Balance: Gender, Race, Etc.

[kaasirpent]

"The Amazing Extreme Equilibrium" © 2005 by Vitor Sá

It’s been a while since I wrote anything, here. And I feel bad about that. Or would, if a lot of people read the site. :) (I’m grateful to all both of you that do.)

But there’s a reason I’ve been quiet. I’ve been writing and reading a lot. I don’t have a lot of new words all in a row to show for it, but what I do have are redesigned character backgrounds, re-imaginings of characters, new characters, societal development, a rather huge mindmap, background information, a framework and logic for magic . . . and probably about 4500 to 5000 new words. Doesn’t seem like a lot when I summarize it like that, but when you look at it from a certain point of view, all the stuff I’ve written down that no one will ever see will probably nearly double the size of the story when I go back and rewrite it from the beginning. I’ve got about 46,500 words of it written, but most of that will have to be rewritten with all this new stuff taken into account.

Which, unfortunately, means that my most favorite and best darling of all has to go: my first sentence, which is what sparked the idea for the whole novel, which then became a novel series.

The man Nick Damon had come to kill was already dead.

Unfortunately for that awesome first line, Nick is no longer the type to set out to kill someone in cold blood. He never really was, but I just couldn’t give up that line. <le soupir profond>¹ “Kill your darlings” has never been so hard. :-/

Anyway, the whole purpose of this post was to ask a question.

My novel, tentatively titled Perdition’s Flames, takes place in modern-day Atlanta, only magic works, but there are no sexy vampires (that do or do not sparkle) or sexy werewolves. Specifically and purposefully, because I’m sick and damned tired of that overused trope.

I picked Atlanta for a couple of reasons. First, it’s where I live, and I’m familiar with it enough to set stories in and around it . . . with a little research. :)

Second, the other cities I’ve lived in have been too small to set something of the kind of scope that I want to write in (diagram that sucker). I have nothing against Tuscaloosa/Northport, Alabama, but the streets do have a tendency to roll up at 10:00 pm. And my hometown is just 1800 people. I think a maniac murdering people left and right would overwhelm the police and the inhabitants.

So, Atlanta. :) One of the great things about Atlanta: it’s a distinctly southern city, but with a lot of added diversity.

But I noticed that in my novel, three of the four main characters are white and three of the four are men (not necessarily the same three both times). Only one main character is a woman, and one is Hispanic² (again, not the same character). I have a minor character who is Asian (I’m considering changing him to a her), another who is a black woman. A few others are of various races and genders. Picked basically at “random” as I wrote and needed a body to fill a role. And I’ve added a couple of new characters in my head who are both women and who may come back in future stories, assuming I ever get this one written.

I wasn’t intentionally going out of my way to try to have the novel reflect the racial diversity of the city it’s set in, nor was I attempting to gender-balance it. But then it occurred to me that I had no idea if other readers even noticed such things. Or cared, if they did.

I suspect that white, male readers — for the most part, anyway — pay little to no attention; white, female readers may notice the male-to-female ratio of the cast, but may or may not care much about the racial component; and members of other races may pay a bit more attention to race, but maybe not a whole lot.

Again, these are merely speculation, and I have no idea if it’s even in the ballpark of right.

Which brings me to my question. Do you pay any attention to that sort of thing? Does it take away from the story if the city is diverse, but most of the main characters are white guys? (Now, granted, I am a white guy, so I’m probably best at writing from that POV.)

I’m just curious. I don’t really know that I intend to “fix” it. I think I sort of subconsciously/unintentionally stumbled on a pretty good mixture of characters that I’ve grown to like (even though some won’t make it to book 2 <insert dramatic minor chord here>).

---

1. Don’t ask me why I decided to ‘heavy sigh’ in French. Like I understand the inner workings of my mind any more than you do? We’re in this together.
2. I’ve heard that this term may have become derogatory while I wasn’t looking. I certainly do not mean it that way. I just don’t know what else to use, if, indeed, it has taken on negative connotations. I just mean people whose first language is Spanish, but who are living in the US.

Originally published at WriteWright. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[feuervogel]

Yes, people notice that sort of thing. Especially those of us who aren't straight white guys. My three main characters are as follows: a Turkish-Iranian man (gay, lapsed Muslim), a Turkish-Japanese woman (lesbian, atheist), and an Iranian woman (straight, Muslim). Yeah, I did some of that on purpose.

[etherial.livejournal.com]

Yes, even some white male readers pay attention to that sort of thing. I find it quite pleasing to see evidence that my writer lives in the same colorful world I do (and by colorful, I mean that New England is like 97% white, which is still way more diverse than Hollywood films). There is a danger of tokenism (Oh, crap, I have no gay eskimos, I better write one in to satisfy the gay eskimo demographic), but tokenism is still generally considered better than invisibilty, and you don't strike me as much of a hack, so I expect your diversity to not simply kill of the black guys, put women in supporting roles, and have absolutely everything revolve around white men.

And if you want people to proofread for that sort of thing, lemme know.

[jost.livejournal.com]

While I don't outright notice it when characters are of racial background X, nothing breaks down the suspension of disbelief I bring to reading a novel like when a character is of racial background X purely for the purposes of having a character of racial background X in the story. Take for example Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury in the recent Marvel films. Fantastic casting, I say, regardless of previous (non-Ultimates) depictions of Nick Fury bring white. That was perfect casting for the role without concern for the race of the actor involved. Now juxtapose that with The Dresden Files TV show Warden Morgan. While the actor was fine and the role was what it needed to be; it was always clear that the actor was chosen so they'd have a black character. Does Warden Morgan have to be white? Absolutely not, but it always stood out to me more as token casting. I will gladly revise my opinion here if there were any proof that they opened the casting of the role to any race but I'd bet a small sum of money the casting sheet for Morgan specifically cited an African American.

[kaasirpent]

Or African-Canadian, as the case may be. :)

Coincidently, I just finished watching that series last night.

[fauxklore]

For me, it depends on what role race and gender play in the story. If you are talking fantasy without any specific racial aspect to it, I doubt I would notice.

[kaasirpent]

There will be at least some -ism because in this world, even though magic is "out," it's not universally accepted. So while there may be some racism or sexism or whatever-ism, the major thing I'll deal with (maybe; I haven't actually written these parts, yet) is that prejudice against those who possess power.

[kaasirpent]

I didn't overly engage in "tokenism" to the level you mention. I would need a character to be, say, a college professor, and I'd just think, "Any reason for this person to be male? Female? White? Black? Etc?"

In some cases there are requirements, but if not, I just go with what 'feels right.' :)

[kaasirpent]

The only one I'm purposefully making anything is the female mage I'm about to introduce, and that only because I realized that everyone in the story who wields any sort of power is male. And I didn't want to imply that only men can wield magic.

[oxlahun.livejournal.com]

Gender, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic class are tangled up in really interesting ways in Atlanta. They work different than they do in Philly or Boston or even Houston. If it's important to your story to be in Atlanta, it's worth it to spend a little time establishing Atlanta.

That doesn't mean you need to have more female or black or whatever-group characters, it means you need to understand why/how the background you've given each character supports their role in the story. Delany does the masterfully in Dhalgren, if you're looking for a really challenging read to occupy your brain for a while.

The danger of tokenism, even subconscious, is that it's obvious if you have some character who's important enough to be described, who commits some action that moves the story along, and the motivation doesn't make sense. If it smells artificial, then you precipitate disbelief.

How do you know if it makes sense, if it smells real? That character goes away and talks about what happened, from his point of view, with someone else he knows. Imagine that conversation, and give it a generalized Bechdel test. Is it plausible without being stereotypical? Is it substantive without establishing itself as the entirety of context for those people's lives? Am I rambling incoherently at this point?

Yes, I think so. I have my own writing to do, but probably not tonight, because I hope it's non-fiction.

[feuervogel]

Good plan. I just realized during my revisions that I put women into combat special forces...then had them stay and guard the facilities. I can switch a couple numbers and pronouns and names so I feel a little better about that and less derp.

Like the person below says, fiction should reflect the actual makeup of the planet, not just teams of white guys. My future space Germany includes people with migration backgrounds (the euphemism du jour in Germany), because present-day Germany does (especially in the industrial areas from which the original colonists will come. Because the mining company needs workers, of course.)

[skreeky]

I have actually been thinking thinky thoughts about women in fiction lately, brought on by a long discussion about an action movie I hadn't even seen, starring 4 young hot babes kicking ass, and whether or not that was a good thing (conclusions: kicking ass, good; that they still have to be young and hot to be interesting, bad; discussion included numerous examples of exceptions which only prove the rule).

Anyway, in these thinky thoughts, it has occurred to me that there are things more insulting than *insert minority group here* being unrealistically omitted from the cast of characters. One is being unrealistically included in the cast. Example: is it plausible that one of your *group that is nearly exclusively male in reality* is female without that fact being a constant issue that would actually interrupt your plot? That's one of the things that reeks of tokenism, and if you're not careful can belittle the experience of real women in such a situation.

Another is for the *insert minority group here* to be written poorly, which tends to fall into two categories. Stereotype is self-explanatory. The other is to write (sorry, same example but being a woman is what I know) a woman EXACTLY as if she were a man, quite possibly because all that was done was to change Oliver to Olivia and fix the pronouns. The inner monologue of a woman is different than that of a man, in some ways subtle and in other ways not. Explaining exactly how it is different would take longer than I care to write in an LJ comment, but you can start by googling up some of those militantly ranty blog entries about "things men never have to think about." (Yes, they are extreme and it's not actually as bad as the rants say for most of us, but it's there.)

Point being, sure you can worry about whether your cast is diverse enough to be plausible, but please don't make it too diverse to be plausible, and don't write your minorities as though they were white men.

Oh, and the final peeve, when all the minority characters are minor characters. There's an adaptation of the Bechtel rule that says that the two female characters have to have NAMES, and have a conversation with each other about something other than a man.

[kaasirpent]

Thanks for the thoughts. I'll definitely keep them in mind. And thanks for 1/2 alerting me to this Bechdel Test of which I had never heard. :)

I do not intend for any of my characters to have to be any particular race or gender. They have roles to fulfill in the plot, and those have changed as I develop the characters through writing. I was just...concerned is too strong a word, but sure...'concerned' that I was writing an all-white, mostly male cast set in a city that is neither of those things. :)

[kaasirpent]

In my novel(s), the main POV character is a white male. And I do this because, like you said, I know that intimately. The other characters that occasionally get POV status are not necessarily either of those.

I fully intend to have a varied first-readers list that can hopefully help me with any stereotypes or 'women as men with feminine pronouns' or 'minorities are just white men in disguise' problems that I let creep in. Of course, that will greatly depend on who I can cajole into reading the thing(s) once it's done. :-/

At any rate, thanks for giving me something to keep in mind while writing.

[kaasirpent]

Oh, and I read Dhalgren many years ago. Like most of the other books I read by Delaney, it was...weird. And more than a little surreal. I was a teenager when I read it, so I don't remember a lot of it other than that I remember reading the back of the book and thinking "That sounds great!" and reading it and waiting to get to the part about the city being pulled out of our dimension...and waiting...and waiting...and waiting... :)

[dorsai.livejournal.com]

I tend not to pay close attention to racial breakdowns, unless the author clubs me over the head with it while making sure I know what a Tolerant And Inclusive Writer He Is. I'll usually notice when the four-person strike team is composed of a white guy, a black Muslim guy, a white lesbian, and a handicapped Jewish Hispanic woman.

You know what I do tend to notice, now that I think about it? Age. And it's not that I care about the distribution of older versus younger characters in a story, it's just that I'm aware of their ages in a way that I am not always aware of their races. I'm not infrequently surprised when I get to a story element that definitively pins a character down as not being white (Bob infiltrated the Bantu tribal council meeting? OK, he's definitely *not* like me...) even though his upbringing in Harlem was mentioned earlier, but I've usually got a pretty good idea of how they relate to each other age-wise.

Maybe I'm just getting old? In conclusion, get off my lawn.

NO

[friend-soscho.livejournal.com]

I don't pay attention to the balance of characters. I go where the story takes me. You need to ask yourself if these people were in real life, would they really be the type to have a lot of opposite sex friends.

I have some male friends, but most of my friends are female. As I am sure, you have some female friends, but more of your friends are male.

Don't force the relationships, as it will set the tone. I'd probably notice a new character being introduced, just to throw a new sex in.

And HEY NOW. I LIVED IN NORTHPORT oh, wait, you are right, Atlanta's the better choice.

Tuscaloosa does have a great scene with genders and ethnicity, but that is primarily because of the university. Most people wouldn't get that from reading your story. They would take it as a complete work of fiction.

COOL that your book is based in Atlanta. I'll have plenty to relate to. I like to read books where I have been to the cities that they mention. And here, I have had a love affair with Atlanta since I was 24.

[oxlahun.livejournal.com]

Just came across this TED talk by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talking about authenticity of race/ethnicity in literature, and how it usually fails.

The context I found it in is also interesting: apparently, some people are upset that a character in The Hunger Games that they had imagined would be white is played by a black person in the film. (For the record, the author describes the character as having "dark brown skin".)

[kaasirpent]

Wow. That's amazing. Thanks for letting me know.

Also, it's amazing that you not only remembered this post, but found it and commented on it again. :)