1Cecrow
The fantasy genre offers more freedom than most to play around with race assignment, invent new cultures wholesale, etc. My critique group is encouraging me to diversify my characters. I'm making the argument that they could already diversified, it's just unstated. The two approaches (with the same goal in mind of allowing for and promoting diversity) are:
1) Don't state what race any character is, say nothing about skin tone. Every reader projects what they want onto them. The difficulties here: some characteristics such as hair colour, etc. imply certain races. Also, if you say nothing, the assumption could be made that you imagined everyone white and didn't consider the problem.
2) State which character is what. You can get a good range this way, with some careful strategizing, even make some statements. The downside is that any sort of cultural background you apply to the characters then has to be weighed against what you've assigned them and all the ways that might be interpreted; that might be too many balls in the air to catch them all. I'm almost sure to do something, in however small or unintentional a way, that looks bad in hindsight.
I was in Option 1, but now I'm stuck between the two and I'm not sure which is best anymore.
1) Don't state what race any character is, say nothing about skin tone. Every reader projects what they want onto them. The difficulties here: some characteristics such as hair colour, etc. imply certain races. Also, if you say nothing, the assumption could be made that you imagined everyone white and didn't consider the problem.
2) State which character is what. You can get a good range this way, with some careful strategizing, even make some statements. The downside is that any sort of cultural background you apply to the characters then has to be weighed against what you've assigned them and all the ways that might be interpreted; that might be too many balls in the air to catch them all. I'm almost sure to do something, in however small or unintentional a way, that looks bad in hindsight.
I was in Option 1, but now I'm stuck between the two and I'm not sure which is best anymore.
2Tane
I know I’m coming at this a little late, but wanted to offer my 2c:
Diversity is always a good thing (and helps to lead to natural conflicts, both big and small within a story), but my first question is why are they asking you to add more diversity? Is it a sort of political correctness thing they’re trying to impose on you, or is it perhaps that the characters all act, speak, and feel alike?
Why not try and find a middle way… try hinting at a distinct culture without overtly drawing attention to it? It doesn’t have to be about the way they look, but it should be about the way they behave. Show how they react differently in any given situation (perhaps one character comes from a liberal culture, and another from a buttoned-down one)?
If, on the other hand it is just a request to inject diverse characters into the piece for the sake of trying to hit a “mass representation score”, and not in service of the story, then perhaps they’re not the right group for you?
Feel free to ignore, of course.
Diversity is always a good thing (and helps to lead to natural conflicts, both big and small within a story), but my first question is why are they asking you to add more diversity? Is it a sort of political correctness thing they’re trying to impose on you, or is it perhaps that the characters all act, speak, and feel alike?
Why not try and find a middle way… try hinting at a distinct culture without overtly drawing attention to it? It doesn’t have to be about the way they look, but it should be about the way they behave. Show how they react differently in any given situation (perhaps one character comes from a liberal culture, and another from a buttoned-down one)?
If, on the other hand it is just a request to inject diverse characters into the piece for the sake of trying to hit a “mass representation score”, and not in service of the story, then perhaps they’re not the right group for you?
Feel free to ignore, of course.
