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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47452
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47452
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

A world with races (or species) so dissimilar from one another, without a continuum between them, ought to be racist. Subverting the trope, which is a trope in itself, is going to just flip the racist viewpoint, without removing it. You can make short dark elves with long beards, and you simply switched names between your previously established racial tropes.

You could create characters with such a depth that your readers would not care if they were a human, a spider or a rock. However at that point, all your characters could just be humans. And if you could you write the same fantasy story with just a few distinct groups of humans, then racial differences are nothing more than a garment, which you use in the attempt to add color to the scene, but serves no purpose. That is possible, but no matter how you paint them, you are using their features to help the reader discriminate between them. That is yet another way of being racist.

Alternatively, make all of them look the same, with the same variety. All drawn from a population with a similar continuum of features, and just give them different names. The people from near the lake call themselves "humans", the people from near the seacoast call themselves "orcs" and the people from the hills call themselves "elves", but stripped of their clothes, and of their traditions, they all look the same. [Eddison, the author of "the worm Ouroboros"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Worm_Ouroboros), did something close to that to differentiate between Demons, Imps and Witches: while they all look rather similar<sup>1</sup>, the personalities of the characters and traditions of each group are then so powerfully written that as a reader you feel immediately whether you are reading about a Demon, an Imp or a Witch.

<sup>1</sup> <sub>Similar like two people from the same country could look. Definitively no defining stock racial features.</sub>

On the other hand, if you wish to keep races/species with stock features which are defining of each group, then I would suggest to embrace the trope, use it, exaggerate it, and if it deeply bothers you, show its pointlessness in your story.

Original score: 31