# What I'm Saying Is, The Search For Equality Is Pretty Messy



## A. E. Lowan

Another offering from Chuck Wendig, curiously enough fairly light on the 4 letter words because he's addressing a pretty serious topic.  I'll admit, I'm guilty of objectifying men in movies and fiction - this essay draws that into question in a very fair, in my opinion, light.

What IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢m Saying Is, The Search For Equality Is Pretty Messy Ã‚Â« terribleminds: chuck wendig


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## Guy

I think the idea of total equality is like the idea of world peace - a pipe dream that completely flies in the face of human nature.

Well, now that I think about it, maybe we can have a sort of equality - everybody objectify everybody.


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## Svrtnsse

The blog post made me think of this post from a while back. 
Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is

The comments are a bit depressing, but the article is interesting.


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## Mythopoet

I found a lot more value in Whedon's speech than in Wendig's post. Whedon has identified a real problem, but doesn't come up with a real solution to it. Wendig is confused (to put it lightly) about both the problem and the solution.


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## Scribble

Whenever a modern, sensible man speaks about feminism he's going to get it right, and he's going to get it wrong. Inherent in equality is an idea of fairness, and the world will never be fair. It isn't fair that women have to deal with what they have had to deal with, and it isn't fair that men in this age have to watch every word they say, and as fair as they try to speak, will be found wrong on some account. 

There is no fair, there never will be, but we can get things _fairer _than they were in the past, and _fairer _in the future than they are now. Feminism is a word that helps achieve that _fairer...ness_.


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## Feo Takahari

For reference, Whedon argued that the word "feminism" creates the idea that it's possible to "not be a feminist." If you're against equal rights for black people, you're not "not a [something]ist," you're just a racist, and as such classified as "on the wrong side of history" (his words.) He thinks we shouldn't be creating a division between people who're feminist and people who aren't, but people who're sexist and people who aren't. (A fair number of people seem to be assuming this is something only a straight white man would say, but I've actually heard this discussed by feminist scholars before.)

As for equality, history isn't what makes things equal or not equal. If someone on Tumblr is objectifying women, call them out. If someone on Tumblr is objectifying men, call them out. Tumblr feminists have a very bad habit of discriminating against gay men while thinking they're being positive towards them, and it's not exclusively up to gay men to tell them when they cross the line.

Edit: I just realized--is this topic against site rules? I'll stop posting in it if I'm getting into disallowed territory.


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## Mindfire

I actually agree with Joss as far as the word feminism is concerned. First there's the obvious red herring of "does supporting _femin_ism make me less _masculine_ or somehow equate to self-betrayal?", which I think is where many men stumble with the word (as I have in the past). But ignoring that, there are still reasons why someone like me, who embraces and tries to pursue justice and equality, might shy away from the word feminist. 

Justice and equality are noble concepts with inherent value. Feminism, however, is a word that represents an ideology. And like any ideology it comes packaged with a lot of  _stuff_. It's a word that comes attached to a long history of scholarship, research, theories, books, quackery, blogs, comment threads, and tumblr posts- some with merit, some without- that I'm not wholly familiar with and don't really want any part of. It comes packaged with a community and subculture that I don't belong to, don't feel welcome in, that tends to harbor concentrations of individuals with opinions opposed to my own in ways that have nothing to do with gender equality, and that- in the event I do join the discourse-  requires me to learn and use an extensive lexicon of "polite*" jargon (that to me only serves as a stumbling block and a barrier to entry) lest I accidentally offend someone and afterward be flagellated for it.

So yeah. I support justice. I believe men and women, all people, are created equal. I despise the abuse of power. I admit I have blind spots where these things are concerned. But I don't subscribe to the body of feminist ideology and scholarship. I don't belong to feminism. 

Some people will counter with the classic objection that "if you believe women are people, you're a feminist- deal with it." To which I say: no. That's just a false dichotomy that rationalizes giving people a label they don't want. 

Joss is right. We need a new word.

*If I were to be less charitable, I might say "politically correct".


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## Devor

Feo Takahari said:


> Edit: I just realized--is this topic against site rules? I'll stop posting in it if I'm getting into disallowed territory.



I haven't had a chance to read the article, and nobody has flagged it for discussion, but I would suggest bringing the topic towards being relevant to fantasy before the thread goes too far in other directions.


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## Scribble

Mindfire said:


> Joss is right. We need a new word.
> 
> *If I were to be less charitable, I might say "politically correct".



_Humanist _includes males, females, as well as the gender unspecified. That seems forward thinking.

However, in the future, we may have a blurring of humanity's definition as we move into various cyber-extensions and possibly bio-engineered modifications. In our future enlightenment we may  even want to include all conscious creatures within the umbrella of equality.

It gets complicated. Feminism is a word, and like any word it doesn't do any good or bad by itself - it's all in how you use it.


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## Mindfire

Scribble said:


> Humanist includes males, females, as well as the gender unspecified. That seems forward thinking.
> 
> However, in the future, we may have a blurring of humanity's definition as we move into various cyber-extensions and possibly bio-engineered modifications. In our future enlightenment we may  even want to include all conscious creatures within the umbrella of equality.
> 
> It gets complicated. Feminism is a word, and like any word it doesn't do any good or bad by itself - it's all in how you use it.



I don't like the word humanism either, given it's association with atheism. Also, I agree with Joss in that what we need is not another "club word"- and humanism is definitely that, coming with an ideology of it's own- but rather a word that makes a plain distinction between just and unjust, like "racism".

As for transhumanism... not delving into those murky waters.


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## glutton

Mindfire said:


> As for transhumanism... not delving into those murky waters.



Transcendence.

Universalism - not sure what the existing definition of that term is but it sounds good!

UNIVERSAL ENLIGHTENMENT... or even OMNIVERSAL.

Um, sounds like things a stereotypical fantasy/anime villain would say... carry on.


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## Devor

I never understood why we need words beyond sexist jerk, jackass, and a******, myself.  They roll off the tongue and even have that nice progression to them, when you want to show the degree of the offense.


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## Mindfire

And muddying the waters of this whole debate is the fact that tumblr has become the super soldier serum for ideologies, such that- in the words of Dr. Erskine from the Captain America movie- "good becomes great, bad becomes worse". Except on the average, tumblr tends to make _everything_ worse.


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## Scribble

glutton said:


> Transcendence.
> 
> Universalism - not sure what the existing definition of that term is but it sounds good!
> 
> UNIVERSAL ENLIGHTENMENT... or even OMNIVERSAL.
> 
> Um, sounds like things a stereotypical fantasy/anime villain would say... carry on.



Universalism it is! 

... but now that we have a term to include everyone, everything, how do we keep the jerks out?


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## glutton

Scribble said:


> Universalism it is!
> 
> ... but now that we have a term to include everyone, everything, how do we keep the jerks out?



Brainwash them into non-jerks... cause you know, that's what 'Universal Churches of Truth' etc. tend to do. XD


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## Scribble

glutton said:


> Brainwash them into non-jerks... cause you know, that's what 'Universal Churches of Truth' etc. tend to do. XD



Borderline, glutton, borderline 

Humans have the wonderful capacity to create soaring ideals, yet we cannot escape our instinctual primate social psychology. Hilarity ensues.


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## glutton

Scribble said:


> Borderline, glutton, borderline



I was referring to things like the villain Magus' Universal Church of Truth from Marvel comics, or a similarly named villainous organization from some fantasy book I read... lol


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## Jabrosky

With regards to the whole discussion about sexually objectifying either gender, I believe a lot of commentators get this issue confused. Some seem to think that any portrayal of women (or men) in a sexually attractive light is inherently objectifying, but I always understood that the problem had more to do with _reducing _either sex to reproductive functions. If a writer describes his female protagonist as having a nice ass, for instance, it doesn't _necessarily _follow that this heroine can't do anything other than twerk. As long as he reserves those descriptions for a few appropriate scenes and has the heroine do things other than twerking or anything else sexual, I wouldn't accuse him of objectification.


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## Steerpike

Jabrosky said:


> Some seem to think that any portrayal of women (or men) in a sexually attractive light is inherently objectifying, but I always understood that the problem had more to do with _reducing _either sex to reproductive functions.



I think this is what it is. These sorts of characters have no real agency, they're just reduced to sexual objects. Characters can certainly be described as sexually attractive, both in physical and other terms, and indeed the idea that you couldn't include sexual or sensual characteristics of a female character (for example) seems to me to be just as problematic as the hypersexualization we so often see. Just make them real people. Give them agency, motivations, complexities, and so on, and don't just reduce them to embodiments of sexuality.


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## Sheilawisz

The nature of this thread does not go against the rules of Mythic Scribes.

However, the subjects and ideas discussed here can be sensitive and it's always a good idea to keep in mind The Guiding Principle which says: _The guiding principle is to treat others with respect and dignity, and to foster a positive, welcoming and family friendly community._

Let's keep the thread oriented towards Fantasy Writing, and avoid the road that leads to political issues.


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## buyjupiter

Mindfire said:


> Joss is right. We need a new word.



*standing up on soapbox, ahem* No, he isn't. I have respected his views on feminism for a while. But in this case arguing that "ist" isn't natural when it comes to "feminist" and then suggesting another "ist" word to replace it kind of destroys his argument. And gender is a social construct. It's not the "natural order of things".

Also...I find it problematic that he addresses his audience (both the one in person, and the one that follows his work/online presence) and asks them to take this new word up. As if he is the end all and be all of authority on the word feminism. I understand that is not his intent here, but it is so easy to take it in that light.

I also object, strongly, to the need to recoin a word we already have. I think it would be a far better use of that kind of time to address how to tackle changing the system, rather than arguing about a label. _No one is ever going to agree on the label._ When we as feminists, or advocates of racial equality, or advocates of LGBTQ issues start circling in around the label we use, patriarchy/The Man/society has already won. They can sit around waiting for us to destroy each other, name call, and fragment into so many different groups that we cannot coalesce and work together to get to the end goal, namely equality.


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## Feo Takahari

Since we're discussing objectification, I'll go into a bit more detail on why I think Tumblr has an objectification problem with men. It's not specifically that it portrays a lot of characters as gay, nor that it portrays gayness as attractive. (I'd say it's to some degree commendable to treat gayness, which is after all a sexual orientation, as sexy.) Rather, it's the fitting of gay individuals, including real people, into gay stereotypes. The Tumblr community tends to only write gay couples that consist of one dom and one sub, whose dominance or submission extends outside the bedroom. Some Tumblerites apply this to real life as well, assuming that real gay people all fit the tropes of their fiction, but those who keep it within fiction are hardly blameless--when actual gay people protest that their orientation is being coopted, they're often told to shut up. The argument goes that since this stuff wasn't written for them, but for straight women, gay men have no right to complain about it, and that seems incredibly unfair--women are allowed to complain when straight men coopt lesbianism, and it's not like gay men aren't themselves a persecuted minority.


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## Mindfire

buyjupiter said:


> *standing up on soapbox, ahem* No, he isn't. I have respected his views on feminism for a while. But in this case arguing that "ist" isn't natural when it comes to "feminist" and then suggesting another "ist" word to replace it kind of destroys his argument. And gender is a social construct. It's not the "natural order of things".
> 
> Also...I find it problematic that he addresses his audience (both the one in person, and the one that follows his work/online presence) and asks them to take this new word up. As if he is the end all and be all of authority on the word feminism. I understand that is not his intent here, but it is so easy to take it in that light.
> 
> I also object, strongly, to the need to recoin a word we already have. I think it would be a far better use of that kind of time to address how to tackle changing the system, rather than arguing about a label. _No one is ever going to agree on the label._ When we as feminists, or advocates of racial equality, or advocates of LGBTQ issues start circling in around the label we use, patriarchy/The Man/society has already won. They can sit around waiting for us to destroy each other, name call, and fragment into so many different groups that we cannot coalesce and work together to get to the end goal, namely equality.



I think you kind of missed the point, that point being that it's easier to get people to rally _against_ injustice than to rally _for_ feminism. There are people, myself included, who see the word feminism and want no part of it- or more accurately, the ideology etc. attached to it- who will however decry injustice. Joss is making the point that rather to try and stamp people with a label they may not want, it'd be better and more effective to give a label to this specific kind of injustice. For further clarification, consider the contrast between being _for_ Black power and _against_ racism. I think you will find that more people, if asked, will say they subscribe to the latter than the former. Should a new word for gender-based injustice be introduced, you will find that more people will say that they are _against_ (insert word here) than will say they are _for_ feminism.

And yes, I know that Black power and feminism are not entirely equivalent, for several reasons. But in the eyes of the general public, they might as well be.


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## buyjupiter

Mindfire said:


> I think you kind of missed the point, that point being that it's easier to get people to rally _against_ injustice than to rally _for_ feminism. There are people, myself included, who see the word feminism and want no part of it- or more accurately, the ideology etc. attached to it- who will however decry injustice. Joss is making the point that rather to try and stamp people with a label they may not want, it'd be better and more effective to give a label to this specific kind of injustice.



I didn't actually miss that point. I understand there are inherent problems with the term, such as it being non-inclusive of worldviews other than an hetero-white middle class woman's point of view. I understand there is ideology behind the term that may be non-palatable for people.

My objection is that no one will agree on a term. There will always be some ideology behind a term, otherwise why define it? And without ideology, it becomes watered down. It becomes very much "down with this sort of thing", and nothing ever changes.

And with all the crud that's been happening lately in the legal realm of "oh women's bodies should be legislated", isn't this kind of a waste of time? I get that words are important. I really do. But arguing about the terminology used is not benefiting anyone. It's kind of making it into the whole "People's Front of Judea" vs. "The Judean People's Front" vs. "The People's Judean Front", to blatantly reference Monty Python there.

And, as a woman, I'm kinda getting tired of hearing men tell me how the ideology should be defined, what terms we should use, and how we should fight our battles. Again, there is no bad intent here, but it happens all.the.time.

I hope that clarifies my point a bit better.


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## Mindfire

buyjupiter said:


> And, as a woman, I'm kinda getting tired of hearing men tell me how the ideology should be defined, what terms we should use, and how we should fight our battles. Again, there is no bad intent here, but it happens all.the.time.
> 
> I hope that clarifies my point a bit better.



I get that. And part of my argument is that it's _your_ word. It's not mine. And I wish to be free to not be stamped with it, regardless of the overlap between our beliefs. Not accusing you specifically of anything, but there are those who wish to frame the discussion as "either you're a feminist or you're a scumbag", "with us or against us" sort of way. And, while I tend to see lots of things as black and white, in this case I don't buy it. But I sense I'm starting to run this thread into the ground, so this is the last I'll say of it here.


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## buyjupiter

Feo Takahari said:


> Since we're discussing objectification, I'll go into a bit more detail on why I think Tumblr has an objectification problem with men. It's not specifically that it portrays a lot of characters as gay, nor that it portrays gayness as attractive. (I'd say it's to some degree commendable to treat gayness, which is after all a sexual orientation, as sexy.) Rather, it's the fitting of gay individuals, including real people, into gay stereotypes. The Tumblr community tends to only write gay couples that consist of one dom and one sub, whose dominance or submission extends outside the bedroom. Some Tumblerites apply this to real life as well, assuming that real gay people all fit the tropes of their fiction, but those who keep it within fiction are hardly blameless--when actual gay people protest that their orientation is being coopted, they're often told to shut up. The argument goes that since this stuff wasn't written for them, but for straight women, gay men have no right to complain about it, and that seems incredibly unfair--women are allowed to complain when straight men coopt lesbianism, and it's not like gay men aren't themselves a persecuted minority.




I think that part of the tumblr thing is fetishization of people. I would say there is a subtle difference between fetishizing a person and objectifying them. Objectification, from what I can observe from other people's actions involves a power dynamic. Fetishes are completely about arousal. There probably is some crossover between the two things, but I think that sums up how I see the difference.

I would say that anyone creating anything outside of their worldview has an obligation to at least think about how their characterization comes across to people that live that experience everyday. And if they don't, they should at least expect to get some flack for coming across like an inconsiderate fool.

And Feo, it is unfair. And you have every right to take issue with people perpetuating stereotypes.


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## Guy

Stereotyping is unfair, but so is life in general. Stereotyping and unfairness aren't going to go away. Neither are any other human flaws. As a Pagan, I don't like the way Pagans are almost always portrayed in entertainment, but that's just the way it is and it isn't likely to change anytime soon. My response is to not spend my money on that entertainment and go find some other amusement. I have a rough draft of a book in which the main characters are Pagan in present day U.S., but I write them as I would any other characters - as people. Their religion is a significant part of them, as it is with any sincere follower of a path, but it isn't all there is to them, and I don't keep bludgeoning the reader with it. The same is true of a person's (or character's) sexuality and gender. 

Some people's minds can be changed. Others refuse to let themselves be defiled by an outside thought. The latter are usually pretty obvious and I see no reason to waste time on them.


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## Quillstine

I try stay away from all politically orientated conversations. My dad always told me "Never talk politics, religion or civil issues with someone unless your sleeping with them.". Later on, when working in Public Relations fields I was surprised to see that motto come in training, minus the sleeping with them part of course!
But I'll add this. *WE ARE NOT BORN EQUAL*. This is a fundamentally flawed argument. Equality is an evolutionary process. You evolve toward it, not stride away from it!
Go back down the evolutionary scale, delve into our past and the chasm between sexes and races only grows wider! You don't really see animals in nature being "universalists", you see them filling the roles their biology tells them to fill. When a character in a book who starts out rather "racist", has his perception shifted, it's evolution. Why can't we say, let's grow toward equality as we have slowly been doing since the birth of our race, as opposed to seeing it as some way we are entirely flawed and stuffed up the once innate universality of our past!


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## Feo Takahari

Quillstine said:


> I try stay away from all politically orientated conversations. My dad always told me "Never talk politics, religion or civil issues with someone unless your sleeping with them.". Later on, when working in Public Relations fields I was surprised to see that motto come in training, minus the sleeping with them part of course!
> But I'll add this. *WE ARE NOT BORN EQUAL*. This is a fundamentally flawed argument. Equality is an evolutionary process. You evolve toward it, not stride away from it!
> Go back down the evolutionary scale, delve into our past and the chasm between sexes and races only grows wider! You don't really see animals in nature being "universalists", you see them filling the roles their biology tells them to fill. When a character in a book who starts out rather "racist", has his perception shifted, it's evolution. Why can't we say, let's grow toward equality as we have slowly been doing since the birth of our race, as opposed to seeing it as some way we are entirely flawed and stuffed up the once innate universality of our past!



This right here is the problem with the term "equal"--people think it means equality of outcomes. If "equality" is to have any meaning at all in human interaction, it needs to be equality of chances. (For instance, to say that a black person and a white person have become "equal" isn't to say that they are both capable of performing the same job. It's to say that they both got a good education, they both had the resources to devote themselves to that education, and in general, they both got a chance to prepare themselves to try for that job.)

To turn that towards writing, what bugs me the most about sexism in writing isn't that female characters aren't often awesome. It's that they don't often get the chance to be awesome. A lot of writers will construct a female character, put that character in situations where she might have the opportunity to be awesome, and then at the absolute maximum give her the opportunity to kill a female henchwoman, because she's female and the author won't _let_ her do anything else. (For comparison, I see Gen Urobuchi as a writer who's relatively less sexist--sure, he's said some dodgy things about gender in the past, but when he writes female characters, he writes them as if no one ever told him there were things they couldn't do.)


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## A. E. Lowan

One of the things that's awesome about being writers, is that if we don't agree with a world view, we have the opportunity to change it.  *We have power.*  We can write stories about characters who reflect the world as it was, as it is, and as it should be, and have the potential, through the readers we reach, to be real vehicles for change.  Think about Harriet Beecher Stowe and _Uncle Tom's Cabin_.  When President Lincoln met her, he reportedly said, "So you're the little woman who started this big war."  Each reader's heart and mind we touch and change with our characters is a small piece of the world made a better place.  Just think of that.  We don't need "ism" words to define us.  We just need to write true characters who show what a better world looks like, and spread that dream from heart, to heart, to heart.


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## glutton

Feo Takahari said:


> A lot of writers will construct a female character, put that character in situations where she might have the opportunity to be awesome, and then at the absolute maximum give her the opportunity to kill a female henchwoman, because she's female and the author won't _let_ her do anything else.



I hate that hence my female characters are pretty much required to fight the strongest male warriors in their stories. lol


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## Mindfire

Feo Takahari said:


> To turn that towards writing, what bugs me the most about sexism in writing isn't that female characters aren't often awesome. It's that they don't often get the chance to be awesome. A lot of writers will construct a female character, put that character in situations where she might have the opportunity to be awesome, and then at the absolute maximum give her the opportunity to kill a female henchwoman, because she's female and the author won't let her do anything else.



Is that really a thing? I thought the more prevalent trope was that male heroes aren't allowed to hit female villains- although the two conventions might be related.


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## BWFoster78

> Let's keep the thread oriented towards Fantasy Writing, and avoid the road that leads to political issues.



Is it me or did almost the entire next page of posters after a mod stated this ignore this admonition?


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## glutton

Mindfire said:


> Is that really a thing? I thought the more prevalent trope was that male heroes aren't allowed to hit female villains- although the two conventions might be related.



It may be less prevalent now but female fighters having designated female minion opponents which marked them as clearly second-class heroes has been a thing for a long time, yes.


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## saellys

I have two things to say. 

One: I am fully in favor of equal opportunity objectification for any gender. Equal opportunity. Objectification is going to happen; I just want it to happen to everyone. 

75,000 notes (in one day, no less) on this brilliant GIFset on Tumblr, for instance, is not _equal_ to the way women are objectified. (Particularly since Hiddleston, at least, is fully clothed. Further, that came from an interview where he was asked to pose the way Natalie Portman did on the Thor 2 trailer, which makes this a pretty interesting reversal of a gender trope, now made even more hilarious with Charlton Heston.) All of Tumblr's fandoms, every single teenager who wants to see two white guys who canonically hate each other have sex just because they think both dudes are hot, does not balance out the extremes to which our society has gone in the mainstream, commercialized objectification of women's bodies. Pointing to Tumblr posts as evidence of a double standard is fallacious. 

I love Wendig a lot and he was getting at something much deeper and more important, but I fear that people will get hung up on how much everyone on Tumblr likes Chris Hemsworth's pecs. In fact, the Heterosexual Female Gaze presented in the first _Thor_ movie was one of my favorite elements. The way Jane and Darcy reacted to Thor getting shirtless was played for laughs. I haven't seen the second movie yet, but the preview footage makes it look like they retained the "hot-blooded straight women really like ogling this clueless Asgardian!" theme. Contrast that with, say, Megan Fox repairing a motorcycle in the _Transformers_ movies in an extremely sexualized pose. The point is that we have a long, long way to go. 

And two: If you are not comfortable subscribing to or adopting feminism because of its baggage, that is well and good, and I wish you luck in finding a movement that doesn't have baggage. Also, I hope everyone who says it's more productive to be against a negative than in favor of a nebulous positive is out there actively confronting real sexism when they encounter it.

That does not mean that you get to tell feminists, especially those of us who subscribe to this term simultaneously as we strive to make it intersectional and welcoming to all, that "we" need a new word. You are free to define yourself however you like; I have found my word, and I will work to make it precisely what the dictionary says it should be. There are many others who have the same mission, and when you say that word isn't good enough and we need a new one, you are erasing our efforts.


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## Ireth

Mindfire said:


> Is that really a thing? I thought the more prevalent trope was that male heroes aren't allowed to hit female villains- although the two conventions might be related.



Hah! The main villain in my latest WIP is female, and she gets offed by a handful of men and one woman (or possibly two; I have yet to decide).


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## Shasjas

Svrtnsse said:


> The blog post made me think of this post from a while back.
> Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is
> 
> The comments are a bit depressing, but the article is interesting.



At the end of the top comment the poster says this (please excuse the swearing)
"You stupid ****s. Learn to see people based on who they are and the unique situations surrounding them. As soon as you start generalizing people based on the color of the skin, who they want to ****, or just what is between their legs, you become a racist, sexist, and whateverelse c***. Learn to be a good human. Treat the people you come across as individuals, not as members of some homogenized group with expectations. Humanity is beautiful, and it will surprise you."

This sums up exactly what I think on the subject. I always try to be a good person and I want society to be more equal, but its difficult when you are the antagonist (at least on the internet). much better to judge people individually rather than put them into groups.


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## saellys

Could you do me a personal favor and censor "c*nt" next time too? (Alternately, if it was an automatic filter that censored them, moderators, could you add that word to the list?) Gendered expletives defeat the purpose of that comment--which missed the point anyway.

I am fully in favor of interacting with individuals on an individual basis. Sadly, our world doesn't allow that in the context of discussions about equality. Western society was built by straight white dudes, for straight white dudes. Everyone else has been at best marginalized, and at worst actively oppressed, for centuries. Reproductive rights and representation in media, for instance, are two issues that do not affect the average individual straight white dude. They do affect huge numbers of other people, and demanding that we all judge each other individually does not acknowledge the true issues. 

Now that equality as a movement can happen both at the institutional level and the daily casual conversation level, I see a lot of straight white dudes trying to deny their privilege, either by citing personal experiences like that commenter, which do not balance out or invalidate the experiences of countless marginalized people, or else by appealing to individualism and holding themselves up as shining examples by claiming "I don't see color or gender" or "I've had to earn everything I've gotten". I'm not inventing a straw man with those last two, by the way--those are actual things my husband has said to me in the course of a single conversation. 

Straight white dudes have been given, usually by default, sometimes invisibly, opportunities which are not available to others. They are, in overwhelming ratios, both lawmakers and law enforcers. The imbalance is self-evident, and "judge people individually" is not helpful advice in the case of an imbalance like that. 

As for being the "antagonist," if you as a straight white dude try to speak about issues that do not affect you ninety-nine percent of the time, your opinions are likely to be dismissed by people who know much, much more about the issue than you do. This means there are very few people who want to hear opinions about feminism from straight white dudes. We have heard enough opinions about feminism from straight white dudes, and it's time for them to stop and listen for a while.


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## Steerpike

saellys said:


> We have heard enough opinions about feminism from straight white dudes, and it's time for them to stop and listen for a while.



It doesn't seem to me that this approach is likely at all to accomplish much. You could just as easily say that people who aren't straight white dudes can't speak to that side of the equality equation for the same reasons. But neither position is persuasive to me. As humans, we all have the capacity for reason, empathy, and understanding necessary to discuss these various issues and contribute to them from all sides. The idea that you have to belong to group X to have a valid opinion is one that is rightly criticized, historically, in the context that group X was old white guys. Inverting it and saying that now group X is, for example, women, doesn't make the argument any more persuasive, it just makes it wrong from the other side. Dialogue is needed, and that requires engaging all sides, which you can't do if you've already decided that one group doesn't get a say.


----------



## Devor

saellys said:


> (Alternately, if it was an automatic filter that censored them, moderators, could you add that word to the list?)



I've bleeped it.

While I view that word as pretty severe, I understand it's seen as mild in some other countries.


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## Feo Takahari

If you say that straight white dudes need to listen, you say that there exist straight white dudes. It is an out-and-out lie to say that "white" even exists as a thing outside of cultural constructions, and "straight" is at least more complicated than is often assumed. Besides, who decides who's allowed to not be a straight white dude? I don't "look" like a queer person, in the sense that I don't fit any obvious stereotypes that make people assume I'm queer, and I'm sick of being one of the people who's told to shut up. And besides the besides, even if we assume the existence of straight white folk, they have the right to talk about prejudice as it impacts them. How many times have you seen a boy who's never claimed to be gay assumed to be gay and gay-bashed just because he's slightly effeminate? And for one more "besides," let's not assume that being a minority member means you know what the hell you're talking about. One of the most horrifically racist books I've ever read is Native Speaker, written by a Korean-American about how he thought Korean-Americans could and couldn't be allowed to act lest they become "traitors."

Angry? Yes, I'm angry. I don't like being told that owning and operating a penis means the only things I have to say are the things said by other penis owners. (Like my penis is what determines what I think and who I am. Which is, you know, sexist.)


----------



## Jabrosky

Feo Takahari said:


> Angry? Yes, I'm angry. I don't like being told that owning and operating a penis means the only things I have to say are the things said by other penis owners. (Like my penis is what determines what I think and who I am. Which is, you know, sexist.)


I can relate to this. I don't like it when people assume that, by virtue of being a straight white male, I somehow support racism, sexism, and homophobia. I see this fallacy endorsed both by "social justice" bloggers who treat us all as punching bags and other straight white males who brand me as some kind of self-disrespecting traitor to their cause. Being a straight white male can feel like a breeze as long as you kowtow to the straight white male party line, but if you don't, you can get sandwiched between a rock and a hard place.


----------



## saellys

Steerpike said:


> It doesn't seem to me that this approach is likely at all to accomplish much. You could just as easily say that people who aren't straight white dudes can't speak to that side of the equality equation for the same reasons. But neither position is persuasive to me. As humans, we all have the capacity for reason, empathy, and understanding necessary to discuss these various issues and contribute to them from all sides. The idea that you have to belong to group X to have a valid opinion is one that is rightly criticized, historically, in the context that group X was old white guys. Inverting it and saying that now group X is, for example, women, doesn't make the argument any more persuasive, it just makes it wrong from the other side. Dialogue is needed, and that requires engaging all sides, which you can't do if you've already decided that one group doesn't get a say.



To be engaged and effective in solving a problem, you first need to be educated about the problem. So far, what men consider "dialogue" has overwhelmingly been a demand to be educated about the basics of the issues then and there by marginalized people, coupled with dismissing and invalidating those people's experiences, rather than doing their own research in advance and then arguing the merits of the conclusions. (I speak from my own experience and those of many, many others.) The result of this mindset has already been linked in this thread. If you don't see a problem with straight white dude Joss Whedon being asked to tell the world every opinion he holds about feminism, this discussion probably can't go much further.



Feo Takahari said:


> If you say that straight white dudes need to listen, you say that there exist straight white dudes.



I cribbed the term directly from people who identify that way. In this case, I modified the title of the article Shasjas posted. (I prefer "dude" to "male" for the same reasons I prefer "girl" to "female".)



Feo Takahari said:


> It is an out-and-out lie to say that "white" even exists as a thing outside of cultural constructions, and "straight" is at least more complicated than is often assumed.



Never made a claim to the opposite. Race is a cultural construction. Gender is a cultural construction. Sexuality is a cultural construction. Inequality is a cultural construction. When people buy into those constructions so hard that they make them an identity and treat others they don't perceive as sharing that identity in harmful ways, it's still a cultural construction. It's also still harmful. 



Feo Takahari said:


> Besides, who decides who's allowed to not be a straight white dude? I don't "look" like a queer person, in the sense that I don't fit any obvious stereotypes that make people assume I'm queer, and I'm sick of being one of the people who's told to shut up.



I'm sorry you've been told that. I consistently find your posts valuable. There's that whole individual interaction thing. I had very little idea about how you identify, and what I gleaned from this statement is that you're queer, so you're not actually one of the people I said needs to stop and listen for a while.



Feo Takahari said:


> And besides the besides, even if we assume the existence of straight white folk, they have the right to talk about prejudice as it impacts them. How many times have you seen a boy who's never claimed to be gay assumed to be gay and gay-bashed just because he's slightly effeminate?



As it impacts them, not how the prejudice that impacts them personally invalidates prejudice that impacts others. The equivalent to the comment Shasjas cited would be if your slightly effeminate boy turned around and said "I just got gay-bashed, therefore I am as oppressed as people who identify as gay, and we need to eradicate broader notions of gay people and straight people and only ever relate to each other on an individual level." Again, it's a nice idea, but it does not actually fix attitudes or change the fact that gay people are oppressed.



Feo Takahari said:


> And for one more "besides," let's not assume that being a minority member means you know what the hell you're talking about. One of the most horrifically racist books I've ever read is Native Speaker, written by a Korean-American about how he thought Korean-Americans could and couldn't be allowed to act lest they become "traitors."



If you're trying to extrapolate from this that someone who has never been part of a marginalized group should get as much say on a matter that affects a marginalized group as actual members of that group, well, as established, I don't agree.



Feo Takahari said:


> Angry? Yes, I'm angry. I don't like being told that owning and operating a penis means the only things I have to say are the things said by other penis owners. (Like my penis is what determines what I think and who I am. Which is, you know, sexist.)



Not actually what I said at all. See below. 



Jabrosky said:


> I can relate to this. I don't like it when people assume that, by virtue of being a straight white male, I somehow support racism, sexism, and homophobia. I see this fallacy endorsed both by "social justice" bloggers who treat us all as punching bags and other straight white males who brand me as some kind of self-disrespecting traitor to their cause. Being a straight white male can feel like a breeze as long as you kowtow to the straight white male party line, but if you don't, you can get sandwiched between a rock and a hard place.



No one assumes you support these things. They are likely to assume that you know less about the effects of racism, sexism, and homophobia than someone who has actually been a victim of these things. You definitely don't have to "kowtow" to a "party line" to benefit from the privilege of your gender, race, and sexuality, or to be ignorant about other people's lives. 

Speaking individually here, I don't think you kowtow to the straight white male party line, whatever that is. You seem to have done more research than most. Nevertheless, I find problematic elements in your work, and you frequently mention that others do as well, in a context of extreme resistance to the notion that they might be right. You fiercely defend the choices you make and deny their unfortunate connotations, which is why, on an individual level, I'm not likely to ask your opinion on matters that affect marginalized people.


----------



## Steerpike

saellys said:


> To be engaged and effective in solving a problem, you first need to be educated about the problem. So far, what men consider "dialogue" has overwhelmingly been a demand to be educated about the basics of the issues then and there by marginalized people, coupled with dismissing and invalidating those people's experiences, rather than doing their own research in advance and then arguing the merits of the conclusions.



This seems to me to be a separate issue; one that deals with the manner in which dialogue should be conducted in order to be most effective. Neither "shut up and listen" or "you're not entitled to a viewpoint" addresses the problem you mention, and in my view it makes it more difficult to effectively address the underlying issue. 

Personally, I don't have a problem with anyone asking any person what their view is on an issue. That's fine; as I said, thinking people can develop opinions on issues that impact them less directly than others. If the only viewpoint you're getting is coming from a narrow subset of individuals, then that's a problem, but the answer isn't to shut up the narrow subset, but rather to bring in the other voices that need to be there.


----------



## BWFoster78

Question for the mods on this forum:

A lot of the viewpoints above make me wish to express my social and political beliefs in response.  I feel this is a reasonable desire since a lot of the posts above certainly seem to be statements of social and political beliefs that are wholly unrelated to writing.  My understanding of the forum rules, however, is that such statements aren't allowed.

Am I misunderstanding the rules or am I misinterpretating, as a former president would have said, the content of the above posts?

Thanks.

Brian


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## Steerpike

BWFoster78 said:


> Question for the mods on this forum:
> 
> A lot of the viewpoints above make me wish to express my social and political beliefs in response.  I feel this is a reasonable desire since a lot of the posts above certainly seem to be statements of social and political beliefs that are wholly unrelated to writing.  My understanding of the forum rules, however, is that such statements aren't allowed.
> 
> Am I misunderstanding the rules or am I misinterpretating, as a former president would have said, the content of the above posts?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Brian



Brian - Black Dragon or other mods might step in and offer their view. My understanding is this: posts related directly to contemporary politics are verboten. If you want to talk about Obama and the mid-term elections, we don't allow that. When you're talking about issues in the abstract that have a political component, I think the moderators tend to be more lenient, so long as things don't get out of hand. Like with religion - discussion isn't forbidden, but people have to be civil. 

The sorts of issues that have arisen in this thread _can_ impact writing, of course, and can influence how we choose to present stories, or even impact how we design the world and the character reactions to it (for example, a highly patriarchal society with rigid gender-based strictures is likely to look a certain way, and discussing issues around gender and patriarchy can be helpful to how you write that).

So, that's my personal view. I'm not speaking for anyone else, of course. So long as the issues have some rational bearing on writing, stay civil, and don't go directly into contemporary political discussion (by which I mean specifics about elections, politicians, and so on), I tend to take a fairly open view.

If Black Dragon disagrees, he may swoop down and breathe fire on me


----------



## Feo Takahari

Steerpike said:


> Brian - Black Dragon or other mods might step in and offer their view. My understanding is this: posts related directly to contemporary politics are verboten. If you want to talk about Obama and the mid-term elections, we don't allow that. When you're talking about issues in the abstract that have a political component, I think the moderators tend to be more lenient, so long as things don't get out of hand. Like with religion - discussion isn't forbidden, but people have to be civil.
> 
> The sorts of issues that have arisen in this thread _can_ impact writing, of course, and can influence how we choose to present stories, or even impact how we design the world and the character reactions to it (for example, a highly patriarchal society with rigid gender-based strictures is likely to look a certain way, and discussing issues around gender and patriarchy can be helpful to how you write that).
> 
> So, that's my personal view. I'm not speaking for anyone else, of course. So long as the issues have some rational bearing on writing, stay civil, and don't go directly into contemporary political discussion (by which I mean specifics about elections, politicians, and so on), I tend to take a fairly open view.
> 
> If Black Dragon disagrees, he may swoop down and breathe fire on me



I've noticed that of all the mods, you're the one most likely to directly get involved in these arguments. (For reference, Devor is the mod most likely to try to end the argument without arguing for or against any position--he's previously stated that arguments like this one need to relate directly to fantasy. I'm not sure what Black Dragon thinks.)


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## Steerpike

Feo Takahari said:


> I've noticed that of all the mods, you're the one most likely to directly get involved in these arguments. (For reference, Devor is the mod most likely to try to end the argument without arguing for or against any position--he's previously stated that arguments like this one need to relate directly to fantasy. I'm not sure what Black Dragon thinks.)



I think they're important issues, and I also think they're related to writing (maybe because I read a lot of work, including fantasy, that deals directly with real-world social issues; some of my favorite authors do this). I find the discussions interesting, so I like to get involved in them, so long as we're staying within the boundaries BD has envisioned for the forums.


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## Devor

Feo Takahari said:


> I've noticed that of all the mods, you're the one most likely to directly get involved in these arguments. (For reference, Devor is the mod most likely to try to end the argument without arguing for or against any position--he's previously stated that arguments like this one need to relate directly to fantasy. I'm not sure what Black Dragon thinks.)



I do do that - but I get involved too, usually once I think the tone has settled.

I'm of the mind that a _thread_ like this should be on-topic for fantasy, so I am concerned about this one.  Why open a can of worms if the whole thing is off topic?  But I don't mind tangents.


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## Feo Takahari

Edit: Forget it, this is getting too heated. I'll back off.


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## BWFoster78

Steerpike said:


> Brian - Black Dragon or other mods might step in and offer their view. My understanding is this: posts related directly to contemporary politics are verboten. If you want to talk about Obama and the mid-term elections, we don't allow that. When you're talking about issues in the abstract that have a political component, I think the moderators tend to be more lenient, so long as things don't get out of hand. Like with religion - discussion isn't forbidden, but people have to be civil.
> 
> The sorts of issues that have arisen in this thread _can_ impact writing, of course, and can influence how we choose to present stories, or even impact how we design the world and the character reactions to it (for example, a highly patriarchal society with rigid gender-based strictures is likely to look a certain way, and discussing issues around gender and patriarchy can be helpful to how you write that).
> 
> So, that's my personal view. I'm not speaking for anyone else, of course. So long as the issues have some rational bearing on writing, stay civil, and don't go directly into contemporary political discussion (by which I mean specifics about elections, politicians, and so on), I tend to take a fairly open view.
> 
> If Black Dragon disagrees, he may swoop down and breathe fire on me



Perhaps the problem is that different mods seem to interpret the rules differently.

Some have clearly stated views on the subject of what can be argued much differently than you just stated.  I'd love some clarification from on high.

Thanks.

Brian


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## Devor

BWFoster78 said:


> Perhaps the problem is that different mods seem to interpret the rules differently.
> 
> Some have clearly stated views on the subject of what can be argued much differently than you just stated.  I'd love some clarification from on high.



I don't think there's a disagreement.  I think the less it's related to fantasy, the lower our tolerance for heated controversy.  I don't think there's anything to be gained by defining it further.

The discussion evolves - has evolved - from where it was before, and so does our ability to handle controversy as a community.  We can come out and say "You need to treat others with respect," but the reality is that respect has to be earned over time.  I think many of the individuals involved in these conversations have survived many, many rounds of debate.  By and large, most people here have earned one another's respect, at least on some levels.

While that respect more or less holds up, so can our flexibility for tackling more sensitive and unrelated subjects.  If and where it begins to break down, we can take action as we need to.

I should add, however, that we don't generally issue infractions just for getting into controversial subjects.  So if you want to respond, it's important that people with a variety of opinions not feel afraid to speak up civilly.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Discussion of social issues is not prohibited. Social understandings and representations are often reflected in writing. From my understanding of Mythic Scribe's guidelines, debate over social issues is acceptable. However, and this pervades all discussion, we need to be respectful of another's beliefs.

It's very akin to the site's stance on religious discussions. Many members think conversation on religion is prohibited, yet this is not the case. Real world religions and knowledge about religious topics have a place in the creation of art. The trouble arises when people condescend, or lash out against, another's beliefs or perceptions. That would be unacceptable behavior.

I would caution those involved in this thread to be mindful of the requirement to be respectful of your fellow scribes. This includes what they believe & why they perceive these issues in the manner they do. Everyone on this site has a right to expression & respect. No opinions should be diminished or ridiculed as unworthy. What we are after, is a healthy exchange of ideas & the opportunity to learn from one another.


----------



## Guy

saellys said:


> (I speak from my own experience and those of many, many others.)


Earlier you said


> I see a lot of straight white dudes trying to deny their privilege, either by citing personal experiences like that commenter, which do not balance out or invalidate the experiences of countless marginalized people


After implying that bolstering one's argument with personal experience is not valid, you bolstered your argument with personal experience.


> If you're trying to extrapolate from this that someone who has never been part of a marginalized group should get as much say on a matter that affects a marginalized group as actual members of that group, well, as established, I don't agree.


So, for example, the only people who should be able to vote on whether tax dollars should be used to aid a marginalized group are members of the marginalized group?


> No one assumes you support these things.


Perhaps you don't, but you have no way of knowing what he experiences in day to day life outside this forum. Perhaps he does encounter a lot of people making that assumption about him. Assuming he doesn't is just like people who are not members of a marginalized group assuming know as much about what it's like to be a member of that group as the actual group members.


----------



## saellys

Guy said:


> After implying that bolstering one's argument with personal experience is not valid, you bolstered your argument with personal experience.



There's a difference between me drawing on my own experience interacting with straight white dudes about issues of oppression and marginalization for the purposes of examples, and straight white dudes drawing on their own individual experiences in order to invalidate others' experiences of institutionalized oppression and marginalization. One is bolstering, as you put it; the other is erasure. 



Guy said:


> So, for example, the only people who should be able to vote on whether tax dollars should be used to aid a marginalized group are members of the marginalized group?



Democratically speaking, no, everyone obviously gets a say in things like using tax dollars to aid a marginalized group. When it comes to, say, governments removing First Nations children from their biological parents "at an alarming rate," at this juncture we don't need to hear the perspectives of people who aren't from the marginalized group. For the purposes of this discussion, I mean to say that we don't need to respond by speculating on what the parents might have done to deserve losing custody of their children; instead, we need to listen.



Guy said:


> Perhaps you don't, but you have no way of knowing what he experiences in day to day life outside this forum. Perhaps he does encounter a lot of people making that assumption about him. Assuming he doesn't is just like people who are not members of a marginalized group assuming know as much about what it's like to be a member of that group as the actual group members.



You're right; I can't speak for all women or people of color or other marginalized groups. I try not to, generally. Sorry for the slip-up.


----------



## Feo Takahari

saellys said:


> Democratically speaking, no, everyone obviously gets a say in things like using tax dollars to aid a marginalized group. When it comes to, say, governments removing First Nations children from their biological parents "at an alarming rate," at this juncture we don't need to hear the perspectives of people who aren't from the marginalized group. For the purposes of this discussion, I mean to say that we don't need to respond by speculating on what the parents might have done to deserve losing custody of their children; instead, we need to listen.



In that particular case, what matters is that the rate at which children are taken away be reduced.* For that purpose, it is necessary to learn why the children are being taken away. That does mean listening to the people who're taking them away, though it also means questioning statements they make that are inconsistent. It also means listening to those whose children were taken, to help determine potential inconsistencies, and it means listening to the statements of the children themselves, and it means listening to the statements of reporters studying the situation . . .

I have the feeling this post will be edited for touching on current politics, so I'll end with a non-political and general statement. The solution is not to reduce the available voices. The solution is to collect all the available voices, use them to spot lies and misstatements, and from there to determine an optimal solution.

* Not to zero, mind you--aboriginals can be abusive parents, too.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Feo Takahari said:


> I have the feeling this post will be edited for touching on current politics, so I'll end with a non-political and general statement. The solution is not to reduce the available voices. The solution is to collect all the available voices, use them to spot lies and misstatements, and from there to determine an optimal solution.



I think that's exactly the reason we need to incorporate as many voices into genre fiction as possible - because, let's face it, people read more genre fiction than literary.  Speculative fiction is not just predictive, it's reflective - I don't remember who said that, but it's absolutely true.  Yeah, the search for equality is messy (really, really messy) but the more voices we have out there looking, the more we strive to reflect the true face of society in our fiction, regardless of our own backgrounds and experiences because we are writers and _can_ walk in the footsteps of others, the closer we'll get to finding it.


----------



## FatCat

So tired of these threads. This is a forum for constructing skills related to writing fantasy fiction, yet everytime an equality-issue post is brought up the same people post the same things over and over. I mean, I can sympathize with wanting to get a message across to people, but at the same time, this isn't the forum to do so. There are a ton of sites out there that specialize in this type of debate, where this forum, as I know it, specializes in the writing of fantasy fiction. It seems like everyone agrees for the most part that characters should be written as people, not gender, yet these threads keep popping up, magnifying specific ideologies and viewpoints that have nothing at all to do with fiction writing. Just tired of this muck, really.


----------



## BWFoster78

> I should add, however, that we don't generally issue infractions just for getting into controversial subjects. So if you want to respond, it's important that people with a variety of opinions not feel afraid to speak up civilly.



Devor,

As you may have noticed, I'm big on rules - not just on writing but in general.  I like the MS community and respect that the moderators wish to facilitate a specific kind of environment.  Even if there is no "infraction" issued, I have no desire to run afoul of what the management of the site intends.

My perception is that some moderators have felt the need to advise against this exact type of discussion previously.  This discrepancy between my perception and what's currently being stated has led me to be a bit confused, which is why I sought clarification.

Perhaps it was my perception that was off instead of the intent of various moderators.  I understand what you, Steerpike, and T.Allen are saying.  As long as that is the actual standard, I'm fine with following that as a rule.  Thank you for the clarification!

One minor note, however: I enjoy debating things.  Even if I'm not particularly passionate about a subject, I like the act of exchanging ideas and trying to convince others of my POV (I once spent a half hour arguing, of all ridiculous premises, that The Man Show wasn't sexist.).  Because of this personality trait, I find it more than mildly annoying when I'm in the middle of what I feel is a fun exchange of ideas, and the thread is suddenly closed.  I wish greatly to avoid getting in the middle of such again if it's going to end similarly.

Thanks.

Brian


----------



## Jabrosky

saellys said:


> You're right; I can't speak for all women or people of color or other marginalized groups. I try not to, generally. Sorry for the slip-up.


I think you missed Guy's point. He wasn't saying you claimed to speak on behalf of all women or non-Europeans or any other group. What I believe he meant was that you can't assume that people don't regard me as some kind of racist or sexist simply because I'm a straight white male.

As it happens, I have received more than my fair share of flak from supposed "social justice" advocates that I believe I wouldn't get if I lay outside the white male demographic intersection. In one tumblr conversation over whether it was ever acceptable for white people to wear non-Western traditional clothes, I've had a correspondent dismiss my opinion on the grounds that I'm a white guy. In another conversation on sex-positive feminism, I've received a comment saying something like "Of course a white boy like you would support it." And then there are all the pseudo-feminists who call me a "fetishistic creeper" because of all the African female characters in my art and stories. Somehow I doubt I would receive those insults if I were drawing mostly white women like all the other white male artists.


----------



## Feo Takahari

I'd like it to be stated for the record that I don't agree with Jabrosky here. Overall, I don't think rights groups in general are hostile to or dismissive of the perspectives of outsiders--discrimination in that sense occurs more on an individual level, unless you go on the creepy sites that maybe six people actually read, or seriously piss someone off. [Insert complaint about Jabrosky and fetishism that you've heard six gazillion times and are royally sick of.] 

P.S. I almost added "go on Tumblr," but I'm not sure that's true. I'm not sure if the creepy feminists have Tumblrs, but I've only encountered the reasonable ones and (how I hate to say this!) a bunch of middle-class folks of European ancestry who talk "social justice" but are dismissive of voices other than their own.


----------



## BWFoster78

> Overall, I don't think rights groups in general are hostile to or dismissive of the perspectives of outsiders--



In general, aren't most groups and individuals, to some extent, hostile and/or dismissive of people who don't share their viewpoints?  Again to an extent, simply saying "I disagree with your belief" can be considered, at its core, a hostile and/or dismissive act.  Even if it's stated nicely, it's still conflict.

Getting the conversation back to writing...

That's one reason I advocate characters disagreeing with each other.  If you have all the characters in a room in agreement, you have no conflict.


----------



## saellys

FatCat said:


> So tired of these threads. This is a forum for constructing skills related to writing fantasy fiction, yet everytime an equality-issue post is brought up the same people post the same things over and over. I mean, I can sympathize with wanting to get a message across to people, but at the same time, this isn't the forum to do so. There are a ton of sites out there that specialize in this type of debate, where this forum, as I know it, specializes in the writing of fantasy fiction. It seems like everyone agrees for the most part that characters should be written as people, not gender, yet these threads keep popping up, magnifying specific ideologies and viewpoints that have nothing at all to do with fiction writing. Just tired of this muck, really.



It's really important to have this discussion here for the reasons A. E. Lowan stated in the post immediately preceding yours. If I go to a forum that is dedicated to these kinds of debate, I'm going to see a lot of choir-preaching between people who aren't in a position to do much about the issues. Writers are in a position to act. Writers are in the business of representing humanity. Being able to do so realistically and with balanced perspective is important.

As Steerpike has already said, these are issues that _are_ tied to writing--enough so that these threads keep popping up, usually with new links to articles by writers about writing. We are the writers. We create media for public consumption. We're capable of helping by representing and reflecting more in our own work, and we can only do that if we're aware of the issues. 



Jabrosky said:


> I think you missed Guy's point. He wasn't saying you claimed to speak on behalf of all women or non-Europeans or any other group. What I believe he meant was that you can't assume that people don't regard me as some kind of racist or sexist simply because I'm a straight white male.
> 
> As it happens, I have received more than my fair share of flak from supposed "social justice" advocates that I believe I wouldn't get if I lay outside the white male demographic intersection. In one tumblr conversation over whether it was ever acceptable for white people to wear non-Western traditional clothes, I've had a correspondent dismiss my opinion on the grounds that I'm a white guy. In another conversation on sex-positive feminism, I've received a comment saying something like "Of course a white boy like you would support it." And then there are all the pseudo-feminists who call me a "fetishistic creeper" because of all the African female characters in my art and stories. Somehow I doubt I would receive those insults if I were drawing mostly white women like all the other white male artists.



I'm replying to your PM now and will address this there.



BWFoster78 said:


> In general, aren't most groups and individuals, to some extent, hostile and/or dismissive of people who don't share their viewpoints?  Again to an extent, simply saying "I disagree with your belief" can be considered, at its core, a hostile and/or dismissive act.  Even if it's stated nicely, it's still conflict.
> 
> Getting the conversation back to writing...
> 
> That's one reason I advocate characters disagreeing with each other.  If you have all the characters in a room in agreement, you have no conflict.



Conflict is great. Conflict makes the world go 'round, and propels stories. All hostility and dismissiveness involves conflict, but not all conflict has to involve hostility and dismissiveness.


----------



## Feo Takahari

BWFoster78 said:


> In general, aren't most groups and individuals, to some extent, hostile and/or dismissive of people who don't share their viewpoints?  Again to an extent, simply saying "I disagree with your belief" can be considered, at its core, a hostile and/or dismissive act.  Even if it's stated nicely, it's still conflict.



I don't understand what you mean. Speaking personally, I'm quite positive towards some groups I disagree with--I may not agree with their reasoning, but I respect that they're trying to do the right thing. (I'm also a little alarmed that you're conflating people who aren't minority members with people who disagree with the goals of minority rights groups.)


----------



## BWFoster78

> Conflict is great. Conflict makes the world go 'round, and propels stories. All hostility and dismissiveness involves conflict, but not all conflict has to involve hostility and dismissiveness.





> don't understand what you mean. Speaking personally, I'm quite positive towards some groups I disagree with--I may not agree with their reasoning, but I respect that they're trying to do the right thing. (I'm also a little alarmed that you're conflating people who aren't minority members with people who disagree with the goals of minority rights groups.)



My point was that, no matter how nicely stated, the very act of disagreeing is inherently hostile and dismissive.

Look at it this way:

You say the sky is blue.  If I believe the sky is red, I am in a state of disagreement with you.  No matter how nicely I say to you, "Hey dude, you're a moron.  The sky's red."  I'm still calling you a moron for not believing as I do.

How can I do otherwise?  If I'm right, then you must be wrong.  Hence me disagreeing is me saying you're wrong which is, at its essence, me calling you a moron.

There are obviously degrees of hostility, and I don't actually think anyone is a moron just because they disagree with me (implying that I have other reasons?  ).


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## Steerpike

I don't think that's true @BWFoster. Such discussions certainly can be dismissive or hostile, but they don't have to be. Like you, I don't believe that people who think differently from me are stupid. Or bad people. Two of the nicest and smartest people I know are at polar opposite ends of the political/social spectrum. Some people take that approach to disagreement, but it isn't a necessary or inherent part of disagreement. "Conflict" will exist, in a broad sense, but it doesn't have to be hostile or dismissive. It's only that way if you choose to respond in that manner.


----------



## FatCat

saellys said:


> It's really important to have this discussion here for the reasons A. E. Lowan stated in the post immediately preceding yours. If I go to a forum that is dedicated to these kinds of debate, I'm going to see a lot of choir-preaching between people who aren't in a position to do much about the issues. Writers are in a position to act. Writers are in the business of representing humanity. Being able to do so realistically and with balanced perspective is important.
> 
> As Steerpike has already said, these are issues that _are_ tied to writing--enough so that these threads keep popping up, usually with new links to articles by writers about writing. We are the writers. We create media for public consumption. We're capable of helping by representing and reflecting more in our own work, and we can only do that if we're aware of the issues.



I was going to link every thread relating to the equality topic in this reply, but I simply am too lazy to do so. How current social inequality reflects in genre-fiction, to me, seems to be a trivial thing compared to the mechanics and ability of writing a compelling story that people want to read. If there is an ideology that needs to be advanced through media, people first have to want to consume that media. The amount of threads on this topic simply doesn't make sense to me. Now, if a thread in World Building was posted and the OP in this example asked on how to reflect current social inequality in his/her fantasy world, that is something I could see as a positive area of discussion. It occurs to me that we should just have one big post in the Research forum where members can talk about how they feel on the issue, then, should a member feel compelled to gauge the climate/attitudes of inequality (specifically of members on this forum, which is an odd thing to do, considering this is such a small minority of people compared to the hundreds of other areas that one can research on the internet), they can go to that post. That being said, I don't really see how that would be constructive compared to the example of a thread being started in World Building about a specific question in advancing the portrayal of these ideas into a fantasy-scape.


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## Steerpike

@FatCat - actually I'm working on a story right now that heavily incorporates themes of gender and patriarchy, so I find the abstract discussions useful in that regard. Probably more so to me personally, because I already have a handle on the mechanics. But I think these kinds of threads are going to have varying use to different people. Some may find them extremely helpful and others may not.

If I may ask a question (and this is meant in a friendly way; you know me  )  - the thread has a title that pretty well telegraphs the content. Why click it? Why read it? In other words, is the mere existence of the thread on the site a problem for those who don't like the topic, or does it take some affirmative act on your part as well?


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## Devor

BWFoster78 said:


> You say the sky is blue.  If I believe the sky is red, I am in a state of disagreement with you.  No matter how nicely I say to you, "Hey dude, you're a moron.  The sky's red."  I'm still calling you a moron for not believing as I do.



Not at all.

First, most disagreements aren't really that simple.  Most of the time - I believe - it's not about one side being right or wrong, but about two people giving different values different weights.

Take a look at discussions about fridging and the damsel in distress, for instance.  The conflict usually focuses around the values reflected by two statements nobody disagrees with:

 - In isolation, they're not even an issue.
 - But these elements occur all the time, creating a pattern that is an issue to many.

Which statement should be weighted more on an author who is thinking about using the two tropes?  That's where the conflict comes into play, and the differing answers don't come down to one side being right or wrong - progressive or inconsiderate - groundbreaking or dumb.  It honestly comes down to a basic outlook of how much you weigh the importance of an ongoing trend of minor instances vs. an additional occurrence of the incident.

I don't really have an answer to that.  People just see the world differently.


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## saellys

FatCat said:


> I was going to link every thread relating to the equality topic in this reply, but I simply am too lazy to do so.



That's probably for the best, because I don't see the point of linking them all. I could dig them up too and point out how each OP had a different purpose, regardless of how each thread ultimately trod the same worn paths of semantics.



FatCat said:


> How current social inequality reflects in genre-fiction, to me, seems to be a trivial thing compared to the mechanics and ability of writing a compelling story that people want to read.



I consider social inequality and compelling stories to be inextricably linked in most cases. How a writer chooses to handle issues of inequality, or not handle them, is a major part of storytelling.



FatCat said:


> If there is an ideology that needs to be advanced through media, people first have to want to consume that media.



Agreed. Is there any reason we as writers can not develop our skills at making media others want to consume simultaneously with developing ideologies and presenting them in artful ways? The media I want to consume is, among other things, as inclusive as possible and reflects, in some measure, the issues real marginalized people face, while managing to not make marginalized people's stories exclusively about those issues. Same goes for the media I want to create. If we prioritize which skills come first, when exactly are we allowed to get around to the ideology part? 



FatCat said:


> The amount of threads on this topic simply doesn't make sense to me.



Okay. It makes a lot of sense to me, because it's never just one topic and the discussion is never truly over. 



FatCat said:


> Now, if a thread in World Building was posted and the OP in this example asked on how to reflect current social inequality in his/her fantasy world, that is something I could see as a positive area of discussion. It occurs to me that we should just have one big post in the Research forum where members can talk about how they feel on the issue, then, should a member feel compelled to gauge the climate/attitudes of inequality (specifically of members on this forum, which is an odd thing to do, considering this is such a small minority of people compared to the hundreds of other areas that one can research on the internet), they can go to that post. That being said, I don't really see how that would be constructive compared to the example of a thread being started in World Building about a specific question in advancing the portrayal of these ideas into a fantasy-scape.



There have been a few threads very similar to what you suggest, and people have posted specific examples from their work in threads about broader issues, and gotten equally specific responses. None of these options have to be mutually exclusive.


----------



## FatCat

Steerpike said:


> If I may ask a question (and this is meant in a friendly way; you know me  )  - the thread has a title that pretty well telegraphs the content. Why click it? Why read it? In other words, is the mere existence of the thread on the site a problem for those who don't like the topic, or does it take some affirmative act on your part as well?



Curiosity, I suppose. Everytime one of these threads pop up, I can't help but wonder why. There's one thread here on swords, and epicly long and fascinating thread at that, but if the discussion of swords kept repeating itself, I'd have the same reaction. I get the idea of wanting to discuss the matters, what I don't understand is why there's such a heavy prescence of equality threads. Curiosity, my fellow feline.


----------



## Steerpike

I hear you, FatCat. Thanks for the answer!


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## BWFoster78

> The amount of threads on this topic simply doesn't make sense to me.



FatCat,

I see it this way:

There are certain people who feel strongly about this issue and, thus, when they see a thread, feel it is important to make the point that it would be helpful if writers were more mindful of equality in their writing.

(I feel the same way about speech tags.  Even though I've stated all over the place about how I think it's simply wrong in every sense of the word to combine a tag and a beat, I still feel the need to point this out in every location possible.  )

Others on the forum feel a personal connection to the issue and like to share their experiences.

Still others, like me, simply like to argue, regardless of the topic.

While this subject, even for me, tends to get stale after a while, it at least generates interest.  If we didn't have these eight pages to entertain us, what would we be doing?  Oh wait...  Writing.  Crap!


----------



## BWFoster78

Steerpike said:


> I don't think that's true @BWFoster. Such discussions certainly can be dismissive or hostile, but they don't have to be. Like you, I don't believe that people who think differently from me are stupid. Or bad people. Two of the nicest and smartest people I know are at polar opposite ends of the political/social spectrum. Some people take that approach to disagreement, but it isn't a necessary or inherent part of disagreement. "Conflict" will exist, in a broad sense, but it doesn't have to be hostile or dismissive. It's only that way if you choose to respond in that manner.



Really?  Then since you disagree with me I think that you're a...

No, not really.

I just feel that the act of disagreeing is, in and of itself, hostile.

Agreement = Hospitable and Inclusive.
Disagreement = Hostile and Dismissive.

To clarify, however, I get Devor's point.  If there is no actual disagreement, there is no hostility.  Often difference of opinion on this site come down to a lack of definition of the object of discussion.  That's not hostility; that's miscommunication.

I would suspect, however, that Saellys and I would have a vastly different opinion on the value of the pursuit of equality.  No matter how kind or nice the conversation or how much we might respect each other's viewpoints, at the core of the issue is the fact that we each feel that the other is flat out wrong.  This feeling in no way eliminates the possibility of polite discourse, but it is a hostile feeling.


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## Steerpike

We're probably just using 'hostile' a bit differently, and don't necessarily disagree on that.

I consider 'dismissive' to be a bit of a knee-jerk reaction, where someone's viewpoint is discounted without ever being considered and without much if any thought. To me, if you consider my viewpoint, think about what I'm saying, and still come to a different conclusion, you're not being dismissive of my view point.

I suppose it comes down to semantics.


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## Feo Takahari

BWFoster78 said:


> Really?  Then since you disagree with me I think that you're a...
> 
> No, not really.
> 
> I just feel that the act of disagreeing is, in and of itself, hostile.
> 
> Agreement = Hospitable and Inclusive.
> Disagreement = Hostile and Dismissive.
> 
> To clarify, however, I get Devor's point.  If there is no actual disagreement, there is no hostility.  Often difference of opinion on this site come down to a lack of definition of the object of discussion.  That's not hostility; that's miscommunication.
> 
> I would suspect, however, that Saellys and I would have a vastly different opinion on the value of the pursuit of equality.  No matter how kind or nice the conversation or how much we might respect each other's viewpoints, at the core of the issue is the fact that we each feel that the other is flat out wrong.  This feeling in no way eliminates the possibility of polite discourse, but it is a hostile feeling.



I don't think you can accurately portray how someone thinks if you're completely hostile to them. I do think authors have been able to portray the thought processes of people they clearly disagree with. There's certainly room to argue with the first statement, but if both are taken as true, it follows that there are authors who aren't completely hostile to characters they fundamentally disagree with. (In fact, I believe that the trait that determines whether a writer is great is whether they're capable of accurately and believably portraying viewpoints that aren't theirs.)

Yay! We have a connection to writing, and it only took eight pages!

P.S. I was worried about getting into this, but praise probably isn't as bad as criticism. I love Jesus. I don't think he was always right, and for that matter, I don't think he was necessarily sane, but more than any other thinker in a thousand years before or after him, he embodied my ideas of how to be a good person and live a good life. I'll never be a Christian, and I have my share of objections to how Christ's word has been interpreted, but that doesn't mean I'm hostile to Christianity.


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## BWFoster78

Feo,

I think it probably comes down to our respective definitions of "hostile."

Hostile, imo, indicates opposition.  To disagree is, fundamentally, to oppose.  You seem to equate it more to the manner of delivery and the degree of respect given.

I think you would feel this statement is hostile:

You are wrong.

but not this one:

I disagree with you.

I see both as being the same.



> I don't think you can accurately portray how someone thinks if you're completely hostile to them.



So, if I write a story from the deep POV of a serial rapist and murderer, I either:

a) Can't write an accurate portrayal of that person OR
b) Am not hostile toward that person's actions/thoughts?

Once again, I disagree.

Thanks for getting us back on writing, though!


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## Devor

> So, if I write a story from the deep POV of a serial rapist and murderer, I either:
> 
> a) Can't write an accurate portrayal of that person OR
> b) Am not hostile toward that person's actions/thoughts?
> 
> Once again, I disagree.
> 
> Thanks for getting us back on writing, though!



That's a good point.  But I'll say that a character also represents a level of detachment that may be more difficult to achieve in real life contexts.


----------



## Feo Takahari

BWFoster78 said:


> I think you would feel this statement is hostile:
> 
> You are wrong.
> 
> but not this one:
> 
> I disagree with you.
> 
> I see both as being the same.



I don't see either as inherently hostile.



> So, if I write a story from the deep POV of a serial rapist and murderer, I either:
> 
> a) Can't write an accurate portrayal of that person OR
> b) Am not hostile toward that person's actions/thoughts?
> 
> Once again, I disagree.
> 
> Thanks for getting us back on writing, though!



The phrase "hostile to this person's actions" confuses me to some degree--it's not a term I'd use. I'd say that I think someone's actions are wrong, but I'd only describe myself as hostile or not hostile to the person.

As for agreeing or not agreeing, I'll repeat something I said in another thread. To me, Humbert Humbert is the most repulsive character in fiction. To Nabokov, Humbert Humbert was a horrible human being, but not completely beyond sympathy. I think on some level, Nabokov loved Humbert even as he was, and that's how he was able to write him so believably. It's not forgiveness, not exactly, and it's certainly not condonement. It might not be much more than pity. But it's real, and I think it's necessary.

On a side note, I think this is why so few writers can write a believable Hitler. The depth of his crimes prevents sympathy, and that in turn prevents comprehension. Those writers who have some success tend to write him as more a force of nature than an actual character.


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## Shasjas

saellys said:


> I am fully in favor of interacting with individuals on an individual basis. Sadly, our world doesn't allow that in the context of discussions about equality. Western society was built by straight white dudes, for straight white dudes. Everyone else has been at best marginalized, and at worst actively oppressed, for centuries. Reproductive rights and representation in media, for instance, are two issues that do not affect the average individual straight white dude. They do affect huge numbers of other people, and demanding that we all judge each other individually does not acknowledge the true issues.
> 
> Now that equality as a movement can happen both at the institutional level and the daily casual conversation level, I see a lot of straight white dudes trying to deny their privilege, either by citing personal experiences like that commenter, which do not balance out or invalidate the experiences of countless marginalized people, or else by appealing to individualism and holding themselves up as shining examples by claiming "I don't see color or gender" or "I've had to earn everything I've gotten". I'm not inventing a straw man with those last two, by the way--those are actual things my husband has said to me in the course of a single conversation.
> 
> Straight white dudes have been given, usually by default, sometimes invisibly, opportunities which are not available to others. They are, in overwhelming ratios, both lawmakers and law enforcers. The imbalance is self-evident, and "judge people individually" is not helpful advice in the case of an imbalance like that.
> 
> As for being the "antagonist," if you as a straight white dude try to speak about issues that do not affect you ninety-nine percent of the time, your opinions are likely to be dismissed by people who know much, much more about the issue than you do. This means there are very few people who want to hear opinions about feminism from straight white dudes. We have heard enough opinions about feminism from straight white dudes, and it's time for them to stop and listen for a while.



Having thought about the comment I posted for a few days I no longer quite agree with it. The reason why that view is attractive to me is because it is something that I can work with. The only power I have to influence things is at an individual level. I cannot go into the heads of every person in society and remove prejudice. I cannot in any way influence the media to represent more of a certain minority.


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## Amanita

I agree with the sentiment that calling sexists sexists would be more helpful in some instances than differentiating between feminists and people who don’t consider themselves such. 
I disagree with quite a few things some feminists say and I’m not sure if I would give myself that label or not, depends on the definition, but if I read or hear someone say that they’re against feminism, I tend to believe they think that women are supposed to obey their husbands/fathers/brothers etc. again, aren’t supposed to have jobs outside of the house, are intellectually inferior and so on. I had a chat with Mindfire about this, so it can be cleared up if there’s a chance to, but if there isn’t, I tend to think the person wants to rob me of my rights which makes me less inclined to listen to anything else they’ve got to say.
In writing, I think it would be really helpful if all this fuss about writing female characters would stop. If a male writer takes his inspiration from the women in his life and writes the female character as a person with some amount of respect, he should be alright. The vast majority of people interact with people of the opposite gender on a regular basis, so why act as if they were an alien species?

Being white, I’m probably not supposed to say the same for writing non-white characters but I can state that it would be much easier to write them if they weren’t considered my statement on non-white people. The protagonist of my WIP “happened” to have dark skin and I didn’t think much about in the beginning but reading many online discussions about the subject, I started to wonder if everything she does would be considered a message of some sort. So I’ve decided to include more PoCs, some of very different background and hope this will be less so but I’m still left wondering if a character who is the son of a white man and a PoC woman counts as a PoC or not. This is a question I feel quite bothered by in itself because this kind of thinking is strongly discouraged where I come from.

I have to admit that I’m also slightly baffled by the way the entire discussion about racism and hatred between ethnic groups is always dominated by some dichotomy between “white people” and “everyone else.”
I probably don’t have to mention that “everyone else” is pretty diverse and the differences between say Chinese and Nigerians are probably as pronounced as the differences between Europeans and any of those ethnicities. I also highly doubt that a white westerner would be granted “privilege” because of this status in China. 
The worst crimes against ethnic groups in the last century have been committed against people who didn’t look very different from the perpetrators at all. 
Oppression of other ethnic groups (other cultures, religions...) is not something only white people do to others but something humans often do in some situations for a variety of reasons. Often, the “privileged” group is the one the majority of people in a given country and immigrants, minorities living in this country etc. are treated with distrust or worse.
I understand why a story set in present day USA should represent the population and issues relevant there at the time the story is written. I don’t understand why the same issues are supposed to be relevant in a fantasy world though. I consider it extremely complicated to create a situation similar to the one created by immigration by people from very different ethnic groups and the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the US and I don’t see any reason why I should try. 
Discrimination, hatred against other groups, ethnic cleansings and similar play a huge role in my stories but they’re not linked to skin colour as the most important difference.
A characters’ background and experience should always be taken into account of course but if it’s a fantasy story it’s one in the fantasy society with its history that’s different from real world history because magic, dragons, undead, Orcs or whatever exist in this world while historical events of the real world do not.


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## Feo Takahari

@Amanita: It depends to some extent on what kind of fantasy world you want to make. If you want to mirror Medieval Europe, that setting is incomplete without representing the Silk Road, the Moors, and other outside influences. If you want to mirror China during a xenophobic period, it makes sense to have an isolated world. (I like to work with Western and Southern Europe from the 1600s to the early 1900s, so I pretty much have to reflect the influence of other regions.)


----------



## saellys

BWFoster78 said:


> Hostile, imo, indicates opposition.  To disagree is, fundamentally, to oppose.  You seem to equate it more to the manner of delivery and the degree of respect given.
> 
> I think you would feel this statement is hostile:
> 
> You are wrong.
> 
> but not this one:
> 
> I disagree with you.
> 
> I see both as being the same.



These statements fall onto a spectrum that goes from neutral ("_I_ disagree with _you_," implying relativism and maybe even the potential to change someone's mind) to confrontational ("You are _wrong_," implying there is a right side of the argument and I know what it is better than you do). Hostility would be your previous example of throwing in a "moron" for an ad hominem jab on top of the absolute statement. 

"I disagree with you" is, as far as I've ever seen in action, the farthest point away from "hostile" on this spectrum. When presented tactfully, it's right next door to saying "That's an interesting point--here's what I think." It almost always leads to both parties elaborating on their positions and having a worthwhile discussion. 

"You are wrong" can be almost as neutral in instances where the hypothetical _I_ am presenting facts to counter the opinion of the hypothetical _you_. 

For instance, Tumblr social justice style, Hypothetical You says, "My neighbors are on food stamps but I saw one of their kids walking around with the latest Nintendo handheld. They can't manage money and their benefits should be cut off." 

Hypothetical I reply, "You're describing my family. My little brother bought me that device for my birthday. He fished coins out of gutters and mowed lawns and painted murals for months to save up the money. You are wrong." 

Personal? Yes, very. Hostile? No. 

I must admit, it explains a lot of our exchanges if you assume all disagreement has inherent hostility. 



Shasjas said:


> Having thought about the comment I posted for a few days I no longer quite agree with it. The reason why that view is attractive to me is because it is something that I can work with. The only power I have to influence things is at an individual level. I cannot go into the heads of every person in society and remove prejudice. I cannot in any way influence the media to represent more of a certain minority.



You're a writer. You have power beyond your daily interactions with individual people. You are the media. You can represent whatever you want. 

Don't limit yourself to the individual level. Don't throw up your hands just because you might never be at the top of the New York Times best seller list and the reach of your voice may be limited to a relatively small audience. Don't abdicate that power. You might be a drop in a bucket, but if you set a bucket out in the rain, eventually it will overflow.


----------



## Ankari

Amanita said:


> I understand why a story set in present day USA should represent the population and issues relevant there at the time the story is written. I don’t understand why the same issues are supposed to be relevant in a fantasy world though.



You make a lot of great points. I like this one the most. Yes, modern day Earth has many social injustices, but who is to say that those social injustices have to have the same weight or (in)tolerances in a fantasy setting?

Is it the duty of every fantasy author to mimic Earth, it's population, and all the ailments plaguing it? Are we writing fantasy, or are we writing social commentary?

Further, should we establish a checklist of what should be in all books? Do I have a PoC, a LGBT, an atheist, a strong female, a physically disabled, a mentally disabled, a war veteran, an immigrant, one of each of my minority races, a misunderstood dragon, a senior citizen,  a peaceful orc, an orphan, and.....

I'm sure you get the point.

These subjects make me wonder when the notion of artistic freedom existed? Are we to turn our nose up at Robert E Howard and his _Conan_ universe? I just read Paul S. Kemp. Even though he addressed the concept of gender inequality, he had the audacity to have not just one, but two *Damsels in Distress.* Women. In need of rescue. Did he not get the memo?

These discussions are as sterilizing to fantasy fiction as the _rules of writing_ discussions that crop up (and almost with the same frequency). Don't give me rules that govern who my cast should be, how I treat them, and what plots I wish to use to tell my story.

People who want that kind of diversity have the freedom to do as they wish. You have a laptop, with some kind of word processing program, and the time. Go crazy. And I'll do the same, but with my story.


----------



## saellys

I look forward to the day when people realize that a general call for better representation does not equal a checklist of what your story must include to be "inclusive enough," and also that "I don't want to mimic modern-day Earth" does not equal "Instead I will perpetuate a tired and inaccurate model of what medieval Europe was like," and finally that "If you want diversity, go write it yourself" does not equal a solution to the problem.

Also, not to beat _Pacific Rim_ into the ground or anything because I feel like I talk about it here all the time, but it included a huge chunk of that satirical checklist, and that was no accident. It was done with intent. It was done in the spaces between the first draft (I know; I've read it) and the finished film. And it was a damn fine story. If that can happen in a movie about giant robots punching giant monsters, there is literally no reason why it can't happen in a fantasy novel. I'm not even talking about "modern" social issues transplanted to a different era/world (which feels shoehorned in many cases, but I also believe it's possible to represent the real struggles people face in a fantasy world). I'm just talking about the cast here.

I've long since learned my lesson about asserting that writers "should" be able to portray a broad cross-section of humanity, lest they get the notion that I'm ~telling them what to write~, so instead I'll ask an honest question, and anyone can answer. What exactly is detrimental about running your creative process through an extra step to ensure that you populate your story with various kinds of people?


----------



## Jabrosky

Ankari said:


> These subjects make me wonder when the notion of artistic freedom existed? Are we to turn our nose up at Robert E Howard and his _Conan_ universe?


I agree with your post's larger point, but even though I like Howard's writing style and that he takes his characters to exotic lands, I do find his portrayal of non-Western peoples (especially Africans) regrettable even if it was symptomatic of his time and place. I furthermore doubt artistic freedom was much greater in the old pulp days than it is today, at least with regards to social justice issues. The pendulum would have simply swung in the opposite direction.



saellys said:


> What exactly is detrimental about running your    creative process through an extra step to ensure that you populate your    story with various kinds of people?


Any writer who wants to create whole casts of distinct characters will  have to differentiate all them somehow. I don't think anyone here would  prefer to write entire societies of clones with synchronized thoughts  and opinions.


----------



## Ankari

saellys said:


> What exactly is detrimental about running your creative process through an extra step to ensure that you populate your story with various kinds of people?



When I first set out to detail my universe, I focused on what I felt were building blocks of societies. You have religion (and origin stories), communal hierarchy, government, language, physical traits common among a people, wars, migrations, economy, and sustenance.

Then I focused on what intrigued me. Dragons, magic systems, bestiary, astrophysics, the mystery one feels when they reflect on a past beyond record, uncertainty of fate and national history, 

Then I focused on characters.

That is what interests me as a reader, and, now, as a writer. I write about characters in that setting, dealing with life, death, the uncertainty of the hereafter, of multiple religions espousing multiple truths, of deities walking the land, destroying as they scream either in pain, rage, or anguish, of dragons swarming upon a city and laying waste without reason, of wonders buried in the frozen lands, of spirits animating bodies, of voluntary possession, of power, and struggle, and so much more.

These are the things that excite me. My skin prickles when I think of the story, buried in the vortex of my imagination, needing a steady hand to pull it clear and polish it off. My heart stutters when I read another author echoing my thoughts. I'm jealous, and envious, and enthralled.

Other things don't interest me. I can turn on the TV and get my full does of a diversified cast. I enjoy many shows that feature such casts (my latest being _Scandel_). But I don't want them in my books. TV is a relaxing way to waste some time. Books are my dreams, my passion.

I do have male and female characters. I do have male and female secondary characters. I'll even have a damsel in distress, or a strong male, or a weak female, or a woman that dies. I've killed men, and women, and birds, and dogs, and etc. Do I hate animals? Nope. I love them, actually. Do I need to make a strong bird character that saves a man from the clutches of a strong female antagonist that isn't portrayed as evil because then sensitive readers will think I portrayed her as such to associate women with witches? Nope. That story doesn't intrigue me.


----------



## Amanita

I really do wonder where I've mentioned that I want to write an all-white, pseudo-medieval setting where cultures do not influence each other. 
Society isn't medieval and cultures do influence each other a lot but there's no country which has been discovered by white sailors who considered it free for settlement even though there were native people living there, gradually settled there in larger numbers, drastically decimating the native population, later brought people from a very different part of the world there by force to work as slaves and even later attracted immigrants from very different diverse ethnicities and had the formerly enslaved people struggle for equality which they were formally granted but prejudice in favour of the white inhabitants still lingers. (Sorry for the inaccuracies but I didn't want this to take up too much space.) 
Therefore, there's no reason why the problems specific to such a society should exist there, it actually wouldn't make much sense if they did.

It's probably obvious that the interaction of different groups in a medieval setting would be very different. Religion would be a much bigger issue than skin colour for one. 
I remember a version of Perceval where his father lived with a black woman before he married Perceval's mother. His half-brother later helps Perceval against an enemy and converts to Christianity which makes him perfectly acceptable despite of his physical differences. 
The theories on race and supposed racial inferiority came up later with colonialism leading to "scientific" attempts to "prove" it in the 19th century. They would be quite anachronistic in a medieval setting.

So, a general question from me:
Do the "pro-diversity-advocates" want to have people of different skin colours, cultures, etc. portrayed in a positive light, as main characters who are able to influence their destiny/that of the world depending on the story? Or do they want stories that deal with the problems that come up between different ethnic groups on modern day earth/ in modern day US and make a direct statement about them?


----------



## Feo Takahari

I'll just speak personally, since I don't think I agree with anyone else in the thread.

I don't care about the skin color of your protagonists. But I've read the fantasy version of medieval Europe over and over, and quite frankly, it bores me to see it keep being reused. I want ancient China! I want pre-Columbian America! I want the age of exploration! I want any time and place you can give me, so long as it's not freaking medieval Europe again!

I don't care about the gender of your protagonists. But I'm tired of farm boys and princes. Can't a single mother save the world? How about a military medic? Or what about a tribal shaman--one NOT in another of those science-is-evil stories, because I'm sick of those, too!

I don't care if your protagonists are gay or straight. But wouldn't it open up more opportunities if you portrayed different kinds of love? A soldier and a commander. A spy and a diplomat. A tyrant and a rebel. But please, no more helpless maidens rescued by brave knights.

I reserve the right to hate stories where an active character rescues and woos a completely helpless character, because I think one-sided gratitude is a terrible foundation for a romance. And I reserve the right to be totally weirded out if you never allow your female characters to do the things your male characters do all the time. But this isn't about representation for me, it's about the power of fantasy, the genre that can do anything, and about actually seeing that power put to use.


----------



## Philip Overby

> Do the "pro-diversity-advocates" want to have people of different skin colours, cultures, etc. portrayed in a positive light, as main characters who are able to influence their destiny/that of the world depending on the story? Or do they want stories that deal with the problems that come up between different ethnic groups on modern day earth/ in modern day US and make a direct statement about them?



Amanita, I've stayed out of this discussion up until now because I covered my stance on this in the other diversity thread before. I don't see the point in retreading things I've already said, but I think this is a new point that I haven't considered before.

I'm all for diversity in fantasy, but for me it doesn't need to be necessarily only to show non-white, non-straight characters in a positive light only. If we do that as writers, then we're severely limiting the scope of many great characters throughout history. For example in the non-fantasy realm, Gus Fring, the villain in Breaking Bad, is of Venezuelan descent and is hinted at as being gay. He's not portrayed as a horrible person because of these things, but because he's a money crazed, cold-hearted maniac. There wasn't a point where I thought "Gus Fring is a poor representation for South Americans and gays." It just made me think, "This guy is an awesome villain with an interesting back story that led him to where he is now." If he was played like a stereotype and his race and sexuality were played up as part of his villainy, then it would be a different story. But because he came from a different background than I am used to, it made me personally more interested in him rising up the ranks to become who he did.

For me, I'd like to see characters from different kind of backgrounds in stories because they offer something different that I may have not experienced before as a reader and writer. However, being fantasy, I'd love to see writers explore these issues in their own creative ways. Letting someone pressure you into writing specific kinds of characters even if they don't fit your story, I don't think that's what people are saying. Pro-diversity advocates aren't saying to just shoehorn different kinds of people into a story so it pleases everyone, but it's more about what Feo said about offering up different kinds of stories that maybe haven't been told yet. Instead of a farm boy on a quest, why not a single mother, like he said? It allows a different perspective and POV on fantasy worlds that could be explored deeper and deeper. 

Fantasy is such a wide genre, so why not crack it open even more? I think the push for diversity could just be the push for different kinds of stories and characters than we keep getting over and over again. At least that's how I interpret it.


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## Guy

saellys said:


> What exactly is detrimental about running your creative process through an extra step to ensure that you populate your story with various kinds of people?


When my characters form, I focus on them as individuals, not their demographics. I never ask myself, "would a woman say this?" or "would a black man do that?" I ask myself, "would this person do this or say that?" Be true to the characters and to hell with everything else.


----------



## saellys

Jabrosky said:


> Any writer who wants to create whole casts of distinct characters will  have to differentiate all them somehow. I don't think anyone here would  prefer to write entire societies of clones with synchronized thoughts  and opinions.



I thought I made it clear that when I said "various kinds of people" in the context of this discussion, I was asking about characters' race, gender, and sexuality, not homogeneous behavior, but if not I'll just specify that now. 



Ankari said:


> When I first set out to detail my universe, I focused on what I felt were building blocks of societies. You have religion (and origin stories), communal hierarchy, government, language, physical traits common among a people, wars, migrations, economy, and sustenance.
> 
> Then I focused on what intrigued me. Dragons, magic systems, bestiary, astrophysics, the mystery one feels when they reflect on a past beyond record, uncertainty of fate and national history,
> 
> Then I focused on characters.
> 
> That is what interests me as a reader, and, now, as a writer. I write about characters in that setting, dealing with life, death, the uncertainty of the hereafter, of multiple religions espousing multiple truths, of deities walking the land, destroying as they scream either in pain, rage, or anguish, of dragons swarming upon a city and laying waste without reason, of wonders buried in the frozen lands, of spirits animating bodies, of voluntary possession, of power, and struggle, and so much more.
> 
> These are the things that excite me. My skin prickles when I think of the story, buried in the vortex of my imagination, needing a steady hand to pull it clear and polish it off. My heart stutters when I read another author echoing my thoughts. I'm jealous, and envious, and enthralled.
> 
> Other things don't interest me. I can turn on the TV and get my full does of a diversified cast. I enjoy many shows that feature such casts (my latest being _Scandel_). But I don't want them in my books. TV is a relaxing way to waste some time. Books are my dreams, my passion.
> 
> I do have male and female characters. I do have male and female secondary characters. I'll even have a damsel in distress, or a strong male, or a weak female, or a woman that dies. I've killed men, and women, and birds, and dogs, and etc. Do I hate animals? Nope. I love them, actually. Do I need to make a strong bird character that saves a man from the clutches of a strong female antagonist that isn't portrayed as evil because then sensitive readers will think I portrayed her as such to associate women with witches? Nope. That story doesn't intrigue me.



Again, my hypothetical practice is meant to ensure diversity in your cast, _not_ dictate what those characters do or want once you have created them. I don't understand how people have so thoroughly conflated these ideas. 

My co-writers and I had already developed the mechanics of our world and written the first draft of the story when we realized that there was no reason at all that our female squire could not be mixed race, or that our young woman who is reluctant about her arranged marriage couldn't be reluctant in part because she's not attracted to men. These aspects of their characters have not become the focus of their arcs. They haven't deviated the course of our story in the slightest. 

The thing about adding more diversity to your world is that it means that if you have a prominent character that can be described as part of a certain population, and you make that character an antagonist, or weak, or negative in some other way, the more minor characters who are also part of that population will make it clear that you as the author don't subscribe to a particular stereotype. In the case of your weak women/damsel in distress, the inclusion of more women who aren't damsels in distress will counteract any negative connotations that come with having the only woman in your story be the one that needs rescuing. I get that the negative connotations don't concern you, but I'm just throwing that out there in case it concerns anyone else.

Also, I had a giggle when you included "a LGBT" in your checklist earlier. If you ever find a writer who managed to create a character that is lesbian and gay and bi and trans (throw in queer and asexual just for fun!), please let me know.



Amanita said:


> Society isn't medieval and cultures do influence each other a lot but there's no country which has been discovered by white sailors who considered it free for settlement even though there were native people living there, gradually settled there in larger numbers, drastically decimating the native population, later brought people from a very different part of the world there by force to work as slaves and even later attracted immigrants from very different diverse ethnicities and had the formerly enslaved people struggle for equality which they were formally granted but prejudice in favour of the white inhabitants still lingers. (Sorry for the inaccuracies but I didn't want this to take up too much space.)
> Therefore, there's no reason why the problems specific to such a society should exist there, it actually wouldn't make much sense if they did.



I have no idea why you think the swath of social problems in America are only specific to America. The rest of the world has more than its fair share of racism, homophobia, and misogyny too, and has throughout history. There are flavors of it everywhere; you can draw on any of them for inspiration, or create entirely new problems for your fantasy world. 

Again, I was not asking about social problems, but rather the diversity of the cast. Writing a diverse cast does not require you to transpose modern Earth sensibilities on your fantasy world. There seems to be a misconception here that the people _are_ the social issues. If they were, every single human being on Earth right now who identifies as gay, for instance, would be out campaigning for gay marriage every waking moment. They're not. They have lives. They have stories that do not revolve around them being gay. Being gay is part of who they are; it's not their whole story.



Amanita said:


> It's probably obvious that the interaction of different groups in a medieval setting would be very different. Religion would be a much bigger issue than skin colour for one.
> I remember a version of Perceval where his father lived with a black woman before he married Perceval's mother. His half-brother later helps Perceval against an enemy and converts to Christianity which makes him perfectly acceptable despite of his physical differences.
> The theories on race and supposed racial inferiority came up later with colonialism leading to "scientific" attempts to "prove" it in the 19th century. They would be quite anachronistic in a medieval setting.



The terms we use to discuss race were, in large part, coined at that time. The idea of racial differences was not. Class distinctions based on race have been with us throughout history.



Amanita said:


> So, a general question from me:
> Do the "pro-diversity-advocates" want to have people of different skin colours, cultures, etc. portrayed in a positive light, as main characters who are able to influence their destiny/that of the world depending on the story? Or do they want stories that deal with the problems that come up between different ethnic groups on modern day earth/ in modern day US and make a direct statement about them?



I have already answered this. Overlaying "gay marriage" in a fantasy world would be very difficult--not impossible--to pull off without making it terminally silly and grating to the reader. Adding "and this character is gay" with the additional considerations of what that means in their world, on the other hand, is a readily achievable goal. 



Feo Takahari said:


> I'll just speak personally, since I don't think I agree with anyone else in the thread.
> 
> I don't care about the skin color of your protagonists. But I've read the fantasy version of medieval Europe over and over, and quite frankly, it bores me to see it keep being reused. I want ancient China! I want pre-Columbian America! I want the age of exploration! I want any time and place you can give me, so long as it's not freaking medieval Europe again!
> 
> I don't care about the gender of your protagonists. But I'm tired of farm boys and princes. Can't a single mother save the world? How about a military medic? Or what about a tribal shaman--one NOT in another of those science-is-evil stories, because I'm sick of those, too!
> 
> I don't care if your protagonists are gay or straight. But wouldn't it open up more opportunities if you portrayed different kinds of love? A soldier and a commander. A spy and a diplomat. A tyrant and a rebel. But please, no more helpless maidens rescued by brave knights.
> 
> I reserve the right to hate stories where an active character rescues and woos a completely helpless character, because I think one-sided gratitude is a terrible foundation for a romance. And I reserve the right to be totally weirded out if you never allow your female characters to do the things your male characters do all the time. But this isn't about representation for me, it's about the power of fantasy, the genre that can do anything, and about actually seeing that power put to use.



We agree a lot. For me it's about both the importance of representation and the power and potential of the fantasy genre. 



Phil the Drill said:


> I'm all for diversity in fantasy, but for me it doesn't need to be necessarily only to show non-white, non-straight characters in a positive light only.



Nor for me. See above in my response to Ankari for reasons why more diversity will actually solve the "problem" of making a villain non-white and non-straight.


----------



## saellys

Ran out of space. Continued:



Guy said:


> When my characters form, I focus on them as individuals, not their demographics. I never ask myself, "would a woman say this?" or "would a black man do that?" I ask myself, "would this person do this or say that?" Be true to the characters and to hell with everything else.



I do that too. As stated in other threads, I would never ever encourage someone to approach this problem with the questions "would a woman say this?" or "would a black man do that?" Those are generalizations and they won't lead to well-rounded characters, and might even end up perpetuating sexism or racism. But _including_ women characters and black characters and every other kind of character does not inherently lead to sexism or racism. It's more likely to help combat it. Just by including them! Amazing. That's the difference between tokenism ("would a black man do that?") and inclusion.

After the first draft of _The Stone Front_, my co-writers and I looked back and discovered we had written a story full of straight white people. This is partly because we're straight white people, but that's not necessarily the root cause--a lot of stuff gets internalized no matter who you are. Look at Bryan Lee O'Malley. 

The point is, none of this occurs in a vacuum, and I have read enough of the fantasy genre to see that diversity in representation does not just "happen" when authors ignore it. In fact, every single interview I've ever read with an author who wrote a compelling story that embraces a diverse cast takes pains to mention the intent it.

When you have a "to hell with everyone else" attitude, you're statistically very likely to end up with a story that would fit right in on that list Feo posted, and Feo is not the only one who is tired of reading those things. There are plenty of people who are more likely to read work by an author who cares not only about telling a great story, but also about using a lot of different kinds of characters to tell it and representing something that diverges from all those stories we've read before. Nobody can make you care about this if you don't; I wouldn't dream of trying. I'll just take my time and money elsewhere.


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## Ankari

saellys said:


> My co-writers and I had already developed the mechanics of our world and written the first draft of the story when we realized that there was no reason at all that our* female squire could not be mixed race, or that our young woman who is reluctant about her arranged marriage couldn't be reluctant in part because she's not attracted to men.* These aspects of their characters have not become the focus of their arcs. They haven't deviated the course of our story in the slightest.



For me, that would be considered subplots. How do they not influence the overall direction of the story? If the woman set to marry, for instance, felt reluctant to wed this man because she found out _he_ was gay, doesn't that create a different story? Or if she recently acquired knowledge of a family curse that demands the first born is claimed by the demons of hell, isn't that a different story?

And to the "mixed race" squire. That may or may not have an impact on her story. In my world, mixed-blood people have different levels of acceptance from the "parent" races. Some would be severe (death), others would be minor (sorrow), and others would nonexistent. So, for me, it would change the story significantly.


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## Guy

saellys said:


> When you have a "to hell with everyone else" attitude, you're statistically very likely to end up with a story that would fit right in on that list Feo posted, and Feo is not the only one who is tired of reading those things. There are plenty of people who are more likely to read work by an author who cares not only about telling a great story, but also about using a lot of different kinds of characters to tell it and representing something that diverges from all those stories we've read before. Nobody can make you care about this if you don't; I wouldn't dream of trying. I'll just take my time and money elsewhere.


Just to clarify, what I said was to hell with every_thing_ else, not every_one_ else. My point was be true to the characters and story and a lot of these problems will be solved. By being true to the characters and making sure they aren't just xerox versions of each other, I think you'll have diversity covered. Much of my first story took place in the desert, so there were some characters reflecting that culture. The story I'm writing now has trade guilds hiring a bunch of people from all sorts of regions for a rescue expedition to an island, so there are characters of different races or species. In both cases the story and setting dictated it so I did it. When I cast my characters, I don't do so based on an affirmative action program. I cast whichever character I think is best for that role. If that happens to be a lesbian atheist black woman in a wheel chair, so be it. If it happens to be a straight white male, so be it.


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## Jabrosky

saellys said:


> I thought I made it clear that when I said "various kinds of people" in the context of this discussion, I was asking about characters' race, gender, and sexuality, not homogeneous behavior, but if not I'll just specify that now.


With regards to racial diversity, that would depend on the setting. People have always traveled and explored to far-off parts of the world, so having one or two European people visiting ancient Kush (aka Nubia or "Aethiopia") may not necessarily be inaccurate. Nonetheless I would still expect the local African people to predominate the cast there, and most likely they would regard our hypothetical European visitors as an exotic curiosity. If anything, having a lot of major non-African characters in Kush would detract from that setting's fundamentally African character, and people of African heritage would definitely not appreciate that.

To be sure, racial diversity would make more sense in trans-continental civilizations such as classical Greece or Rome. African characters do pop up in Greek mythology and art from time to time. For example Perseus married a Kushite woman after saving her from a sea monster, and a Kushite king name Memnon did fight at Troy. One thing I like about the ancient Mediterranean is that you had a bunch of racially and culturally distinct people living within short boat trips of one another.


----------



## Amanita

Well saellys in some places, I get the impression that we mean to say the same thing and talk past each other because of different wordings. Just to clarify, I never claimed that racist prejudice exists only in the US and I never would do that.
There is the idea that one needs to be an expert on slavery in the US and its ramifications to write a non-offensive PoC in a fantasy stoy in some places though and I'm opposed to this. The fantasy characters needs to be true to the situation he or she is in within the story and if her people's background didn't include slavery, she won't be influenced by it. On the other side, there are people claiming that a group is "white" because it's strongly patriarchal and oppressive towards minorities, even if it's non-human or similar. Seriously, I don't get this, as if there wasn't oppressiveness and brutally patriarchal systems in other ethnic groups.I also don't see why there should be a law that dark skin tones has to be a reason for oppression in every coneivable society and that everything else is called "colour-blind." 
This is the kind of thing that leads to the "to hell with everything else"-attitude because it seems impossible to do it "right" anyway and limiting it to characters who look similar to yourself seems the easy way out.
Upbringing makes a huge difference in such matters. I'm probably writing things you've learned to consider offensive while I can hardly bring myself to type the term "race" for humans even though I see that it's deemed perfectly acceptable in the English-language discussion. 

Re: Feo Takahari: Are there really so many books with damsells in distress, farm boys and princes nowadays? I mean outside of known cliche fireworks like Eragon? I've recently read quite a few books with female leads who were a healer, a food taster and, yes the heiress of a magical dynasty but done in a highly unusual way and two low-born city girls with magic they shouldn't have.
Might be because I'm looking for books with female leads in the first place though. I don't see such a huge problem in the represantation of female characters in modern fantasy stories but non-white characters are really absent. I can't think of any story that has them I've come across recently, a few Asian-inspired settings but that's about it.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Amanita said:


> Re: Feo Takahari: Are there really so many books with damsells in distress, farm boys and princes nowadays? I mean outside of known cliche fireworks like Eragon? I've recently read quite a few books with female leads who were a healer, a food taster and, yes the heiress of a magical dynasty but done in a highly unusual way and two low-born city girls with magic they shouldn't have.
> Might be because I'm looking for books with female leads in the first place though. I don't see such a huge problem in the represantation of female characters in modern fantasy stories but non-white characters are really absent. I can't think of any story that has them I've come across recently, a few Asian-inspired settings but that's about it.



On the one hand, I might be contributing to my own problem. I rarely pay money for self-published stories due to the lack of quality control, but with rare exceptions, the fantasy stories I read that aren't generic tend to be self-published ones. (This leads to a situation where the works I gush about tend to be ones you can find on the Internet for free.)

On the other hand, I find science fiction stories all the time that aren't self-published and do something daring. It can be as major as _The Golden Oecumene_'s embrace of a future society with vastly different mores, or as minor as the occasional mention that the protagonist of _The Hunger Games_ has brown skin, but more than any other genre I read, science fiction feels free to do something different.

I suppose I'm a sci-fi fan at heart. Almost all of the things I complain about in fantasy are things that are less of a problem in sci-fi. But I write fantasy more often than I write sci-fi, and I think Brandon Sanderson, at least, has proved that a sci-fi attitude is compatible with fantasy.


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## Philip Overby

I do think people will vote with their pocketbooks, so to speak. If people want to see more diverse fantasy with different kinds of characters represented, then publishers will promote such. I read a while back that Tor.com was going to be pushing to crack this open by accepting more fiction that represents a wider human experience. 

If publishers don't accept this, then people will continue to demand it or take their money to writers who are self-publishing the kind of diverse fiction they want to read. For me, however, diverse fiction doesn't necessarily mean to me writing about societies that represent every single kind of person imaginable. For instance, for someone living in Japan I don't see a lot of diversity as far as race, but you do see more in sexuality and social standing. So if I wrote fiction that took place in fantasy-styled Japan, I wouldn't just put a bunch of non-Japanese in it just because I want to represent everyone. That doesn't make sense to me.

On the other hand, if I'm writing something that's more global in scope, perhaps an urban fantasy story that takes place in a futuristic Tokyo where due to low birth rate and laxer immigration, foreigners are let in en masse, it makes more sense. 

For me it isn't about just doing something because I'm supposed to or that the public is pressuring me to because it's right. It's about exploring these kind of diverse worlds and characters in fantasy because I'm intrigued by them. I guess that's one reason I don't live in my home country. I have wanderlust and interest in so many other cultures that I hope to explore throughout the years. I hope my fiction can reflect that.


----------



## saellys

Ankari said:


> For me, that would be considered subplots. How do they not influence the overall direction of the story? If the woman set to marry, for instance, felt reluctant to wed this man because she found out _he_ was gay, doesn't that create a different story? Or if she recently acquired knowledge of a family curse that demands the first born is claimed by the demons of hell, isn't that a different story?



Yes. Your examples tell us a lot about the world around the woman, but not about the woman herself. You're talking about plot; I'm talking about character. We already had the plot--she doesn't want to get married. We hadn't addressed why, apart from "she wants to live her own life!" and an implied modern Western sensibility about arranged marriages being icky and backwards. So as we work on our second draft, we're establishing more about the practice of betrothal between noble families and how widespread it is, and how our character has been prepared for most of her life to enter a (probably) loveless marriage when she came of age. Now, not only does she have aspirations to be a spy, but her resistance to the idea of marriage is not because of ideas we've projected on her that don't actually correspond to her upbringing, but rather because she is viscerally repulsed by the idea of performing her wifely duties with a man. That doesn't make it a different story. 



Ankari said:


> And to the "mixed race" squire. That may or may not have an impact on her story. In my world, mixed-blood people have different levels of acceptance from the "parent" races. Some would be severe (death), others would be minor (sorrow), and others would nonexistent. So, for me, it would change the story significantly.



In this world, knighthood is a relatively new concept, and it was introduced simultaneously with the notion of chivalry, which is spreading quickly throughout the nation. The city-state that introduced those notions is quite patriarchal. The squire comes from a city-state where women can hold rank and enter battle alongside men, which means the resistance to the idea of her as a squire in the traditional of the chivalrous order would be based on her gender first and foremost. She is also the daughter of her city-state's ruling legate, which makes her of equal or greater social standing with regard to anyone who might object to her wearing armor and fighting with the men, so very little gets said out loud. She is out to prove herself as a knight, not to prove herself as a woman. Making her mixed race (from a city-state that is now racially diverse) does not change the challenges she already faces in the story. 

Again, this is where writers have to understand that _who people are_ and _issues certain kinds of people face_ are not the same thing. 



Guy said:


> Just to clarify, what I said was to hell with every_thing_ else, not every_one_ else.



That was a great big typo on my part. So sorry! 



Guy said:


> My point was be true to the characters and story and a lot of these problems will be solved. By being true to the characters and making sure they aren't just xerox versions of each other, I think you'll have diversity covered.



And my point is that the overwhelming majority of the fantasy genre, written by people who will insist to the death that they were "being true to the characters," proves that diversity is not covered. 



Guy said:


> Much of my first story took place in the desert, so there were some characters reflecting that culture. The story I'm writing now has trade guilds hiring a bunch of people from all sorts of regions for a rescue expedition to an island, so there are characters of different races or species. In both cases the story and setting dictated it so I did it. When I cast my characters, I don't do so based on an affirmative action program. I cast whichever character I think is best for that role. If that happens to be a lesbian atheist black woman in a wheel chair, so be it. If it happens to be a straight white male, so be it.



Firstly, both stories sound rad. Have you posted portions of them anywhere? 

Secondly, the setting doesn't have to "dictate" it for a writer to write it. See Feo's earlier point about the influence Silk Road and the Moors in medieval Europe. Even in a conventionally whitewashed fantasy setting, it can happen.

Thirdly, oh good Lord is the term "affirmative action" ever getting stale. Please don't. You've obviously internalized the idea of a "checklist" as an inherently negative thing; I'm still waiting for someone to answer my question as to why it would be detrimental. You don't want to? Fine. What's stopping someone else who does care about this? Why is it bad? 

Fourthly and closely related to that point, okay, you cast a straight white male. What happens when you look back at a story that has six main characters and they're all straight white males? 



Jabrosky said:


> With regards to racial diversity, that would depend on the setting. People have always traveled and explored to far-off parts of the world, so having one or two European people visiting ancient Kush (aka Nubia or "Aethiopia") may not necessarily be inaccurate. Nonetheless I would still expect the local African people to predominate the cast there, and most likely they would regard our hypothetical European visitors as an exotic curiosity. If anything, having a lot of major non-African characters in Kush would detract from that setting's fundamentally African character, and people of African heritage would definitely not appreciate that.
> 
> To be sure, racial diversity would make more sense in trans-continental civilizations such as classical Greece or Rome. African characters do pop up in Greek mythology and art from time to time. For example Perseus married a Kushite woman after saving her from a sea monster, and a Kushite king name Memnon did fight at Troy. One thing I like about the ancient Mediterranean is that you had a bunch of racially and culturally distinct people living within short boat trips of one another.



I feel like Feo already addressed the inverse of this pretty well with the Silk Road point. There are reasons to have very isolated, homogeneous people groups in a fantasy world, and even to set an entire story or book exclusively among them. I have read a handful of stories like that, and they had an internal logic that rang true and did not make me question where all the non-white people were. 

More frequently though, if you're shooting for something along the lines of epic, or even any story that involves travel, there is absolutely no reason why racial diversity can't be introduced.


----------



## saellys

Amanita said:


> Well saellys in some places, I get the impression that we mean to say the same thing and talk past each other because of different wordings. Just to clarify, I never claimed that racist prejudice exists only in the US and I never would do that.
> There is the idea that one needs to be an expert on slavery in the US and its ramifications to write a non-offensive PoC in a fantasy stoy in some places though and I'm opposed to this.



Yeah, I'm definitely not saying that, and I have yet to encounter anyone, even in the most militant social justice circles on the Internet, who thinks that makes sense. 



Amanita said:


> The fantasy characters needs to be true to the situation he or she is in within the story and if her people's background didn't include slavery, she won't be influenced by it. On the other side, there are people claiming that a group is "white" because it's strongly patriarchal and oppressive towards minorities, even if it's non-human or similar. Seriously, I don't get this, as if there wasn't oppressiveness and brutally patriarchal systems in other ethnic groups.I also don't see why there should be a law that dark skin tones has to be a reason for oppression in every coneivable society and that everything else is called "colour-blind."



I dig it when stuff like that gets inverted, actually, like in Jabrosky's example about one or two Europeans visiting ancient Kush. 



Amanita said:


> This is the kind of thing that leads to the "to hell with everything else"-attitude because it seems impossible to do it "right" anyway and limiting it to characters who look similar to yourself seems the easy way out.



Oh, we _definitely_ agree on that. As I said, no one has to be an expert on civil rights from the slave trade to the present in order to write a person of color in a fantasy story who isn't a stereotype. They do need to be aware of and sensitive to certain issues so they know how to avoid mistakes that will get them called out by communities who have seen writers perpetuate the same harmful things for years and years. 

For some reason, there is a lot of resistance among writers to the idea of doing research for their characters. These are people who extensively read about medieval horse breeding, or swordsmithing, or what have you, so they can write about it competently and they won't get an angry letter from an expert on the subject about how much they screwed up. (A friend of mine wrote Age of Sail stories back in the day when they were distributed to communities by e-mail, and she would get absolutely _skewered_ by the group if she mixed up her topsail and mainsail or some such. And this was one of those "easy" settings, since sailing ships were crewed almost exclusively by white men, which is a group of people no one at all has any problem writing as well-rounded individual characters.) 

But apparently there's something sacred and untouchable about a writer's "artistic vision" for their characters, so when they do write a person of color, they haven't looked around at the opinions of actual people of color enough to know that they're really tired of seeing their skin described with food metaphors, for instance. 



Amanita said:


> Upbringing makes a huge difference in such matters. I'm probably writing things you've learned to consider offensive while I can hardly bring myself to type the term "race" for humans even though I see that it's deemed perfectly acceptable in the English-language discussion.



Sure, but upbringing is not a terminal condition.  



Feo Takahari said:


> On the other hand, I find science fiction stories all the time that aren't self-published and do something daring. It can be as major as The Golden Oecumene's embrace of a future society with vastly different mores, or as minor as the occasional mention that the protagonist of The Hunger Games has brown skin, but more than any other genre I read, science fiction feels free to do something different.



I know a similar sentiment has been expressed elsewhere on this forum with varying conclusions, but do you think that might be in part because we see the future as a wide-open field of possibilities, where fantasy is perceived as being stuck in our very limited historical template? I know you and I don't see it that way personally, but I feel like this is a prevalent misconception.


----------



## saellys

Phil the Drill said:


> I do think people will vote with their pocketbooks, so to speak. If people want to see more diverse fantasy with different kinds of characters represented, then publishers will promote such. I read a while back that Tor.com was going to be pushing to crack this open by accepting more fiction that represents a wider human experience.



Tor is great when it comes to this kind of thing. They're ahead of the curve; most publishing houses seem to be pretty content with the status quo.



Phil the Drill said:


> If publishers don't accept this, then people will continue to demand it or take their money to writers who are self-publishing the kind of diverse fiction they want to read. For me, however, diverse fiction doesn't necessarily mean to me writing about societies that represent every single kind of person imaginable. For instance, for someone living in Japan I don't see a lot of diversity as far as race, but you do see more in sexuality and social standing. So if I wrote fiction that took place in fantasy-styled Japan, I wouldn't just put a bunch of non-Japanese in it just because I want to represent everyone. That doesn't make sense to me.
> 
> On the other hand, if I'm writing something that's more global in scope, perhaps an urban fantasy story that takes place in a futuristic Tokyo where due to low birth rate and laxer immigration, foreigners are let in en masse, it makes more sense.



The thing is that merely by writing a story set in fantasy-styled Japan, you're deviating from what gets represented in much of fantasy. So yes, this is another instance where the setting dictates a certain amount of homogeneity, but this time the homogeneity is not the usual white protagonists of fantasy, so you're already setting yourself apart.



Phil the Drill said:


> For me it isn't about just doing something because I'm supposed to or that the public is pressuring me to because it's right. It's about exploring these kind of diverse worlds and characters in fantasy because I'm intrigued by them. I guess that's one reason I don't live in my home country. I have wanderlust and interest in so many other cultures that I hope to explore throughout the years. I hope my fiction can reflect that.



I think you're in a better position to naturally reflect that in your work than most. Some of us have to work much harder at it.


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## BWFoster78

Saellys,

Here's the way I see it.  You're passionate in the extreme about this particular subject, and you want everyone else to embrace it.  Nothing wrong with trying to convince others to embrace your cause.

Understand, however, that a lot of us just simply don't care about this particular cause.  I'm not even convinced that it's a cause that is worthy of being advanced.  To ask a writer, "what's the harm of inserting this cause into your story" is to, imo, misunderstand completely the writing process for most of us.  There are an infinite number of choices and causes and elements that we can insert into our stories.  Inserting one necessarily means that we now have less story space for others.

I agree with Ankari.  A writer will do much better if he writes about what he is passionate about.

For example, Feo is really into societies not based on Europe.  Personally, I don't care all that much about my "world."  It's simply a place for my story to take place.  A vaguely European concept is easy for me to write because I'm most familiar with it.  For me to do the research necessary to make my world based on some other society when I have no passion for doing so is a poor idea.


----------



## Feo Takahari

BWFoster78 said:


> There are an infinite number of choices and causes and elements that we can insert into our stories.  Inserting one necessarily means that we now have less story space for others.



I won't argue with the rest of what you're saying, but in its barest form, minority representation doesn't take more space than putting in a white man. Take _The Hunger Games_, which I mentioned earlier--because it doesn't really matter that Katniss is brown-skinned, the fact that she's mentioned as having brown skin doesn't slow the story down in any way. (For that matter, I think Katniss could just as easily have been male and Peeta could just as easily have been female--it would have been a little more cliche, but neither way takes up more or less space.) That doesn't mean minority representation is necessary, but it does mean it's probably not going to impede your story.



BWFoster78 said:


> For example, Feo is really into societies not based on Europe.  Personally, I don't care all that much about my "world."  It's simply a place for my story to take place.  A vaguely European concept is easy for me to write because I'm most familiar with it.  For me to do the research necessary to make my world based on some other society when I have no passion for doing so is a poor idea.



I'm just sick of medieval Europe. I'm actually quite fond of Europe from the 1600s to the early 1900s. (And for that matter, I like medieval Europe when folks write it like _actual_ medieval Europe, though I don't usually see that outside historical fiction.)


----------



## glutton

BWFoster78 said:


> Personally, I don't care all that much about my "world."  It's simply a place for my story to take place.  A vaguely European concept is easy for me to write because I'm most familiar with it.  For me to do the research necessary to make my world based on some other society when I have no passion for doing so is a poor idea.



Ditto (and I'm Asian)...


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## BWFoster78

> n its barest form, minority representation doesn't take more space than putting in a white man.



I disagree with this point.

Characters are partially a function of their upbringing, of which their society plays a role.  If all my characters come from the same society, that part of their foundation is the same.  Once I introduce another society, I have to figure out things about that society and how that society impacts my characters.

This is all time and story space that I could be devoting to other things.



> I'm just sick of medieval Europe. I'm actually quite fond of Europe from the 1600s to the early 1900s. (And for that matter, I like medieval Europe when folks write it like actual medieval Europe, though I don't usually see that outside historical fiction.)



It really doesn't matter to me one way or the other.  My only point was that it would be stupid for me to made story decisions on what you like.


----------



## glutton

I'm all for having an awesome character who's black or gay or (especially) female (my heroines tend to be larger than life super powerful warriors who are better than most or all of the males) but I'm just not that into world-building in general - my stories are basically just a vehicle for showing off the AWESOMENESS of the characters. I'm more likely to build the world around my characters and adjust for them than vice versa.

*waits for flames for being shallow as hell*


----------



## Feo Takahari

BWFoster78 said:


> Characters are partially a function of their upbringing, of which their society plays a role.  If all my characters come from the same society, that part of their foundation is the same.  Once I introduce another society, I have to figure out things about that society and how that society impacts my characters.
> 
> This is all time and story space that I could be devoting to other things.



Okay, so you want to write one society, because that's simple. And you want to work based on a simplified medieval Europe, because that's what you know. Since medieval Europe was majority white, it would be pretty arbitrary to write medieval Europe with brown people. (Not _bad_, mind you, just arbitrary.) But what about other categories? Sexism is a bit of an obstacle to a female protagonist, but not an insurmountable one--and in any event, sexism is a complicating assumption, and I've seen some writers simplify to remove it. Prejudice against gay folks is a little thornier (reflecting it means adding additional elements to the story, and removing it means adding a new dimension to how your society approaches homosexuality), but there are still some interesting stories that can be told with a gay person in medieval Europe.

Let's set aside issues of "should." If you like to write about medieval Europe, and you want to write a lot of stories, you'll need to have a lot of characters. Aren't you at all _interested_ in the things you could do with a blacksmith's widow who works the forge herself, or a male servant who secretly loves a prince? Besides and in addition to stories you want to write about straight white men, aren't there any stories you _want_ to tell about other groups?

Cards on the table: I remember your rant about pendulums that got a previous thread locked. I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding something, but I'd need to hear you talk more about your ideas in order to address them properly. I'm hoping that I can draw you into talking about that again, and that this time you'll do so politely and the thread won't be locked.


----------



## Guy

glutton said:


> (my heroines tend to be larger than life super powerful warriors who are better than most or all of the males)


Mine too! High five!


----------



## Shasjas

saellys said:


> You're a writer. You have power beyond your daily interactions with individual people. You are the media. You can represent whatever you want.
> 
> Don't limit yourself to the individual level. Don't throw up your hands just because you might never be at the top of the New York Times best seller list and the reach of your voice may be limited to a relatively small audience. Don't abdicate that power. You might be a drop in a bucket, but if you set a bucket out in the rain, eventually it will overflow.



I'm not a writer. I'm just a person who likes fantasy and wants to write as a hobby. I have no power.

As for representation, there's not necessarily any reason to describe your characters skin colour, you can just leave that to the readers imagination, unless it actually plays a role.


----------



## Guy

saellys said:


> That was a great big typo on my part. So sorry!


No prob.


> And my point is that the overwhelming majority of the fantasy genre, written by people who will insist to the death that they were "being true to the characters," proves that diversity is not covered.


I have no control over what other writers do, so my comments are based on what I do and how I work, which I probably wasn't clear on earlier. The hazard is if a writer tries to make diverse characters simply for the sake of having diversity, the characters will likely come off as flat and stereotypical.


> Firstly, both stories sound rad. Have you posted portions of them anywhere?


The first is available through the link in my sig. The second is a very rough WIP.


> Secondly, the setting doesn't have to "dictate" it for a writer to write it. See Feo's earlier point about the influence Silk Road and the Moors in medieval Europe. Even in a conventionally whitewashed fantasy setting, it can happen.


No, it doesn't have to. I was just stating how I work. Maybe it would be more accurate to say setting influences it. As others have said, if you set a story in feudal Japan, most of your characters will probably be Japanese. 


> Thirdly, oh good Lord is the term "affirmative action" ever getting stale. Please don't. You've obviously internalized the idea of a "checklist" as an inherently negative thing;


I was relating it based on the way I work. Each writer has their own way of doing things. The way I operate, a list like "proper race? check - proper gender? check - proper sexual orientation? check" is a bad thing. Some people approach character creation like baking a cake - they gather all the ingredients and put them together. I approach it more like growing bacteria cultures - put the right conditions in place then step back and let nature take its course. My two flagship characters are both women. That's not because I set out to create strong female characters. That's just the way they formed in my head. With the story I'm writing now I've had characters of various races pop up. One started out as being from a desert culture, but as time went on his appearance morphed into a more Asian. Why? Not because I felt like I needed an Asian looking character, but because that's just how I imagined him. That's what I meant went I said by being true to the character and properly crafting the story, diversity is often a natural by-product.


> I'm still waiting for someone to answer my question as to why it would be detrimental.


Depends on how it's done. I think if a writer goes about creating characters based on race, gender, orientation, etc., rather than the character's personality traits there's a huge danger they'll end up with a bunch of stereotypical cardboard cut-outs for characters. I've read several stories in which there were gay characters. Some made it work. I thought Gail Baudino's Dragonsword Trilogy did an excellent job of exploring gender roles and sexual orientation. But all too often it seemed like the character's primary purpose was to act as a representative of his respective demographic group (the token gay person, black person, whatever) and show what a great, open-minded person the author was, and the character's actual purpose in the story took a back seat to that.


> What's stopping someone else who does care about this? Why is it bad?


Nothing, as far as I know. Bad or good depends on the execution. Like I said, I think Gail Baudino did a beautiful job with it, but I've seen others really fall flat with it.


> Fourthly and closely related to that point, okay, you cast a straight white male. What happens when you look back at a story that has six main characters and they're all straight white males?


Easy. I don't do that. Unless, of course, that's what the story calls for. For example, if I were to write a story about the original Mercury astronauts meeting aliens, my characters are going to be seven straight white males simply because that's who they were.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Guy gets it. Hot _damn_ does Guy get it. Diversity isn't about quotas and checklists. Diversity is about telling stories, and about the different characters you create to make different stories work.


----------



## BWFoster78

> But what about other categories? Sexism is a bit of an obstacle to a female protagonist, but not an insurmountable one--and in any event, sexism is a complicating assumption, and I've seen some writers simplify to remove it.



I'm not 100% sure what you're trying to say.

I do not in any way attempt to portray an accurate version of medieval Europe.  My characters all have modern attitudes, to an extent, about sexism and use modern language, though I try to scrub out anachronisms.  I do this for three reasons:

1. It's easier.  I've accepted that writing is hard, and the fewer handicaps I give myself, the better.
2. I think it makes the story more understandable for the reader who isn't a hardcore fantasy fan.
3. I have no passion for creating a world that mimics medieval Europe.

I agree completely with glutton; my world is simply a place for my characters to inhabit.  I want to make it as real as I can and not have inaccuracies, but it, in and of itself, is not important.



> there are still some interesting stories that can be told with a gay person in medieval Europe.



I have absolutely no desire to write about homosexual people in medieval Europe.  Why is it in any way a good idea for me to throw these kinds of things into my story that have nothing to do with my story?

My story is about a teenage lab geek who is desperately seeking love, the girl he thinks he wants, and the girl he actually does.  Along the way, he stops "the bad guys" from invading his kingdom and the "really evil guys" from taking control of the world.

I see absolutely no value in including different ethnic groups or people of different sexual orientation.

There are causes that I feel strongly about, and I don't plan on trying to advocate for those causes in my writing because they don't fit the story I want to tell.  Why, then, would I think it a good idea to advocate for a cause that I:

a) am not in any way passionate about AND
b) not sure is worthy of my advocacy in the first place?



> Besides and in addition to stories you want to write about straight white men, aren't there any stories you want to tell about other groups?



Not to say that I will never want to tell a story about such, but for my current WIP?  Nope.

If it makes you happy, I am also working on a story that features a half white/half Brazillian teenage girl.  I didn't choose the character ethnicity because of some idea of promoting equality, however, but because I based her on my niece.


----------



## Feo Takahari

BWFoster78 said:


> I do not in any way attempt to portray an accurate version of medieval Europe.  My characters all have modern attitudes, to an extent, about sexism and use modern language, though I try to scrub out anachronisms.  I do this for three reasons:
> 
> 1. It's easier.  I've accepted that writing is hard, and the fewer handicaps I give myself, the better.
> 2. I think it makes the story more understandable for the reader who isn't a hardcore fantasy fan.
> 3. I have no passion for creating a world that mimics medieval Europe. . .
> 
> My story is about a teenage lab geek who is desperately seeking love, the girl he thinks he wants, and the girl he actually does.  Along the way, he stops "the bad guys" from invading his kingdom and the "really evil guys" from taking control of the world.



Before I respond to this, let me make sure I understand where you're coming from. You have stated that your setting does not revolve around sexism, and 2/3 of the characters you've mentioned are female. Are those characters main characters?

Edit: Also, why do you keep saying "cause"? What do you think I'm advocating? I'm seriously confused about this. (If you think I'm with Saellys on this one, I can assure you I'm not--I'll explain this later if the topic strays towards it, but the short version is that I think her ideas are part of the problem.)


----------



## saellys

Well, we've reached the "I just don't care enough about it" part of the discussion, which is exactly where I abandoned the diversity thread I started a year ago when I first joined this forum. Coming full circle feels like a good time to bow out, of this discussion as well as this whole forum. It's wearying to be the only voice saying certain things, and ultimately I don't think I and Mythic Scribes have a lot to offer each other. My time would be better spent writing. 

It's been real, everyone.


----------



## Jabrosky

Perhaps the question we should consider is less whether we should represent this or that group of people in our fiction, but rather _why _we want to represent those groups.

In my case, I don't write African settings and characters because someone else told me to incorporate racial or cultural diversity in my writing. It's because I have developed a special interest in that part of the world that began in second grade when my class did a unit on ancient Egypt. This same passion has made me sick to my stomach of how Africa and its people are represented in popular consciousness. It's not just that Africa gets glossed over as a setting in the fantasy and historical genres. It's that when it does get represented, that representation is disrespectful or contributes to a disrespectful trend.

I'm damn tired of people associating Africa only with slavery, oppression, post-colonial strife, or cultural pathologies. I'm damned tired of people denying pre-colonial African cultural sophistication or attributing it all to Arabs, Phoenicians, or some other "Mediterranean Caucasoids". And I am really damned tired of people saying that Western civilization is inherently morally superior to all others, _especially _Africa. Sure, Africa has always had its problems, but the same could be said for every other part of the world, including the idealized West.

That is why I want to represent Africa in my stories. It's not because I'm filling out any kind of checklist or forcing onto myself some obligation to represent every nook and cranny of humanity. It's because I have this passion for a particular nook that everyone else keeps putting down, and I want to rectify that.


----------



## Steerpike

I think writers on the whole are fairly enlightened and do tend to care about these kinds of issues. You can't make someone care about them, of course, but casting oneself as the lone voice in the wilderness seems a bit much.

I suppose one might wonder why those who don't care about it bother reading and posting in threads on the subject. Seems a bit odd.


----------



## ascanius

saellys said:


> Coming full circle feels like a good time to bow out, of this discussion as well as this whole forum. It's wearying to be the only voice saying certain things, and ultimately I don't think I and Mythic Scribes have a lot to offer each other. My time would be better spent writing.
> 
> It's been real, everyone.



Are you kidding me?  Just because people don't agree with you.  I get it, it sucks being the only one arguing a point but come on.  From what I've read so far it seems that the majority all agree that diversity is good but it should be a natural evolution from world building.  It's not like everyone here is saying your opinion is bad and a no no.

Hell. in the diversity thread you made me rethink a valid point, that whole making an effort line in response to one of my posts.  It made me think that every revolution, national or social, began with someone making an effort towards change.  

I don't have to agree with you, nor does anyone else, the point isn't to make everyone else here agree with ourselves.  The point is to share our thoughts, opinions, and experiences about becoming better writers.  You cannot make people agree with you.  Hell I've had a few rows with a few people here because we disagreed about something.  I doubt me and Kit see eye to eye, and a few others but there have been more than a few occasions where I have stopped and rethought my opinion about things they have said.  No I may not completely change and agree with them but I certainly incorporate these ideas into my world view because I find them valid.  

Also I don't think this is about people not caring enough about something.  I think it has more to do with interests and how to proceed.  If I have no interest in feminism you cannot expect me to include feminist ideas in my writing and expect them to be well thought out, especially when my interests are more towards warfare.  It doesn't mean I don't try to include certain small little snippets when I can and I'm sure everyone else does too.  You cannot expect us to all become champions of a very complex social issue.  I don't think anyone here set out to write the next Uncle Toms Cabin, Kudos to you if you did, no we simply want to write good fantasy and at times that can include diversity, or addressing sexism and racism it depends on who is writing and what they feel comfortable with.  Some people don't feel comfortable writing CSA or rape, not because they don't care exactly the opposite really.  Those are two issues that deserve a lot more attention than they get in my opinion, I cannot get upset if people choose not(or how) to write about them, that is their choice.  My point is I don't think anyone here really disagrees with you inherently simply at the execution.  We all make small little steps where we can and how we are best capable.  There is nothing wrong with that.

edit:  Ok maybe not caring enough is the same thing as intrests but I think my point still stands


----------



## Quillstine

> Thread: What I'm Saying Is, The Search For Equality Is Pretty Messy



So if nothing else....we know the title of this thread has been proved correct!


----------



## BWFoster78

> Before I respond to this, let me make sure I understand where you're coming from. You have stated that your setting does not revolve around sexism, and 2/3 of the characters you've mentioned are female. Are those characters main characters?



I'm not sure how having female characters relates in any way to sexism, but okay...

I have a male protagonist and 6 main characters.  Of the main characters, 3 are female and 3 are male.



> Also, why do you keep saying "cause"? What do you think I'm advocating? I'm seriously confused about this. (If you think I'm with Saellys on this one, I can assure you I'm not--I'll explain this later if the topic strays towards it, but the short version is that I think her ideas are part of the problem.)



It seemed like you were advocating  for the inclusion of a diverse cast of characters.  I consider that a "cause."  If not, what are you advocating?


----------



## BWFoster78

> Perhaps the question we should consider is less whether we should represent this or that group of people in our fiction, but rather why we want to represent those groups.



That would be helpful.



> It's because I have developed a special interest in that part of the world that began in second grade when my class did a unit on ancient Egypt.



I would think you're writing will be much better for the fact that you are passionate about your subject matter.



> That is why I want to represent Africa in my stories. It's not because I'm filling out any kind of checklist or forcing onto myself some obligation to represent every nook and cranny of humanity. It's because I have this passion for a particular nook that everyone else keeps putting down, and I want to rectify that.



This is where we differ.

I just want to tell a good story that, hopefully, others are going to want to read.

That's not to say that I think there's anything wrong with your approach as long as you are aware of the problems that you can create for yourself by pursuing such an approach.


----------



## Devor

I've said this before, and I'll say it again.

I think you have trendsetters, and you have everyone else.

Not everyone can be a trendsetter.  Not everyone should.  And I don't think it's helpful to treat everyone as if they should care passionately if they aren't passionate.

But, I do think it's helpful to talk about the little things that an author can do as they write their story that would do right by issues of diversity without making big changes to the way they write their story.  Taking another look at which characters have agency, whether their arcs and archetypes are defined by those standard sets of "identity traits," whether it's viable to break the default to a typical white/male/whatever type.  Those things can make better characters and a better story without always being a big deal.

For some stories it can be a big deal.  If you're playing in a low fantasy, highly serious world, it can be challenging to play it loose with race without the appropriate worldbuilding overhead.  If you're in the heart of a war zone, it might be difficult to include a wide range of female characters.  If your story is relatively short, with a single protagonist and a tight POV, it might be difficult to make the issues of secondary characters relevant.  In those cases forget about it - if it's going to compromise the integrity of your story, or the depths of your passion, then forget about it.

But most of the time you can only gain by adding another layer of complexity to your characters and the way they develop, if you don't try to overstep your interests and ability.


----------



## Mythopoet

The problem with the modern "search for equality" is that it focuses too much on the symptoms while the diseases rages on. (Apologies to Dr. Horrible.) Racism and sexism aren't really about black and white or man and woman. They are about power. Human beings seek out differences in each other because those differences can be exploited by the powerful over the weak. The differences are really just an excuse. Humans like to feel better and more important than other people. They like to have power and control over others. That's the real issue. If you solve racism and sexism it'll just pop up in another form. You can't fix inequality by trying to tip the scale back the other way. You can only fix it by getting rid of the scale.


----------



## Feo Takahari

BWFoster78 said:


> I'm not sure how having female characters relates in any way to sexism, but okay...
> 
> I have a male protagonist and 6 main characters.  Of the main characters, 3 are female and 3 are male.



Then, assuming the women are well-written characters who grow and change over the course of the story, and assuming they have their own part in bringing the story to its conclusion, I'm not sure what the problem is. There are only a couple of stereotypical viewpoints for women to have, so if you have three women with their own viewpoints, at least one is bound to break stereotypes. Do you just not want folks to think you're doing it for the "wrong reasons"?



> It seemed like you were advocating  for the inclusion of a diverse cast of characters.  I consider that a "cause."  If not, what are you advocating?



What you just stated is in fact a cause of mine, but I kind of expected you to come out with something more evil. I mean, you were talking like putting a gay character in a story would only be something you would do if you agreed with my cause. It is true that putting a gay character in a story would advance my cause, but I've been trying to make my arguments "cause-neutral"--arguments not based on directly advancing my cause with a "should," but on the power of "could," and the ways that adding and changing characters can allow you to tell new stories. I guess it's fine if you're not interested in that, but the vehemence of your remark and the circumstance in which you said "cause" made me think that you thought just having a gay character in a story would advance some sinister goal to which you were opposed.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Mythopoet said:


> The problem with the modern "search for equality" is that it focuses too much on the symptoms while the diseases rages on. (Apologies to Dr. Horrible.) Racism and sexism aren't really about black and white or man and woman. They are about power. Human beings seek out differences in each other because those differences can be exploited by the powerful over the weak. The differences are really just an excuse. Humans like to feel better and more important than other people. They like to have power and control over others. That's the real issue. If you solve racism and sexism it'll just pop up in another form. You can't fix inequality by trying to tip the scale back the other way. You can only fix it by getting rid of the scale.



Can I even get away with saying this? I'm not trying to start wank, and I'll be as polite as I can, but *damn* is it gonna be a sore point if Mindfire enters this thread. I guess I'll just say it, since it directly relates to the topic.

I was reading Fred Clark the other day, and he discussed American Christian sects that don't allow women to be priests. Clark's into the concept of "hermeneutics"--specific patterns in which the Bible is translated. (For instance, different scholars have different interpretations of what the word "ezer" means.) Anyway, there's one hermeneutic that's typically used in America to argue that women shouldn't be priests.

According to Clark, it's a slightly modified version of a hermeneutic originated in the 19th century. Its original purpose was to argue that the Bible justified slavery, and the new version actually uses pretty similar reasoning.

I bring this up not to attack Christianity in particular--Lord knows it's not the only belief system that's been hijacked in this fashion--but to reinforce Mythopoet's statement. That is not dead which can eternal lie, and bad ideas can be infuriatingly resilient.


----------



## Mythopoet

Feo Takahari said:


> Can I even get away with saying this? I'm not trying to start wank, and I'll be as polite as I can, but *damn* is it gonna be a sore point if Mindfire enters this thread. I guess I'll just say it, since it directly relates to the topic.
> 
> I was reading Fred Clark the other day, and he discussed American Christian sects that don't allow women to be priests. Clark's into the concept of "hermeneutics"--specific patterns in which the Bible is translated. (For instance, different scholars have different interpretations of what the word "ezer" means.) Anyway, there's one hermeneutic that's typically used in America to argue that women shouldn't be priests.
> 
> According to Clark, it's a slightly modified version of a hermeneutic originated in the 19th century. Its original purpose was to argue that the Bible justified slavery, and the new version actually uses pretty similar reasoning.
> 
> I bring this up not to attack Christianity in particular--Lord knows it's not the only belief system that's been hijacked in this fashion--but to reinforce Mythopoet's statement. That is not dead which can eternal lie, and bad ideas can be infuriatingly resilient.



No offense, but if you're going to raise a point like that you should be able to provide the actual details of it for verification. What is the word? Which Christians is he talking about exactly? How did these Christians translate it and why? How does Fred translate it differently and why? Who is Fred Clark and what are his credentials? What documentation does he have to support his theory? Only a fool believes someone who says to them "I read a guy who believes a thing and says this thing about another group of people".


----------



## Jabrosky

Mythopoet said:


> No offense, but if you're going to raise a point like that you should be able to provide the actual details of it for verification. What is the word? Which Christians is he talking about exactly? How did these Christians translate it and why? How does Fred translate it differently and why? Who is Fred Clark and what are his credentials? What documentation does he have to support his theory? Only a fool believes someone who says to them "I read a guy who believes a thing and says this thing about another group of people".


You do realize Feo is not attacking Christians as a whole but a small number of particular sects, don't you?


----------



## Feo Takahari

Mythopoet said:


> No offense, but if you're going to raise a point like that you should be able to provide the actual details of it for verification. What is the word? Which Christians is he talking about exactly? How did these Christians translate it and why? How does Fred translate it differently and why? Who is Fred Clark and what are his credentials? What documentation does he have to support his theory? Only a fool believes someone who says to them "I read a guy who believes a thing and says this thing about another group of people".



I'm not sure exactly what Clark's credentials are, though he definitely knows the Bible back to front. (He got famous through his counterarguments to the theology in the _Left Behind_ novels.) The reason I like to use him is that he's an evangelical Christian--it seems more appropriate to cite those within the group than to cite those outside it.

As for the specific hermeneutic, the modern version Clark is referring to seems to be the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. I should note that Clark is not alone in his statement of this hermeneutic's origins--he references Ken Schenk, a dean of a university seminary, who says 





> It is worth noting that the forebears of this modern form of inerrancy used a different hermeneutic than my church’s abolitionist forebears, and they used their hermeneutic to argue anti-abolitionism from Scripture, just as Mohler uses a similar hermeneutic today to argue against women in ministry.



Schenk specifically talks in relation to Calvinist interpretations of the Bible. Clark also mentions Southern Baptists.

Clark's article is at On the whiteness of Al MohlerÃ¢€™s White Theology, though it's not very specific. Schenk's is at Common Denominator: Five Views of Inerrancy (Book Review Part 1)

(I don't want to get into a massive religious debate here, since Mindfire has conclusively proven to me that I don't know the Bible well enough for that. I'll back off and back down if it seems like I'm on the wrong course here. As I said earlier, my point isn't about Christianity, it's about prejudice.)

Edit: I looked at the comments for Schenk's article, and he said his parenthetical comment was related to two earlier articles:

http://kenschenck.blogspot.com/2007/10/friday-review-civil-war-as-theological.html

http://kenschenck.blogspot.com/2010/04/whatever-happened-to-evangelicalism-7.html


----------



## Reaver

If you want to debate religion go to another forum. We need to get this thread back to discussing fantasy writing or I'm closing it.


----------



## BWFoster78

> Then, assuming the women are well-written characters who grow and change over the course of the story, and assuming they have their own part in bringing the story to its conclusion, I'm not sure what the problem is. There are only a couple of stereotypical viewpoints for women to have, so if you have three women with their own viewpoints, at least one is bound to break stereotypes. Do you just not want folks to think you're doing it for the "wrong reasons"?



Apparently, we're not understanding each other well.  I believe two things in regards to this thread:

1. I don't feel it's a good idea from a writing standpoint to include anything that doesn't serve the story.  You, and others, seem to advocate that it's a good idea to include diverse characters simply because diverse characters are, in and of themselves, good.  I believe in tight writing.  Anything that isn't there for a specific story reason is bad.  I understand that others don't feel, for their stories, that including random elements to serve a cause is bad for the story, but, as for my writing, I actively seek and destroy anything that doesn't specifically belong.

2. I disagree with the concept that diversity for diversity's sake is something I need to be concerned with.  If that's your thing, fine.  I tend to roll my eyes when a story or show introduces "diverse" characters that seem to have no place in the story, and I try to avoid having eye-rolling directed at my stories where possible.



> but the vehemence of your remark and the circumstance in which you said "cause" made me think that you thought just having a gay character in a story would advance some sinister goal to which you were opposed.



I don't think you understand how important I feel focus is to a story and how damaging I feel it is to introduce elements for non-story reasons.  

Yes, introducing other characters would lead to opportunities to tell other stories.  That's the problem, though: I don't want to tell other stories; I want to tell my story,


----------



## Steerpike

I think your point #1 is a misunderstanding of what people are saying BWFoster, and it is from that misunderstanding that you seem to develop the rest of your thoughts on the issue. Also, the idea that you equate tight writing or serving the story with your own personal viewpoint on this issue, to the exclusion of others, is narrow-minded. Your argument comes down to "I don't care about this because I write the correct way and that doesn't allow for it" is, frankly, nonsense.


----------



## BWFoster78

> I think your point #1 is a misunderstanding of what people are saying BWFoster,



Have not others in this thread basically said, "Why not add characters of diverse ethnicity and/or sexual orientation to your story?  It wouldn't hurt anything."

That's the way I read what they are advocating.

If not, what are they advocating?



> Also, the idea that you equate tight writing or serving the story with your own personal viewpoint on this issue, to the exclusion of others, is narrow-minded.



I stated previously in the thread that I felt adding a diverse character for the sake of it was bad and listed the reasons.

I feel that others in this thread disagree with the concept that adding a diverse character can possibly be bad.

I stand by my original statement - for my writing, I consider adding anything that doesn't serve the story as a bad, bad thing.  If you don't feel that way, fine.  As I stated specifically, for my writing, the viewpoint is entirely valid.  Again, I specifically made the point that it is valid for my writing for me to feel that way; I made no effort to say that you or anyone else should feel the same.

Are you telling me that I'm somehow wrong for saying what's right for my methodology?

Your point seems extremely wrong to me.



> Your argument comes down to "I don't care about this because I write the correct way and that doesn't allow for it" is, frankly, nonsense.



My argument comes down to two points:

1. I believe that focus and tight writing is extremely important.

2. I haven't read a shread of anyone telling my why diversity should be important to me at all.  It seems instead that everyone who thinks diversity is important simply accepts it as fact.


----------



## Mindfire

Feo Takahari said:


> Can I even get away with saying this? I'm not trying to start wank, and I'll be as polite as I can, but *damn* is it gonna be a sore point if Mindfire enters this thread. I guess I'll just say it, since it directly relates to the topic.



Speak of the devil... and he shall appear. :insertevillaughhere


----------



## Steerpike

BWFoster78 said:


> I stand by my original statement - for my writing, I consider adding anything that doesn't serve the story as a bad, bad thing.



You're telling me that you can't have the same story if one character is, say, black instead of white, or gay instead of straight? Again, that's nonsense. You have some skill with writing, and I find it hard to believe that you can't see that. We get that you couldn't care less about the issue, so just stick to that argument (though it makes me wonder why you posted in this thread). Your rationalizations don't ring true.


----------



## Philip Overby

> 1. I believe that focus and tight writing is extremely important



I believe this is important, too. I'm not sure what this has to do with diversity though. I guess what you're saying is that including certain elements in your story may distract from the story you want to tell, and by putting certain kinds of characters in your story it suddenly shifts to being about racism or sexism when you want it to be about other themes you're more interested in. 

However, for me, just because I put non-white or female characters in my story, doesn't mean I'm going to focus on elements of racism or sexism. For me, my world resembles a close approximation of a Pangea sort of continent, where people of all different races live in close proximity. So instead of having all the whites in one place and all the Asians in another place, my world is "smaller" so to speak. That's why I chose to have more diverse characters, because for my story it makes sense. However, if I want to explore sexism because my main character is female and in a position of power, then it leaves that door open. So for me, I want more diverse characters so I can explore new and different ways of presenting characters. I don't believe in shoehorning characters in just to do so and I'm not sure many in this thread are advocating that.



> 2. I haven't read a shread of anyone telling my why diversity should be important to me at all. It seems instead that everyone who thinks diversity is important simply accepts it as fact.



As a writer, you have to decide what you want to write about. However, as readership shifts you may hear more and more readers clamoring for different kinds of fantasy fiction that may include more diverse casts, more diverse worlds, and different kinds of stories. From the survey I did recently, "woman in minor roles" was the number 1 thing those who voted mentioned they'd like to see change. This is telling. 

Of course tell the story that you want to tell, I would never tell someone not to write what they want. I think what some people are saying in this thread (at least what I'm gathering) is that if you present stories that represent a wider range of the human experience, you may find your stories become richer for it. 

At the end of the day, you must present the stories you want to present to the world. Just to namedrop, Steerpike has an upcoming anthology that deals with Mesoamerican fantasy. This really interests me as these are the kind of fantasy stories I haven't considered much. As a writer, I not only want to challenge myself, but I want to expand my horizons and tackle worlds I wouldn't normally do. By doing so, you may unlock new and interesting worlds you may want to explore once again.

So by all means, write the stories you want to write. But it wouldn't hurt to consider certain opinions being expressed. That never really hurts.


----------



## Steerpike

Phil the Drill said:


> I believe this is important, too. I'm not sure what this has with diversity though.



Not a single thing.

By way of example, one of my stories has a black character who is important to the story. The fact that he is black doesn't change the story at all. He could just as easily have been white or hispanic or native American, or whatever. Someone might ask "So why make him black?" But the only reason you'd ask that question is if you for some reason have decided that the default character in a fantasy story has to be white. One might just as easily ask "Why not make him black?"

There's no question that the demographic in fantasy novels is not reflective of the population. Some people may see that as a problem, some people may not. If you don't think it is worth considering, then just make that point and there's the end of your argument. But don't try to feed us this nonsense about tight writing and story and how you couldn't have a diverse cast without screwing all that up. It's complete BS and deserves to be pointed out as being so.

It seems to me that the idea of the straight, white character as the default has simply been ingrained in a lot of people, to the point that they can't think of not using a character like that unless they have some specific statement they want to make, at which point said character is trotted out to make the statement. That's a horrible way to view diversity in literature.


----------



## BWFoster78

> You're telling me that you can't have the same story if one character is, say, black instead of white, or gay instead of straight?



I'm saying:

1. For my writing, I believe it's important that each element included in the story should have a story purpose.  Don't insert a shotgun if you don't plan to use it.  If there's no story reason for a character to be black or gay, I don't have them be black or gay.

2. As I stated before, when creating a fantasy world, society informs character.  Adding additional societies means you need to do more world-building.

Instead of blanketly saying that these reason are "rationalizations" that "don't ring true," how about actually countering them?  How are these not valid concerns?



> We get that you couldn't care less about the issue, so just stick to that argument (though it makes me wonder why you posted in this thread).



I posted in this thread because:

1. I like arguing.  It's entertaining, especially when people actually discuss issues like the exchange of ideas that Feo and I were having.

2. I'm interested for someone to explain why diversity should be important.


----------



## Steerpike

BWFoster78 said:


> 1. For my writing, I believe it's important that each element included in the story should have a story purpose.  Don't insert a shotgun if you don't plan to use it.  If there's no story reason for a character to be black or gay, I don't have them be black or gay.



What's your "story purpose" for making them white?

I'm sorry, but that line of reasoning makes no sense. Of course it is a rationalization. You have the idea somehow entrenched in your mind that "white" is the default, neutral. It doesn't require a story reason, but if the same character were black it would require a story reason. You're telling me you can't see the problem with that logic?

Again, what's your "story purpose" for any given character being white?


----------



## Svrtnsse

BWFoster78 said:


> 2. I'm interested for someone to explain why diversity should be important.



I believe diversity will support believability. Having a world where the diversity is _done right_ will give the story more depth, making it more believable and supporting increased immersion.

I'm sure there are multitudes of exceptions to the above comment but it'll do as a quick blanket statement supporting diversity. Note the "done right" part.


----------



## Steerpike

BWFoster78 said:


> 2. I'm interested for someone to explain why diversity should be important.



The better question is, why is homogeneity important to you? The world is diverse, and I find equal value in people across races, creeds, genders, sexual orientations, and the like. Diversity in fiction reflects reality. Your approach is the one that is artificial, so the question is why are other races, sexual orientations, and the like threatening enough (if they are) that you feel you have to create an artificially homogeneous cast for your story?


----------



## BWFoster78

> I guess what you're saying is that including certain elements in your story may distract from the story you want to tell,



Yes.  Correct.



> However, for me, just because I put non-white or female characters in my story, doesn't mean I'm going to focus on elements of racism or sexism. For me, my world resembles a close approximation of a Pangea sort of continent, where people of all different races live in close proximity. So instead of having all the whites in one place and all the Asians in another place, my world is "smaller" so to speak. That's why I chose to have more diverse characters, because for my story it makes sense. However, if I want to explore sexism because my main character is female and in a position of power, then it leaves that door open. So for me, I want more diverse characters so I can explore new and different ways of presenting characters. I don't believe in shoehorning characters in just to do so and I'm not sure many in this thread are advocating that.



Great.  Good for you.

What I get is from others in this tread is that they think:

1. It's a good idea to insert diverse characters into your story just to have a diverse cast.

I'm not convinced that diversity for diversity's sake is a good thing.

2. There's no harm in inserting diverse characters.

I again disagree.  I believe that my writing is made stronger by making it tighter.  Introducing random elements for non-story reasons, I believe, weakens my writing.


----------



## Steerpike

BWFoster78 said:


> I again disagree.  I believe that my writing is made stronger by making it tighter.  Introducing random elements for non-story reasons, I believe, weakens my writing.



So if you wrote the exact same story, word for word, except that in one of them you also mentioned that a character was black, it is weaker writing?

I find it hard to believe that any person could think that. Are you seriously trying to tell me that your answer to the above question is "yes?"


----------



## BWFoster78

Steerpike said:


> What's your "story purpose" for making them white?
> 
> I'm sorry, but that line of reasoning makes no sense. Of course it is a rationalization. You have the idea somehow entrenched in your mind that "white" is the default, neutral. It doesn't require a story reason, but if the same character were black it would require a story reason. You're telling me you can't see the problem with that logic?
> 
> Again, what's your "story purpose" for any given character being white?



I said that there is a valid reason for keeping the characters homogenous unless there is a valid reason for adding an outside culture, not for keeping them white.


----------



## Svrtnsse

BWFoster78 said:


> I again disagree.  I believe that my writing is made stronger by making it tighter.  Introducing random elements for non-story reasons, I believe, weakens my writing.



I think I get where you're coming from here.
If you have one of your characters be homosexual you would have to communicate that to the reader in some way and you would (or feel you would) have to pay at least some attention to it at some point. By skipping out on having a homosexual character you can bypass the entire issue of sexuality and get on with the story. Is that about correct?


----------



## Steerpike

BWFoster78 said:


> I said that there is a valid reason for keeping the characters homogenous unless there is a valid reason for adding an outside culture, not for keeping them white.



What is the homogeneous race of the characters in your story?


----------



## BWFoster78

Svrtnsse said:


> I believe diversity will support believability. Having a world where the diversity is _done right_ will give the story more depth, making it more believable and supporting increased immersion.



How?  The reader only need see the part of the world where the story takes place.

If I focused my story around a single guy who is trapped in a cave, is the world less real because there aren't characters of other races?


----------



## Nihal

BWFoster78 said:


> 1. For my writing, I believe it's important that each element included in the story should have a story purpose.  Don't insert a shotgun if you don't plan to use it.  If there's no story reason for a character to be black or gay, I don't have them be black or gay.



If I consider you've done your worldbuilding and somewhere in your world you have different ethnicities, gender orientations and women who have more reason to live than "being a woman" I can only see one reason to _require_ a reason to make a character black or gay in a story: A person by default is a straight white male.


----------



## Philip Overby

You mentioned why should you as a writer care about this: 

I also highlighted that readers may be more interested in more diverse casts and worlds as time goes on. That's how it can effect you as a writer. You asked why you should care about diversity, and that's one concrete reason. If readers get tired of the same type of stories being told, they're going to look at fantasy based in modern day Africa or in ancient China for their fix. This is one reason I find that YA and urban fantasy are doing some of the most daring, different things in the genre at the moment. It's because they're not constraining themselves to the default. Just because for them it isn't the same kind of characters they've already read about numerous times before.

I don't think it's necessary to twist someone's arm to get them to put certain kinds of characters in their stories. Readers are always going to be the ultimate judges though. If what people say is true and fantasy readers want more diversity, then they'll vote with their pocketbooks.


----------



## Steerpike

BWFoster78 said:


> If I focused my story around a single guy who is trapped in a cave, is the world less real because there aren't characters of other races?



That's a straw man. Any single-character story will be homogeneous by definition.


----------



## BWFoster78

> The better question is, why is homogeneity important to you?



It's not.

I'm reading others in this thread as saying, "diversity is better."  I'm saying:

1. I'm not convinced that's the case.
2. Diversity adds to the amount of work you have to do in world building and creates more opportunities for mistakes.
3. Diversity for diversity's sake is counter to the principle of tight writing, and I feel that tight writing makes my story better.



> Diversity in fiction reflects reality.



I'm not creating a real world.  I'm creating a fantasy world.

The only reason for a separate race to exist in a created world is for a story reason.  That's my whole point.


----------



## BWFoster78

Steerpike said:


> So if you wrote the exact same story, word for word, except that in one of them you also mentioned that a character was black, it is weaker writing?
> 
> I find it hard to believe that any person could think that. Are you seriously trying to tell me that your answer to the above question is "yes?"



Absolutely not.

I never said that.  I don't even know how you got that from what I wrote.


----------



## Steerpike

BWFoster78 said:


> Absolutely not.
> 
> I never said that.  I don't even know how you got that from what I wrote.



You said multiple times that having a diverse cast makes the writing weaker. My point back to you was that this is not true. I'm glad we agree on that much, at least.

So the 'weaker writing' argument is out. What's left?


----------



## BWFoster78

> I also highlighted that readers may be more interested in more diverse casts and worlds as time goes on. That's how it can effect you as a writer. You asked why you should care about diversity, and that's one concrete reason.



I'm not sure that the market is searching for more diverse casts.  Beyond this community, which on the whole seems a bit progressive, is there evidence for this?  I'm not seeing a huge shift in the epic fantasy that I read.


----------



## Jabrosky

BWFoster78 said:


> I believe that my writing is made stronger by making it tighter.  Introducing random elements for non-story reasons, I believe, weakens my writing.


I wanted to throw in my next two cents on this turn of the thread, but first I need to ask you a question.

Are you talking strictly about your own preferred writing style here?


----------



## Svrtnsse

BWFoster78 said:


> How?  The reader only need see the part of the world where the story takes place.
> 
> If I focused my story around a single guy who is trapped in a cave, is the world less real because there aren't characters of other races?



That's why I added the comment about exceptions and the "done right" part.
I believe that diversity can be used to create contrast and that contrast adds depth, which in turn supports immersion.

In your story about your guy in the cave there may be a spot where some light sips in from the world outside. He can't get out from there, but seeing the light comforts him and makes him feel good. He keeps coming back to that spot inbetween searching for different ways out.
In this case, the spot of light is the contrast to everything else - it's a diversity of setting. That said, it also has a story purpose (the way I see it).

You could also tell the reader about how the cave is full of incredibly beautiful and detailed paintings on the walls from an old extinct culture. However, the cave is dark and the trapped dude doesn't see them. That's still some diversity, but it has no purpose and no point.


Edit: 
I realized this derails from the diversity of race, sex and personal preference. I'm mainly commenting on the idea of diversity contributing to depth. 

Depth of world is about as important to me as tightness of writing is to Brian.


----------



## BWFoster78

Steerpike said:


> You said multiple times that having a diverse cast makes the writing weaker. My point back to you was that this is not true. I'm glad we agree on that much, at least.
> 
> So the 'weaker writing' argument is out. What's left?



I think you misunderstood part of the discussion, or maybe I did.

My understanding, from my conversation with Feo, was that he advocated adding "diversity" of characters.  That if you tend to have only straight, white males, you should add other ethnicities and orientations and sexes.

I took that to mean the reverse is true as well: if you wrote about only gay black women, you should add other ethnicities orientations and sexes.

I say, if your story is about gay black women, you should only add a straight white guy if there is a story need for a straight white guy.


----------



## Nihal

I still don't get why a character needs a *reason* to be of a different color, gender or orientation, as if people didn't came in all sizes and flavours but were straight white males by default; or as if you do that your book will automatically discuss racism, sexism, etc.


----------



## Philip Overby

> I'm not sure that the market is searching for more diverse casts. Beyond this community, which on the whole seems a bit progressive, is there evidence for this? I'm not seeing a huge shift in the epic fantasy that I read.



Here's some evidence here. If Tor, the biggest purveyor of fantasy fiction in the world is mentioning this, then it may be worth noting. 

Diversity in SFF | Tor.com

It's worth noting some up and coming authors, as well as some established ones have chimed in on this topic. So it's not something limited to Mythic Scribes or Tumblr or Twitter. It's a pretty huge topic in the genre right now. Has it cropped up before? Apparently, but just because a topic comes and goes and not much is done about it, doesn't mean it's not something that's going to get swept under the rug.

Tor.com (an off-shoot of Tor) specifically has changed their guidelines to this:



> “We want our stories to represent the full diversity of speculative fiction, and encourage submissions by writers from underrepresented populations. This includes but is not limited to writers of any race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, class and ability, as well as characters and settings that reflect these experiences.”



What does this mean for the current fiction out there? Maybe not much. But for fantasy fiction in the next decade or so? We may see a very drastic shift.


----------



## Steerpike

BWFoster78 said:


> I say, if your story is about gay black women, you should only add a straight white guy if there is a story need for a straight white guy.



I wouldn't say that is necessarily true. There's no reason not to have one if you want to include one. Gay people have straight friends, that's just reality. So just because your story is about gay people doesn't mean you need a special reason to add straight people.

But the truth is, most fantasy stories aren't "about" sexuality, race, etc. This gets back to your conception that straight and white is the default. That's what you have, in your mind, for a fantasy story, and you only have blacks, or gay people, or whatever if the story is "about" blacks or gay people.

The point, instead, should be that your typical fantasy story that isn't about race or sexuality at all can easily include a diverse cast without detracting one bit from the story or the tightness of the writing. You don't need a reason to include a black character, for example, any more than you need a reason to include a white one.


----------



## BWFoster78

Jabrosky said:


> I wanted to throw in my next two cents on this turn of the thread, but first I need to ask you a question.
> 
> Are you talking strictly about your own preferred writing style here?



Jabrosky,

As with most people on this forum, I am far from mastering the art of writing.  The more I learn, the more I come to understand what makes scenes work for me.  I can't really tell you how universal these traits are.

Take tension.  I think you can drive a scene without tension, but it seems a lot more difficult to do so.

Here's what I've figured out as an "easy" path to making my writing good enough (hopefully) to entertain my readers:

1. Clarity.
2. Tension.
3. Deep POV.
4. Tight writing and focus.

If you have found a different path, good for you.  In fact, what I've learned is that a scene that incorporates all four elements is better than one that has only one, two, or three.  If there are other drivers of good writing that I'm not considering, I'd love to know what they are and how to include them in my writing.

Hope that clarifies matters.

Brian


----------



## Steerpike

I thought Charles Stross' comment from the linked article was amusing:

“The biggest argument for #DiversityinSFF [is that] monocultures are BORING. (Even if the monoculture is your culture: still tediously unchallenging.)”


----------



## BWFoster78

Nihal said:


> I still don't get why a character needs a *reason* to be of a different color, gender or orientation, as if people didn't came in all sizes and flavours but were straight white males by default; or as if you do that your book will automatically discuss racism, sexism, etc.



Nihal,

Let's say you start off with a world full of short, purple people.  You build their society and gain an understanding of how that society impacts them as characters.

As soon as you introduce tall green people, you need to understand their society and how that society impacts them as characters.

If you're a world builder, you absolutely love doing this kind of thing.  I'm not a world builder.  I have no desire to create any more societies than I absolutely need to.

Does that makes sense?


----------



## BWFoster78

> There's no reason not to have one if you want to include one. Gay people have straight friends, that's just reality. So just because your story is about gay people doesn't mean you need a special reason to add straight people.



Again, it is my belief that adding random elements like you suggest does detract from the story.  I think my writing is stronger if there is a reason for each element.



> This gets back to your conception that straight and white is the default. That's what you have, in your mind, for a fantasy story, and you only have blacks, or gay people, or whatever if the story is "about" blacks or gay people.



If the race in your story is short and purple, my manner of speaking would be, when discussing this kind of topic, "It's about short, purple people."  Only when discussing this kind of topic, however.  The fact is that being short and purple doesn't matter to them as that's all they know.  What default you choose isn't all that important to me.

Choosing white and straight is easier to me because I started with a vaguely European concept.



> The point, instead, should be that your typical fantasy story that isn't about race or sexuality at all can easily include a diverse cast without detracting one bit from the story or the tightness of the writing. You don't need a reason to include a black character, for example, any more than you need a reason to include a white one.



Again, I disagree for the reasons stated above.


----------



## Nihal

BWFoster78 said:


> Nihal,
> 
> Let's say you start off with a world full of short, purple people.  You build their society and gain an understanding of how that society impacts them as characters.
> 
> As soon as you introduce tall green people, you need to understand their society and how that society impacts them as characters.
> 
> If you're a world builder, you absolutely love doing this kind of thing.  I'm not a world builder.  I have no desire to create any more societies than I absolutely need to.
> 
> Does that makes sense?



Okay, you don't want to have the trouble to worldbuild. However, gay and women are still a natural occurrence in any species.


----------



## Philip Overby

> Let's say you start off with a world full of short, purple people. You build their society and gain an understanding of how that society impacts them as characters.
> 
> As soon as you introduce tall green people, you need to understand their society and how that society impacts them as characters.
> 
> If you're a world builder, you absolutely love doing this kind of thing. I'm not a world builder. I have no desire to create any more societies than I absolutely need to.



I'm not really a world-builder either. I've actually spent very little time on my world as I tend to build it as I go. I'm not sure this feels like a valid reason to me. You can be a minimalist world-builder and still include a wide range of characters from different backgrounds. Of note, I also argue for the point that fantasy stories from the POV of different classes of people other than farm boys or princes is just as important when it comes to diversity. Saladin Ahmed mentioned this, which I mentioned in another thread I think:



> “Class diversity also needs to be part of #DiversityinSFF,” asserted Saladin Ahmed—and he didn’t mean the class of authors so much as their central characters. “I want fewer kings and starship captains, more coach drivers and space waitresses.”


----------



## Steerpike

BWFoster78 said:


> Again, it is my belief that adding random elements like you suggest does detract from the story.  I think my writing is stronger if there is a reason for each element.



It's not a random element, assuming you have more than one character in the story. And how would you know whether it detracts from the story without seeing any given execution of it. That's a very limited view of writing in general, and not one that is reflective of good writing, in my opinion, but just the opposite.


----------



## Svrtnsse

Nihal said:


> Okay, you don't want to have the trouble to worldbuild. However, gay and women are still a natural occurrence in any species.



Actually, I put in something about that in my setting:
Views on homosexuality - Odd Lands Wiki


----------



## Devor

BWFoster78 said:


> Again, it is my belief that adding random elements like you suggest does detract from the story.  I think my writing is stronger if there is a reason for each element.



1.  I agree with you.
2.  But that's life and you're a writer:  Make it relevant.


----------



## BWFoster78

Steerpike said:


> It's not a random element, assuming you have more than one character in the story. And how would you know whether it detracts from the story without seeing any given execution of it. That's a very limited view of writing in general, and not one that is reflective of good writing, in my opinion, but just the opposite.



Any element that you introduce that has no story reason is a random element.  My belief is that you should have a reason for every word that exists in your story.  (Granted, that's a lofty goal, and one that I typically fall well short of.  It is, however, my goal.)

You and I apparently have different opinions of what is "good writing."


----------



## Mindfire

Not to take away from this riveting argument, but I thought I'd say this before going for more popcorn. 

An observation: given a free choice and absent any external considerations (like making a conscious effort to include diverse characters) I think most people will "default" to a character that most resembles themselves. For example, my "default" is not straight white male, but straight *black* male. Every main character I've ever created has fit that description. I like writing characters that are a lot like me. It's relatively easy and comfortable. Thus begs the question: why do writers who aren't SWM still default to SWM? The answer is saturation. Because of cultural dynamics of which we are all aware, the SWM has become the most common voice, so people who might not naturally default to it get swept into the flow. The "main stream", if you will. 

I don't think defaulting is a bad thing per ce. The problem is when one default drowns out everyone else's. Get more diverse writers who are true to themselves and not unduly influenced by the mainstream and more diverse stories and casts will follow. This has been my point from the beginning. The problem isn't necessarily, for example, that BWF doesn't want to put diversity in his story, but rather that out there somewhere is a storyteller with a different perspective whose voice is not being heard.


----------



## Steerpike

BWFoster78 said:


> Any element that you introduce that has no story reason is a random element.  My belief is that you should have a reason for every word that exists in your story.  (Granted, that's a lofty goal, and one that I typically fall well short of.  It is, however, my goal.)



Again, you can't know this without reading any given story. Your assumption that it has to be a random element that detracts from the story reflects only your prejudices, and not any reality.


----------



## BWFoster78

Devor said:


> 2.  But that's life and you're a writer:  Make it relevant.



I agree that it's certainly possible for me to make anything relevant.  If it were, for some reason, important to include a pink clown in my story, I could make it work.

My question remains, "why is it important?"


----------



## glutton

Mindfire said:


> Not to take away from this riveting argument, but I thought I'd say this before going for more popcorn.
> 
> An observation: given a free choice and absent any external considerations (like making a conscious effort to include diverse characters) I think most people will "default" to a character that most resembles themselves. For example, my "default" is not straight white male, but straight *black* male. Every main character I've ever created has fit that description. I like writing characters that are a lot like me. It's relatively easy and comfortable. Thus begs the question: why do writers who aren't SWM still default to SWM? The answer is saturation. Because of cultural dynamics of which we are all aware, the SWM has become the most common voice, so people who might not naturally default to it get swept into the flow. The "main stream", if you will.
> 
> I don't think defaulting is a bad thing per ce. The problem is when one default drowns out everyone else's. Get more diverse writers who are true to themselves and not unduly influenced by the mainstream and more diverse stories and casts will follow. This has been my point from the beginning. The problem isn't necessarily, for example, that BWF doesn't want to put diversity in his story, but rather that out there somewhere is a storyteller with a different perspective whose voice is not being heard.



I'm a physically weak straight Asian male who defaults to a straight white female with vastly immense physical might. XD


----------



## Steerpike

Mindfire said:


> Thus begs the question: why do writers who aren't SWM still default to SWM? The answer is saturation.



Internalization.

But the problem isn't really people writing what they want to write. Ultimately, each writer has to decide for themselves. But going beyond that, and beyond the recognition that you're making a decision, to the idea that people who make another decision are just engaging in weaker writing, is insupportable. There's nothing at all rational about that viewpoint, it's just an embodiment of prejudice put into words.


----------



## BWFoster78

Steerpike said:


> Again, you can't know this without reading any given story. Your assumption that it has to be a random element that detracts from the story reflects only your prejudices, and not any reality.



What works for me is writing based on principles.  When I'm editing and I come across a paragraph that didn't work, I ask myself why it didn't work.  I've come to the conclusion, that, for my writing, tight focus is much better than including elements that don't have a valid story reason for being there.

I accept that your process is different, but this is what works for me.


----------



## BWFoster78

> But going beyond that, and beyond the recognition that you're making a decision, to the idea that people who make another decision are just engaging in weaker writing, is insupportable. There's nothing at all rational about that viewpoint, it's just an embodiment of prejudice put into words.



So, anyone who doesn't agree with you that you should include characters of all races and orientations is prejudice?

That's the way I'm reading this.

It sounds to me like you're not willing to accept that other people may have a writing process that differs from yours and that their process might be just as valid as yours.

Personally, I think you're out of line.  You certainly seem to be dismissing out of hand how I go about writing and attributing motives to my reasoning based on nothing besides your own bias.


----------



## Steerpike

BWFoster78 said:


> You certainly seem to be dismissing out of hand how I go about writing and attributing motives to my reasoning based on nothing besides your own bias.



That's been your approach to the entire thread, hasn't it? 

As for "prejudice," I'm talking about your statement that including a diverse element is necessarily weakening or detracting from the story, without having seen the actual story. I don't think you can make that determination without actually reading any given implementation of it to see if it works. That position is, by definition, prejudicial. You're making a determination prior to having seen the thing.



prejÂ·uÂ·dice
[ prÃ©jjədiss ]


opinion formed beforehand: a preformed opinion, usually an unfavorable one, based on insufficient knowledge.

The word wasn't used to imply that you have any feelings toward any given race, creed, color, sexual orientation, etc., merely that you're judging a work as weak or having random elements merely because of an idea, without having seen the actual work.


----------



## Jabrosky

Mindfire said:


> An observation: given a free choice and absent any external considerations (like making a conscious effort to include diverse characters) I think most people will "default" to a character that most resembles themselves. For example, my "default" is not straight white male, but straight *black* male. Every main character I've ever created has fit that description. I like writing characters that are a lot like me. It's relatively easy and comfortable.


I'm not exactly like this. My default protagonists aren't usually carbon clones of the _real _me. Instead they tend to fall into two categories:

1. Big strong white guys, preferably with blond hair, blue eyes, and large muscles.

2. Beautiful dark-skinned African ladies.

In real life, I am a white guy with blond hair and blue eyes, but I'm horrifically fat rather than muscular. You could say my male defaults are idealized rather than accurate versions of myself.


----------



## Philip Overby

One thing I'm finding interesting that has come up are "defaults." So different people have mentioned they default to a certain kind of main character. The main question I'd like to ask to those who mentioned this: Is this something you do for every single story your write?

My thought process when I sit down to write is "how can I write a different main character than I wrote in my last story?" I don't usually set out to do one kind of "default" character every time. Being that I'm a straight white male, sometimes my main character happens to be a straight white male. In that instance, I look outside the bounds of race and sexuality sometimes to make my characters different. For example, job, class standing, age, etc.


----------



## Devor

BWFoster78 said:


> My question remains, "why is it important?"



Most of the world has some level of diversity to it.  There are many readers for whom a homogeneous society comes to distract from the writing because it will strike them as unbelievable.

Race and gender are big aspects in people's lives.  They aren't _the_ defining trait for a person, but they certainly influence the way a person is perceived, the way they perceive the world, the relationships that they have developed, and in turn, the way they think and behave.  Leaving these things out makes the world too small to believe.

I recognize that there are stories where the overhead that comes with including some of this diversity may become burdensome.  There are exceptions to everything, and you need to put your story first.  But those situations should be obvious.  Most of the time, I think you should recognize that the reader experience suffers from a lack of diversity.




BWFoster78 said:


> I agree that it's certainly possible for me to make anything relevant.  If it were, for some reason, important to include a pink clown in my story, I could make it work.



So what's the problem?


----------



## BWFoster78

> That's been your approach to the entire thread, hasn't it?



This entire thread, I've perceived that people are saying, "Diversity is good" without explaining why.  I've explained problems I see with it and asked for an explanation.  I see that as the opposite of dismissive.

You don't say, "Brian, please explain why you think this is so."  You don't even seem to listen as I try to explain.  Instead, you dismiss my answers as "rationalizations."



> As for "prejudice," I'm talking about your statement that including a diverse element is necessarily weakening or detracting from the story, without having seen the actual story. I don't think you can make that determination without actually reading any given implementation of it to see if it works. That position is, by definition, prejudicial. You're making a determination prior to having seen the thing.



You and I both know that, given this subject matter, "predudice" is a loaded word.

Again, you seem to have no idea what I'm talking about as far as what tight writing and focus means. 



> merely that you're judging a work as weak or having random elements merely because of an idea, without having seen the actual work.



I'll try to explain again, but I get the feeling that you have no real desire to understand what I'm trying to say...

Early in Cars 2, Tow Mater encounters a lemon that needs to be towed.  It's a humorous scene, and the introduction of the character of the lemon appears to be quite random.  Turns out, the entire plot of the movie revolved around cars who are lemons trying to gain power in the world.

It's that kind of focus that I consider to be tremendous writing.  If I'm going to introduce an element, that element should impact the plot.  

You seem to feel that my fantasy world should mirror the real world.  The real world has gay people and therefore my fantasy world should have gay people.  I disagree.  I think I should only add elements from the real world into my fantasy world if there is a story reason to have them.

It's a philosophy that I think works for me.

I thought you were the champion for writers finding their own way...


----------



## BWFoster78

Phil the Drill said:


> One thing I'm finding interesting that has come up are "defaults." So different people have mentioned they default to a certain kind of main character. The main question I'd like to ask to those who mentioned this: Is this something you do for every single story your write?
> 
> My thought process when I sit down to write is "how can I write a different main character than I wrote in my last story?" I don't usually set out to do one kind of "default" character every time. Being that I'm a straight white male, sometimes my main character happens to be a straight white male. In that instance, I look outside the bounds of race and sexuality sometimes to make my characters different. For example, job, class standing, age, etc.



My typical default is high school me - geeky and insecure around girls.  I love writing about that guy winning the girl.

I also like writing female characters that are both sweet and tough.

As I get better at writing, I find myself getting more and more in the head of characters who don't resemble either archtype.


----------



## Steerpike

BWFoster78 said:


> You seem to feel that my fantasy world should mirror the real world.  The real world has gay people and therefore my fantasy world should have gay people.  I disagree.  I think I should only add elements from the real world into my fantasy world if there is a story reason to have them.
> 
> It's a philosophy that I think works for me.
> 
> I thought you were the champion for writers finding their own way...



You're intentionally misreading my posts to bolster your arguments. It's dishonest.

I'll direct you back here: http://mythicscribes.com/forums/wri...arch-equality-pretty-messy-18.html#post146632


----------



## Devor

Phil the Drill said:


> One thing I'm finding interesting that has come up are "defaults." So different people have mentioned they default to a certain kind of main character. The main question I'd like to ask to those who mentioned this: Is this something you do for every single story your write?



In the past when people talk about defaults, they're not talking about the protagonist or the society.  They're talking about the innkeepers, the beggars, the soldiers, and other secondary or tertiary characters.  Your MCs aren't a default but a conscious choice which reflects the kind of story you want to write.  If someone wants to write about an MC that's somewhat like themselves, then who's to complain about that?  But there's no reason that the vast majority of characters in a novel should follow that same pattern.


----------



## Mindfire

glutton said:


> I'm a physically weak straight Asian male who defaults to a straight white female with vastly immense physical might. XD



I did say "most".


----------



## BWFoster78

> There are many readers for whom a homogeneous society comes to distract from the writing because it will strike them as unbelievable.



Sorry, but I think this is total bunk.

If the reader doesn't find the world you created believable, it's because you didn't do a good enough job writing it.

When I read Watership Down, I believed in the world the rabbits lived in because the writer did a great job making the world real.  Would it have somehow been more believable if he had mixed in some squirrels and hedgehogs?

A flyspeck village portrayed as being insular and far away from the center of an empire would be less believable if tons of races lived there.



> Most of the time, I think you should recognize that the reader experience suffers from a lack of diversity.



Again, I see the statement that "it's better," but I don't see the reasoning.



> So what's the problem?



Because there is no compelling reason to try to incorporate the pink clown.  I'm not into trying to insert random elements.  Why should I make my job any harder than it already is?


----------



## Philip Overby

I don't have a problem with it at all of course, but I just wonder why certain people mentioned they're defaults are a certain kind of character. If people have read some of my work, I use hunter types of characters often. They've been different races, sexes, and had different personalities but have the same job in common: hunter. Something about monster hunters, bounty hunters and the like appeals to me. So I guess for me, this is the kind of character I like writing about at the moment. So yeah, definitely I don't begrudge anyone their choice for MC, it makes sense to me.


----------



## BWFoster78

Steerpike said:


> You're intentionally misreading my posts to bolster your arguments. It's dishonest.



I'm "rationalizing" and "prejudice," and I'm the one who is being "dishonest?"

I'm trying to explain my point of view.  I'm getting nothing from you but criticism of my arguments.

Perhaps it would help if you tried to explain what, exactly, am I being dishonest about?


----------



## Devor

BWFoster78 said:


> Sorry, but I think this is total bunk.
> 
> If the reader doesn't find the world you created believable, it's because you didn't do a good enough job writing it.
> 
> When I read Watership Down, I believed in the world the rabbits lived in because the writer did a great job making the world real.  Would it have somehow been more believable if he had mixed in some squirrels and hedgehogs?
> 
> A flyspeck village portrayed as being insular and far away from the center of an empire would be less believable if tons of races lived there.



First, looking at extreme examples doesn't prove a point when we're talking about "most stories" and audience trends.  If I've already said that some stories don't require diversity, then pointing to the "flyspeck village" and a story about bunny rabbits doesn't serve to make any kind of point at all.

Second, I absolutely agree that if a world is unbelievable then you didn't do a good job with it.  But I've been arguing that accounting for diversity is part of what it takes to do a good job with it.  You've been saying that if your world is diverse, there should be a reason for that.  I agree with you one hundred percent.  But I also think if your world is not diverse, there should be a reason for that, too.  It's such a fundamental piece of reality that simply leaving this aspect of your world unaccounted for is unbelievable.


----------



## Shasjas

As far as I can see BWFoster is saying that there should be a reason to mention these things. there is no reason in saying "oh this character is gay", unless that actually plays a part. Its the same as not saying that a certain charcter is straight. There is no reason to mention a characters sexuality at all unless the story requires it. That doesn't mean that there are no gay people in the world, just that its not an important feature of the story. 
The same with race. You don't need to mention skin colour at all. Appearances can be left for the reader to imagine. Unless it serves a purpose.


----------



## Svrtnsse

Phil the Drill said:


> I don't have a problem with it at all of course, but I just wonder why certain people mentioned they're defaults are a certain kind of character.



I think it comes back to "you write what you know". I'm a straight white male and my main character is for all intents and purposes a straight white male - heavily influenced by my own personality (for better and for worse).

I've written other characters; men and women, elves and humans. What they so far all have in common is that I all find them appealing in some way. They're all characters that I wouldn't mind being if I was somehow mysteriously reborn in a fantasy world. I've not yet attempted to create a character in order to explore other options - perhaps I will, perhaps I won't.

I probably wouldn't write a gay pov character. Not because I have issues with homosexuality, but because I'm not confident I would be able to pull it off believably. Then again, I guess I could, if I chose not to focus too much on it and just treat them like any other person.

I guess what I'm doing is I'm writing characters that I can relate to and that I find fascinating, impressive or likable.


----------



## BWFoster78

> But I also think if your world is not diverse, there should be a reason for that, too. It's such a fundamental piece of reality that simply leaving this aspect of your world unaccounted for is unbelievable.



You're probably think I'm choosing "extreme" examples again, but where does this concept stop?  If diversity is an integral part of life, what about love?  Should, then, every story include love unless you have a valid reason not to?

What about death?  Who hasn't experienced the death of someone in their life?  isn't that "a fundamental piece of reality?"  Should, then, every story include the death of a loved one unless there is a valid reason not to.

Again, I'm not trying to choose extreme examples, but I really find your reasoning flawed here.  You're saying, in essence, that diversity possesses special traits that make it something that has to be included.  I reject that assumption.

You story should include what is needed for your story.  If diversity is needed, include it.  If not, don't.


----------



## Mindfire

Phil the Drill said:


> One thing I'm finding interesting that has come up are "defaults." So different people have mentioned they default to a certain kind of main character. The main question I'd like to ask to those who mentioned this: Is this something you do for every single story your write?



In hindsight, I'd say yes. The personalities of my main characters differ, but their demographic traits remain fairly constant. Reuben is an aggressive, vengeful loose cannon who sees the world in black and white. Sevan is a kind, gentle contemplative who hates violence. Manasseh is a by-the-book law enforcer who uses justice as a substitute for empathy. Blackburn is a cocky jokester whose jesting nature belies extreme competence.  But all of them are straight black males. Perhaps they're all exaggerations of different parts of my personality.


----------



## Philip Overby

> I think it comes back to "you write what you know". I'm a straight white male and my main character is for all intents and purposes a straight white male - heavily influenced by my own personality (for better and for worse).
> 
> I've written other characters; men and women, elves and humans. What they so far all have in common is that I all find them appealing in some way. They're all characters that I wouldn't mind being if I was somehow mysteriously reborn in a fantasy world. I've not yet attempted to create a character in order to explore other options - perhaps I will, perhaps I won't.
> 
> I probably wouldn't write a gay pov character. Not because I have issues with homosexuality, but because I'm not confident I would be able to pull it off believably. Then again, I guess I could, if I chose not to focus too much on it and just treat them like any other person.
> 
> I guess what I'm doing is I'm writing characters that I can relate to and that I find fascinating, impressive or likable.



That makes sense. I'm writing a female lead in my current novel and there are times when I think, "Am I writing her in a believable way?" However, I've decided that she is the best character for my story. So I've decided to stay committed to my choice and just hope it turns out for the best. 

Fantasy is one of those things that allows us to step into the skin of other characters and see what it feels like. I'm not an elf, but I'm pretty sure I could write one. That's one thing that is great about writing. You can explore stories of people who are nothing like you who may have lived in times different than your own.

That's one challenge I appreciate in writing myself. Immersing myself in different characters and watching  them play off each other is very interesting for me.. If all my characters were like myself in some way, then I may be bored with my own writing. That's one reason I like to vary the type of characters when I can.



> In hindsight, I'd say yes. The personalities of my main characters differ, but their demographic traits remain fairly constant. Reuben is an aggressive, vengeful loose cannon who sees the world in black and white. Sevan is a kind, gentle contemplative who hates violence. Manasseh is a by-the-book law enforcer who uses justice as a substitute for empathy. Blackburn is a cocky jokester whose jesting nature belies extreme competence. But all of them are straight black males. Perhaps they're all exaggerations of different parts of my personality.



It sounds like each of your characters are wildly different, so for me it doesn't feel like a default. If each of your characters was like a carbon copy of Reuben for example, it may feel like a default type of main character. 

I think I found out something about myself in that even though I change the races and sexes of my character, many of them are actually quite similar in that they're hunters. So my diversity issue may result from not enough variation of character background. For my current story, having multiple hunters works, but perhaps for future stories I'm going to try characters from different backgrounds.

I'm actually finding this part of the discussion rather enlightening.


----------



## Mindfire

BWFoster78 said:


> You're probably think I'm choosing "extreme" examples again, but where does this concept stop?  If diversity is an integral part of life, what about love?  Should, then, every story include love unless you have a valid reason not to?
> 
> What about death?  Who hasn't experienced the death of someone in their life?  isn't that "a fundamental piece of reality?"  Should, then, every story include the death of a loved one unless there is a valid reason not to.



Warning: slippery slope argument ahead.


----------



## BWFoster78

Mindfire said:


> Warning: slippery slope argument ahead.



Sorry, I don't quite understand what you mean?


----------



## glutton

Mindfire said:


> I did say "most".



Maybe it's because my weak, straight male self secretly (or not so secretly) wants to be protected by a female 'Indestructible Hulk'.


----------



## Svrtnsse

Phil the Drill said:


> That's one challenge I appreciate in writing myself. Immersing myself in different characters and watching  them play off each other is very interesting for me.. If all my characters were like myself in some way, then I may be bored with my own writing. That's one reason I like to vary the type of characters when I can.



That's the next level. Once I've explored my comfort zone as best I can I'll step it up a bit and widen it to try and include other, new things.


----------



## Ankari

This has been an interesting development in this discussion.

I think that this discussion has stepped away from intellectual debate and has become an exchange of passions. Why wouldn't you have a diversity of race? Because your story is taking place in a limited setting. You can't argue that this parallel doesn't exist in Earth's past. If I wrote a story set in Sweden around 100 AD, it wouldn't have a very diverse cast.

Because you're not confident in accurately portraying the nuances of another race/gender/sexual orientation. Before you argue this point, please interchange the subject with something that is not so "hot topic." If I had used ninjas instead, would you have the same reaction? Would it be the "write what you know" advice?

Because you're not a worldbuilder. To introduce a race for the sake of having a race (please understand you could interchange that with gender orientation, class, etc), and not make that race feel dynamic, real, is a disservice. Does everyone really think an Arab American is the same as a Brazilian American (assuming the urban fantasy is set in America). Do you really think all Arab-Americans identify with each other? Did you know there were Muslim, Christian, Jewish, North African, Saudi (and surrounding countries), Iraqi (they have their own subculture), and Land of the Sun (which compromises Syria, Palestine, Lebonon, and Jordan)? Are you prepared to honor the difference? Are you confident that you have such a mastery of these cultures, you'd accurately represent them?

And if you said no, and didn't include them, do Arab Americans have a legitimate right to feel marginalized? Why did you pick the Chinese American character instead? Should the Arab American be glad that you used the Chinese American? That you at least represented a minority race?

Happily, I am a worldbuillder. I do have various races. I do have whites and blacks. But I haven't written a black character yet. Why? Because the continent I'm using doesn't have black people in it. There will be a time when I'll use other continents, but my world is isolated much like pre-Columbus Earth. When the age of discovery happens, bam.


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## Feo Takahari

Wow, this exploded. I can't keep up with it all, but I just want to bring up one thing:

Filigree.

One of the most popular tools for creating a fantasy world that feels fantastical is to add fantastical details. They don't have to be details that directly advance the story, because creating a vibrant world is story purpose enough. Look at _Abarat_--you're got the half-fish woman who wishes she could breathe underwater, the bizarre blood-sport variant of baseball, the scars on the villain's lips where his mother once sewed his mouth shut . . . You could cut it all for a tighter book, but I don't think it would be a better book.

But let's set that aside. Suppose you want a tight, carefully driven story. If I may toot my own horn, I was once told I wrote what felt like a novel in less than five thousand words. But one of the biggest complaints that story got was that there just wasn't enough detail. My latest work is about seventeen thousand words, and I use those words to mention things--that the self-proclaimed superhero wears purple tights and a domino mask, that the magical girl has curly blond hair, and yes, that the werewolf, in his human form, is mixed race. Some of those are important. Some aren't. But they make the world feel bigger and more real.* 

I don't care how tight your writing is. At some point, you'll need to make your world feel like more than just actors on a painted set. One of the key elements of that is your actors--which one has an eyepatch, which one is bizarrely well-read about advanced physics, and, maybe, which one moons over men more muscular than himself. If you don't want to use that last one, fine, but don't say you're not using description at all, because seriously, how could you not?

*This post would feel incomplete if I didn't mention that there are things I can _say_ with those details. Much of my story is about people being wrong about what they think they are, but the magical girl is biologically male, and I consistently treat her as a real girl, not as some kind of fraud or fake. She's my counterbalance, and part of the key to my message. Still, that's not something you _need_ to do, not in the same way you need to have details.

Edit: 10 more posts while I was writing this? I have no idea how to keep up.


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## BWFoster78

> You could cut it all for a tighter book, but I don't think it would be a better book.



We disagree on this point.  I'm not asking you to share my view, though, as much as I'm asking you to accept it as valid.



> But one of the biggest complaints that story got was that there just wasn't enough detail.



I think you misunderstand "tight" (my understanding of it, anyway) if you feel that being tight is synonymous with lack of detail.



> I don't care how tight your writing is. At some point, you'll need to make your world feel like more than just actors on a painted set.



I agree completely.  You should be inside your character's heads and make their reactions real.  I think we just disagree on what is necessary to achieve this goal.


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## Devor

> Again, I'm not trying to choose extreme examples, but I really find your reasoning flawed here.  You're saying, in essence, that diversity possesses special traits that make it something that has to be included.  I reject that assumption.
> 
> You story should include what is needed for your story.  If diversity is needed, include it.  If not, don't.



I did switch to "accounted for," and I'm repeating it for the sake of added clarity.  I think the level of diversity needs to be accounted for, whether high or low, it's an element at play in the development of your world.

I think a low level of diversity can be as much of a distraction and have as much an impact on readers as a high level of diversity does.  It constitutes an observable trend as a part of your world.




BWFoster78 said:


> You're probably think I'm choosing "extreme" examples again, but where does this concept stop?  If diversity is an integral part of life, what about love?  Should, then, every story include love unless you have a valid reason not to?
> 
> What about death?  Who hasn't experienced the death of someone in their life?  isn't that "a fundamental piece of reality?"  Should, then, every story include the death of a loved one unless there is a valid reason not to.



You've named two examples with very different qualities.  Love and death are factors in a character arc, and you only see the full perspectives of a handful of characters.  Diversity is an element of your setting, which is going to be a key factor underlying the entirety of your story.  On top of that, death at least is an event, and so is love, depending on how you're using the word.  I think it's a false comparison.

However, my answer is that love and death are major factors in a person's life, and ignoring the way these two elements may have helped to shape your characters over time would be a mistake.


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## Svrtnsse

Ankari said:


> Because you're not confident in accurately portraying the nuances of another race/gender/sexual orientation. Before you argue this point, please interchange the subject with something that is not so "hot topic." If I had used ninjas instead, would you have the same reaction? Would it be the "write what you know" advice?



Honestly, at this stage, I probably wouldn't.
I'd happily write a mercenary ninja-paladin who shoots exploding bunnies out of his noose, but I wouldn't write a gay mercenary ninja-paladin who shoots exploding bunnies out of his noose. 
Why? 
Insecurities. It is something of a hot topic and while I don't really care about getting the social implications of having such a big noose right, I do care about getting the social implications of being a homosexual right. 

Why?
I think it's in some way about self image. I like to think of myself as an open-minded guy who don't have any issues with homosexuality (or big nooses). I'd worry how it would reflect on me if I wrote a gay character and got it all wrong. I want to write "real" things and I want to avoid contributing to stereotyping. 
I think I could probably do it, but at this stage I'm not experienced or confident enough in my abilities to make a serious attempt. I may get there at some point and I'll give it a go, or I might keep pushing it away and hiding behind my insecurities until the day my pen stops moving. We'll see how it goes.


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## Feo Takahari

BWFoster78 said:


> I think you misunderstand "tight" (my understanding of it, anyway) if you feel that being tight is synonymous with lack of detail.



So tightness means you can't have a gay person in your story, but you can have . . . actually, what can you have? Can you explain in more detail what you mean by tightness, then? (It doesn't seem like anyone else understands, either.)


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## Philip Overby

> But one of the biggest complaints that story got was that there just wasn't enough detail. My latest work is about seventeen thousand words, and I use those words to mention things--that the self-proclaimed superhero wears purple tights and a domino mask, that the magical girl has curly blond hair, and yes, that the werewolf, in his human form, is mixed race. Some of those are important. Some aren't. But they make the world feel bigger and more real.*
> 
> I don't care how tight your writing is. At some point, you'll need to make your world feel like more than just actors on a painted set. One of the key elements of that is your actors--which one has an eyepatch, which one is bizarrely well-read about advanced physics, and, maybe, which one moons over men more muscular than himself. If you don't want to use that last one, fine, but don't say you're not using description at all, because seriously, how could you not?
> 
> *This post would feel incomplete if I didn't mention that there are things I can say with those details. Much of my story is about people being wrong about what they think they are, but the magical girl is biologically male, and I consistently treat her as a real girl, not as some kind of fraud or fake. She's my counterbalance, and part of the key to my message. Still, that's not something you need to do, not in the same way you need to have details.



By mentioning these things, you've already garnered my interest in this story. Why? Because it sounds like something I've never read before. Those small details mean a lot, more than I think some people realize. If you were writing a blurb for this story, it would already catch my attention more than "a group of heroes go on a quest to stop the dark lord." I've read that book already. Several times. The minor details you mention in _Abarat _ also make me interested in checking out that book. 

I don't know, for me diversity of cast and setting=a different reading experience, if that makes sense? While I'll probably read another heroes go on a quest to stop the dark lord story (maybe several), I'm more selective of the ones that I will read from now on. However, if I'm presented with something that flies in the face of most genre conventions, I may be more attracted to pick that book up.


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## Svrtnsse

Feo Takahari said:


> So tightness means you can't have a gay person in your story, but you can have . . . actually, what can you have? Can you explain in more detail what you mean by tightness, then? (It doesn't seem like anyone else understands, either.)



In this thread: http://mythicscribes.com/forums/writing-questions/10285-voice-how-how-much.html#post143390
Devor asked:


> How do you define tight?


The thread went on to thirteen pages. Some good definitions were suggested though. It's something of a big topic.


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## glutton

I define tight writing as not having a lot of irrelevant details or repeating things over and over again unnecessarily.

Eg. The main character being mentioned to be gay and black (even for 'no reason') wouldn't make a story non-tight.

A 5-paragraph description of pottery in somebody's house and the processes that go into making it, when said pottery doesn't affect anything else in the story, would make the writing non-tight.

Seeing the latter would make me want to skim every other description I notice in the book starting from that point on.


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## BWFoster78

> I think a low level of diversity can be as much of a distraction and have as much an impact on readers as a high level of diversity does. It constitutes an observable trend as a part of your world.



But as far as your characters are concerned, it is what it is.  If they don't know diversity, they wouldn't notice the lack, and, therefore, it would make no sense to note the lack.

I write from the POV of my character.  I try to note only what they would note.  I think that makes the world real.



> Diversity is an element of your setting, which is going to be a key factor underlying the entirety of your story.



What about the weather?  It's an integral part of your setting.  Does it have to be included?

Some on this forum would say that it makes the world more "real" if you show the characters, for example, bundling up.  I say, unless the cold has something to do with the story or you can use a reaction to the weather to reveal something about the character, there is nothing more useless than randomly mentioning the weather.  In fact, I'd rather you not mention weather at all than to utilize it poorly, and weather, imo, is a much more fundamental part of the setting than diversity is.

What about money?  That's a fundamental portion of the world, much more important than diversity in informing everything that happens for most societies.  Would I blink if a story didn't mention money at all?  Absolutely not.  If the author didn't care about the economic system and didn't write about it, I'd never notice the lack if he wrote through the eyes of a character who realistically didn't notice such.

The point is that I completely reject your assertation that a writer has to account for diversity or anything else to make a world real.  To make my world real, I try to show it as real through the eyes of my characters.  If it's real to them, it should be real to the reader no matter what is included or left out.

To say any element simply has to be accounted for is, in my eyes, wrongheaded.

I'm not even sure that there is any element that makes things easier to make things real.  If a character is born and raised in Hawaii, does he notice how beautiful the weather is?  Not really; that's just the way it's always been - less than a 20deg difference between summer and winter.  It would make things less real if he were to think, "Wow, it's a nice day that's the same as every other day."


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## Mindfire

BWFoster78 said:


> Sorry, I don't quite understand what you mean?



The post of yours that I was responding to looked like a slippery slope argument. Slippery slope arguments typically go something like, "if we allow/do X, then Y will happen. And if Y happens, then Z will happen! And if Z happens, we'll run out of letters! Where does the madness end?!"


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## Feo Takahari

BWFoster78 said:


> The point is that I completely reject your assertation that a writer has to account for diversity or anything else to make a world real.  To make my world real, I try to show it as real through the eyes of my characters.  If it's real to them, it should be real to the reader no matter what is included or left out.



So what _do_ you show in terms of details? I'm still not sure I get it.

Actually, have you ever posted anything in the Showcase that you think displays how you use details?


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## BWFoster78

Feo Takahari said:


> So tightness means you can't have a gay person in your story, but you can have . . . actually, what can you have? Can you explain in more detail what you mean by tightness, then? (It doesn't seem like anyone else understands, either.)



Tightness means that everything you have in a story serves the story.

You can have all the gay people you want as long as the story requires gay people.  Maybe a hypothetical...

You meet Joe and follow him in his life.  Things happen.  Action.  Conflict.  Suspense.  Along the way, you throw in that he's gay.

At the end of the story, you realize, "Wow, I never did anything with the whole gay thing.  He doesn't have a crush on a guy.  There was no conflict with anyone over it.  It really didn't inform anything about who he was."

I would evaluate the whole part about him being gay as extraneous and delete it.  If you can take something out and it not change the story, then get rid of it.  That's what "tight" means to me.

If, on the other hand, you use his being gay as part of the story, then it's fine.  He could have a conflict with his mom who fears never having grandkids.  He can have a crush on a guy and there can be a question as to whether that other character is gay.  Lots of possibilities for tension there.

Let's go back to the beginning.  Here's the way that I recall this getting started:

1. Someone said, "Just throw diverse characters into your story.  It doesn't harm anything."
2. I made the point, "Yes, it does."
3. I've been trying to explain myself ever since.


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## Devor

BWFoster78 said:


> The point is that I completely reject your assertation that a writer has to account for diversity or anything else to make a world real.  To make my world real, I try to show it as real through the eyes of my characters.  If it's real to them, it should be real to the reader no matter what is included or left out.



You have picked up the word "accounted" but don't seem to see how it's different.

Your world _already has_ a level of diversity.  High or low.  It is already an element of your story.  White-white-white affects the readers just as much as white-black-hispanic.  This means that no matter what your level of diversity is, it's a factor that needs to be accounted for.  And a low level of diversity, if it's not properly accounted for, is just as much a distraction as a higher level.  Given the realty of the world it's just as unbelievable.


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## Feo Takahari

BWFoster78 said:


> If you can take something out and it not change the story, then get rid of it.  That's what "tight" means to me.



But I _tried_ that. I wrote stories where I took out everything that didn't change the story, and over and over, I was told that my stories lacked detail. That they lacked grounding. That it didn't feel like I was creating a complete world. It wasn't until I started adding things just to give a sense of the world that people started to like my worldbuilding.


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## glutton

BWFoster78 said:


> Tightness means that everything you have in a story serves the story.
> 
> You can have all the gay people you want as long as the story requires gay people.  Maybe a hypothetical...
> 
> You meet Joe and follow him in his life.  Things happen.  Action.  Conflict.  Suspense.  Along the way, you throw in that he's gay.
> 
> At the end of the story, you realize, "Wow, I never did anything with the whole gay thing.  He doesn't have a crush on a guy.  There was no conflict with anyone over it.  It really didn't inform anything about who he was."
> 
> I would evaluate the whole part about him being gay as extraneous and delete it.  If you can take something out and it not change the story, then get rid of it.  That's what "tight" means to me.
> 
> If, on the other hand, you use his being gay as part of the story, then it's fine.  He could have a conflict with his mom who fears never having grandkids.  He can have a crush on a guy and there can be a question as to whether that other character is gay.  Lots of possibilities for tension there.
> 
> Let's go back to the beginning.  Here's the way that I recall this getting started:
> 
> 1. Someone said, "Just throw diverse characters into your story.  It doesn't harm anything."
> 2. I made the point, "Yes, it does."
> 3. I've been trying to explain myself ever since.



Just wondering... would you have the same qualms about mentioning in passing that a character, say, has long hair, as opposed to them being gay?


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## Devor

glutton said:


> Just wondering... would you have the same qualms about mentioning in passing that a character, say, has long hair, as opposed to them being gay?



I don't think the sex, race and orientation are really equivalent.  Knowing that a person is gay isn't anything like noticing that they have long hair, or is a woman, or is black.  So it's at least somewhat different.


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## Steerpike

Devor said:


> I don't think the sex, race and orientation are really equivalent.  Knowing that a person is gay isn't anything like noticing that they have long hair.



At the same time you don't have to make a production out of these characteristics. For the black character in my book, for example, apart from the initial mention, there's really no impact on the story. His race isn't a theme of the story. There are no subplots revolving around it. You could do the same thing with a gay character. To some extent, the idea that if you include a gay character or a black character that character somehow has to exist as social commentary is an indicator that we're not where we need to be in the genre.


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## Svrtnsse

BWFoster78 said:


> The point is that I completely reject your assertation that a writer has to account for diversity or anything else to make a world real.  To make my world real, I try to show it as real through the eyes of my characters.  If it's real to them, it should be real to the reader no matter what is included or left out.



As the writer you're telling the reader what they need to pay attention to. I'm quite confident you can create a real and believable world without ever getting even close to topics like ethnicity or sexuality - or any other topic you don't feel like including. You just have to have a character that doesn't care for it, doesn't pay attention to it or have better things to focus on ("Why do stupid Laser-Ninja-Dragons of Doom always come for me?"). 
So yes, you don't have to have a diversity to create a believable world.

But, I think that the larger the world is and the more your character sees of it the more important diversity becomes. If your character travels to strange lands one way of showing this is by letting him notice the differences between his starting point and his endpoint. You could probably avoid it by showing more of his arduous journey and the struggles he goes through, but would that really be relevant to the story if the main point is he's getting to somewhere else?

If, like someone mentioned earlier, you have a story taking place in just a small village, then it's fine if everyone is pretty much the same (except maybe the village fool who's a bit weird, and the blacksmith who's really strong, and the witch who's really scary and old man flemming who's very wise). If you're writing a vast epic taking place over entire continents, you'll have an easier time communicating the scale and scope if you're showing people and places as different in different locations.

Again, obvious exceptions apply (interpret that as you feel like).


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## Svrtnsse

BWFoster78 said:


> At the end of the story, you realize, "Wow, I never did anything with the whole gay thing.  He doesn't have a crush on a guy.  There was no conflict with anyone over it.  It really didn't inform anything about who he was."
> 
> I would evaluate the whole part about him being gay as extraneous and delete it.  If you can take something out and it not change the story, then get rid of it.  That's what "tight" means to me.



Or you could leave it in as a statement along the lines of "okay, he's gay, so what, big deal"

To pull an extreme example - you wouldn't change a straight guy to a gay one because he doesn't get involved with any female in the story.
I can see where you're coming from though. If sexuality isn't important to the story, why bother with it?


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## Philip Overby

> At the same time you don't have to make a production out of these characteristics. For the black character in my book, for example, apart from the initial mention, there's really no impact on the story. His race isn't a theme of the story. There are no subplots revolving around it. You could do the same thing with a gay character. To some extent, the idea that if you include a gay character or a black character that character somehow has to exist as social commentary is an indicator that we're not where we need to be in the genre.



I look at something like the movie version of _I Am Legend._ Will Smith is black, but that never plays into the movie in any way. In _True Blood_ Lafayette is gay, but that doesn't really come into play in a romantic way until much later. I think what Steerpike is suggesting is that there doesn't always have to be some deeper meaning why a character is a certain race, gender, sexuality, religion, whatever. Sometimes just those extra details, as Feo mentioned, make the worlds seem more real and representative. Yes, we're reading/writing fantasy and yes, you can create whatever you want. But humans are reading these books. Humans from our world who may appreciate those extra details to distinguish characters. 

If I'm to believe that every single character is white, straight, whatever in a story, it may feel like something is missing in some way. Maybe I won't notice it, but maybe I will. I guess it really depends on how good a writer is.

In A Song of Ice and Fire, the cast is primarily white, Anglo-Saxon kind of characters. However, without the other races that appear in the novel, the world might feel a little less interesting.


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## glutton

Svrtnsse said:


> If you're writing a vast epic taking place over entire continents, you'll have an easier time communicating the scale and scope if you're showing people and places as different in different locations.
> 
> Again, obvious exceptions apply (interpret that as you feel like).



Continent 1 - The people of my homeland are weak, pale, scared of me. Though I was born here, I sometimes wonder if I would have been better off being born elsewhere.

Continent 2 - The people of this land are dark and fierce to the untrained eye, but I find that their coloration has nothing to do with what they are inside. Like the weak white people of my land, they fear and withdraw from me.

Continent 3 - The people of this land are small and yellow, but I see no difference in their true nature from other humans. Like the weak white and black people of other lands, they fear and withdraw from me.

Continent 4 - The red people of this land are incredibly tall and gaunt, but I see no difference in their true nature from other humans. Like the weak white, black, and yellow people of other lands, they fear and withdraw from me.

Planet 2 - The aliens of this world are green and have no gender, but I see no difference in their true nature from humans. Like the weak white, black, yellow, and red people of my own world, they fear and withdraw from me.

That's equality.

Sorry but I couldn't resist the temptation, XD.


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## Shasjas

Svrtnsse said:


> Or you could leave it in as a statement along the lines of "okay, he's gay, so what, big deal"
> 
> To pull an extreme example - you wouldn't change a straight guy to a gay one because he doesn't get involved with any female in the story.
> I can see where you're coming from though. If sexuality isn't important to the story, why bother with it?



"you wouldn't change a straight guy to a gay one because he doesn't get involved with any female in the story."
neither would you explicitly say that he is straight. His sexual orientation would not be mentioned at all.


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## Svrtnsse

Shasjas said:


> "you wouldn't change a straight guy to a gay one because he doesn't get involved with any female in the story."
> neither would you explicitly say that he is straight. His sexual orientation would not be mentioned at all.



Indeed, it's a bit of a contrived example. 


On the other hand, maybe that's a good enough reason to do it. "Everyone" "always" assumes a character is straight unless it's specifically mentioned they're not. 

Is this a good time to bring up Dumbledore?


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## BWFoster78

> Diversity is an element of your setting, which is going to be a key factor underlying the entirety of your story.



At this point, we're just going to have to disagree on this issue.  I see what you're saying, but I disagree with the fundamental theory that diversity is so important that its lack makes the world unreal.


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## BWFoster78

Feo Takahari said:


> But I _tried_ that. I wrote stories where I took out everything that didn't change the story, and over and over, I was told that my stories lacked detail. That they lacked grounding. That it didn't feel like I was creating a complete world. It wasn't until I started adding things just to give a sense of the world that people started to like my worldbuilding.



I think each of us has to find his own path to an extent.

For me, what made my writing come alive is tension and really seeing through the character's eyes.  I don't think I ever had a real problem adding too little detail.

The trick for me, I think, is a good understanding of what I want to convey.  Once I know the what, it's a lot easier to understand the how.  And, it's easier to say, "Hey, that element doesn't lead me where I want to go."


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## BWFoster78

glutton said:


> Just wondering... would you have the same qualms about mentioning in passing that a character, say, has long hair, as opposed to them being gay?



This is a good point.

If everyone in society has long hair or it's expected that someone of the character's station has long hair, the fact that he has long hair has no significance.  Giving him long hair doesn't really matter in the least in that instance.  I'd say it's the same thing: unless you have a story reason for giving him long hair, I prefer to leave mention of such off.

Note that a good story reason, in this case, could be as an identifier.  If he's the only one with long hair, it makes it easy for others to refer to him and have the reader understand who he is.

On the balance, though, I try to avoid unnecessary details.


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## Philip Overby

> I'd say it's the same thing: unless you have a story reason for giving him long hair, I prefer to leave mention of such off.



That seems rather strange. So you wouldn't mention if a character had long hair unless there's a story reason for it? That's an...odd choice. While I'm not an advocate of super-detailed character descriptions, small things will help a reader identify with a character in some ways. Your physical appearance can mean as much as your personality can. Especially if your physical appearance greatly differs.

For example, if I have a homeless man in my story with long, dirty hair and a beard, you may think of him a certain way. However, if when he talks he has a highborn accent and was actually a dragon slayer before he lost his family trying to defend them, you get a new layer of his character. 

In this case, physical details are pretty important. Do I think you need to describe in detail every single character? No. But if you want a character to be memorable and not just some floating head, then giving some kind of description doesn't always have to mean something to the story. It just adds a little flavor that might not otherwise been there.

But then you say this:



> Note that a good story reason, in this case, could be as an identifier. If he's the only one with long hair, it makes it easy for others to refer to him and have the reader understand who he is.



So I guess you do agree with what I wrote. Maybe?


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## Devor

Steerpike said:


> At the same time you don't have to make a production out of these characteristics. For the black character in my book, for example, apart from the initial mention, there's really no impact on the story. His race isn't a theme of the story. There are no subplots revolving around it. You could do the same thing with a gay character. To some extent, the idea that if you include a gay character or a black character that character somehow has to exist as social commentary is an indicator that we're not where we need to be in the genre.



I made an edit to my comment which you seem to have missed.  It's probably not significant.

I haven't advocated that everything needs to be a social commentary or anything like it.  But these are major pieces of a person's life.  I think that if your story develops your characters over time, it would be strange to think that their race or gender wouldn't influence the character's development or have a significant impact on the story.


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## Shasjas

Svrtnsse said:


> Indeed, it's a bit of a contrived example.
> 
> 
> On the other hand, maybe that's a good enough reason to do it. "Everyone" "always" assumes a character is straight unless it's specifically mentioned they're not.
> 
> Is this a good time to bring up Dumbledore?



But that isn't that "everyone" else's problem and not the writer then?


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## Mindfire

Svrtnsse said:


> On the other hand, maybe that's a good enough reason to do it. "Everyone" "always" assumes a character is straight unless it's specifically mentioned they're not.



There's a vast body of fanfiction that begs to differ. *shiver*


----------



## Steerpike

Devor said:


> I think that if your story develops your characters over time, it would be strange to think that their race or gender wouldn't influence the character's development or have a significant impact on the story.



I don't think that's necessarily true. These are fantasy worlds, after all. It could be that a human being's race is a non-issue. This may be particularly true if there are a number of non-human races in the world, where any group of humans is more like the next than they are the other 'races.' 

In Steven Erikson's books, Quick Ben is black. That doesn't have a defining impact on him as a character. The novels, in fact, are quite racially diverse.


----------



## Svrtnsse

Shasjas said:


> But that isn't that "everyone" else's problem and not the writer then?



Maybe, maybe not. I guess it all depends on what you do or don't do about it as a writer, and for what reasons.


----------



## Svrtnsse

Mindfire said:


> There's a vast body of fanfiction that begs to differ. *shiver*



I put the words in quotation marks for a reason.


----------



## BWFoster78

> In this case, physical details are pretty important.



If they're important, then there's a story reason to relate them.  Does his hair set him apart in some way?  If so, then it makes sense to mention it, but, if I'm going to mention it, I'm going to make sure that the reader, at some point, understands the story relevance of the long hair.

Even better, tie that long hair back into the plot.  Use his physical characteristic in some way to help your story instead of just being a bystander.

Take Rand al'Thor.  His physical characteristics are very important to understanding that he's not from Emond Field and that he's the Dragon Reborn.

I want to make good choices to help my story and world building.  If there's no reason for him to have long hair, it isn't that I won't mention that he has long hair, I'll make him not have long hair.


----------



## glutton

Steerpike said:


> In Steven Erikson's books, Quick Ben is black. That doesn't have a defining impact on him as a character.



You could probably swap in a male character for a fair number of my heroines without much of a fuss...


----------



## Devor

Steerpike said:


> I don't think that's necessarily true. These are fantasy worlds, after all. It could be that a human being's race is a non-issue. This may be particularly true if there are a number of non-human races in the world, where any group of humans is more like the next than they are the other 'races.'



I know that it works well when you have a lot of fantasy races.  That's one of the reasons it's so easily overlooked in video games.  But even in those examples, I'm more than a little conflicted.  If we're going to reduce racial experiences (whatever that means) to a cosmetic difference, then I question whether it reflects a genuine level of diversity.  But that may not matter to many readers.

Still, I reject it as an assumption that can be made about stories in general.  I think in many novels - even most novels - playing around with a character's gender or race will by necessity change the character in a significant way.


----------



## glutton

BWFoster78 said:


> If there's no reason for him to have long hair, it isn't that I won't mention that he has long hair, I'll make him not have long hair.



Is there a reason for him not to have long hair?


----------



## Feo Takahari

This seems to be about more than description, so I'll give an example that sold me on a particular story.



> "It can't be hopeless."
> 
> Two nights ago half a dozen men and I crouched around a campfire, trying to stay warm, and one of them said those words. He'd joined the Legion only three weeks earlier, and started talking to himself after a GhÃ´l's cleaver removed three fingers from his left hand. He squatted there in the dirt, repeating that sentence. If he was looking for reassurance or sympathy, he came up empty-handed, for no one else said a word.
> 
> Tonight I sit by a campfire fifty miles northwest, remembering the way he screamed this morning when four thrall surrounded him, knocked the sword from his good hand, and hacked him to pieces.
> 
> I never got his name.



That extract doesn't further the story and is never mentioned again. Foster, are you saying it's pointless and should have been cut?


----------



## Svrtnsse

Right, serious face is on again...




> If they're important, then there's a story reason to relate them. Does his hair set him apart in some way? If so, then it makes sense to mention it, but, if I'm going to mention it, I'm going to make sure that the reader, at some point, understands the story relevance of the long hair.


To me, the appearance of a character is almost always an important story element. This ties back a little to the thread about first impressions from a while back. As humans we put a lot of stock in the way someone looks. The way we dress and carry ourselves tell the people around us about who we are (for better or for worse). When you first meet someone you base your first impression of them on how they look. 
I believe this can be used to great effect in writing as well. With a short description (one to two sentences) of a character's appearance you can give the reader a fairly accurate impression of who the character is. You play the reader's preconceived notions against them and you save yourself having to show through (potentially irrelevant) actions and events what kind of person a character is.


----------



## Jabrosky

Since a lot of fantasy writers deal with multiple human-like species like elves, dwarves, and orcs, I wonder if having multiple species occupying different parts of a world might affect so-called racial diversity within each species. If each species gets a certain chunk of the world as its native territory, that might restrict the opportunity other species have to expand and adapt to different environments (assuming the competitive exclusion principle from ecology applies).

For example, if you have orcs occupying Europe, dwarves in Asia, and elves in the Middle East, humans might find their population distribution more or less confined to Africa. Ergo, in such a world all the humans would have dark skin since the presence of other species would have limited their opportunity to expand into other parts of the world and adapt to non-African environments. That is unless the humans had some technological or biological advantage that would allow them to out-compete the other species.


----------



## BWFoster78

glutton said:


> Is there a reason for him not to have long hair?



That was kind of my whole point: unless there is a reason for him to have long hair, he won't have long hair.


----------



## glutton

BWFoster78 said:


> That was kind of my whole point: unless there is a reason for him to have long hair, he won't have long hair.



What is the 'reason' for him to have short hair then, because most people of his culture and gender have short hair?


----------



## BWFoster78

Feo Takahari said:


> That extract doesn't further the story and is never mentioned again. Foster, are you saying it's pointless and should have been cut?



That's a really well-written piece.

If you think that doesn't further the story, I think you're mistaken.  It's purpose is to show life in the Legion.  Showing is, in most cases, much more engaging than telling the reader something.  If the author had written, Life in the Legion kinda sucked, you probably wouldn't have liked this story much.  By him so effectively conveying what he wanted to, he drew you into the story.

This isn't something that should be cut; it's something we should all emulate.

I haven't read this story and have no idea how it continues.  I seriously doubt, however, that the character's attitude about his life in the Legion is in any way irrelevant to the story.


----------



## BWFoster78

glutton said:


> What is the 'reason' for him to have short hair then, because most people of his culture and gender have short hair?



I didn't say he had short hair.

The point is that, ideally, I wouldn't mention his hair at all if there's no story reason for doing so.


----------



## glutton

That seems to contradict this:



BWFoster78 said:


> If there's no reason for him to have long hair, *it isn't that I won't mention that he has long hair,* I'll make him not have long hair.


----------



## BWFoster78

glutton said:


> That seems to contradict this:



Not as much of a contradiction as it is a misstatement.

I was trying to say:

If there is no reason for him to have long hair, I'll leave the concept of his hair fluid in my mind.  It's not that I won't mention that he has long hair as much as that he'll end up with whatever hair I need him to have for the story.  

Perhaps I'll start out with a mental image of him as having long hair.  I won't mention it, however, and, should a story reason come up for me to change it, I'll simply adjust my image.


----------



## Philip Overby

So what I've gathered is the reason you don't include people of different races, sexuality, or people with long hair is because you need a reason for that to make sense in the story? If any of these things interferes with tight writing, then it's not worth putting in. 

I think of some of my favorite authors and imagine what their stories would be like if they just cut every single superfluous thing. It might help the stories in some instances, but might make them less engaging because there's a spark missing from it. I suppose if you can light that spark in a different way, then that's what you should aim to do.

I've come to the conclusion that you have no interest in including anything that wavers from your own model of writing (this "revelation" happened about 12 pages ago). And that's fine, stick to your guns. But I think several people have come up with many valid reasons why to include a more diverse cast in your writing.

I imagine this is how you feel when you try to convince writers to follow certain kinds of writing rules. It just makes sense to you. It frustrates you when people don't adhere to them because you think it makes their writing weaker for it. I believe you honestly are trying to help people improve their writing and this is a good goal for any writer. Try to help others around you. 

Well, for many of us, diversity just makes sense to us, because it makes our worlds that much more interesting. So perhaps us trying to convince you is in hopes that it will help your writing in some way.


----------



## buyjupiter

Phil the Drill said:


> Well, for many of us, diversity just makes sense to us, because it makes our worlds that much more interesting. So perhaps us trying to convince you is in hopes that it will help your writing in some way.



I've found a lack of diversity in all writing in the 21st century to be quite mind-boggling. I include it in my writing because we're still having to have this discussion about representations of non-WASP cultures. In 2013.

I get BW's point that he doesn't go in depth with character description, because it isn't relevant to the story line, and I do a lot of the same thing. I don't do a lot of character description because I'm not as interested in it and it's more stuff to keep track of. (I'm lazy). I can't remember if I had my MC with short blonde curls in the beginning and long brunette hair by the end. (I have had this happen.) For me, it's better to just avoid that kind of thing. It also ties into what I think about first person narration and self-description, and since I do a lot in first person, well I don't really do much with description. My characters aren't vain, so I don't describe them. I describe their thoughts/actions, because that is something that a person thinks about. 

However, in one story I have going I have two characters (men) in love with each other. I never say they're gay, but this fundamental part of themselves is important to the story. It forms who they are and how they behave in other (potentially) romantic situations. There's a bit of misunderstanding at the beginning, until my MC runs into his ex and they start arguing in front of my MC's lady (whom he's escorting at the time). I would say that in this case, having the MC's sexuality come into play makes it more difficult to get to the goal of getting through the forest unscathed in time for the lady's ritual something. Having the tension of an old lover's quarrel, in the midst of being lost in the forest, having to deal with losing an incarnation of godhood again (MC's lover is one aspect of a tri-part deity, and this is how they "broke up" the first time), all of this is important to my story. If I wrote that my MC met this random guy on the road and he lead my MC and lady through the forest...it'd be hella boring.

I didn't set out to write a story about a lover's quarrel, but this is what these characters _insisted_ upon doing.


----------



## Svrtnsse

Phil the Drill said:


> I've come to the conclusion that you have no interest in including anything that wavers from your own model of writing (this "revelation" happened about 12 pages ago). And that's fine, stick to your guns. But I think several people have come up with many valid reasons why to include a more diverse cast in your writing.




We could go on and argue about whether to add diversity or not and what it does for the story, but...

I think we're missing something from this discussion. 
I don't think anyone is really arguing against actual diversity. If that's needed for the story, go for it. If it isn't, don't add it just for the sake of adding diversity. Don't add in a token-black-guy just to be able to say you have ethnic diversity. Add him because he's needed in the story. I don't think anyone would really argue against that, but we're still throwing comments back and forth over it.

Wouldn't it be better to talk about what's needed for the story, for a story?

Different stories call for different elements to be included. Different writers write different stories. Scenes and events that have no real impact on the outcome of the story may still be added as they can contribute something else that improves the reading experience. In the same way, important events can be distilled into a mere handful of words if that's what fits the story best.

At this point the discussion shouldn't be about whether diversity is needed or not, it should be about what's needed to further a story. If we can't even figure that out then how can we say that adding diversity will make it better?


----------



## Philip Overby

> Wouldn't it be better to talk about what's needed for the story, for a story?
> 
> Different stories call for different elements to be included. Different writers write different stories. Scenes and events that have no real impact on the outcome of the story may still be added as they can contribute something else that improves the reading experience. In the same way, important events can be distilled into a mere handful of words if that's what fits the story best.
> 
> At this point the discussion shouldn't be about whether diversity is needed or not, it should be about what's needed to further a story. If we can't even figure that out then how can we say that adding diversity will make it better?



Well, I think we can go into that really nebulous territory of "each story gets what it needs." This is pretty much different for every single writer. Some may think a story needs more world-building, while some may think it needs more descriptive writing. Others may say cut the description and focus on characters. Others may say, characters are nothing without tension. 

If we're discussing why to include diversity in a story, I think several people have given valid reasons.

1. To flesh out the world that your characters are inhabiting
2. To give a particular image to character so he or she resonates with your readers
3. To allow for a wider range of the human experience in your writing
4. To make each member of your cast stand out in some way (as Feo highlighted discussing details helped his writing)

Don't all these things further a story in some way? That's why I think these are valid arguments for including more diversity. 

These are just some points. However, if all of these points are rejected and argued against, then OK, what else is there to discuss on the topic?


----------



## BWFoster78

Phil,

I think you probably misunderstand my definition of superfluous.  My guess is that any well-edited book wouldn't contain much in the way of anything that is truly superfluous.  It seems to me that an editor's main battle (old school ones anyway; seems like the way the business works now, the editors don't care much since, as long as you have a name, you'll sell regardless) is convincing writers that certain elements aren't needed.


----------



## BWFoster78

> Wouldn't it be better to talk about what's needed for the story, for a story?



I'll give trying to figure out the essential elements a story must have a go:

1. A relatable character - I can't think of a way to tell an entertaining story without a character, and having the character be in some way relatable seems to me to be essential to capturing the reader's interest.
2. An event or series of events (including "events" that are purely internal) that utilize some method of engaging the reader - Perhaps some readers can tolerate a "story" in which nothing happens, but I don't think I can.  And it seems to me that, in order to engage a reader, you need a method of engagement.  I've found tension to be the easiest method, but I think both a deep POV and humor are great options.  (Still looking for other methods of engagement if you have suggestions...)

Though there are other things that certainly help a story's entertainment value, I can't think of anything else that I would deem "essential."

Great question, btw, Svrtnsse.


----------



## Svrtnsse

Phil the Drill said:


> If we're discussing why to include diversity in a story, I think several people have given valid reasons.
> 
> 1. To flesh out the world that your characters are inhabiting
> 2. To give a particular image to character so he or she resonates with your readers
> 3. To allow for a wider range of the human experience in your writing
> 4. To make each member of your cast stand out in some way (as Feo highlighted discussing details helped his writing)
> 
> Don't all these things further a story in some way? That's why I think these are valid arguments for including more diversity.
> 
> These are just some points. However, if all of these points are rejected and argued against, then OK, what else is there to discuss on the topic?



They're all good points and I think I've mentioned at least the first one myself in this thread at some point. Diversity is great for adding depth to the world. I can't argue against that.

What I can argue against is whether it's needed for the story. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. There's nothing categorical about it. You can't say adding diversity will always make it better (or worse).
I'm all for adding diversity when there's a reason for it (in a short story I wrote a chocolatier hires a dark skinned elf as his shop-assistant/apprentice specifically because dark skin is supposed to bring good fortune when dealing with chocolate magic), but to add it just to be diverse, without putting thought into why is something I'll oppose.
You need to have a reason for what you're doing. The reasons you gave above are all great, but they're not always needed to just tell the story (at least from a hypothetical point of view).


----------



## Philip Overby

> They're all good points and I think I've mentioned at least the first one myself in this thread at some point. Diversity is great for adding depth to the world. I can't argue against that.
> 
> What I can argue against is whether it's needed for the story. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. There's nothing categorical about it. You can't say adding diversity will always make it better (or worse).
> I'm all for adding diversity when there's a reason for it (in a short story I wrote a chocolatier hires a dark skinned elf as his shop-assistant/apprentice specifically because dark skin is supposed to bring good fortune when dealing with chocolate magic), but to add it just to be diverse, without putting thought into why is something I'll oppose.
> You need to have a reason for what you're doing. The reasons you gave above are all great, but they're not always needed to just tell the story (at least from a hypothetical point of view).



If we're talking about just the bare minimum to tell a story, then yeah, maybe some of these points may not be so important. But for me, writing involves much more than just the bare minimum. 

We could get into "what is the storyline reason to make your MC a straight white male?" the same as we could get into "why should I add diversity just to add it?" 

Really, truly, honestly, we as writers all have to figure things out on our own. If you don't think adding diversity helps your writing, then leave it out. However, those of us that do value adding diversity will do so and hope our writing comes out better for it.

One more point: perhaps not every single, solitary story you write needs to have a completely diverse cast. But would it hurt to explore something different for one of your stories or novels? Tell the stories you want to tell, of course, but just imagine if you change some things here and there how it could enrich your story. If you feel like it wouldn't, then carry on and be happy with what you're producing.


----------



## Steerpike

Phil the Drill said:


> If we're talking about just the bare minimum to tell a story, then yeah, maybe some of these points may not be so important. But for me, writing involves much more than just the bare minimum.



Yeah, but even apart from this, the idea that inclusion of diversity would somehow interfere with the bare minimum elements and make a story weaker is insupportable on its face. It's just a proposition that makes no sense, and restating it over and over doesn't alter that.


----------



## Svrtnsse

I'd just like to point out that I do like to flesh out the world and add little details about this or that to give the world more life. I believe a deeper sense of life in the world brings on a more pleasant reading experience.


----------



## Steerpike

Svrtnsse said:


> I'd just like to point out that I do like to flesh out the world and add little details about this or that to give the world more life. I believe a deeper sense of life in the world brings on a more pleasant reading experience.



In some cases it does, and in published fantasy it seems you almost always find a certain amount of it. If you're writing a thriller set in the real world, you may not do much of it at all, and if you want lean, fast prose, that's where you'll find most of it. But even there, including diversity doesn't have any impact on it. It's a straw man argument that attempts to cast a personal preference as a tenet of good writing.


----------



## BWFoster78

Steerpike said:


> Yeah, but even apart from this, the idea that inclusion of diversity would somehow interfere with the bare minimum elements and make a story weaker is insupportable on its face. It's just a proposition that makes no sense, and restating it over and over doesn't alter that.



Yeah, just stating that something is or isn't so over and over again doesn't prove anything.

Wait.  Didn't you just...


----------



## Svrtnsse

Steerpike said:


> Yeah, but even apart from this, the idea that inclusion of diversity would somehow interfere with the bare minimum elements and make a story weaker is insupportable on its face. It's just a proposition that makes no sense, and restating it over and over doesn't alter that.



I'm fine with this except for one thing. 
Trying to add diversity for its own sake rather than for a specific reason (pretty much any reason will do) really may detract from the story you want to tell in a negative way.

If you're going "this guy's dark skinned because he's from the deep south", then that's fine.
If you're going "I only have white guys in my story, I'll change this irrelevant sidekick to a black woman to spice it up a little and get some cred with the chicks", then you're doing it wrong.


----------



## Steerpike

Svrtnsse said:


> Trying to add diversity for its own sake rather than for a specific reason (pretty much any reason will do) really may detract from the story you want to tell in a negative way.



May.

99.99% of the time, I doubt that it would. Seriously, if I mention that character X is black when I introduce him, what's the negative way in which that detracts from my story?


----------



## Svrtnsse

Steerpike said:


> May.
> 
> 99.99% of the time, I doubt that it would. Seriously, if I mention that character X is black when I introduce him, what's the negative way in which that detracts from my story?



In all honesty, I can't think of any reasonable reason it would detract from the story.

I still feel you ought to have a reason for him being black, even if just for yourself - especially if he's showing up in a location where black people are a minority/rarity. I'm assuming you wouldn't put a black guy where it wouldn't make intuitive sense for him to be without providing an explanation?


----------



## Steerpike

Svrtnsse said:


> In all honesty, I can't think of any reasonable reason it would detract from the story.
> 
> I still feel you ought to have a reason for him being black, even if just for yourself - especially if he's showing up in a location where black people are a minority/rarity. I'm assuming you wouldn't put a black guy where it wouldn't make intuitive sense for him to be without providing an explanation?



Would I need a reason to make him white?


----------



## Steerpike

Svrtnsse said:


> I'm assuming you wouldn't put a black guy where it wouldn't make intuitive sense for him to be without providing an explanation?



You need internal consistency in a story. But if you're creating the fantasy world, then having a homogenous society where diversity doesn't work is a choice you made, not some commandment handed down from on high. Unless you are writing historical or contemporary fiction that takes place in a homogenous culture, can you think of a situation not of your own choosing that precludes a diverse set of characters?


----------



## Svrtnsse

Steerpike said:


> Would I need a reason to make him white?



Let's say the story take place mostly in the icy kingdoms of the far north. The default skin color for the natives would be white. [/quote]

This doesn't have to be true for a fantasy story. And even if it were the default, there's no reason the society has to be isolated. You can make both of those choices, but realize they're still just your choices, not any kind of natural law that requires you to make your story that way. 

Your limits are the ones you've set for yourself, and I don't see much value in pretending otherwise.


EDIT: I hit the wrong button on my phone, and edited over the top of Svrtnsse's post instead of posting my own comment. Since this post has already been quoted, below, I'll leave it here, but I don't want to ascribe these words to Svrtnsse - Steerpike


----------



## Mindfire

Svrtnsse said:


> Let's say the story take place mostly in the icy kingdoms of the far north. The default skin color for the natives would be white.





Steerpike said:


> This doesn't have to be true for a fantasy story.



On behalf of the Inuit, I'd like to say that it's not necessarily true in the real world either. 

People of color can live anywhere.


----------



## Steerpike

Holy crap, Svrtnsse - I was posting from my phone and instead of replying I edited my response into your post.

Sorry about that. Putting a note into it.


----------



## Mindfire

On a side note,  Disney's Frozen would look so much less boring if it's art design was based on Inuit culture instead of that cliche Germanic stuff that makes up 90% of Disney animated films. They set The Princess and the Frog in New Orleans, but they can't set Frozen in North America?


----------



## Steerpike

Mindfire said:


> On a side note,  Disney's Frozen would look so much less boring if it's art design was based on Inuit culture instead of that cliche Germanic stuff that makes up 90% of Disney animated films. They set The Princess and the Frog in New Orleans, but they can't set Frozen in North America?



Isn't it a take-off of a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale? I'm guessing that's the basis for the setting, but yeah it would have been cool in north America.


----------



## Svrtnsse

Steerpike edited my original post. - The second line of what you quoted is his, not mine.

I guess I should have stayed away from using the terms "black" and "white" for describing the people in my example. I was trying to make hypothetical example but I probably expressed myself rather clumsily. I apologize if I offended anyone. I was sticking to the terminology used in previous posts which probably was a bit thoughtless of me.


What I was getting at was this part:


> You need internal consistency in a story. But if you're creating the fantasy world, then having a homogenous society where diversity doesn't work is a choice you made, not some commandment handed down from on high.



This is relevant to the point I was trying to make. I was trying to say that if you have a homogenous society of some kind you should motivate why someone or something breaks off from that. Just don't put something weird or strange in and expect the reader to accept it without questioning it.

And yes, it's the choice of the writer to make a homogenous society where diversity doesn't work. It's also their choice whether to put in someone or something that sticks out into that society and deal with the consequences. If diversity is a theme of the story it may be used to great effect. If it isn't maybe it's a can of worms best left closed?


----------



## Svrtnsse

Steerpike said:


> Holy crap, Svrtnsse - I was posting from my phone and instead of replying I edited my response into your post.
> 
> Sorry about that. Putting a note into it.



Ah, thanks. I got a bit upset at first. Then I got worried I'd somehow managed to be thoughtlessly offensive in some way I hadn't noticed.


----------



## Steerpike

Svrtnsse said:


> Ah, thanks. I got a bit upset at first. Then I got worried I'd somehow managed to be thoughtlessly offensive in some way I hadn't noticed.



No, you can blame my ham-fisted attempts at typing on my phone. I can't see a way to get your original post back. My apologies.


----------



## Scribble

Mindfire said:


> On behalf of the Inuit, I'd like to say that it's not necessarily true in the real world either.
> 
> People of color can live anywhere.



Oh those white northern Europeans, always "discovering" lands that were in fact already inhabited by people!


----------



## Svrtnsse

Steerpike said:


> No, you can blame my ham-fisted attempts at typing on my phone. I can't see a way to get your original post back. My apologies.



No worries. I restated my point already - more or less - without word choices of questionable political correctness.


----------



## Devor

I happen to think including diversity _can_ be a distraction that weakens the writing if it's poorly done.  It changes the way the character develops and implies a number of things about your setting, both of which need to be thought through.  Of course the impact will depend on which characters you're talking about and their role in the story, but I don't think the impact should be ignored.

But I don't agree with the idea that it's a simple dichotomy between "it fits the story" and "it doesn't fit the story."  As a writer, you choose what does or doesn't fit the story, and how you want to develop the various elements you incorporate as your story grows.  If diversity doesn't fit the story, it's more than likely because it wasn't thought through.

But as I've said, I also think the same can be said for "low-to-no diversity."  Homogenity isn't a realistic default; I think it often implies a shallow and underdeveloped setting.


----------



## Feo Takahari

I mentioned in another thread that my character Zuri was only French because her name foreshadowed her fate. No one had a problem with that. Why does it become a problem when a character is black for no reason?


----------



## Svrtnsse

Feo Takahari said:


> I mentioned in another thread that my character Zuri was only French because her name foreshadowed her fate. No one had a problem with that. Why does it become a problem when a character is black for no reason?



The way I see it it's based on what's the norm for the setting. In a contemporary real world setting it's not particularly far fetched to sat that a french person or a person of french decent could appear anywhere in the world. If your story was set in medieval Japan or Tolkien's Middle Earth a french person might raise some eyebrows and would require some explanation.
[[I'm assuming for the sake of the argument that France did not have a significant presence in medieval Japan]]

So, I guess it's as Steerpike pointed out earlier that it's about internal consistency. If it makes intuitive sense that a french person is a non-extraordinary occurrence in your setting you don't have to explain why they're there.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Svrtnsse said:


> it's about internal consistency. If it makes intuitive sense that a french person is a non-extraordinary occurrence in your setting you don't have to explain why they're there.



Tying into other posts, that's as good a reason as any to just have one or two races in your story--your setting is meant to feel closed. But that does open questions about settings with strong ingrained sexism. To be certain, there are a lot of things you can do with sexism, but it often doesn't really seem to serve a purpose in the story, which makes me wonder why authors keep including it. (And if your setting isn't sexist, but every character in your story who actually accomplishes anything is male, I reserve the right to wonder why.)

Then again, I don't recall you using sexism in your setting, and Foster already mentioned that he has no sexism and several major women, so that strain of thought may not actually be going anywhere . . .


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## Svrtnsse

Feo Takahari said:


> Tying into other posts, that's as good a reason as any to just have one or two races in your story--your setting is meant to feel closed. But that does open questions about settings with strong ingrained sexism. To be certain, there are a lot of things you can do with sexism, but it often doesn't really seem to serve a purpose in the story, which makes me wonder why authors keep including it. (And if your setting isn't sexist, but every character in your story who actually accomplishes anything is male, I reserve the right to wonder why.)
> 
> Then again, I don't recall you using sexism in your setting, and Foster already mentioned that he has no sexism and several major women, so that strain of thought may not actually be going anywhere . . .



Good, thanks. I'm trying really hard to stay away from sexism - unless it would serve an actual story purpose, but that's a potato that's a bit too hot for me to pick up willingly just yet. I want my women to be real women, real characters, real people.
I'm also striving for a diverse racial setting. My humans come in all of the same colors as they do in the real world. My elves come in all the colors of the rainbow and then some. My anfylk are pretty much the same as the humans (except shorter and with furry legs). The dwarves, well, I haven't really figured them out completely yet.

I'm not arguing against diversity. I'm trying to argue against thoughtlessly adding diversity without reason - or without any other reason than to be politically correct. 
Maybe I'm already preaching to the choir and I just haven't realized, or maybe there's a value in adding diversity for it's own sake that I just haven't seen. 

Note that I agree with all the points Phil listed earlier about reasons for adding diversity.


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## Jabrosky

Feo Takahari said:


> I mentioned in another thread that my character Zuri was only French because her name foreshadowed her fate. No one had a problem with that. Why does it become a problem when a character is black for no reason?


It sounds like you chose your character's nationality or ethnicity later in the process of creating her. I don't work like this. For me race and cultural background factor in very early in the character creation process. For example, while a different writer might initially conceive of their heroine as simply a female mage, I envision a beautiful West African Vodun priestess in a colorful gown and head-wrap. Part of that may have to do with my interest in representational politics, but then most of my characters enter my mind as visual images or drawings anyway. I'm a visual thinker by nature.


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## A. E. Lowan

I started this mess.  So, let me see what I can do to help wind this down... or make it worse!  

I lost internet when this thing blew up and have been racing to catch up, so yeah, way behind.  I kept seeing Brian and others (mostly Brian) asking the question, *"Why is diversity important?"*  There are a few different answers to this, because it is not only important, it's becoming increasingly important every year.

1) *Diversity really is good.*  I know this answer got blown off, but it's true.  However, it's also a fast and easy answer, and doesn't really get to the heart of the "why."

2) *Because readers want to see characters who reflect themselves and their lives.*  This is the money answer, and readers vote with their entertainment dollars.  Readers, more and more, really are showing increasing interest in seeing a more diverse reflection of life in genre fiction - they want to see the single mother, the black dragon slayer, the space waitress, the gay squire.  The world, and the reading public, is not made up of straight white farm boys and princes, and they're getting bored with reading about them.  So why not add richness, depth, and realism to our fiction while attracting readers who are clamoring for just such diversity, because they want to see characters they can identify with?

3) *Because these are the stories that don't get told.* And here is the social justice answer - to be honest, it's my answer.  Media has traditionally "white-washed" out most of the rest of society in favor of the perspective of the Straight White Male default.  Things are getting better, slowly, as eyes open and we realize a more inclusive media is a good thing, but the fact that we still wrangle in discussions like this shows that we are, indeed, still far off from where we need to be as a genre as far as recognition of social issues goes.  Within the umbrella terms of "diversity" and "equality" lie stories that until recently were only told in dark corners.  We, as writers, have the opportunity to bring them into the light.  Just think, we who so often bemoan the dearth of new stories, how many stories wait unheard?  Dark stories, many of them, but also stories of hope, perseverance, and determination.  And we don't even need to make social statements out of our plots or characters to tell them - in fact, it's really better if we don't.  All we need is for our characters to say, "Here I am.  I am a person, for better or worse."  I think this is especially true for those of us who write YA, when young readers are desperately searching for characters who look like them, struggle like them, hurt like them.  They don't need yet another heroic farm boy, they need an MC like them - be they awkward or brown or gay or gender questioning.

Hopefully that helped to answer the question.  But, I think, maybe, the real question for a writer to ask isn't "Why is diversity important?" because in this day and age it is.  The question to ask is, "Is diversity important to me?"


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## Philip Overby

I think A.E. hit the nail on the head. For the longest time and still to an extent, in the English-speaking world fantasy has been sort of the straight white male's game. For me, I don't think all straight white males need to be banned from the genre. That would be silly. But as audiences grow and more people fall in love with this genre, the more readers are going to be clamoring for characters who are more like them and their friends. This is something I disregarded myself for a long time, mainly because I just wasn't aware enough. Leaving America has made me more aware of other cultures and how they react to each other. While I still love my American heritage, I am fascinated by other cultures. I grew up reading Greek mythology, something completely foreign to my way of thinking. Then my interest expanded more globally as I got older. 

I'm still very much interested in straight white male characters, if they're done well. But I'm also very interested in other kinds. Characters I wouldn't have even imagined. I'm always looking for fantasy that makes me think a different way or entertains me how I haven't been entertained before. I do believe there are many, many more stories to tell about European settings. Many good stories. Hell, I may even write one. But I want to expand further. I had a novel planned that covered witch finders in Africa, one about an old man's battles with yokai in Japan, and other stories yet to be dreamed up. I want to explore worlds different than my own. Unfamiliar places and faces. If others don't want to do that, then that's the path they've chosen. You can't strong-arm people into doing what you want. 

People do care about this issue. It's not some fringe topic that only a small portion cares about. So if you're not going to include diversity, at least consider why others are doing it. There is a readership out there clamoring for something, anything that might represent some of the views that have been mentioned in this thread.

With that, I bid this thread adieu.  Good luck to everyone with their writing, regardless of what you choose.


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## BWFoster78

AE,

I've been trying to avoid getting back into this, but I seemed to have failed 

1. Obviously, this statement is the one I've had the most trouble with.  It seems those on the other side of this argument take this as a given.  The main point of contention seems to be that I don't take it as a given.

2. I agree completely that a huge component of successful story telling is creating a relatable character.  That being said, if I rely upon race or gender or orientation to create that relatability, then I'm only making the character relatable to readers of that particular race/gender/orientation.  I haven't read Lolita, but, from everything Steerpike has written about it, the author was able to make a middle-aged child molester into a relatable character.  I think we, as authors, would be better served learning how to make any character that we choose to write relatable rather than relying on factors like race, gender, orientation, etc.

3. I hear the following advice on this site and from other authors all the time: tell the story you want to tell.  Trying to figure out what the market wants and provide that, according to a blog post championed by a lot of people on this site, is a horrible idea.  If you are passionate about telling that story about a particular group that you feel isn't represented, I think you absolutely should tell those stories.  Your writing will be better for it.  For you to tell me that I should include such representation when I'm not passionate about it is, I believe, foolhardy in the extreme.  



> The question to ask is, "Is diversity important to me?"



For me, not even a little bit.


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## Jabrosky

For my part, I occupy the middle ground in this turn of the debate. I don't think anyone should force writers to incorporate diversity if they don't want to. I also don't think anyone should force writers to leave it out in the name of tight prose. My views would be best described as championing freedom of artistic vision, regardless of overbearing political correctness or comparably overbearing literary minimalism.

That said, I have observed that incorporating diverse themes in a story or artistic work doesn't necessarily immunize you from the wrath of the social justice crowd. A short time ago they were flipping out all over tumblr because Katy Perry had the audacity to incorporate Asian motifs into her concert performance at the American Music Awards ceremony. Apparently if a white person does show interest in exotic cultures, they'll still get vilified for it. No wonder white writers have grown chickenshit scared of incorporating diverse races into their stories.


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## Feo Takahari

@Foster:I asked you this question a while ago, but I don't feel like I ever got a straight answer. You mentioned that your story has three female main characters. Isn't that representation?


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## JCFarnham

I come at creating and writing characters like this:

I ascribe to a relatively new school of thought (brought to my attention studying marketing) that states every object, person, or do-dad cannot be separated from that which makes them who they are, nor feeling, contexts, opinions, etc. which others ascribe to them. My professors (two out of three of the people who coined the phrase and the first to research this) called this "discourse". And state that a discrete object, person or otherwise, cannot have any sensible meaning unless viewed in its context.

It exists in all corners of the globe and each persons discourse influences decision making, interaction, plays off other peoples discourse. And indeed discrete object existing as they do in society accumulate discourse without even meaning to.

I'll apply this thinking to Catherine the protagonist in my urban fantasy novel. I made a decision early on that she identifies as gay. Taking that idea and ignoring other elements of her being, being gay has a bearing on who she is:

1. That's how she views herself. It is both her private and public facade. That's a conscious choice on her behalf (and mine I suppose).

2. It necessarily has influence on how others view her, whether or not they are aware of it, because they can only interact with her on the basis of what they see, what they assume, and from the perspective of their own discourse and the greater majority they exist with in.

3. More of an aside here but an important one. You can say the same thing about the meaning readers bring to the table when engaging in her story.

This is so ingrained in her being that to remove it because it has no bearing on the plot is an error. Indeed in this case she does engage in a relationship that turns out bad and which does have a bearing on the story or rather her character in all future events thus becoming more a vital part of her. 

Yet until that point it remains a seemingly extraneous detail... until of course you realise what it means in terms of her context and discourse.

To bring this all back to equality. One doesn't have to open a can of worms for a trigger character (I lack a better term here, help?) to embody those things in the vacuum of a plot that doesn't involve or even come close to opening said can. A reader will bring their own meaning to said element, just as that element informs how the character acts in terms of the plot.

I also mention that Catherine was once a Guide (part of the Scouting Association). Extraneous, yes, meaning, debatable. But for my purposes it has every bearing on how she acts in the stories present (because its part if her life experience) and therefore whether I make this explicit or not has to be meaningful... To me at least.

These colours are what makes characters come alive for me and I can't remove them from their context or discourse simply because theirs is a story that doesn't directly address equality. But I do hope it advocates equality by being a good, honest representation of the character. Heritage, poc, and so can't readily be ignored in writing or society because of discourse consciously gained or otherwise. So for me, equality is being mindful that these things exist, have vital meaning for people, and realising these cannot be, for example, white washed, or colour-blinded.


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## Svrtnsse

Thanks JC, those are some really good points/advice you're making/giving. It makes sense, but it's kind of thing I couldn't have put into words on my own like that.


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## JCFarnham

Svrtnsse said:


> Thanks JC, those are some really good points/advice you're making/giving. It makes sense, but it's kind of thing I couldn't have put into words on my own like that.



No problem. You're quite welcome to regurgitate the subject of Discourse at a later date. After all, my professors must have thought it worthy of spending near a decade now researching, studying and teaching it. There's probably a lot more to it than I could possibly put across on my own in one post, so I urge anyone interested in this kind of thing to look up some papers on it. I found it interesting at least, and I'm pretty mindful of how it really colours my processes in the craft.

_Of course_ other people have other ways of going about character and story creation. All of that is absolutely valid, but Discourse is by definition something that you have little control over*. One can't worry about pleasing everyone, but a homogenous setting with homogenous characters *will* strike a different chord with different readers, and therefore I (personally) believe that to be something one must be aware of. The story may be internally consistant, but I personally believe it has to be externally mindful in addition. Stories, books, physical or otherwise, haven't, don't and never will exist in a cultural vacuum.


*aside from altering the facade you present to others you meet throughout your life, but even that would only partially alter the discourse of society. Others may still view you in a different, possibly unfavourable light, no matter what you do, or how genuine you are. That's the final chuckle, as it were.


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## Svrtnsse

It's sort of how I feel about describing things and using descriptive words. Every word brings with it a horde of associations to other words, things and concepts and it's something I'm trying to make use of in my writing. I hadn't thought to apply it to people and characters as well.


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## Feo Takahari

@Farnham: If you change #2 in the construction of your setting, can you change #3? The webcomic _Digger_ features a variety of humanoid species, one of which is matriarchal. One character's backstory involves him being abused by his wife, which in a conventional context is typically diminished or mocked--if not by the author, then by the fans. But the author creates a context in which a male character has very little social recourse to escape a female abuser, and the comments on the comic indicate that readers thought about it much the same way that male-on-female abuse is thought of.


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## BWFoster78

Feo Takahari said:


> @Foster:I asked you this question a while ago, but I don't feel like I ever got a straight answer. You mentioned that your story has three female main characters. Isn't that representation?



Feo,

I have no idea what your question means.

Do I consider it some kind of representation of diversity to include a gender shared by more than 50% of the populace and whose presence is demanded by the story?  No.


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## Feo Takahari

BWFoster78 said:


> Feo,
> 
> I have no idea what your question means.
> 
> Do I consider it some kind of representation of diversity to include a gender shared by more than 50% of the populace and whose presence is demanded by the story?  No.



You're not writing a story with no female main characters. You're not writing a story with one female character whose purpose is to be, and whose entire personality can be summed up as, "the girl." You're not even writing a story with two female main characters, the submissive follower and the aggressive tomboy, or, to put it bluntly, the Madonna and the Whore. You're writing a story with three female main characters, who presumably all have their own personalities. Your story may have no positive message in regards to equality, and it doesn't require one. But assuming your female characters aren't all stereotypical, your story exists outside the negative messages about what female characters are and have to be. When a particular message is entrenched in society, the very existence of views outside the message is a challenge to it, showing that there are other ways of being. That's what I mean by representation.


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## buyjupiter

BWFoster78 said:


> 2. I agree completely that a huge component of successful story telling is creating a relatable character.  That being said, if I rely upon race or gender or orientation to create that relatability, then I'm only making the character relatable to readers of that particular race/gender/orientation.



I think this may be a faulty assumption about what people who do include diversity are doing. I can only speak for myself about the characters I've created who are diverse, but the situation demanded that be one aspect of their character. Not the only aspect, mind, but a part of it. 

I try to create relatability by putting my characters into a situation that is similar to those that many people have faced: a horrible boss creating trouble which makes it hard to get the job done, a lack of money/a loss of societal privilege/exile and the way that makes some people cling extra hard to traditions/beliefs that no longer make sense. 

I would be a "bad" writer if I relied on one aspect of any character to relate to my reader. If I only used anger, or compassion, or beauty, or brown hair, or height, my character would be flat as all get out. I'm not "relying" on gender, race, or orientation to do my characterization work for me. I'm definitely not allowing gender, race, or orientation to drive the stories I tell either (with the exception of the romantic story I'm writing). They are facets of my characters, and they may drive romantic subplots, but they are never emphasized.

If I emphasize the differences from a WASP culture, I'm creating a socially charged and potentially moralistic work, and letting my belief structure take over the work, instead of telling a story. I don't think it's my job to moralize about current society. I do think it's my job to not make a homogeneous cast of characters, and I use elements of diversity and personality to ensure I have different enough characters so that I'm not confusing the reader. (You know those long cast listings in the beginnings of some fantasy novels? Sometimes I can't tell characters apart, even after finishing the thing. I'm trying to avoid that.)

I was going to go into how I could relate to characters who are far outside of my worldview, but then I realized that characters in _Like Water for Chocolate_, or _Invisible Man_, or heck even _Fight Club_, were relatable to because they are _human_, and they struggle with identity questions, with love, with the effects of injustice, just like everyone else. They weren't relatable just because they were Latina, or Black, or weird. Those were just aspects of their character. And, to be fair, in these examples esp. Like Water and Invisible Man, ethnicity and culture are a huge part of their identities, but their struggles are universal.


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## BWFoster78

Buyjupiter,

This is the section that that portion of my post was in response to:



> 2) Because readers want to see characters who reflect themselves and their lives. This is the money answer, and readers vote with their entertainment dollars. Readers, more and more, really are showing increasing interest in seeing a more diverse reflection of life in genre fiction - they want to see the single mother, the black dragon slayer, the space waitress, the gay squire. The world, and the reading public, is not made up of straight white farm boys and princes, and they're getting bored with reading about them. So why not add richness, depth, and realism to our fiction while attracting readers who are clamoring for just such diversity, because they want to see characters they can identify with?



I'm trying to understand how my assumption is faulty when the original statement flat out says, "they want to see characters they can identify with" in context with the rest of the paragraph talking about adding "diverse" characters.


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## Mindfire

You can often tell people are arguing for the sake of arguing when the discussion starts going into a tailspin.


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## Jabrosky

So why don't I nudge the subject a bit by mentioning how we're incorporating diversity into our own writing?

At the moment I am working on an adventure/romance story set in the late 17th century, the so-called Golden Age of Piracy. The major characters I have planned are listed below:

- James Swann, a dashing English pirate privateer with golden hair and eyes paler blue than any sea he's sailed. He has a swaggering, cocky demeanor, though this may be a mask for internal insecurity and fear. Maybe he even has Asperger's Syndrome. James Swann functions as the story's male lead.

- Tshomba, a beautiful Bakongo healer and mage from Central Africa. She is the female lead, Swann's lover, and at the moment my PoV character. She has a sweet, nurturing personality and a lot more common sense than her man.

- Don Gallego, a pompous Spanish bounty hunter who's eager to catch Swann to win his Crown's favor.

- Nakhte, a 3000-year-old Egyptian priest and sorcerer whom Gallego revived so he could have a counter to Tshomba's magic. Nakhte's mind-reading abilities aid him in psychologically manipulating his opponents. For example, he tries to sever the bond between Tshomba and Swann by telling her that Swann, as a white man, can't truly love her.


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## A. E. Lowan

Jabrosky said:


> So why don't I nudge the subject a bit by mentioning how we're incorporating diversity into our own writing?



I'm fairly sure several of us have been talking about that for a while, now.


----------



## buyjupiter

BWFoster78 said:


> Buyjupiter,
> I'm trying to understand how my assumption is faulty when the original statement flat out says, "they want to see characters they can identify with" in context with the rest of the paragraph talking about adding "diverse" characters.



I believe the point you've made several times boils down to "adding diversity means that the story is inherently about diversity, the character is inherently about diversity" when that is not the point that I (nor anyone else I believe) has been trying to make.

Diverse characters and good stories are not mutually exclusive. Nor are diverse characters and non-moralizing, non-politically correct stories.

I do have to wonder why you've argued so vehemently about adding diversity, when you've already stated you had no intention of doing so. I've not been saying you're wrong not to do so. It's your work. I can't make a value judgment on your behalf. I am wondering if you've been playing devil's advocate, or if there's an underlying concern that those of us who value diverse characters will break out the pitchforks and torches and force you to write about diverse characters.


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## Feo Takahari

buyjupiter said:


> I do have to wonder why you've argued so vehemently about adding diversity, when you've already stated you had no intention of doing so. I've not been saying you're wrong not to do so. It's your work. I can't make a value judgment on your behalf. I am wondering if you've been playing devil's advocate, or if there's an underlying concern that those of us who value diverse characters will break out the pitchforks and torches and force you to write about diverse characters.



As best I can tell from what he's said in other threads, he seems to believe that promoting female equality may (will?) eventually result in a society where women dominate and subjugate men. He's never been exactly clear, though--the most anyone's gotten out of him was that weird rant about pendulums that got a previous thread locked. I'm still trying to draw him out so I can debate his ideas properly.


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## Mindfire

Feo Takahari said:


> As best I can tell from what he's said in other threads, he seems to believe that promoting female equality may (will?) eventually result in a society where women dominate and subjugate men. He's never been exactly clear, though--the most anyone's gotten out of him was that weird rant about pendulums that got a previous thread locked. I'm still trying to draw him out so I can debate his ideas properly.



I may be wrong, but I don't think he's arguing because of any deeply held convictions in that regard. I think he just likes to argue.


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## Feo Takahari

Mindfire said:


> I may be wrong, but I don't think he's arguing because of any deeply held convictions in that regard. I think he just likes to argue.



Oh dear God, I may have just made my worst forum mistake since joining Mythic Scribes.

I keep a sort of mental file of the various quirks of forumites as they relate to arguing--specifically, things they believe that may or may not influence how they argue. However, since it's not written down, I sometimes get confused as to who exactly believes what. I may have been trying to argue with Foster on something that was actually said by T Allen Smith. If so, I am so, so sorry to Foster for this.

P.S. I might as well note this, as a curiosity: Mindfire, you have the "biggest" file of anyone on Mythic Scribes, and the second-"biggest" of anyone I've ever debated with. That's partly because certain kinds of arguments are guaranteed not to convince you, partly because you're really, really well-informed on certain subjects, and partly because you're so fun to debate with. (For reference, the biggest was a monarchist who thought that promoting social equality would inevitably lead to genocide--his positions were totally alien from mine, but they were completely self-consistent.)


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## Mindfire

Feo Takahari said:


> Oh dear God, I may have just made my worst forum mistake since joining Mythic Scribes.
> 
> I keep a sort of mental file of the various quirks of forumites as they relate to arguing--specifically, things they believe that may or may not influence how they argue. However, since it's not written down, I sometimes get confused as to who exactly believes what. I may have been trying to argue with Foster on something that was actually said by T Allen Smith. If so, I am so, so sorry to Foster for this.
> 
> P.S. I might as well note this, as a curiosity: Mindfire, you have the "biggest" file of anyone on Mythic Scribes, and the second-"biggest" of anyone I've ever debated with. That's partly because certain kinds of arguments are guaranteed not to convince you, partly because you're really, really well-informed on certain subjects, and partly because you're so fun to debate with. (For reference, the biggest was a monarchist who thought that promoting social equality would inevitably lead to genocide--his positions were totally alien from mine, but they were completely self-consistent.)



I'll take that as a compliment. As an aside, I took the liberty of trying to track down that "pendulums rant" you mentioned. I did manage to find a comment BWF made somewhat along those lines in a previous thread, but it was quite brief and I wouldn't call it a "rant". I'm also not aware of T Allen taking the position you're referring to either. My best guess is that you have the right person, but you're taking BWF's ostensible zeal in this thread and others and mis-attributing it to a strongly held ideological stance, whereas I think it may be more rightly attributed to pure stubbornness. Or maybe, in the matter of diversity, he just doesn't see what all the fuss is about and feels compelled to express his bewilderment through arguing.


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## A. E. Lowan

Feo Takahari said:


> When a particular message is entrenched in society, the very existence of views outside the message is a challenge to it, showing that there are other ways of being. That's what I mean by representation.



First, I love this thought, Feo.

Secondly, I want to show an example of this, so maybe we can get on the same page of what simple, representational diversity can look like without sending any overt messages.  I've been watching _Fringe_ a lot lately (I'm only on Season 3, so no spoilers!  )  Of the main cast, 3 characters are persons of color, and 1 is mentally ill.  Of all 4 of them, only the one suffering from mental illness has his unique situation feature as a plot point.  The racial differences of the other 3 characters are not, to my recollection, mentioned at all.  It's pretty hard to accuse the writers of _Fringe_ - one of the most tightly-written science thrillers on TV for 5 seasons - of loose writing because of this.  The reason?  The writers didn't have to.  As Feo said, these 3's very existence as powerful, sympathetic characters was enough.  They just had to be themselves.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Feo Takahari said:


> As best I can tell from what he's said in other threads, he seems to believe that promoting female equality may (will?) eventually result in a society where women dominate and subjugate men. He's never been exactly clear, though--the most anyone's gotten out of him was that weird rant about pendulums that got a previous thread locked. I'm still trying to draw him out so I can debate his ideas properly.



Just to be clear... I do not subscribe to this thinking at all. I'm all for equality, across gender, race, nationality, orientation, etc. I have no idea what you're referring to here, or from where you would have drawn a conclusion like this.


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## Jabrosky

Feo Takahari said:


> I keep a sort of mental file of the various quirks of forumites as they relate to arguing--specifically, things they believe that may or may not influence how they argue. However, since it's not written down, I sometimes get confused as to who exactly believes what. I may have been trying to argue with Foster on something that was actually said by T Allen Smith. If so, I am so, so sorry to Foster for this.


I can't really blame you for your confusion. Our community has grown humongous, and it's hard to keep track of everyone's positions on various issues. Coincidentally I sometimes get Foster and Smith confused myself.

For that matter, your earlier comment that you thought some of saellys' views on representational issues were problematic surprised me, because I would have thought you and she would have seen eye-to-eye on everything pertaining to this topic.


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## Feo Takahari

T.Allen.Smith said:


> Just to be clear... I do not subscribe to this thinking at all. I'm all for equality, across gender, race, nationality, orientation, etc. I have no idea what you're referring to here, or from where you would have drawn a conclusion like this.



I just assumed it might have been you I was thinking of because Foster didn't seem to have any idea what I was talking about when I mentioned the pendulum thing earlier, and you're the one I most frequently confuse with Foster. (I definitely remember someone making several increasingly bizarre posts about sexism that ended in a locked thread, and I think it was someone who was somehow site-associated--either a mod or someone on the article team. It was an uncomfortable experience.)



Jabrosky said:


> For that matter, your earlier comment that you thought some of saellys' views on representational issues were problematic surprised me, because I would have thought you and she would have seen eye-to-eye on everything pertaining to this topic.



My reasons for disagreeing with Saellys verge on the political, so I'll avoid getting too far into that here. I can discuss it in a PM, though.

Edit: I might as well state that I'm getting nervous now. I used to post on a forum where it was very, very easy to get banned for "causing drama," and it looks like I'm the one causing drama now by dredging up something everyone's forgotten about. I know you guys aren't that ban-happy, but I'm still ready and willing to drop all this if you'd prefer.


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## Jabrosky

Feo Takahari said:


> I just assumed it might have been you I was thinking of because Foster didn't seem to have any idea what I was talking about when I mentioned the pendulum thing earlier, and you're the one I most frequently confuse with Foster. (I definitely remember someone making several increasingly bizarre posts about sexism that ended in a locked thread, and I think it was someone who was somehow site-associated--either a mod or someone on the article team. It was an uncomfortable experience.)


I have a feeling that post got edited or deleted to remove the problematic content.


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## Philip Overby

I stepped out of this thread a while back because I felt like I said everything I wanted to say numerous times. However, I'd just like to note, let's keep it moving forward and not bring up anything that happened in locked threads.


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## Steerpike

A. E. Lowan said:


> Of the main cast, 3 characters are persons of color, and 1 is mentally ill.  Of all 4 of them, only the one suffering from mental illness has his unique situation feature as a plot point.  The racial differences of the other 3 characters are not, to my recollection, mentioned at all.  It's pretty hard to accuse the writers of _Fringe_ - one of the most tightly-written science thrillers on TV for 5 seasons - of loose writing because of this.  The reason?  The writers didn't have to.  As Feo said, these 3's very existence as powerful, sympathetic characters was enough.  They just had to be themselves.



Yes, this is a good example. The idea that diversity is an indicator of loose or weak writing, or that writing has to necessarily become weaker if a diverse cast is included, is frankly mind-boggling. 

As for Fringe, I'm on the last season now


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