbors back home. A common refrain was "America is great." He filmed the over sized grocery stores with fully stocked shelves, restaurants, malls, etc. as his friends would not believe it. 

Towards the end of his trip we got into a discussion about political systems. He was under the impression that the government had given us our jobs, our cars, and our housing. We informed him our government had not given us any of  it. We had to pay for our higher education, and our house, cars, and then at the end of the year we had to pay the government "taxes." Plus we paid taxes on everything we bought except for some food items. Plus, we had to go out and find our own jobs. 

His mantra quickly changed to "America is terrible!"

Perspective is a funny thing.


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## 10105 (Feb 16, 2010)

Lisa Grace, you have the elements of a great story there.


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