White cisheteronormative wealthy able-bodied, neurotypical males; we all know how to write 'em and they're not hard. They're literally the most vanilla character to write and read about, and yet we keep cranking 'em out like they're Mountain Dew and we're Bros and/or emotional teenagers dealing with their problems by self-medicating with sugary beverages in an effort to not completely destroy themselves while they self-destruct.
And I get it. Writing diverse characters is a scary prospect. It's not as difficult as we make it seem when we talk about it--it's work, yes, but it's not like you're driving screw drivers into your eyeballs in an effort to excise your spleen. You're writing about a person. And writing about people is kind of your job, friend.
I don't pretend to have all the answers. I'm an eighteen-year-old with no current profession pursuing an education and career in the arts. What I have to offer are my own life experiences, the research I've done, and fifteen or so years of experience writing fiction. I'm not perfect, and I can only do so much.
But diversity in fiction is important to me. It's supposed to be the goal of an artist to reflect real life, to, as Shakespeare hath proclaimed, "hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure."
Modern art doesn't even reflect half of the human experience. It's white-washed and full of narratives about the wealthy and/or middle class, usually about men trying to succeed and/or get their dicks wet. When women are included, it's usually as props, or as thin paper creatures that don't really know what they want until a man comes and tells her; when LGBTQ characters are involved, it's usually G, sometimes L, and the entire narrative typically revolves around how difficult it is to be queer, or else they become a stereotypical gag; when a person of color is included, they usually have few speaking lines, or are also stereotypes; when a person with disabilities is included, it's either a cure narrative or an acceptance narrative or a pity-me narrative, and they're usually a stereotype. By and large, diverse fiction these days is largely made up of stereotypes people pass off as characters to try and reach some sort of quota, and it's not good enough.
I've been writing fiction featuring diverse protagonists since I was eleven. I've learned a lot, I've unlearned a lot, I've done a lot of research, I've done a lot of research that negated that research, I've done a lot of researched that negated the negation of that research--and I've come to develop a personal code to write by, compiled here for the first time ever.
Maggie's Laws of Fiction Diversification:
6. Thou Shalt Never Assume That You Know Everything: Do Your Research
Never assume that you're qualified to write a story about someone or something you don't fully understand. Even if you think you understand it, do some research; trust me, you'll benefit. Find some surveys, get books out at the library, read articles online, binge relevant tv shows on Netflix, spend hours scanning relevant pages on Wikipedia and eye-guzzling related tropes on tvtropes; the more you can take in, the better equipped you'll be, and the closer to the source these things are, the better.
Read articles straight people write about the gay experience, sure, that'll help you write relationships between gay and straight people, but always give more credence to first-person reports, because in the end, no one knows something as well as the one who's lived it. Abled people can totally understand and sympathize with disabled experiences--they just usually don't, and they'll never be as intimately familiar with the teeter-totter of acceptance and resentment, or societal stigma, or the physical/emotional sensations as someone who's lived it. Any source is valuable, if only because it gives you some idea of how different people see the issue in question, but some are more credible than others.
And no, that stuff you learned in school about the Civil Rights movement is not enough; I could go on forever about subpar nature of the public school system, but suffice it to say you have an internet, so use it.
5. Thou Shall Ask Questions; Get Involved
Routinely ask yourself questions as you write; is this respectful? Is this accurate? Does my research support this? What do other people think? Is this portrayal stereotypical? Is this stereotype justifiable, or would people take offense? Don't be afraid to reach out to people who know what they're talking about and ask questions or contribute to discussion; follow @WeNeedDiverseBooks on Twitter, or keep an eye out for the #DisChat tag, follow authors that frequently discuss life as a marginalized person, and don't be afraid to DM someone from an advice blog or an advocate who welcomes questions (such as myself).
4. Thou Shall Get Betas
Okay, so you did a great job, you used your research, you asked questions, that's wonderful; now get Betas that belong to the groups you've casted your characters into. You protagonist is a black paraplegic? You should have both black and disabled CPs/Betas, paraplegic if at all possible. You may not be able to find a beta or CP for every demographic you cover, but the closer you can get, the better--and absolutely do not assume that you don't need this step. You can do all the research, avoid stereotypes like the plague, and still make a mistake--it could be something simple and stupid, a mistranslation of a language you don't really speak, you used the name of the wrong tribe, you used a term or grammatical structure that only seems offensive to the people to whom it would actually refer.
There are a lot of things you can get wrong and never realize, and a lot of other people might not realize either--which is why it's important to fix them before your MS goes anywhere near print. Just because most people won't notice doesn't mean it's okay not to fix it.
Make sure the right people are betaing your work.
3. You Will Get It Wrong
It's inevitable. No matter how much you rake over that MS with a fine-toothed comb, you're gonna fuck it up somewhere along the line. It's inevitable. That's why we have CPs and Betas and Editors and Agents and more Editors and Publishers and more Editors; humans err. That's kind of our thing, and it's to be expected.
You're gonna fuck up. Just like I fucked up the 10 Commandments theme right here right now. That's life. Sometimes you screw the pooch.
Don't let it get to you. Don't let it scare you. Every mistake is something to learn from, a lesson you needed but just got a little late, and it's okay. As long as you don't close yourself off and insist that you're infallible, things will be okay; you'll figure out where you went wrong, apologize to whoever you offended, and get it right the next time.
Also: If you've done the research and you did your best, anyone who screams at you for making a mistake isn't worth your time. Listen to the people who critique your work, but don't bother trying to please everybody because
2. Someone Will Always Be Offended
There was that "Trans-Ginger" episode of South Park a while back that stirred up quite a controversy; I knew a lot of trans people who were really pissed off about it, but I also knew some who were really pleased with the way it turned out. Likewise, I'm sure there were people who were offended by the South Park episode featuring Tourette's, but I personally have found it to be the most accurate depiction on television I've ever seen.
I've also seen a number of cases where people were offended by someone's story only for it to come out that the experiences of the marginalized character were based off of the experiences of the like-marginalized author. Actually, that one's not uncommon--I can't tell you how many times I've seen long, drawn-out arguments on Twitter break out because so many people don't want to hear autistic stories written by autistic authors.
Point is: there's always going to be someone who likes what you write, no matter how terrible, and no matter how factually and emotionally accurate, there will always be someone who takes offense. You can't let it get to you. Consider the reactions of your audience, take them into consideration, ask yourself if you could have done better, but if you honestly wouldn't change a thing? Don't sweat it.
I, for one, fully expect people to be offended by the way I write characters based off myself. I certainly won't like it, but I expect it. That's how the internet often works these days.
1. Everyone is human
As I see it, this is the most important thing to remember when writing diversity--no matter who they are, no matter what they look like, no matter where they come from or what their motivations or limitations are, this character you've chosen to create is a human being. They have thoughts and feelings and hopes and dreams; they are three dimensional, with hobbies and passions and friends and complex relationships with those friends or families and hopes and dreams; they're the best at something, they're the worst at something, they're decent at some stuff, they're bad at other stuff, they have things they do for profit and things they do for others and things they do just because it makes them happy, they have virtues and vices, talking points and flaws.
Your characters are not just what makes them diverse, and forming their entire arc around that one (or those multiple) thing(s) is a failure on your part as a writer to impart life into your character.
Before anything and everything else, I make sure that my characters are three dimensional; the rest will follow. People are people are people are people, and that's what it all comes down to. You might get things wrong--your research might be from the wrong sources, you might have conflated two groups on accident, you might have played into stereotypes without realizing it, and if that's so, you fix it--if you can--and apologize and learn from that mistake; you make better decisions next time. But at least you'll know that you created something real. Maybe not perfect, maybe not fully accurate, maybe not what everyone wanted! But you didn't steal away anyone's humanity in the process.
0. Do No Harm
I don't do stereotypes; I don't half-ass my research; I don't pin "types" into certain categories, and I try my damnedest to make sure that I'm not accidentally demonizing diversity (and since I have a soft spot for writing objectively terrible, immoral, and amoral protagonists, I have my work cut out for me) or giving in to harmful tropes and plots.
As writers, we have an obligation to be honest and hard-working, well-researched and goodwilled, because artists determine the fate of mankind. That may seem a little overdramatic, and maybe it is, but who would you say has been most influential to you over the course of your life? After your parents (for good or for ill) and possibly your siblings or extended kin, it's probably an artist--a writer, a movie-star, a photographer, a director, a comedian. Artists have immense power in this world--we are the voices children are listening to, we are the modern philosophers. Science teaches kids the how and the what; we deal with the whys.
Doctors and psychologists take an oath to Do No Harm, and it's my firm belief that it's our job to do the same. We can't promise we won't accidentally do harm, but we should strive, at all times, to make sure we aren't making life hard for ourselves, our kith, our kin.
Art is exceedingly influential, and we should never use that influence for evil.
