Hey guys, hope you are well, that you are hitting your writing goals, and that your art keeps improving. Let’s talk about something somewhat controversial at the moment of this publication, and that is diversity.
Let us talk about the word different races first. Socially, on media, and websites they mostly use the word race to describe people of different skin colors or different ethnic groups when in reality the word race means: a category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits. Ethnicity is defined as large groups of people classed according to the common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background.
Although both terms share a similitude, let’s say you are saying an interracial couple you shouldn’t be talking about people, probably human race, and another race, like the fungi race, which could be super weird. We shouldn’t use terms that are against what we do as writers, which is to use the writing rules to tell a story with fidelity even though is fiction. So you have words like, race, species, family, and so on with their Latin terms to classify each living organism. Socially people are compelled to use the word race just to separate people by their skin color when in actuality they are talking about the same race, the human race.
Getting that out of the way, diversity is important when writing, because most places in the world because of globalization, is rare to see a very homogenous group these days. Are there places in the world that are homogenous? Yes, they are. As we continue moving forward, technology increases, we will see more mixes between cultures, ethnic groups, and others. Because of these mixes, movies are changing, music is evolving. You can be a sports fan, and notice that we have a lot of people of different countries playing in different leagues that are not from their born soil.
So what do you do to write diversity? First, do your research. Even though I said globalization is mixing things, there are exceptions. You have small towns, countries that restrict the entrance and exit of the people, and so on. One thing to really consider is, what history are you researching. Try to go outside your comfort zone for the sake of the story. Maybe you are doing the research and just see something like things were bad, they got better. Now this place is a functioning society when maybe that research you are doing has censorship, parts of the history have been modified or manipulated because of some weird agenda. Try to be faithful to the research, even though you chose the option to ignore some of that.
Diversity can help you move things forward on your story because you have another POV. There are things given when creating new characters. When you give a character an age range, you can tell if that person has lived through some things in life. Someone with three years should not have been part of a working force unless is an obstacle in the story. So a person with a different background already shows that that character had a different path than others. This could help in problem-solving or complicating things because this character has been living in a cave, depending on the story.
Religion, being LGBTQ+, a poor immune system, from another planet, from another country, could be your picks to make a group diverse. Now one thing that can help you out too, is that you can reach more audiences. Sometimes people like to have a reason, why they should pick up your book. Maybe the story arc, the characters, your style is reason enough, but what if people don’t feel represented? Some can ignore this, and continue. Some will just think that because there is no representation, they shouldn’t invest their time in your manuscript.
One thing to keep in mind, and this depends on your story, is to respect others. Unless your story is about two groups fighting, throwing to the floor other’s culture is not a good route to go. Now, how much drama, obstacles can be put in your story because of the different POVs? In the end, you always have to continue asking, what is best for your story. Still, look, for representation, look for other POVs that will help spice things up in your story. One thing that can come out of all this is that you will learn something about yourself or other groups. Try challenging yourself to become a better writer, and use that new information to create exciting and great stories.
Let me know how you are writing diversity. Struggles if any? If you need help feel free to contact me. I’m almost more often on my social media platforms. So if you need a quick response, hit me through it. For now, take care and keep writing mis amigos.