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

[Shasjas]

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.

 

[Svrtnsse]

"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?

 

[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.

 

[BWFoster78]

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."

 

[BWFoster78]

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.

 

[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?

 

[Devor]

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.

 

[Shasjas]

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?

 

[Mindfire]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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 Ghôl'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]

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.