Katherine Frances's Blog, page 181
August 11, 2017
Bad Representation vs Tokenism vs Diversity just existing without justification like in the real world
Many authors can relate to the frustrating accusations of their characters and settings simply being the way they are for “diversity points” and writers are often scared of adding diversity out of fear of it being received poorly as a gimmick. Why does this situation exist?
Bad representation and gratuitous diversity are not the same thing and have to be addressed separately. The first one is a legitimate fear; the second one is exaggerated and has the dangerous potential to shut down legitimate representation. There’s so much diversity that you don’t even notice it in real life.
You go shopping in a Korean and Black neighborhood, get directions from some Desi folks, hop on to a bus and sit behind the guy in the wheelchair lift. When you come home to crack open a book (after shopping in that same neighborhood and riding on that same bus), does seeing diverse characters make you or someone you know cry, “WAIT A MINUTE NOW. I AM THE GRAND WIZARD. I SAY THIS IS TOO DIVERSE?“
What is representation that ends up being harmful instead of supporting diversity?
“I need a tough drug dealer ex-boyfriend for my MC to be scared of. I know! I’ll make him Black and/or Latino.”
“My MC is oppressed by her parents who want her to get married, have babies, and not major in anything that would threaten a man’s ego, when she’d rather marry a girl and become a physicist. I know! I’ll make her Muslim, Hindu, or an Orthodox Jew.”
“My MC is very sexually open and adventurous. I know! I’ll make her Latina because that sounds sexy.”
“My MC has an older female boss who yells at him all the time, who he’s scared of. I know! I’ll make her East Asian.”
When choosing a character’s ethnicity, if your logic flows like this – you have to work harder to free yourself from the white supremacist myths that permeate our everyday life.
This is not the same as “gratuitous” diversity.
People have a way of accusing diversity that doesn’t seem plot-relevant of being “gratuitous”, but a character doesn’t need a plot reason to be Muslim, Jewish, Black, Latina, in a wheelchair, trans, or anything else.
If you have a witness in a trial, and she wheels herself into the witness box instead of walking, you don’t have to sit there justifying it. It doesn’t have to mean anything. If you walk into a coffee house and ask directions from a cute barista in a headscarf, you don’t have to work her ethnoreligion into the plot for that to be “allowed.”
Now, if you have actual significant characters who are diverse – and you should! – their identities should be incorporated into their characterization and not feel like they’re wearing a series of nametags. There are plenty of ways you can do this – giving them names common to a group, mentioning a Black character’s specific natural hairstyle, having them endure a microaggression, having a trans character experiment with presentation, having a gay or bi person mention a partner or a celebrity crush. You can also just say “He introduced me to a tall East Asian man wearing a polo shirt” or “the new doctor was a Black woman with her hair in twists and glasses that looked like they could stop a bullet” and just leave it there, since that’s referencing a visible trait; if that looks pasted on or artificial to you, you may have unexamined prejudices, which is normal, but something to work on.
Remember that if you’re not in a group, your meter for determining whether or not diversity is “forced” is going to be unreliable. Don’t assume that other writers whose works are diverse are trying to coast on diversity stats or that the diversity in their books is automatically unrealistic and forced just because it’s more diverse than the media you usually consume. The real world IS diverse and lots of people get erased by the way mainstream fiction is structured, most of all being people who are marginalized in multiple ways at once.
–WWC
Things That Make YA Novels Unrealistic
Anonymous asked:what makes a realistic YA novel realistic?
Things That Make YA Novels Unrealistic
It’s easier for me to answer this question by addressing what makes YA novels unrealistic. If you avoid the following when writing YA, you’re probably doing okay. :)1) Breakfast Club Stock Characters
We all know that people can be divided into categories based on their style and behavior, and teens have some of their own unique categories, like: goth, jock, cheerleader, math whiz, etc. While it would be dishonest to pretend these groups don’t exist, portraying them as stock characters–without depth and meaning beyond their social group–only produces unrealistic caricatures. Make sure your teen characters have vibrant lives beyond that identification. Also, remember that the goth kid doesn’t have to be emo, the math whiz doesn’t have to be socially inept, the rich kid doesn’t have to be a snob, the cheerleader doesn’t have to sleep with everyone, and the jock doesn’t have to be dumb.
2) Insta-LoveThis is a HUGE pitfall in YA with romantic subplots. Boy meets girl, or girl meets boy, and two days later THEY ARE IN LOOOOOVE!!! In the real world, people don’t “fall in love” overnight. Crushes? Yeah, those can happen pretty fast. Lust? In a split-second. But no one should spend two hours with someone and seriously think they are in love with them. Make sure to give your characters’ romance time to develop, and remember that the amount and quality of time spent together does make a difference. Two people who spend five straight days together in harrowing circumstances can develop feelings for each other a lot faster than two people who’ve been dating twice a week for a month. But again, those feelings have to develop based on a significant number of interaction/shared experiences, whether they occur over a one week period or a three month period.
3) Peanuts Parents and Other Ghostly AdultsIf you’ve ever watched a Charlie Brown cartoon, you’ll know the parents are relatively non-existent except for the occasional off-screen “wah-wah wah wah” moment. This is actually fine if there’s a good reason why parents don’t exist in your story–like in Lord of the Flies, which has no parents because it’s teen boys stranded on an island–but if your characters are living in a normal world where parents exist, they need to exist. That doesn’t mean they have to be characters in the story, but their existence needs to impact the story in some way. Most parents wouldn’t let their teenager stay out all night every night, so if your teen character is doing this, there needs to be a reason why it’s being allowed. Also, while it’s fine to have a character with parents that work the night shift, are wealthy and spending a month at their Swiss chalet, or are easy going and usually out at the bar all night anyway, this can’t be the case with all of your characters. Most people just have an average parent or two who expects homework and chores to be done, enforces a curfew, and doles out groundings when rules are broken. Likewise, if your story takes place in a school, it should be apparent there are teachers and administrators around–unless there’s a reason for them not to be. If your characters are roaming around a public place during daylight hours, it should be clear there are adults around somewhere–again, unless there’s a good reason why they’re not.
Bonus: every character in your story can’t be an only child unless there’s some reason in your story for that, like your character lives in a society where people are only allowed to have one child. The majority of people do have at least one sibling, though, so make sure most of your characters have siblings, too.4) But I’m Totally a Teenager
“I enjoy cooking Italian food in my big kitchen, drinking chardonnay, hanging out at the night club with my girlfriends, romantic picnics on the beach, weekend trips to my cabin on the lake, and spending evenings in my art studio painting tributes to the renaissance masters. But also I’m sixteen…” Sometimes teenagers are forced to grow up quickly, and sometimes they just enjoy adult things or have sophisticated taste. However, most teenagers aren’t sitting at home on a Friday night sipping red wine and watching Fixer Upper while planning their next trip to Paris. It’s fine if your character enjoys cooking or doesn’t enjoy hanging out at the mall on Saturday night, but your teenage character has to also be a teenager who does teenage things on occasion. Homework, chores, social shenanigans, college prep, learning to drive, crushes, parental issues, etc., are things that are on the radar of most contemporary teenagers. If you’re writing speculative fiction (sci-fi, fantasy, supernatural, dystopia, etc.) then obviously these “everyday” things may not come into play, but you still need to make sure your character behaves like a teenager and not like a twenty-five year old calling themselves a teenager.
Bonus: maybe I led a very sheltered teen life, but where I grew up, there weren’t all-ages clubs where sixteen year olds could hang out at a bar where adults are drinking liquor. I know there are some “18 and up clubs” where teens and adults can party side-by-side, but these don’t seem to exist on every corner in every town, so bear that in mind. Also, try to avoid the “my entire school showed up at the club to see my gig” shenanigans, because every sixteen year old can’t get a fake ID that actually gets them into a night club. ;)5) I’m Sorry, He Puts His What–Where–When?!?!
I think the vast majority of YA fiction I’ve read was written by adult writers who are probably either married or have been in a relationship, yet somehow I still come across romantic interactions that defy both physics and logic. For example, if a guy has been seriously injured in battle or is burning up with fever, he’s probably not going to get aroused when you straddle him and start kissing him. So, make sure you put a lot of thought into physical interactions, especially ones that are sexual or romantic in nature. Would this be physically feasible? And if so, would it be as great as I’m imagining it?
These are the main ones, but watch the comments in case anyone has additions. Also, be knowledgeable about the tropes in whatever genre your YA story falls into so that you can put your own unique spin on them and avoiding falling into cliche territory. Because cliches are a surefire way to make a story unrealistic. :)
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Have a writing question? I’d love to hear from you! Prohibited questions: how to portray/describe (characters, emotions, situations), specialist knowledge questions (medical, military, mental health, etc.), asking for tropes/cliches or resources, triggering/controversial topics; broad, vague, or complicated questions. I get dozens of questions per day, many anonymous. Please don’t ask if I got your question. See master list & main site for more info!
rawrrimamonsterr:
virginalbrides:
ellanah:
rapunzelilo:
mag...
holy shit
JESUS
omg
wh
it’s back
wat
I have yet to witness something as fucked up as this
WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST READ
Jesus Christ ????
i’m done goodbye
This some @sixpenceee shit
August 10, 2017
writing-questions-answered:
Anonymous said:
hi!! in my story two of the mcs who are extremely...
Anonymous said:
hi!! in my story two of the mcs who are extremely close friends have their relationship turn unhealthy, as another friend is dying of cancer and one of the friends (person a) cant cope. i have them sort it out through talking lots later and throughout this period in their relationship i have it repeated about how its unhealthy by person b when he talks to the others, but im worried that it’s still romanticized or treated okay as they still would do anything for each other and such. ily thanks!!
As long as you’re being honest about it being unhealthy and are addressing it as unhealthy, that’s not romanticizing it. Romanticizing is when you take something bad and make it look good or okay. Addressing the realities of whatever it is (what happens, why it happens, the consequences, the aftermath, etc.) is how you avoid romanticizing things. :)
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Have a writing question? I’d love to hear from you! Prohibited questions: how to portray/describe (characters, emotions, situations), specialist knowledge questions (medical, military, mental health, etc.), asking for tropes/cliches or resources, triggering/controversial topics; broad, vague, or complicated questions. I get dozens of questions per day, many anonymous. Please don’t ask if I got your question. See master list & main site for more info!
