Stop making your main characters white and male (yes, I do teach creative writing)
Okay, I am probably not talking to *you*, so cool your jets. *You* are woke and understand that just as the real world has people of every color and all along the gender spectrum, fiction should too. TV has not figured this out yet. If it had, one in five characters in America-set stories would be black, one in ten Asian, and three in ten would be Latino. Fully half would be female (and of those females, only one in five would be a hot chick instead of 4 out of 5). Movies are about the same. Unfortunately a lot of fiction writers emulate what they’ve seen on the screen. Many’s the time I’ve asked one of my writing students where the female characters are, what the ethnicity of their characters are, and how race and gender affect their characters. Sometimes students will tell me that they are “colorblind” or that gender shouldn’t matter. (Yet how many times have I read that the hero’s eyes are “cerulean” – pardon me while I throw up a little in my mouth.) Other times students tell me that because they’re white, they don’t feel comfortable creating black, Asian, or otherwise non-white characters.
Here’s what I have to say to these weak excuses: it’s not cultural appropriation if you’re white and write non-white characters, so long as you give those characters depth, heart, and originality. Don’t stereotype. Don’t make up Indian legends (a la Stephenie Meyer). Avoid tropes. DO look at your four main characters and make sure some are women in power (NOT victims), add some depth and variety to your characters’ sexuality, and make no more than half of them white. Embrace the conflict that this may add to your fiction, and do investigate how that would realistically play out, add to your story’s depth, and affect the symbolism, themes, and setting.
Why is this important? It is up to us writers to change the landscape of fiction in this new century. I am astonished by the continuing whiteness and maleness of TV. Every new show that comes on, I see four white guys, the black/Asian token, the diverse, mostly non-speaking support team, and a hot chick. Sometimes two hot chicks. Sometimes there’s a black woman president or other background power figure to reassure us that the writing team cares. But the main characters? White, and dominated by males. Props to Shonda Rhimes. Make your cast of characters look like her TV shows.
Readers want to see themselves reflected on the pages of the books they choose. Yet we are trained to read about/watch white men, especially as heroes, and we need to start changing that narrative. Think about a young black woman growing up with no hero that looks like her to daydream about. That sucks. It’s even worse for Asian readers in America.
Now look at your story, the one you’re working on or getting ready to work on. And look at the diversity of your characters. And ask yourself, “How will this story change if it reflects the real world? If my main character is an Asian girl, or a black man?” It’s not going to wreck your story. It’s going to make your story more interesting. Do it. Now.
janainaart
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