Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Jul 5, 2018 9:09:59 GMT
So sometimes authors and readers can take a concept and go a little overboard with it. For instance, let's say you wrote a story about a Chinese girl living in Mexico. That sounds cool right? Not a lot of people know about the sizable Chinese community in Mexico. So you have your main character and her family and friends, but the book is a coming of age story, so it deals mostly with her family and small circle of friends, plus a few of the guys she dated. Perhaps you focus on two of her relationships, both with boys, one who is Chinese and one who is Mayan.
It's a good story, telling a perspective that we don't often get in literature or any media. You send it out to beta readers and one of them sends your story bacl and says, "I liked the story, but it needs more diversity. There weren't any African-Mexican characters in your story. Lupita NyonG'o is Mexican-Kenyan, so why didn't you have a character like that? And everyone in the story was cis and straight. Where were the gay and trans characters? And no had a disability or was in a wheelchair." And they go on and on like that, listing off every type of person that could possibly exist.
When peeps talk about needing more diverse books they don't mean we must cram every type of person into every type of book. It's okay to choose a minority viewpoint or two, focus in deeply on them, and ignore the rest of the universe. Books would be ridiculous if we had to include absolutely everyone into every single book. Your Chinese-Mexican character is wonderful. Keep on telling great stories like that, and don't let the extremists drive you off.
It's a good story, telling a perspective that we don't often get in literature or any media. You send it out to beta readers and one of them sends your story bacl and says, "I liked the story, but it needs more diversity. There weren't any African-Mexican characters in your story. Lupita NyonG'o is Mexican-Kenyan, so why didn't you have a character like that? And everyone in the story was cis and straight. Where were the gay and trans characters? And no had a disability or was in a wheelchair." And they go on and on like that, listing off every type of person that could possibly exist.
When peeps talk about needing more diverse books they don't mean we must cram every type of person into every type of book. It's okay to choose a minority viewpoint or two, focus in deeply on them, and ignore the rest of the universe. Books would be ridiculous if we had to include absolutely everyone into every single book. Your Chinese-Mexican character is wonderful. Keep on telling great stories like that, and don't let the extremists drive you off.
