Diversity in Fiction.

[misslj_author]

I've been thinking about this for a while but it came to a head today after a discussion with jerusalemorbust last night and a discussion between meredith_shayne and myself this morning. (Both of whom I hope will comment here. :D) The subject being multiculturalism and interracial relationships in novels and characters that are in some way disabled and characters that are over the age of 25. (Warning: this post does contain a bit of self-absorbed hyperbole alas.)



It's been on my mind so much, personally, because in writing my Archangels novel, I am very aware that choosing to have each of the ten Archangels be a particular race, I am putting myself out there to be potentially inflammatory and/or offensive. It's on my mind that I could be called a racist or accused of cultural appropriation. Not to mention the religion thing, but I'm choosing to ignore it for the simple reason that I ignore it in the book. They're Archangels, they have a job to do, there's no praying or reading of scripture or anything like that. They just happen to be made by God – and God means different things to different people – there's no pontificating about any religion because that's just not what I want to write about.

So, I have white, Maori, Indian (from India), Chinese, black, Russian, Columbian and Cambodian characters. I've asked a few people about describing these characters because I want it to be very clear that they are not the default of white, male, mid-twenties, because they can switch gender as they choose, they aren't all white, and, as Archangels, older than time itself, they really aren't in their mid-twenties. My main concern is stereotyping: I don't want to describe them too much but I don't want to scrimp on it, either.

They are, in their natural state, creatures of light and energy. They take human shapes so as to do their duties and interact with humanity and also, the pesky side effect of their natural state tends to blind and melt the brains of humans. So it's a protection for human eyes as well as a means towards interaction without too many problems. Of course, there are problems, because otherwise there would be no story, but that's not what I'm going to talk about here.

I don't want to do PoC a disservice or show disrespect in how I write these characters. They're all likable characters, they all have flaws. (She says with great modesty!) I don't want the colour of their skin or the race their chosen forms are to be a deciding factor in whether or not they're likable. In short, I am genuinely terrified of being disrespectful.



Then there's able bodied versus not so able bodied. I'm working on a sequel to City of Gold right now, and my two main characters are older men, one of them has less mobility than his partner. This is due to a war injury and because of it, his hip and knee play up. Now, that sounds all fine and probably, to someone who doesn't suffer this sort of pain and the debilitation that goes with it as it gets worse, nothing worth mentioning.

I want to say right here and now, that's bullshit. Chronic pain is, to be blunt, a bitch. I know; I live with it. Every. Single. Day. The pain and frustration my character suffers is familiar to me, because I deal with this myself. The atrophy of muscles, the irreparable damage to cartilage and nerves makes mobility difficult, makes joints sometimes unusable. This is hard for me to articulate here, actually – it's easier for me to do in fiction because I can separate myself from it, in a way.

The character doesn't talk about it unless asked directly and unless it's someone he knows very well, he'll just say it's a war wound and change the subject. (Setting is the Byzantine Empire, the year 1131AD.) Why doesn't he talk about it? Because he's ashamed.

I know what that feels like too. My own situation makes me ashamed to say the words, "I'm disabled." I hate that I feel shame when I say this, but the reaction to these two little words is either pity – and I don't want pity – or disgust. Neither reflect the reality of my life, but there we go. Now, I, like my character, don't want to go into the nitty gritty of it, but it wasn't a war wound for me. It is what it is, I live with it daily and I don't particularly like explaining it – even to medical professionals because there's always that lingering shame of it and that whatever I say will be met with pity and/or disgust.

And it is, each and every time. Even in, I'm afraid to say, some of my friends. I know they don't mean it, and I know it's not conscious. I know that the pity they exhibit is genuine compassion and they wish they could help or something, but... having this, living with this does not mean I need to be treated as any less a person. So yeah, it's a bugbear and I can completely understand why authors would feel concerned that they might give offence when writing a character with a disability that they themselves don't have or have direct experience with (i.e., caring for a relative, working in support for that disability, etc.).

Which brings me to my point, in a long winded way – how do we, as writers, approach these topics that we, personally, may not have experience with, without giving offence to readers who do ?


People are people and love is love. Age, race, religion, disability, sex – none of this should matter. Unfortunately, because of societal conditioning, it does. And that's terrible.

Comments

[xakara.livejournal.com]

I know this is two weeks old but as I stumbled on it today I wanted to add to it.

As a PoC, I think the first and last thing in your mind when you write a character of a different culture, ethnicity, religion, gender or ableness, is the question "but why". Every time you have a character whose experience you don't understand first hand do somethin, ask yourself why? If the answer is it's what you would do, or what your beta reader said was realistic, or what you gather from direct observation, then go with it and put it in front of as many betas as you can before you send it out into the world. If your answer is "well because that's what those people do", then stop, assess your own bias and start again.

There are some things that are always going to be "wrong" when it comes to writing another tribe of people. Cultural differences don't require a skin color and it's really the success or failure of capturing a culture that will garner praise or cause offense. In my Therian World and my Angelic Prophecies series that kicks off next year, my shifter and angels cover the spectrum of coloring and ethnicity, but their cultures are Therian and Celestial respectively. Each are knowledgeable in the human equivalent culture but their motivations and behaviors are of their preternatural culture and they act accordingly.

Your Archangels should be no different. The color of their skin, the texture of their hair and the shape of their eyes has nothing to do with the Angelic culture they descend from and that shapes their motivations. It's not cultural appropriation if the culture in question is an inclusive one of your own making. The point where you start making them act differently based in the human facade they wear, that's when you'll have crossed into dangerous, perhaps outright offensive territory.

Thanks for the friend add! :)

~Xakara

[misslj-author.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this. I really mean it - this has been eating at me since I started working on it because I really don't want to be appropriating culture or anything like that.

As a PoC, I think the first and last thing in your mind when you write a character of a different culture, ethnicity, religion, gender or ableness, is the question "but why". Every time you have a character whose experience you don't understand first hand do somethin, ask yourself why? If the answer is it's what you would do, or what your beta reader said was realistic, or what you gather from direct observation, then go with it and put it in front of as many betas as you can before you send it out into the world. If your answer is "well because that's what those people do", then stop, assess your own bias and start again.

This is a huge relief to read, actually, because the whys, when I ask them of myself, are answered by, well, this is what I would do if I was in this situation.

Each are knowledgeable in the human equivalent culture but their motivations and behaviors are of their preternatural culture and they act accordingly.

That sums up exactly what I want to convey and in a succinct way that I didn't even think of. Reading this was very much an 'ah-ha!' moment for me because you said so perfectly what I was floundering around like a flailing fish!

Thanks again for this, I really appreciate it. And I very much look forward to getting to know you via our ljs! :)

[xakara.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad to know this helped! Too often we get caught up in the surface and we try to express our differences in terms of skin color or facial features when it's about the cultures we were raised in or those we were able to observe first hand. For those of us who write paranormal fiction, the importance is to honor the cultures we create, while representing the rainbow of possibility those in the culture can visually represent. A great trick is to give them something that is completely inhumane to remind the reader that they are not dealing with human beings and human culture and therefore cannot expect to receive whatever they consider a human cultural response from the characters in question. It will keep them thinking beyond their own biases and in the story fully.

I would like to touch on something that struck me in your original post and that would be brought up for scrutiny in certain circles while discussing this topic.

So, I have white, Maori, Indian (from India), Chinese, black, Russian, Columbian and Cambodian characters

Why are white and black not capitalized in the context of the other ethnicities that you mentioned? If the premise is that they aren't ethnicities in and of themselves, something I accept, shouldn't they still be capitalized as cultures? I can't argue for "white culture" save to say the American cultural default is white, but if I use the words Black Culture, it's easily accepted as a measurable social phenomena. So why the lower case? And to be clear, when I say Black Culture, I don't mean African-American Culture, which is different.

There are many people in American (we can discuss nationalism at some point as well if you wish), that are living within Black culture that are not African-American but instead, Haitian, Dominican, Puerto Rican, West African & South African students/diplomats/exiles, British, French, or Canadian expats, and more, but the common thread is that they are all Black in America and therefore all living the Black Experience and participating in Black Culture despite not being African-American. Do you see why I asked the question?

These are little things that will come up when speaking about ethnicity and culture and how to appropriately approach it with sensitivity and respect. But they are the same things very often not spoken of in a public forum to in turn help foster an understanding between those for whom ethnic heritage defines their culture and those who have a more regional based culture.

I look forward to getting to know you as well and I hope we can both be as helpful as possible to each other!

[misslj-author.livejournal.com]

Ohh I see. I'm Australian, so this is something I'm not well versed on (obviously as demonstrated with the lack of capital letters.) Can I ask how African-American Culture differs from Black Culture? I'm not trying to be obtuse, I genuinely want to understand and learn.

Also, if I can use you as a sounding board for a moment, I'm describing how each Archangel looks, only the once, to set the stage so to speak for the fact that they aren't identical, that each Archangel is an individual and unique, just like each race and culture on Earth. Can you give me an example of a respectful way to describe the two Black Archangels? I'm establishing one as being African-American (Raphael) and the other as being Ghanian, spending most of his time in the continental US when not working (Samael).

I freely admit I'm woefully ignorant on this topic and I don't want to be. I want to be informed and with that, be able to write these cultures with sensitivity and respect. Thank you again for being so willing to discuss this with me.

Answer part I

[xakara.livejournal.com]

That's not a short answer, I'll probably have to do this is two comments, but that's okay. :)

There are scores of books and entire courses of study based on breaking down the Black Experience, Black Culture and African-American Culture and Experience. I look at the difference in terms of background and experience and inclusive vs. exclusive. African-American Culture is the shared experience of an entire hue of skin colorations, socio-economic circumstances, and educational backgrounds that are superseded by the commonality of expression and oppression. For African-Americans, as for all cultures, that expression of shared history and identity comes through in music, clothing, food, celebrations, lexicon and an inherent resonance with what it means to be Black in American.

The Black Experience on the other hand, is global. Regardless of your country of origin and the regional identification, there is a unique experience to being Black in the Western & Western-influenced World. Despite our individual genetic histories, the shared ancestral legacy of slavery and oppression, along with modern bigotry and ignorance binds us together. You can take someone of African descent from Canada, the United States, South America, Spain, England, Algeria, Angola, South Africa, Egypt, Inda, Mongolia, Australia and New Zealand and have them walk together down a street in Midwest America and they are all Black. They will all be treated with the same biases, be they good or bad, and they will have the same experience for as long as they are in the same location.

So while the African-American Experience is local and the culture internal, the Black Experience is global and the culture external. All African-Americans are Black but not all Blacks are African-American. Your two Archangels will be treated the same when they walk down the street, but if Raphael lived a human life, he'd have a different culture base than Samael would have had in Ghana, but they're both in America from what you said, so where Raphael's African-American Culture and Samael's Ghanaian Culture overlap, is their shared Black Experience and the Black Culture that comes from that experience.

Going from the global and inclusive definition of Black Culture, to the nationalist explanation, Black Culture is the accumulation of cultural influence by all those internally and externally identified as Black in the United States regardless of how they individually identify. So again, all African-Americans are included in the term Black Culture but not all who identify as Black consider themselves African-American.

I think one of the best ways to really take in a cultural sensitivity is to hear and read about the experiences of each ethnicity in the words of those who've lived it. There are countless essays and documentaries and studies and where you don't have to turn it into a second career, I think it's imperative that we all dedicate time to each culture or ethnicity we wish to represent in our writing and that we take every opportunity to soak in that knowledge when it's presented. I watch everything I can that comes concerning ethnic migration and the experience of PoC in the U.S. and abroad because I know my story is only one way it could have happened. The greater the variety of stories I learn I want to learn the more effectively I can touch on those different threads and weave a new narrative for my character.

It can seem daunting, but the information is out there and much of it in easily digestible form in order to encourage understanding across cultures and ethnicities.

Answer part II

[xakara.livejournal.com]

Now to answer your question, how you describe the two characters will depend on how you describe all of the characters. You want consistancy across the board so as not to fetishize or isolate any one ethnicity. That means if you use food descriptors, use it for all of them, nature-based, then nature based for all. Most important, and where I think most folks trip up, don't describe their ethnicity for the sake of describing it. Always put it in the context of the scene in contrast, compliment or action. "The bright white napkins made the olive hue of his hand seem darker, more vibrant." "Large, vibrant eyes seemed all the bluer staring out from the dark, vanilla bean face." "He placed a pale hand on the pummel of his sword, the blue gems in the hilt a near match for the dark veins visible beneath his skin."

Now if they all arrive someplace together the first time, then it would be appropriate to describe them all at once in turn, but I give the fair warning that if you only describe them once, especially if it's all in the same scene, by the time your reader is later in the book, all of the angels will look the same. They won't recall which is which, without subtle reminders throughout the work for those characters that carry the story.

And I'm happy to be a sounding board. I'm working through my own Angelic mythos so it's helpful on both sides. :)

[misslj-author.livejournal.com]

This is all *enormously* helpful. Looking at articles/essays/abstracts/news reports is an excellent suggestion and I'll definitely do that. I link hop, so I see myself reading and watching a lot of interesting and informative stuff.

Those descriptions and examples are fabulous. I find that sometimes I get so caught in the box of what I want to say versus how to say it that breaking out of the box of want into the wider realm of the how needs a good, hard kick from a third party - and this is perfect. This has given me so many ideas to follow up on and I really appreciate it. It's a good point that readers won't remember without subtle reminders throughout the narrative - definitely something I'll keep in mind.

Thank you for clarifying the differences too, in Cultural Experience, I've already learned so much from what you've explained to me and I really do appreciate it.

[xakara.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad to have helped! Keep me updated on how it all goes. I'm happy to keep breaking this down as you come to certain points and I'm open to speaking on everything about culture, ethnicity, gender, and religion. I don't know if I have crit time coming up as I'm under deadline, but I can beta read at a future date if you like.

I'm so glad we started talking today!

[misslj-author.livejournal.com]

I will certainly take you up on that, thank you. I don't expect to have it anywhere near finished for a while - I've set myself a minimum word count of 60K and winter's coming here which makes my disabilities flare up because the cold agravates *everything*, but I intend to have it done by the latter part of the year at least. I hope!

I was raised a Mormon (no longer one - I left the LDS when I was 16 and that was a looooong time ago!) and part of my degree was History of the Early Church which was absolutely fascinating, so I'd love to talk religion and theology as well.

I am too, it's been awesome. I'm really glad I friended you, I wish I'd looked at the Goodreads LJ forum posts earlier.

[misslj-author.livejournal.com]

*Early Church = early Christianity as a movement, from the first century A.D.

[xakara.livejournal.com]

I was raised Catholic and actively walked away from it at 14 but continued on at Catholic school through graduation at 17. It's amazing to contrast my experience being in a Catholic environment and learning religion vs. being in the scholarship environment of Comparative Religion courses.

I'm sorry to hear about the cold causing you problems. I've been having mobility issues for several months and I'm hoping the coming summer will finally ease them. I'm trying to avoid knee surgery but as each year passes I'm beginning to think it might not be an option. I'm going to fight it to the end though!

I have two revisions due in the next two weeks and then edits on my summer release. After that I have a 60k due July 5th and another due September 5th, so it's a little crazy on my end of things right now. Book one of The Angelic Prophecies is going to be 80K and hopefully done in November, December at the latest. That's 200K in 8 months, doable if it flows but a little crazy considering I don't know what the rest of the year brings.

I've spent the last year as a statistic of the recession. The non-profit I worked for closed its doors last March with little warning. There was supposed to be a follow-up service that we were all eligible for later that year, but it never materialized. There's been financial considerations of course, but it was the best thing for my writing. After a very long pause I finally got my second publishing contract last July, had a Christmas release, got my third contract in March that will have a July release and should be hearing back on my fourth contract sometime in the next week with eagerness for me to turn in book three by July which would be my fifth contract and release in December.

All of that is possible because I was home. I don't know what happens when I'm back in the workforce. Right now it looks like I'll be back in the game in June, full time, benefits, the works and I'm grateful, I truly am. I'm just concerned.

Okay, It's almost 4:30am here, I should go and sleep. Have a wonderful day and I'll talk to you later. Are you on facebook?

[misslj-author.livejournal.com]

I went to a state school - I thank my lucky stars that the one I went to was as good as it is. It's the only high school dedicated to languages and multiculturalism in the state and I took Mandarin Chinese for three years and French for four. At the time I was there (as it's a loooooong time ago now hahaha!) it's fair to say there was, in the student body and the teachers themselves, no minority group. There was an equal mix of race, culture and religions. It was almost a Utopian bubble in a sense - we were educated in languages and cultures and our social groups weren't predominantely White or Chinese or Serb; they were groups of kids who hung out together because they were friends and had things in common, not based on anything else. My best friends were Cantonese, White Australian, Aboriginal Australian, Hawaiian, Ukrainian, Greek and Serbian - it never really hit me how horrible humans could be to each other because of prejudice until I graduated high school and went to university. Educationally, it was one of the top three schools in the state, so we all got an amazing learning environment as well. Friends who have kids who go the school now have the same multicultural and educational experience. I wish there were more schools like it.

From that, I went to uni and did a BA in film making and history. History is my main love, particularly medieval and Byzantine. Post uni, I wrote a thesis on women's clothing in the 12th and 13th centuries which was peer reviewed and has been used in a lot of things, from TV documentaries to historical reenactment of the period, the latter being something I loved doing until several years ago when the disabilities grew worse and put a major kaibosh on *all* activies.

I feel your pain with the knee issue - joints are awful when they're damaged. I don't blame you at all for fighting the surgery as long as possible, I'm in a similar situation and baulking because I had two surgeries on my left wrist - which is now totally unusable - that went wrong. My mind set atm is that I'd rather deal with the pain as best I can and have the limited mobility that I do than go through surgery and risk it not working because of my experiences with my wrist.

That is an amazing amount of writing you've got lined up, I'm in awe that you're able to get it done in that time! Who do you publish with? I'm a sucker for angel-based fiction, so I'll be making a note of your Angelic Prophies novel for when it comes out.

I can understand the concern - the time and energy that work takes up and then figuring out how much of both is left over at the end of the day for writing is sometimes like juggling greased juggling balls. Which part of the US are you in? I visited for the first time last year and saw Oregon, Washington state, DC, Maryland and parts of Philadelphia and LA and Canada - I loved it, such a beautiful country and everyone was so warm and friendly and welcoming. It was a wonderful experience and I'd love to go back.

I am on Facebook, though I don't use it much. Most of my social networking is done on Twitter and here on LJ. I never thought I'd have much use for Twitter and now I'm addicted to the thing!