Please stop limiting your imagination.
Ok but also don’t judge a story solely on how many minorities it contains please and thank you
What are you trying to say here? That diverse characters don’t make a story automatically good, or that people shouldn’t write off a story as one that doesn’t interest them because it lacks diverse characters?
Tumblr has a habit of thinking that diversity automatically makes a story good, and a lack of it automatically makes it evil and bad beyond redemption. That’s what I’m referring to.
Yes, you should have diverse characters of varying backgrounds and such, but I’m afraid that a lot of young authors are focusing all their energy on stuffing as many minorities as they can into their stories, instead of actually making their stories good.
Remember, it should be diverse characters, not diverse characters.
Sorry for hijacking your post, Agent Black, but I really want to have a discussion about this, so I’ll answer everyone who has reblogged and sent in asks about this here.
“Tumblr has a habit of thinking that diversity automatically makes a story good, and a lack of it automatically makes it evil and bad beyond redemption.”
That’s been the gist of a lot of the commentary, but I don’t actually see that happening altogether that often. What I do see often are some other sentiments:
“I’m not reading this because it lacks diverse characters.” / “Ugh another book with a cis/straight/white/abled protagonist.”
I believe that this comes from a place of being tired of not being represented. I want diverse books. I put my money where my mouth is, and actively try to support authors who write diverse books so I’ll put that extra effort into searching for and buying diverse books. I’m not very interested in reading books which lack diversity. Does that mean I think books which lack diversity are evil beyond redemption? Absolutely not. But I’m probably not going to bother actively supporting them either.
Read this book!!! It has an [insert type of diversity] protagonist!!!
It’s because some groups so rarely see themselves represented in fiction that when it’s done correctly, of course they want to share it around with other members of their community. The book may be lacking in other areas (prose, structure, etc.), but that good representation may mean enough to someone that they’ll be willing to forgive the parts that are lacking and consider the book to be “good” overall.
What the hell the lack of diversity is straight up inaccurate
If someone sets a story in a high school in a multi-cultural city and everyone is straight/white/cis/neurotypical/able-bodied, then it does not reflect real life. Simple as that. Does the inaccuracy make it a “bad” book for some people who have been erased from that setting? Probably.
“Historical Accuracy”
If someone sets their story in a fantasy world then cries “historical accuracy” when being called out on their lack of diversity, then sorry, but they deserve every bit of judgement they get. They created that world. Somewhere along the line, they made the choice to exclude certain groups from that world. Similarly enough, there’s also an issue with people setting their real world stories in what they think a time/place looked like, rather than what it actually looked like, and chalking it up to “historical accuracy” when in reality, pretty diverse groups lived in that time/place.
I also see some people send in asks to writing advice blogs along the lines of “I’m uncomfortable writing diverse characters because….” and they’re met with some anger/hate/criticism. I don’t think that they should get hated, but I just don’t get it. Are they looking for reassurance that they don’t need to write diverse characters? With the Tumblr attitude, what else would they expect? People that they feel “uncomfortable” writing will see that post, and get justifiably angry/upset at being told that they’re not worth the effort.
I do agree that with diverse characters, the focus should be on quality over quantity. No one should be pressured to write every type of diversity and intersection thereof into their novel, and that may very well be a side effect of Tumblr discourse, but if there is no diversity at all in someone’s story, then I do think there is cause for concern.
-Darcy
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AngelMihe 