Several days ago on Twitter,
Stephen King made this tweet about diversity (in response to the discussion
about the recent Oscar nominations’ lack of diversity): “I would never consider
diversity in matters of art. Only quality. It seems to me that to do otherwise
would be wrong.” This was the second part of a message about the awards, and a
couple hours later, King followed it up with a couple more tweets to clarify
his feelings about diversity (he said he’s for it, by the way). The tweet – as
you might imagine – engendered quite a number of responses. Some people were
disappointed that someone with King’s platform would post such a message.
Others came to his defense and said the tweet was taken out of context. You can
go check out King’s tweets and judge for yourself. All the responses to King’s
tweet that I read got me thinking about how I handle diversity in my own
writing. I thought this might make a good topic for a blog post, so here we
are.
First off, individual writers have
to make their own decisions about how to handle diversity in their work. I
believe it’s important to strive for diversity in one’s fiction, and I have a
host of reasons for that belief. But if you dismiss the idea of including
diversity in your writing as mere “virtue signaling” or pandering to an audience
for political reasons, let me offer some – for lack of better term – self-focused
reasons to consider adding diversity in your fiction.
1) We live in a diverse world.
Adding diversity to your story makes it seem more real. This is called
verisimilitude, and it’ll make your work better. The better your work is, the
greater chance it will sell. If it sells, you’ll reach more readers and
hopefully make some money.
2) Readers aren’t homogenous.
They’re diverse in all kind of ways, and diversity in fiction is attractive to
them. Because of this, they’ll be more interested in buying and reading your
work. If they buy your work, you’ll reach more readers and hopefully make some
money.
Whether you believe that
representation matters and adding diversity to your work will help make the
world a better place, or if you’re only interested about advancing your own
career (or some combination of both), here are some tips for dealing with diversity
in your fiction.
Should you write
about people who aren’t like you?
“Write what you know” comes into
play here. If you’re a man, don’t write from the point of view of a woman. If
you’re not deaf, don’t write from the point of view of a deaf person, etc. The
idea is that no matter what you do – how much research, how much you try to use
your imagination and empathy – you will never be able to be anyone other than
yourself. You won’t be able to write from earned experience. You’ll also be co-opting
the stories of people who do have earned experience. Your story about a person
of Maori descent might take away room for a story written by someone who actually
is of Maori descent. Basically, you should stay in your lane and write from the
point of view of people more or less like you, from more or less the same area,
with more or less the same basic qualities and background when it comes to race/gender/sexuality,
etc. Lots of writers do this and do an excellent job.
I understand the basic idea of
staying in your lane when it comes to diversity in fiction, and to a certain
extent, I support it. I think writers shouldn’t try to tell a story meant to
illuminate important aspects of another group’s experience. Only a person who
was raised in and still is steeped in a culture/race/gender/etc. can ever know
it well enough to write in-depth fiction exploring the issues that group faces.
No amount of research can ever give you as authoritative an experience as
someone who actually belongs a group other than your own, and you will never do
as good a job as a writer from that group would at telling those stories. That
said, I think if your story isn’t about the African-American experience or the
gay experience, or the fill-in-the-blank experience, you can write from the
point of view of a character unlike yourself if their racial/gender/cultural
identity isn’t central to the story. Men in Black is a good example.
Agents J and K could be people of any race, gender, or sexuality without having
an appreciable impact on the film’s plot. (One does need to be older than the
other, though.) Some character bits, such as J’s jokes which arise from his
race would change, but the characters’ essential personalities and how they
solve problems would remain the same. The story isn’t about J being black and K
being white. It’s about the weird aspects of their job and saving the world. I’m
perfectly comfortable writing from the point of view of someone with a
different racial/ethnic/gender/sexual orientation background than myself in
this circumstance. I focus on the character’s personality, and while their
backgrounds will affect the expression of their character to a certain extent,
I don’t attempt to delve very deep into their race, gender, sexuality, religion,
etc. And if I do go a little deeper than usual, it’s because I have close
relationships with people from those backgrounds, and I’m comfortable asking
them if I misrepresented the group they belong to (or rather one of their
groups, since we all belong to multiple ones).
If you’re absolutely determined to
write an incisive character and cultural study of someone from a group different than yourself, go ahead.
Roll the dice and see how readers respond. But don’t be surprised if they want
to know why a middle-aged white guy born in 1964 and who’s lived in Ohio most
of his life (to use myself as an example) thinks he has any special insight
into what the life of a black lesbian teenager from Los Angeles in 2020 is
like.
Do a diversity
self-inventory
Exploring your attitudes towards
race, religion, gender, sexuality, etc. – those you had as a child, as a teen,
as an adult – can help give you more insight into how to deal with diversity in
your fiction. Think back over how you were raised to view people of other
backgrounds – race, religion, sexuality, gender expression, physical and mental
capabilities, political beliefs . . . How did your parents view people of other
backgrounds? How did people in your community? In your school? In your peer
group? How did your views change (if they did) as you grew older? What
prejudices and fears do you have about people from other backgrounds? How much
do you know about people of other backgrounds? What would you like to know that
you don’t? Be honest with yourself, even if it’s painful (maybe especially if
it is). If you write your responses down, no one else ever has to see them. Taking
such a self-inventory can reveal areas of bias, prejudice, confusion, fears,
and misinformation you might have toward or about people from different
backgrounds. Such an inventory can reveal areas where you need to educate
yourself. Get to know people from different backgrounds, read about their
experiences in books, articles, blogs, and on social media. If you ask direct
questions of people from different backgrounds, do so respectfully and remember
it’s no one else’s responsibility to educate you about diversity issues. If
someone does you the courtesy of answering your questions, that’s great, but no
one owes you answers.
A diversity self-inventory can also
reveal areas that you feel passionate about. Say you grew up in an environment
of toxic masculinity or with a parent who had bipolar disorder. Maybe you had
to deal with being in an abusive relationship at some point in your life. Maybe
you have a sibling who struggles with addiction issues. If any diversity issues
are important to you, for whatever reason, your experience with and strong
feelings about them can fuel some powerful fiction.
Some elements of my own diversity
inventory: I’m a cis-het white male, born in 1964, who grew up in a small town
in Southwest Ohio. Prejudice against African-Americans, sexism, homophobia, and
ableism were common. There was prejudice against Catholics (though this was
milder than the other issues). Prejudice against Jews was rare. I never heard
anything negative about Hispanics or Asians (to the point where it never
occurred to me that some people considered them separate races from whites). No
one ever said anything about Muslims one way or the other. Trans people weren’t
highly visible yet, so no one said anything about them, and the concepts of
gender expression and fluidity were unknown. Bigamy was the closest anyone ever
came to the concept of polyamory, and of course, it was viewed negatively. Mental
illness was a stigma and rarely discussed. Antidepressants weren’t a thing yet.
Autism, learning disabilities, ADD, etc. weren’t concepts people discussed.
Hyperactivity was, though. Politically, most people were Republicans, but not
like today’s extreme version. Democrats were primarily centrists. Communism was
viewed negatively, and no one ever said the word socialism. Religiously
speaking, faith was balanced with other aspects of life, and rigid Christian
evangelism wasn’t a factor. General anti-intellectualism existed, but it was
relatively mild. (This was my experience of what my town was like regarding
issues of diversity. The reality may have been different in many respects,
perhaps drastically so.)
That’s my background regarding
diversity up until I graduated high school. I didn’t possess all the same views
that people in my town generally had, but I couldn’t help but be affected by
them to one degree or another. I could go on and describe how my attitudes
toward people from different backgrounds evolved as I went to college, then
grad school, got married, became a college professor, then a father, and so on,
but you get the idea. This kind of introspection can not only make you a better
person, but also help you learn to deal with diversity in your writing more
effectively.
Don’t preach
When it comes to exploring
diversity issues in your writing, do so through story and character, not in
what amounts to personal rants. It’ll only turn readers off. Even if readers
agree with your point of view 100 percent, they want to experience a story, not
a lecture. And for godsakes, don’t mansplain, whitesplain, het-splain, or do
splaining of any kind. Don’t tell people from backgrounds different from yours
how they should view their experiences and how they should behave. In other
words, don’t be an asshole.
Should you draw
attention to diversity?
Some people advocate not mentioning
characters’ race, sexuality, and other characteristics unless they are
pertinent to the story. If it doesn’t matter to the story if a character is
white, black, straight, gay, bi, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, etc., why bring it
up? Not only does doing so “other” characters by labeling them, telling readers
too much about a character (even down to hair and eye color) can make it more
difficult for them to picture characters in whichever way they wish. I
understand this point of view, but I don’t share it. We were discussing
diversity issues in one of my creative writing classes the other day, and an
African-American student said that if a character’s race isn’t mentioned in a
story, she always views that character as white since whiteness is the assumed
default in America, and that’s what she’s been exposed to all her life. Plus,
in real life, there are certain basic aspects of people’s backgrounds we can
see by their appearance – basic racial background, basic gender background. We
can’t – and shouldn’t – make any detailed assumptions about people based on
physical appearance, but we do get some surface information. So not indicating
race in our fiction seems unrealistic. If we do so, we should also describe
white people as white and not assume everyone knows they’re white just because
that’s been the expected default in America. I’m terrible about this. It’s so
automatic for me to assume the default of whiteness that I often forget to
describe a character as white even when I describe others specially as
African-American or Asian. It’s something I need to keep working on.
Indicate
background through names
One easy way to add diversity to
your fiction is to use names – especially surnames – that indicate
racial/ethnic/cultural background. If a character has a last name of Alvarez or
Nguyen, you don’t have to specifically mention their race. Male and female
first names can indicate gender. I think it’s harder to indicate that a
character is African-American through names alone, and there’s no way to
indicate sexuality through names. But while some diversity can be accomplished
through names, athere’s no way a name can render a detailed background of a
character.
Use random name
and character generators
There are lots of sites on the
Internet where you can randomly generate characters’ names and other
characteristics such as race, sexuality, religion, etc. In the real world, when
you leave your home, you never know who you might meet during the course of
your day. Random name and character generators can reflect this. Just as we
don’t choose the characteristics of real people we meet, we can let chance
choose characteristics of our fictional people. This can also help keep you
from defaulting to particular characteristics such as gender, race, sexuality,
etc. in the people you populate your stories with.
Do your research
If you are going to write about
characters from different backgrounds than yours, do your research. Talk to
people from that background, read articles and books written by people of that
background, watch movies and videos dealing with that background written by and
starring people from that background. Ask for advice on writing about this background
on social media. You might get some negative responses, but if you’re sincere
and respectful in how you ask your questions, people with earned experience
will answer.
Get feedback
Not sure if you got details right
when writing about someone from another background? Have someone from that
background read your work (or at least pertinent passages from it) and tell you
where you got it right, where you got it wrong, and how to do better.
Go for it and let
the world decide whether or not you were successful
I alternate between male and female
main characters in my projects. Always have. I include characters of various
race, sexualities, and belief systems in my work, not only because I believe
inclusion is important in general, but also because it simply reflects the
reality of the world I live in. I don’t dive very deep into my character’s various
backgrounds, though, as I don’t feel I have the earned experience to do a good
job. I’m well aware that I might screw up and offend readers. I hope I don’t,
but I believe in inclusion, representation, and diversity, and I intend to keep
striving to reflect them in my work. If I make mistakes, I hope readers will
let me know so I can do better in the future. And if I fuck-up big time and end
up at the center of a social media shitstorm, that’s okay. I’m willing to take
that risk.
These are my current thoughts on effective
ways to deal with diversity in fiction. I’m sure they’ll evolve as I learn
more. To that end, I’d love to hear how you approach diversity in your own work.
Please feel free to share your thoughts – and some tips – in the comments.
DEPARTMENT OF
SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION
The Forever House
My next dark fantasy/horror novel, The
Forever House, will be out in late March and is ready for pre-order. Reviews
are starting to come in, and so far they’ve been good! You can order all three
versions – hardcover, trade paperback, and ebook – at the Flame Tree Press
site. The ebook isn’t available for pre-order at Amazon or B&N yet. I have
no idea why. If you haven’t already read a synopsis of the book, I got you
covered:
In Rockridge, Ohio, a sinister
family moves into a sleepy cul de sac. The Eldreds feed on the negative
emotions of humans, creating nightmarish realms within their house to entrap
their prey. Neighbors are lured into the Eldreds’ home and faced with
challenges designed to heighten their darkest emotions so their inhuman captors
can feed and feed well. If the humans are to have any hope of survival, they’ll
have to learn to overcome their prejudices and resentments toward one another
and work together. But which will prove more deadly in the end, the Eldred . .
. or each other?
Writing in the
Dark (the book)
In November, I turned in the
manuscript for my how-to-write-horror book, Writing in the Dark (named
after my blog!), to my editors Jennifer Barnes and John Edward Lawson at Raw
Dog Screaming Press. It should be out sometime in 2020, but I don’t have a definite
release date yet. I’ll keep you posted.
Some Kind of
Monster
This is a novella I wrote for Apex Publishing.
It’s about woman investigating urban legends who finds some very unexpected
truths behind them. I’ve gone over page proofs and I think it’ll be out
in 2020 sometime, but I’m not sure. Again, I’ll keep you posted.
Your Turn to
Suffer
This is my next dark fantasy/horror
novel for Flame Tree Press. I turned it in to Don D’Auria in December. This one
also may be out in late 2020, and one more time, I’ll keep you posted. Here’s a
synopsis:
Lorelei Palumbo is harassed by a
sinister group calling themselves The Cabal. They accuse her of having
committed unspeakable crimes in the past, and now she must pay. The Cabal
begins taking her life apart one piece at a time – her job, her health, the
people she loves – and she must try to figure out what The Cabal thinks she’s
done if she’s to have any hope of answering their charges and salvaging her
life.