Claim Your Voice: Why You Don’t Have to Justify Your Diverse Story

NaNo Prep is always better with an incredible writing community around you. Luckily, the NaNoWriMo forums are full of fantastic writers. Inspired by our 200+ regional forums, we asked Kathy Vo, NaNoWriMo participant, to talk about writing stories that include culture-specific characters:

There’s a strong need to contribute more diverse stories across every creative medium. Yet when we feature leads of specific backgrounds, snarky voices often arise that don’t normally pop up for white, male leads.

As diverse authors, we regularly encounter choruses of “It’s too gay or girly for me”, "It’s not Asian/Black/Latino enough”, or "You’re making our people look bad.“

The scariest part about this? We’re probably our own loudest heckler.

As writers contributing to a pool of diverse stories, we stress about whether our stories properly represent these communities. We want our leads to be more than flat stereotypes; we’ve seen that positive and complex representations of diverse identities are often only respected if they fit a certain mold (my literature classes overdosed me with memoirs about poor refugees of war and suicidal LGBT teens). We’ve internalized the feeling that there needs to be a legitimizing, ­often tragic,­ reason for our protagonists to not be able, cisgender, white, or male. It’s a messed up mentality, but nearly every writer has thought this way at some point.

“Your story doesn’t need to be a dissection of society to feature Asian-­American bachelors, or Latina tech CEOs.”

So how do you convince yourself that your story matters? Tell yourself this: your existence, and the existence of those around you, is why we need your story. That reason alone is good enough.

You do not have to legitimize anyone’s background, including your own. Your story doesn’t need to be a dissection of society to feature Asian-­American bachelors, or Latina tech CEOs. If you want to explore their racial identity, that’s great. If your character is more stressed about fighting aliens than being in a wheelchair, that’s great too. Your stories are different because differences exist in the real world.

Nobody walks the same path in life, and your creativity, ideas, and stories have the right to be told.

If you’re not convinced, I want you to close your eyes. Think about every time you saw someone who looked like you, with a name like yours, on the cover of a movie poster or book jacket.

Now think about all the times you didn’t see yourself. Do you remember how you felt? It’s probably not joy. Whatever emotion came, someone like you has felt the same way, too.

You can share a culture, or background, or physical description with thousands, but no one owns your journey. Remove the pressure of providing the most accurate, comprehensive experience of your character’s respective community. Represent your voice first, and the rest will follow.

Kathy Vo is a die­hard Californian trying navigate the adult world beyond happy hour deals, Bay Area traffic, and Korean spa treatments. Her middle-­school self would exclusively write fantasy adventures starring white male heroes, but now she creates stories and screenplays exploring the Asian­American experience beyond math nerds and sexy geishas. Like many millennials, Kathy is clueless about her future, but is passionate about the problems she wants to solve.

Top photo modified from one taken by Flickr user Micah Camara.