Unspoken (In the story) but 'confirmed' disorders in a story?

[Mad Swede]

Yes. But that's the plot, not the point.

Somehow scanned past this, earlier. When I hear 'you can't force it,' and it's always implied that to do otherwise is stuffing diversity down the reader's throat, as if the act of reading and being in the story is involuntary, what I really hear is, "I don't understand why characters would be any different from me and my expectations and my experiences." And in a world where one can see themselves reflected all around them, in wonderous complexity and variety, why should we "force" the story to hit checkboxes and pander to "those people" who don't fit in that neat little default pigeonhole for the People-shaped.

When we stick to the easy setting where in a land of terror and fantasy everyone looks like Chicago... #SoWhite. One of the most diverse cities in the world apparently only has room for white guys who all do those straight white guy things like casting spells and checking out the sidewalk Boob Carts and Sexy Lamps as they pass. This is all hunky dory with a whole lot of readers. Reading fiction that validates us is incredibly comforting, and when that validation is backed by a sea of media, that stuff's addictive.

Let's repeat that for the folks in the back. Validation is addictive.

So, if we've got Default Man and his coterie of Also Default in Different Flavors doing all the plot and stuff, where does that leave the rest of us? In the background or a subplot if we make the page at all. Another word for this is 'Erasure.' Whether intentional or not, it's still erasing most people from the narrative.

And it gets us into ruts that can be hard to escape. Sometimes we don't even see them, because we aren't reaching beyond this common narrative to see the worlds and the people and the questions that make us work harder. To be better humans humaning with empathy and genuine curiosity for the stories that often don't get told or are left on the cutting room floor.

Some people think that to break open the "I don't want to force things" crowd - also known as the ones too scared of being yelled at to deviate from the pack - the characters should be interrogated about how they and their 'differences' are plot-important enough to get screen time. This is asinine and shorthand for "Give me a reason to not have to work harder for you." It's lazy, and great stories are not told in Easy Mode.

What I do to push past the penguin drop is to flip the question. Does this character need to be white? Straight? PTSD? Neuro-spicey? People-shaped or that horse over there. Why do they need to be male? I ask every time I bring in someone new and follow it with 'he.' Sometimes this gets me into a little trouble, but not often and the rewards are well worth the occasional, "Wait, wasn't he your Straight White Male?" So now we do have some horses that do need to be male, because the King's Champion, also male, is the sort of dick who think the outie somehow makes a crucial difference.

That guy dies.

Push your comfort zone. There will be yelling. In today's culture the increased desire for access to our media creators we will get chewed out for misspelling Nauhuatl or that shirt we wore last week. It's all on the table, and this is very important. We are at a point culturally, artistically, and as creative professionals where if we do it right, if we chuck those chicken feathers and step out as the total bad asses we are, because not everyone can type half a million words and come out the other side the same.

Push it. Force it. No one needs a plot reason to exist, and being able to see ourselves in the stories we experience has a direct, immediate impact on mood and self-esteem. We aren't telling these stories to be edgy or ride a trend. We tell these stories because when we were young, no one wrote them for us, and that cannot be allowed to continue.

OK, now I'm going to be very awkward and say: Sometimes, yes. But only sometimes.

We in the west tend to forget how very lucky we are. We live in societies where on the whole we can openly discuss people of different flavours, to use A. E. Lowan's term. So for us including diverse characters is easier and more acceptable. But this isn't true in other parts of the world. There are places, some known to many western tourists, where selling or even possessing one of A. E. Lowan's books (to take an example) could be enough to get you a jail term.

Sometimes subtlety is the best option. Yes, you the author know what this character really is. But you write in a way that the reader has to interpret what the character is, so keeping the book seller and the reader safe from those who would rather not encourage diversity. Writing like this is much harder. But sometimes there isn't a choice.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

OK, now I'm going to be very awkward and say: Sometimes, yes. But only sometimes.

We in the west tend to forget how very lucky we are. We live in societies where on the whole we can openly discuss people of different flavours, to use A. E. Lowan's term. So for us including diverse characters is easier and more acceptable. But this isn't true in other parts of the world. There are places, some known to many western tourists, where selling or even possessing one of A. E. Lowan's books (to take an example) could be enough to get you a jail term.

Sometimes subtlety is the best option. Yes, you the author know what this character really is. But you write in a way that the reader has to interpret what the character is, so keeping the book seller and the reader safe from those who would rather not encourage diversity. Writing like this is much harder. But sometimes there isn't a choice.

This is absolutely true.

And this is a really great moment to point out that we can also have class and income disparity stories, and the chance to talk about them with honesty that bleeds. Why? Because it hurts us. It hurts because in the West we also like to talk about poverty in terms of those who deserve, if that should be deserving of poverty because the poor are obviously lazy, or deserving of the rewards they reap with their dedication and hard work and rugged individualism.

And in Calvinist-colonized America, we still love to punish sinners. Not so much the sin, but the sinners themselves.

And of course, we play with this idea a bit.

From Faerie Rising: The First Book of Binding...

~~

Etienne was continuing. “So, enlighten us.” His tone was uncompromising.

Lana looked away from the group, frowning and thinking. After a moment she spoke, her voice quiet. “Ciarán did. I was his primary mistress at court and his mother denied him nothing.”

Winter’s brows knitted with sympathy. “I’m so sorry.”

Lana turned to her with a sharp expression and for an instant, harsh words seemed to be forming behind her eyes… but she looked at Winter and paused. Her gaze softened. “Don’t be. I’m not.” She returned to contemplating her wine. “Ciarán was a blight among the Darkling Throng. He had a reputation among the lesser fae as a fate worse than death. His companions did nothing to temper his behavior, even though they were technically supposed to. I heard that it had been a power struggle with his father for years. His father would choose a companion, Ciarán would get him killed or drive him off and pick a replacement of his own. Finally, the king had to give up and let him have his way.” She took a drink. “I had some protection from the worst of his ‘fun’ because I held his favor, but I spent enough time with him and his boys that I knew exactly what would happen when he tired of me. So, I worked hard to hold his interest… but I worked harder to get away.”

“Why didn’t you just leave?” Jessie looked confused.

“Where would I go?” Lana gave a bitter laugh. “Kid, you’ve got a really nice place here. Civil rights. Laws ‘by the people, for the people.’ Fucking… streetlights and police who come when you call and services for the poor. And you don’t even realize that it’s an island, an anomaly in your own realm. I watch the news. Most of your world isn’t like this. And even here, you don’t ‘just leave.’ I work alongside women whose men terrorize them, who are makeup masters with a bruise or who have to grovel for gas money out of their own tips, but they can’t leave for too damn many reasons to even start to get into with you. Stupid, simplistic question.” She sat back in her chair and looked at Jessie like she was an idiot.

Jessie’s cheeks colored.

“In our world there are three types of people; the strong, the protected, and victims. I’m not strong and I refuse to be a victim.”