Diversity conflicting with authenticity
This is not quite the same question as Writing Diversity because it's not my intention to focus too much on diversity for my story, nor am I struggling with new ways to represent more cultures/minorities/ethnicity. It's also not quite the same as Avoiding Tokenism because my concern isn't with how the "more diverse" characters get written.
I'm setting an outline for a story I came up with. It's very, very bare-bones, so I'm still coming up with characters and plots. However, after some thinking I realized that, given the time and place the story takes place in, there will be little to no diversity between the characters. By that I mean most of the characters will be of the same race, sexual orientation, religion and origin place, following the same culture and customs.
Thing is, this doesn't fall right with me, as it makes the world seem lacking of variance. I also don't want for it to feel like I'm against diversity of any kind. Likewise, I'm making a conscious effort not to include characters of specific categories for the sake of diversity exclusively, as to not tokenize them or make them feel out of place for the time and location of the story.
How can I include diverse characters in a story with a setting unfavorable for them, without making them feel out of place or serving as tokens?
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/35888. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
You can't.
You have a cast of characters that will work for your story. Now you see that those characters are not as diverse as today's media makes you feel is necessary. So you want to change something about the cast that you already decided is good for your story.
This is Tokenism.
If the setting doesn't normally favour having characters with a different background and you don't want for them to feel out of place then the only way is to have their background be integrated into the story in a useful way. For example you could show how discrimination in your world works as you say the setting is unfavourable for them.
Either there is a compelling reason for your character to have a different background that will allow you to tell your story or there isn't.
I am not trying to be pro-diversity or pro-conformity here. My view is that every writer should have the right to decide how their world works. If you set rules for your world you should abide by them - or change them. But asking how to get around your own rules is wrong and will not result in whatever you are trying to achieve.
Decide how your world is supposed to be. If you don't want it to be diverse don't write it diverse. If you want it to be diverse, write it diverse. But don't write the world not-diverse and then complain about not having diversity.
We are living in a society where diversity is a sensitive topic - which makes it all the more important to allow art to be however the artist wishes for it to be. Restricting everyone to include diversity is the same as restricting everyone to not include diversity - it's censorship.
You state that your setting is unfavourable for diverse characters. You therefore created the rule for your world that diversity is rare. It may be there, but it's rare. You set the rule - you should abide by it. Forcing a diverse character into this setting will look weird. Because you dropped that character in without any justification - after all you explicitly had a rule in place that said this shouldn't happen.
If you want your story to be more diverse you need to change the base setting. Set different rules. Allow for diversity. Then you can freely add diversity without it becoming Tokenism.
To reiterate: Either there is a reason for your character to have a different background that will allow you to tell your story or there isn't.
To expand: If you want to have a more diverse crew you need a more diverse story, which means you have to work on the rules of your world again. But with the current world you can't.
0 comment threads
0 comment threads