Representation In Fantasy

[Jabrosky]

I write explicitly non-white characters all the time, but that's mainly because my interests have always gravitated towards the more "exotic" non-Western civilizations. I don't advocate nonsensically inserting characters of color simply out of political correctness.

So my co-writers and I are all white, cis, (mostly) hetero people writing a novel that embraces multiple fictional cultures. On a readthrough of our first draft, I realized that I hadn't noticed that the single non-white race in the whole realm had darker skin, and that prompted us to make some sweeping changes in the second draft.

And why must the non-whites still be a minority in your world? I'm sorry, but this screams tokenism. You claim to seek diversity, yet you still surround your characters of color with larger numbers of white characters. Why can't the non-whites demographically dominate a setting for once?

 

[saellys]

If that's what you're taking away from this, I don't think you've heard us correctly. The general consensus seems to be, if I may be so bold as to speak for the collective, that you should tread carefully.

I started this thread to see if my fellow Scribes had any experience with and detailed advice for doing just that.

Keep in mind that race and sexual orientation, and to some degree gender, are themselves constructs bound by time and place.

This has been a really interesting challenge in itself! We've had to bite back our modernisms and try to get inside the heads of a pre-Norman-ish society where love and sex and gender and marriage and relationships mean radically different things, and give each region its own "flavor" of attitudes.

I'm going to go the opposite route and say if your interest is to create a diverse world with representations of all different cultures, societies, and sexualities, then go for it. However, what it sounds like you are doing is "painting by numbers" in a way. For instance, this character is too white, so let's change his race. Or this character is too straight. If you've already written a first draft where none of these things played into the plot or story arc in any way, then has changing any of the characters' races or sexuality added something to the story? Has it enriched the story in some way? If you feel like it has, then good. You did your job. If it feels like you're just trying to make your friends happy by making people just like them, then it seems unnecessary.

Like I said, we didn't go add a female character with Asian traits and a preference for other women after my friend asked that question. We don't have a checklist. But while we're on that topic, MadMadys based characters on real life friends--is there a problem with that?

To add to what MadMadys said about Asians identifying with Asians, my wife is Japanese, but she doesn't only identify with Japanese people, nor just straight women. Some of her favorite characters are the women on "Desperate Housewives" (none who are Asian), Walter White from "Breaking Bad" (who is neither Asian nor a woman), and Lafayette from "True Blood" (who is neither Asian, a woman, or straight.) People just like characters they like for whatever reason. They don't need to see someone who looks, feels, or acts just like them in order to identify with them.

Sure. One of my favorite characters is Tyrion Lannister, and I am not male, nor do I have dwarfism. The fact remains that there are a lot of people out there who are underrepresented in all kinds of media, and this is a problem on its own.

If you want to have all these cultural and sexual elements to the story, then I think you should set out from the beginning to include these elements. Really analyze how changing these elements of character is going to change the overall story. Then, if you're happy with that (which it sounds like you are) then stick to your guns and keep it that way. However, you run into that problem that others have mentioned if your characters' race, gender, and sexuality seem shoe-horned in to just be as diverse as possible. This may come off as heavy-handed if it interferes with the reading of the actual story.

Warning taken. Many times over.

So, in essence:

1. Do what you want at the end of the day, but be conscious of why you are making these decisions suddenly after not making them initially.
2. Be aware that readers may notice this as a way to pander to the widest audience possible. However, you may find the exact audience you're looking for if you follow your vision.

I hope readers won't view this as pandering, since that's not what we're doing, and it is, in fact, part of our vision for the second draft of the book.

However there are two points that need to be made. If these characters/cultures have a point in your story then they have a place. If you want to add them for the sake of adding them then they don't. Ask yourself this. What purpose to the plot does changing the characters serve? Is it important to the plot that the characters be the way you want to change them. I think you have good ideas for future novels, something to keep in mind. But for this one it is not, it sounds like your trying to force it, add it after the fact. This leads me to my second point.

All the characters we're adding and changing have an impact on the plot. The novel isn't finished yet, so this isn't after the fact.

How many times are there one female character who is super woman, and can do everything. This is a big problem but not with just female characters but minorities also.

I assume you're talking about tokenism, in which case, yes, it's a huge problem that authors commonly write a single representative of a particular group, be it women or people of color or LGBT characters or what-have-you.

Yes I know your intentions are to NOT follow stereotypes. However by defining and wanting to include characters based on that alone that is exactly what you are doing. A character should be just that, a character first and foremost, not a minority. Just as a person is a person first not a minority.

Agreed.

Trying to push this aspect because you feel you are not being fair to minority representation can become insulting to your work and to those minorities.

I keep seeing this in this thread, and I find it really strange. If this wasn't a motivating factor, what would compel us to ever change these traits?

There is a right way and a wrong way to do this. Is it important to your plot? Are there cultural aspects that allow such things? Does it define the character? Be careful with this.

Yes.

You said you wanted to be proud of your work but it sounds like you stopped being proud of it only when you realized it was "white-washed." That is not a good reason, sorry.

No, I said we couldn't be proud of our first draft if we published it as it is now, and one of the reasons is that there were very few people of color.

Minorities don't want your pitty. Equal representation is important but they want you to write about minority characters JUST AS YOU WOULD non minority. Not make special treatment for them, not stereotype them (at least this is what some friends have told me). They want equal treatment. They want the to be represented as well thought out, well rounded characters that have a purpose to the plot and have non stereotype roles just like any other "white" character.

Yes.

Ask your friend how she would feel if you changed it just to represent her?

She wasn't asking us to do that, and we're not doing that.

Or in the next book you keep the idea of diversity while you world build allowing it to come naturally.

We don't want to save the "idea of diversity" for the next book. We want it in this one.

Remember this is a touchy subject so you have to be careful how you approach such topics.

Yes.

I write explicitly non-white characters all the time, but that's mainly because my interests have always gravitated towards the more "exotic" non-Western civilizations. I don't advocate nonsensically inserting characters of color simply out of political correctness.

As established earlier, neither do I.

And why must the non-whites still be a minority in your world? I'm sorry, but this screams tokenism. You claim to seek diversity, yet you still surround your characters of color with larger numbers of white characters.

I was talking about our first draft, in which we had a single culture composed of people of color. That realization was part of the basis for the changes we're making in the second draft.

That being said, the final balance will probably still be more than half white. This is actually story and character driven--our two main protagonists are twins, and white male privilege is a defining character trait for one of them, so making them a member of a predominantly white noble class was a choice we made.

Why can't the non-whites demographically dominate a setting for once?

In the second volume, when we start to see the wider world beyond the single nation that was the setting for the first book, they will! I'm excited about it.

 

[Penpilot]

All of that brings me to my question for you, fellow Scribes: How do you handle representation in your fantasy writing? Do you have a range of characters who differ from your own race, gender, and sexuality?

I usually don't consciously think about representation. The characters are the characters who happen to be of this race or that. With that said, my current work. My main character is Chinese, with a cast of friends that include a First-Nations Indian, a Russian, a Caucasian, a Hispanic, a lesbian couple, a couple of minor characters that are Japanese, and they're all Canadian. All this takes place in a couple of made up parts of Vancouver next to Asian dominated districts, one of which is Chinatown.

I never set out to have these characters be of their specific 'types', but as I was writing I would come to the realization that they're of part of group 'X'. My First-Nations and my Hispanic characters, I doubt anyone will really notice what race they are unless they're really tuned in with the minor cues I drop. The reason I don't make it more obvious is because it really doesn't matter to the story. On the flip-side of that my Russian character, had an accent, he was a immigrant, and his name was Vlad, so those were things that were just too in the face to down play in my opinion.

Have you given them Earth-analog cultural backgrounds and challenges, or gone in completely different directions (since it is, after all, a fantasy world)? What research did you do for that purpose, and what real-world issues did you take into consideration? Have you received feedback on such things from test readers or editors or post-publishing readers, and how did you handle it?

Well, mines an urban fantasy set in present times so obviously Earth based backgrounds. I did some research on some things I didn't know, but for the most part I just wrote. But, as I said my main character is Chinese, and well, so am I. I drew a lot from my own family's history and my personal experience.

As for feedback, my writing group gave me some feedback on my Russian character, and there was one thing I did that was really stupid. The worst part of it was I knew better. For some reason I tried to write in a Russian accent. Epic failure on my part. So I simply stated in the narrative that the character had a Russian accent and wrote his dialogue as normal.

Hopefully some of this is useful to you.

 

[saellys]

Hopefully some of this is useful to you.

Very much so! Thank you for sharing.