forum Sorry everyone, but may I have a bit of a rant?

Started July 24, 2019 by @SpaceCadet_Bongo

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Hello People of Notebook.ai.

I wanted to know where you guys stand on the whole "Diversity" concept when it comes to making your OC's and their stories. I know it is a bit of a touchy topic, but I feel as though this issue should be addressed just a little bit. Lets try and have a civil discussion on what your views are on it

DISCLAIMER!: You by no means have to agree with me, as this is just my personal opinion. Feel free to talk about your views too. (Lets all try and get along though please. :D )

Okay so first up on the rant, we have: Setting and unused cultural locations

Before I delve into what I mean here, I am NOT saying that because your stories is set in a particular country that makes it bad (I know this because a lot of you are amazing story writers!), but I am saying that their are some places that are overused a fair bit. (America, England, Japan are the major examples). As I already said, this doesn’t by any means make the story bad, I just wish people would use some other countries. Some people don’t seem to understand the power and value of having unique settings introduced into their stories, whether that be through fear of not having cultural appropriation, or just liking a particular country. I totally understand if the story is exclusively about people from that area (for example writing a Samurai story set in Japan), but if your writing a story (that isn’t tailored to a specific country) about say…. a robot searching for human emotion, why not try setting it in an exotic country, like India, Ghana, Cambodia, etc. This way, people will be intrigued to learn how you incorporate your story with the cultural aesthetic of the country you’ve chosen to set it in. Idk, tell me what you think on this one.

Second thing I want to talk about is: Diversity in romance (and when is overdoing it?)

So don’t get me wrong, as a bi sexual, I love seeing how overwhelming positive everyone on Notebook is when it comes to people of different sexualities. I’ve seen lots of people who have Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Pan and Ace characters and so far, all of them are done beautifully. However, I have to ask the question, when is it too much? I get people who have 1 or 3 characters that fit into those categories, but anymore and it starts getting a little unnatural. I know everyone here wants to be politically correct and include multiple characters, but you must understand that they are still to a large extent, a minority. So unless your story is set in a fantasy world, having fewer straight characters is bordering on unrealistic. Lemme know what u think!

Thank you guys for reading, and I hope we can talk more about this!

So… I finished reading this and kinda wanted to post my views on the topic. Here it is I guess.

(Fair warning though, this is my point of view. You may disagree or agree with it however you’d like, this is just a personal viewpoint)

First point, Diversity in country (and culture).
I totally agree with the overused country point and as a person who backed away from using countries by naming them, I understood why it might be troublesome at times. This is why right now I write only Fantasy pieces of work. Mainly because I can talk about different cultures by simply grouping them. For example, I have a group consisting of a British, a French, a Thai, a Japanese, a Korean, a Greek, an Indian, a Columbian, a Spanish, a Chinese and a Nepali and seeing their cultures go against each other as the story progresses is probably one of the most interesting thing; both for the writer and the reader.

Second Thing, Romance.
Okay, I can’t really talk about this. Why? About 90% of my characters are male. I’m not saying everyone of them is straight but most of them are.

Regarding diversity, may I add one topic; Physical Diversity.
Sure, most of the population is not handicapped in anyway. But remember that people who are, exist. Having blind, deaf, mute characters add more color to your characters. But like any other Diversity topic, don’t overuse them. Not every character has to be handicapped in some way, but it’s better to have one or two just to add more to your story.

I am saying that their are some places that are overused a fair bit. (America, England, Japan are the major examples). As I already said, this doesn’t by any means make the story bad, I just wish people would use some other countries.

I definitely agree with you here. I once read a story that took place in Botswana, and even though it wasn't that great it was nice to be reading about somewhere completely new rather than reading a story about New York City for like the 500th time.
But I think the reason why we see them so much is because they're familiar to a lot of writers (especially the US and England). It can be really intimidating to write a story in a setting that you're not very familiar with. For what it's worth though, one of my stories takes place in Canada but it's because I live there.

but anymore and it starts getting a little unnatural

I'm not sure I 100% agree with this point. Like, I do get what you're saying but I also feel like depending on certain things they might have a lot of friends who are LGBT+. For instance, one of my characters is bisexual. He also has a job working at a gay bar, and is also just a really social guy so it wouldn't be unrealistic to assume has a lot of friends who are also LGBT+.
Also, according to a study There's 8 million people identifying as LGBT+ in the US alone. This doesn't account for teens, anyone who is closeted, nor does it account for the rest of the world. And even though that's a fairly small percentage 8 million people is still a lot of people.

This is a pretty interesting topic, but when it comes to writing about countries, it shouldn't be a surprise that a bunch of English speaking people would popularly write about countries that speak English. I grew up in America, so I'm going to write about America. I don't know the culture of other countries and I don't care to know about them when I barely understand the culture of my own country, from the northeast to the midwest. I think if you want stories about other countries, you should read about authors from those countries writing about their own home. I don't think we should seek out Americans writing about India when there are plenty of Indian authors who do that. That's more a matter of diversifying your reading pool rather than asking existing writers to change up what they do. I agree it's nice to get out of the bubble of your country to write a different story, but I don't think it makes your story more interesting/better/unique. That still comes down to the actual writing, not location.

Regarding the romance, I know for me personally I don't include an abundance of minorities for political correctness. I do it because it's accurate to my world, and also we're writing fake stories and fake situations. Having a lot of LGBT characters is not the most radical thing to appear in fiction. I dunno, I guess I just don't see why this would be an issue with anyone. I'd rather have a completely LGBT cast than go back to the days where your gay characters had to break up or die by the end of your story if you wanted to get published. It's an interesting conversation to have though!

@Altrince_would_like_to_cuddle_with_you Sure! We can talk about physical diversity! For different universes, I’ve written characters who are dyslexic, autistic, paralyzed, mute, have ADD or ADHD, blind and deaf. And I also completely agree on making sure they are included, but to an extent where they are not everywhere (unless of course your story is about that, in which case, can I read it please? :) )

@Starfast What you said about setting diversity I completely agree with! It does in fact help if your writing a story in a place that your familiar with! However, while it does take more work, it is always good to research a bit about the country before writing it (and your gonna have to put in the work anyway cuz writing is hard!)

Also, I actually had no idea that their where so many LGBT people in America. We in Australia passed the vote last year, but I don’t know how many of us identify as LGBT exactly. Might have to look it up! Either way, while you do have a very valid point, I just want to point out that your BI sexual character has gay friends, because he works at a gay bar. What I mean to say is that because your story has a gay bar in it, therefore there might be lots of gay characters. Not every story is gonna be able to incorporate LGBT characters because their story doesn’t have a setting like that. ( I hope my reply made sense, that was worded horribly XD )

@Snowmirror I completely understand. But don’t think I’m trying to convince you to write in a different country, I’m just saying it’s a breath of fresh air to. And the end of the day it comes down to how you write, not where u set it. And this is just me personally, but I’ve been interested in other world cultures since I was 4, so I tend to write my settings in other places (and still trying to thoroughly research them). It also, like you said earlier, was from me reading authors from other countries writing about their experiences. And in terms of your romance point, I don’t want Lgbt characters on the sidelines either, and i’d want them as a main character if that was possible. Either way, i totally understand what you mean!

I agree with certain points, but disagree with others. Thing is, you can make your characters WHATEVER you want. I've seen it so many times. People will point out how something feels unrealistic because "there aren't that many x type of people in the world!" but they'll ignore, I don't know, the mystical space powers or whatever. It's because people aren't used to seeing other types of people in fiction. Your job as a writer isn't to try and please your audience. Your job is to write with honesty. Write what you believe, write what you want to see the world as, write as you view the world.

On the other hand, I see your point about LGBTQ characters. I made a thread a while back encouraging people to branch out and explore other cultures and write different perspectives. Most of the replies were writers talking about their "diverse" cast, in which they had many, many sexualities, gender fluidity, disabilities, etc. But most of the characters were still white (sometimes with red hair! for flavor!). It seems like they'd taken what they saw as the easy route to diversity (btw not bashing anyone in particular, just saying some authors do this).

Another pet peeve of mine is when people make up a fantasy world that's based off of medieval Europe. Like…it's been done. Many a time. Yes, it excuses your all-white cast…but…eh. Boring.

Anyways I'm mostly just spouting nonsense. Bottom line: inserting characters in for diversity's sake isn't that bad, as long as you flesh out every character. There is never a moment when I'm reading a book and I go "What! Why are there so many gay people, that never happens." It's cool to include lots of minorities. Because most books aren't realistic. Yeah.

and your gonna have to put in the work anyway cuz writing is hard!

And I think that's why a lot of people choose to stick to settings that are familiar to them. If you're already researching a million different things for your story then by having it take place in the country that you were born and raised in is just one less thing you have to research. Not saying that people shouldn't write about different places, but I think that's why a lot of people don't.

I just want to point out that your BI sexual character has gay friends, because he works at a gay bar

I think you're kind of missing my point, but to be fair I didn't exactly explain myself very thoroughly so that's on me.
The story in question is actually told from the perspective of a straight guy. Because of that, the only LGBT characters in the story are my bi character, and another character who is aro/ace. If I switched that perspective to my bi character, there'd be a lot more LGBT+ characters because of he has connections that my straight character wouldn't have. So my point was more that it's not inherently unrealistic to have more than 3 LGBT+ characters, but it would depend on the story that you're writing.

Also, maybe I'm just misunderstanding something here, but it sounded a little like you were insinuating that my character only has gay friends because he works at a gay bar, but that's not really the case. This is a character who is really social and has a pretty wide circle of friends. Because of the setting of the story, it would be pretty unrealistic for all those friends to be straight and/or white (regardless of where he's working).