Writing Diverse Characters: Advice From Expert Writers
There’s an age-old adage: “Write what you know.” But that’s only going to get you so far. When it comes to writing fiction, a story becomes more engaging when there are conflicting characters. So add some characters of differing cultural backgrounds, gender identities or expressions, right? Job done! Or maybe not. It’s not as easy as it sounds to portray a character with a different background and cultural identity from yours, and it can really turn off readers (and publishers) if you do it badly.
Here at StoryForge, we aren’t going to claim to be experts on this sensitive topic. We try our best, but there’s always going to be room for improvement. So instead of just giving you our advice, we’ve gathered up helpful resources from experts across the internet to help you with this aspect of developing your characters.
Up first is the group Writing With Color. They’ve compiled a set of resources that can help you with racial, ethnic, and religious diversity. It has all the standard tropes that authors have fallen into over the years so you can take care to avoid them. They provide us a reminder to avoid falling into the common practice of portraying Semitic (Muslim or Jewish) people as “other”:
“We are people with hope and potential and rich, penetrating beauty in our actions, our words, our aspirations. This goes for Muslim characters. This goes for Jewish characters. This goes for every marginalized voice who will easily see themselves skewed and warped into boogymen under a child’s bed, but hardly ever as they really are: bright, blooming, their wings unfurled and their eyes lit up.”
Next up is a more straightforward guide from Leigh Shulman, founder of The Writer’s Process. She acknowledges the difficulties in writing diverse characters but also gives you a 7-point guide to helping craft your characters. This is a more straightforward guide for writing BIPOC characters but you may still want to use Writing With Color to fill in some gaps. Shulman warns about making sure your diverse characters aren’t excessively bland:
“You don’t do anyone favors when your descriptions of your characters are too vague, so there’s no way to be sure of their race or ethnicity. When you leave race and ethnicity open to interpretation, you reduce the power of your diverse character’s story. Plus, if someone adapts your book, people will likely perceive your character’s race as white, which media still depicts as the default race.”
Now if you’re trying to write an LGBTQ character, we have advice from Tucker Lieberman on the website Independent Book Review. One of the most important things he says is:
“If you’re writing realistic fiction, you have a responsibility to learn real words. There’s a difference between affirming, friendly language and delegitimizing, rude language. Language shifts over time, and you can try to reflect the time period you’re writing about.”
This is a great reminder that what was viewed as acceptable to say a few years ago might not be anymore. Just this quick bit of research can help you avoid alienating a large number of people. This advice also is useful when writing about other time periods. Using the actual words and terms used during that time will add authenticity to the work, and can demonstrate to a modern reader the challenges faced by your characters.
Last but not least is a resource from Hamilton College that addresses some other areas of diversity such as socioeconomic status and disabilities. These guidelines are more relevant for those doing non-fiction writing but still provide helpful pointers. One such would be to avoid negatively-charged language. For example, instead of saying “physically challenged” you can simply call them a “person with a physical disability”. Best yet… don’t call them anything. Let their story speak for itself. Show the reader the challenges that the character faces as a result of their condition, but don’t actually name the condition except when appropriate for dialogue.
Hopefully, these resources can help you in your quest to build out well-rounded, diverse characters in your next work. It may take you a few tries to get it right, but keep at it. Your effort makes your narrative more engaging, which is appreciated by your readers… as well as helping to make sure that diverse backgrounds are represented fairly.
StoryForge community member Virgy recommends this article for follow-up reading: https://www.websiteplanet.com/blog/sensitive-writing-guide/. Chat with us about guest writing and resource recommendations at info@storyforge.com.
