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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/33824
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/33824
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I am writing a military sci-fi novel about an international military force facing aliens. My cast is very diverse: the MC is Yemenite-Israeli, his love interest is German, his room-mates are from Georgia (the country - not the American state), Mexico and Ireland, the squad leader is Asian-American, and so on. I'm having a lot of fun writing it - the cultural differences are a wellspring of quirks, minor conflicts, unexpected common ground, etc.

However, I feel myself constantly under pressure to make it even more diverse: there's a little voice in my head that goes "there's no black character yet, there's no Muslim character yet" etc. I'm feeling it begins to affect my storytelling: I start to look for ways to insert "member of group such-and-such" instead of looking for what kind of character would advance the plot.

So, my question is two-fold: first, is it a problem is some group such-and-such remains unrepresented? And second, if I have an unpleasant character, and he's the only representative of group such-and-such, would that appear racist?

Original score: 26