fat characters

[A. E. Lowan]

Is the point of this thread to ask that we consider more diversity of weight in our stories? I don't include diversity unless it makes sense to have it. To include it otherwise is just silly and the wrong focus. But the world is a big place, fat people have appeared. If they go off on an adventure with my peeps, they probably wont stay fat.

While I'm here at 4am my time, I just want to pull this out for a moment to look at. Not to rerail the thread, just to clarify and bounce around how fat characters fit within this idea of 'diverse' writing. You see this statement a lot in writers of all experience levels and ages, and it often goes hand-in-hand with 'damned if you do/damned if you don't' arguments. So, my first question, and I'm throwing this out to all and sundry, not just pmmg, is what would you consider diversity in your writing, and what is your plot reason for avoiding it?

 

[Rexenm]

I go for diversity in races, and sexuality mostly. The whole idea of ultra-violence, in kids books, is over for me; I think when I reread all that stuff to take it slow, for the description. My answer, too any writer, is to know your niche, and work that over, from there, from third person view.

A good essay topic would be these, I don’t use diversity unless it makes sense to have it, explain.

 

[Jackarandajam]

So, my first question, and I'm throwing this out to all and sundry, not just pmmg, is what would you consider diversity in your writing, and what is your plot reason for avoiding it?

I'll answer this question by saying why diversity is important to me, and I'll stay on the topic of body type.

When I was a teenager, all of my characters were me in slightly altered packages. A book can't get much more obnoxious and unrealistic than that.
They were also influenced by cultural ideals and my own ego. It was my precious book and all my characters were going to be awesome, so they all had to fit into the narrow box of what, as a teenager, I considered ideal for myself or what I considered to be the most attractive traits in other people. Obviously this is very wrong headed.
Now, if im reading, the third culturally ideal character in a row makes me want to put a book down. Not out of disgust, but boredom and a dwindling of trust in the authors ability to accurately see and apply the aspects of reality necessary to maintain my suspension of disbelief. I see my own teenage propensity in the writing and part of me assumes the author sees the world in a very immature way, my brain makes other assumptions about how the book is going to go based on that and tells me the rest of the book is probably not bringing anything new or interesting to the table.

So diversity is important to me because it's true, and it's one of the aspects of writing that, no matter the genre for me, I think is important to tip a reader off to the fact that not only has life made me feel like ive got a story to tell, but I've also been paying attention to the world.

As a brief aside, diversity is not important to me for reasons of virtue, and I don't feel obligated to include any very specific subset of diversity in my writing.
As an illustration, Quadriplegics make up a calculable percentage of the population and are rarely represented in fiction. While I do have a low-key but building interest in representing them with a character one day, I don't feel obligated to immediately parade one into my book just so I can point at them while patting myself on the back.

---

On the subject of body type, I think it's worth noting that visible abs are an indication of low caloric intake, not fitness. Competitive body builders don't have them nine months out if the year, they have to massively reduce food intake, even take pills to shed water, before a show.
I worked in an extremely physically demanding job for over a decade and there was as much diversity of body type in my co-workers as there is in a shopping mall (EDIT: within reason, I mean).
I worked with people who had half the muscle mass I do and were twice as strong, and yolked dudes on steroids who weren't any stronger than me and had less stamina. In a physically demanding job, high strength and stamina almost always includes holding more fat than Hollywood would like you to think. Everyone on my crews who had anything close to big muscles and body fat low enough to be able to see all of them just paid very, very close attention to what they didn't eat.

 

[Jackarandajam]

One more thing on diversity: the difference between symbolism and realism.

Bodyweight related tropes, whether negative or positive, are usually tied to symbolism, and probably derived from the fairy tale form of storytelling.
While I think symbolism is wonderful and should certainly be considered in the fiction novel format, I think a lot of harmful stereotypes likely stem from the kind of symbolism used in a 1,200 word, centuries-old fairy tale, in which characters were NOT characters but ideas, being misapplied to the modern novel. When a huge story is being told in as few words as possible, obesity in evil characters becomes shorthand symbolism for greed and selfishness, and obesity in good characters becomes shorthand symbolism for joviality and safety.

I think this kind of symbolic shorthand should be carefully avoided in the novel format; when one has tens of thousands of words to flesh a story out with, it is far too simplified.

Thinking about it, the whole point of the novel is actually to do the opposite thing: to cleverly bury symbolism within reality, rather than cleverly bury reality within symbolism.

 

[Jackarandajam]

Wait, I think I got it:

If all the animals along the equator were capable of flattery, then Thanksgiving and Halloween would fall on the same day.

If the earth was flattery, there would be no equator.

 

[Rexenm]

If animals could celebrate Thanksgiving and Halloween, then we would live our lives peaceably like. If you read the cross and the switchblade, you might find out why.

 

[skip.knox]

>historically, when attributed to a person, it has had more negative connotations.
I guess it depends on what you mean by "historically". Are we covering all cultures? Do we go back a hundred years? A thousand? Thirty thousand?

There were times and places where being fat (a term which itself begs definition) was admirable. It was a sign of success, for only the successful person would have wealth enough to overeat.

As for definitions, we could start by noting that some people are obese (might as well introduce the medical term) from overeating while others are obese due to genetics.

 

[pmmg]

So, my first question, and I'm throwing this out to all and sundry, not just pmmg, is what would you consider diversity in your writing, and what is your plot reason for avoiding it?

In reverse order.

What is your plot reason for avoiding it?

I don't think anyone here has ever said they 'avoid' it. If you read my comment again, it is not a statement of avoiding, it is a statement of including what makes sense.

...I don't include diversity unless it makes sense to have it. To include it otherwise is just silly and the wrong focus. But the world is a big place, fat people have appeared.

There is no 'avoidance' in it, so there is nothing to answer.

The rest is already included in my comment. Does it make sense? Yes or no? If no, then its gone.

Much of my writing falls along the lines of 'what is likely?'. If it does make sense, but its still unlikely, there would have to be a story reason to include it.

The context above is in the frame of 'fat people' but it could be expanded to other groups often included in the umbrella of diverse. When they become likely, they will likely appear.


What would you consider diversity in your writing?

Generally, the context of this is along the lines of its use in our political landscape, which I am sure you are all well aware of. I will accept this definition.

I could expand it further to include things like, diversity of thought, diversity of world view, diversity of skillsets...but that would be the broader definition, and not what people most often mean when they throw around the word 'diversity'.

In my own writing, if one was to say, 'hey, you don't have enough of some ethnicity, you are not diverse', I would push back and say such and such ethnicity would not make sense in this part of the story world. There is much variation in many aspects of the story, and by that, there is much diversity in the story, just not of the type you would want. And that I find such a definition too narrow, and I am not adding things to my story to check your boxes. That would hurt the over effort and not help it.

 

[Mad Swede]

While I'm here at 4am my time, I just want to pull this out for a moment to look at. Not to rerail the thread, just to clarify and bounce around how fat characters fit within this idea of 'diverse' writing. You see this statement a lot in writers of all experience levels and ages, and it often goes hand-in-hand with 'damned if you do/damned if you don't' arguments. So, my first question, and I'm throwing this out to all and sundry, not just pmmg, is what would you consider diversity in your writing, and what is your plot reason for avoiding it?

OK. For me diversity is about those who differ in some way from the norm, who differ from what society expects. And this is where it gets both interesting and tricky to handle. I don't think we as authors can start to handle diversity issues without first thinking through both our setting and the story arc(s) in what we're writing.

So do I avoid diverse characters? No. But their appearance in the stories, their actions, their fates, these have to fit in with the setting. That means asking myself where someone like that would turn up and what that might mean. For example, in a setting with pale skinned people living in the north a dark skinned person would most likely be found in a port, with an occupation like merchant or sailor. That in turn might mean there are inns and hostelries which cater for them, offering unusual dishes and drinks. People living in a town like that might be more tolerant and liberal as a whole, so the visitors wouldn't get stared at in the way they might elsewhere. Which is fine. So what then if such a person turns up somewhere else? How did they get there? How does our main character react to them? And the answers to those sorts of questions can be used to drive character and plot development.

 

[Jackarandajam]

If animals could celebrate Thanksgiving and Halloween, then we would live our lives peaceably like. If you read the cross and the switchblade, you might find out why.

As long as only carnivores are celebrating Thanksgiving and herbivores Halloween, so we don't have to worry about eating participants or participants being eaten, respectively, I could agree

 

[Finchbearer]

On diversity for me it is about what the story needs to be delivered in a way that feels natural, or appropriate. We’ve all seen adverts where we are presented with a diverse range of individuals, and for much of commerce these days advertising is a way to communicate ‘hey, we’re not racist! We’re not sexist! We’re not transphobic!’ But then it so often becomes a case of tokenism and toxic virtue posturing, but they’re damned if they don’t go down that route. But, where a novel is concerned I still agree with Ottessa Moshfegh’s line of thought, that art is not media.

“I wish that future novelists would reject the pressure to write for the betterment of society. Art is not media. A novel is not an ‘afternoon special’ or fodder for the Twittersphere or material for journalists to make neat generalizations about culture. A novel is not Buzzfeed or NPR or Instagram or even Hollywood. Let’s get clear about that. A novel is a literary work of art meant to expand consciousness. We need novels that live in an amoral universe, past the political agenda described on social media. We have imaginations for a reason. Novels like American Psycho and Lolitadid not poison culture. Murderous corporations and exploitative industries did. We need characters in novels to be free to range into the dark and wrong. How else will we understand ourselves?”

 

[pmmg]

Bodyweight related tropes, whether negative or positive, are usually tied to symbolism, and probably derived from the fairy tale form of storytelling.
While I think symbolism is wonderful and should certainly be considered in the fiction novel format, I think a lot of harmful stereotypes likely stem from the kind of symbolism used in a 1,200 word, centuries-old fairy tale, in which characters were NOT characters but ideas, being misapplied to the modern novel. When a huge story is being told in as few words as possible, obesity in evil characters becomes shorthand symbolism for greed and selfishness, and obesity in good characters becomes shorthand symbolism for joviality and safety.

I think this kind of symbolic shorthand should be carefully avoided in the novel format; when one has tens of thousands of words to flesh a story out with, it is far too simplified.

Whilst I do agree that there are many ways to use these things are shortcuts to express things in fiction, and oft times better ways can be found, I think these things must still lie in the category of tools to be used, and part of a well equipped tool box. I would use these as needed as part of creating the whole, and maintain, that there will always exist areas where shortcuts can be applied because they just don't have enough importance to the over all story to draw them out, or...they are important to be set up as they are to say what the story needs to say. I will echo Finch (and myself in other places), give the story what it needs is supreme over concerns of avoiding shortcuts.

 

[Jackarandajam]

Whilst I do agree that there are many ways to use these things are shortcuts to express things in fiction, and oft times better ways can be found, I think these things must still lie in the category of tools to be used, and part of a well equipped tool box. I would use these as needed as part of creating the whole, and maintain, that there will always exist areas where shortcuts can be applied because they just don't have enough importance to the over all story to draw them out, or...they are important to be set up as they are to say what the story needs to say. I will echo Finch (and myself in other places), give the story what it needs is supreme over concerns of avoiding shortcuts.

I absolutely agree that any and all tools possible should be in the toolbox, and tools of symbolism are particularly fine and useful things. Even worn out old tools should studied, understood and added to the box, to be either used in some clever or alternate way or more pointedly and intelligently avoided.

Here's what I meant by avoiding fairy tale style symbolism being best practice:
I'm sure there are a ton of books on this and making up terms feels silly, but let's call the kind of symbolism used in fairy tales "embodiment" symbolism (when things just downright aren't what they're presented to be, aka a castle might actually be prepubescence, a dragon might be the evils of a chaotic world or the oppression of an angry mother, etc.) and let's call the symbolism more typically used in the novel format "situational" or "characterizing" symbolism (a dead rosebush might foreshadow a lost love, the life of a tree with a characters name carved in it might mirror a characters arc, etc.).

I don't think jumping back and forth between these two types of symbolism is good practice, but I think it is, unfortunately, very common. Many of us were raised on what I term here "embodiment" symbolism, and thus when creating a homely, comforting character tend to make them rotund in a jolly way, not because we need to, but because it just "seems right."
This seems to be a massive point of cultural contention; a lot of other people who were raised on fairy tales read a character like that and think "yeah, that tracks," whereas obese people might be pretty understandably sick of the generalization.

Generally, and i do mean generally, if symbolism is explained through the story, it is no longer necessary or effective symbolism. So if obesity is used as a knee-jerk trope to showcase the characters greed, and then the characters greed is showcased in a bunch of other ways, the obesity part might be rendered completely unnecessary.

There is no reason to have the character go back in their mind and consider the dead rosebush; it stands as a wink to the reader, who will hopefully be pleased by either the caught forewarning or the realization of it after the fact.

Using the same logic, any embodiment symbolism used, when a writer has even four or five sentences of space for character description, loses its necessity. That's enough time to give the character a "big laugh" or "one of those hugs that makes you feel like a kid" instead of the broad stroke of a big belly.

So when considering what a story needs, I would dare to suggest the answer is usually not "a shortcut."

All that said, there are lots of reasons to make a character obese, not just my "embodiment symbolism." I'm not arguing against ever using weight in a way that aligns with a trope, just being careful to avoid the low hanging fruit of convoluting a character that's supposed to be understood as the embodiment of an idea with a character that is supposed to be understood as a person in their own right.

 

[Queshire]

An advertising exec trying to use diversity as a cheap way to sell more soap or a film maker using it to give themselves a virtuous handjob really has no bearing on me or my writing.

I find learning about other cultures or how other people live their lives to be fun, realizing that I don't have that many plump or nonbinary characters gives me a prompt for something to include in the next character I make, it's a fun challenge to work out how to have it make sense and what that implies about the setting, and it's just refreshing to do something different than all the tired old cliches.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Okay, I'm seeing a lot of agreement about utilizing 'diversity' as 'appropriate,' which is definitely the opinion of many writers and creators. But here's another question for us. If we only bring in 'diverse' characters as needed or as is considered appropriate, why do these characters who come from beyond the common narrative, ie not white/abled/straight/male/cis need a plot reason to exist?

 

[Queshire]

Looking at it another way you can use it for some quick and efficient worldbuilding.

If the totally-not-a-spy King's Agent flirts with the tavern's male bartender instead of the female waitress then that automatically tells us something about him, the society of the setting and the attitude of the King's guard.

Similarly if a Dwarf shows up with a prosthetic leg then that’s a good way to show that, hey, healing magic isn't all powerful. Or for a more sci fi setting it can show that there's still things people struggle with instead of the world being a fully automated utopia.

 

[Finchbearer]

Okay, I'm seeing a lot of agreement about utilizing 'diversity' as 'appropriate,' which is definitely the opinion of many writers and creators. But here's another question for us. If we only bring in 'diverse' characters as needed or as is considered appropriate, why do these characters who come from beyond the common narrative, ie not white/abled/straight/male/cis need a plot reason to exist?

What’s appropriate for the stories I want to tell is definitely not white/abled/straight/male/cis

 

[Finchbearer]

>historically, when attributed to a person, it has had more negative connotations.
I guess it depends on what you mean by "historically". Are we covering all cultures? Do we go back a hundred years? A thousand? Thirty thousand?

‘More’ meaning not ‘only’

 

[Mad Swede]

Okay, I'm seeing a lot of agreement about utilizing 'diversity' as 'appropriate,' which is definitely the opinion of many writers and creators. But here's another question for us. If we only bring in 'diverse' characters as needed or as is considered appropriate, why do these characters who come from beyond the common narrative, ie not white/abled/straight/male/cis need a plot reason to exist?

Why should they exist? Well, there's two reasons for this in my view. One is what I and Queshire have already written, that it can be used as part of the worldbuilding and scene setting. The other is to drive or develop the overall story arc, as a way of broadening the story arc and bringing the wider setting into the story. In my experience this only works if you do it fairly early in a novel or series, otherwise it just comes across as contrived. Bringing diverse characters into short stories is much harder in my experience and I find myself having to think through the story arc and characterisation in great detail to make it work.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

We can also flip this the other way around, which I do a whole lot when drafting. As I write I have a habit of pausing with every single character, be they a prince of the realm ('prince' can be gender neutral, ask Skip) or some dude's horse, and I'll ask why this character needs to be the default. Do they need to be male, or white, or straight, or abled, or cis? And the answer is usually no. So, then I get to make some choices that enrich our story and our world building.

So, here's the question. What plot reasons do you have for characters to be the default?