I think 2020 should be like the 13th floor in a lot of hotels: just pretend there isn’t one. Skip it. Ignore it. Consider it bad juju.
I can’t say it was all bad (because of book contracts) but the wear and tear on my psyche was just too much. Friends turned into ravers (and not the good kind), opinion became argument, and middle of the road became instead an option of one or the other mud-filled gutter. I felt constantly bombarded by unsubstantiated “facts” from all sides, photos which should have made something unquestionably clear, questionable, due to the ease (and frequency) of manipulation. News reports so diametrically opposite as to render all less than trustworthy.
I know that someone will read this and think I must be “the other side.” I’ve tried hard not to take a side but to go with my gut feeling about each specific issue, and evaluate its relevancy based on my personal history, experiences, and what research resonates with me.
That’s also how I write.
They say write what you know, but since I’ve never lived in the 1800s, I have to rely on research. I didn’t come from a wealthy family, so I have to rely on research. I am a middle-aged, pudgy, white lady, so in order to write about someone different from me, I have to rely on research. I’ve found myself reading multiple books on the history of Reconstruction in New Orleans and other areas of the South (and in the North) and realizing that even when I thought I understood the politics of the time, I didn’t have a complete picture. Reading Muscle Car magazines and finding a much broader group of people involved than I would have expected. Talking to Cherokee council members and specialists on specific tribal dances and ceremonies, and finding out they use the dances to teach their children how to behave. All in the name of research, and all helping me see places, people, and cultures from a fresh perspective.
Jason Evans, another RMFW member (and new board member), teaches a variety of classes on writing diversity, and one thing he said that struck me was that no matter what you write, someone will likely take exception to it. Even if it’s thoroughly researched. Even if it is your own life story. It’s kind of like politics. No matter how you look at it, how well researched your opinions are and how in-depth you’ve looked into an issue, someone will always feel differently. It makes writing now, I think, a lot harder than it used to be. Fiction is no longer “just fiction.” It’s putting together a story that accurately depicts characters and is still interesting and diverse. I can’t just write about people exactly like me, because 1) I’m not all that interesting, and 2) it wouldn’t be a true depiction of the settings of my stories. All different kinds of people run around in my scenes, and while perhaps in the past I could have given them simple backstories, maybe even somewhat stereotypical descriptions and lifestyles, now I better darn well make sure I understand the lives of the characters I’m writing about. I guess it’s a good thing I like research!
What about you? Have you found that you struggle to write diverse characters? Do you worry that your publisher or your readers will call you out for any of your characters? What are you doing about it? Really, I’d like to know. We could all use advice, and if you don’t think it applies to you, you might be unpleasantly surprised later.
Terri, I don’t believe we should forget 2020. We need to learn from it.
I don’t struggle to write diverse characters. I write characters that develop from my stories and try not to describe all of them in much detail (unless it’s somehow necessary), so that readers can fill in the blanks as they see fit. And in my earlier books if I didn’t, that would be because I was writing from my own POV, which I don’t see as a problem or an issue, since other POVs have been and are written from more diverse POVs already. I just can’t see this as a problem anymore, given the extremely wide range of diverse publications I see coming out in PW every week.
I don’t have a traditional publisher yet (hoping this year will change that), but having worked in a huge corporation for 30 years, know the drill. It I were to get “called out” for not specifically developing a “diverse character” I’d have to see how the discussion goes. I’m not against diversity, not married to most of my words, but am against intentionally inserting anything into anything where it’s not going to benefit anything (remember–I try not to describe characters in too much detail in the first place to allow my readers to fill in their own blanks). I’m a diverse, open-minded individual, have had years of corporate sensitivity and diversity training, and I feel I am educated enough to handle any such issues. But, again, if working with a publisher, you more than likely would have to toe the line on something like this, or be given X-number of free passes, or somehow incorporate something to rectify the ms issue, but hopefully said direction can be more of a discussion…and I am pretty easy to work with. 🙂
Also, hopefully, your story is well enough written so this is NOT a problem in the first place…so if it is an issue, then there might be some merit to it, but it should have been brought up before the sale, right? Through your agent? Having never had a trad house, I don’t really know how this should play out, but I would assume that is how it sh/would, making all this a bit moot, because if they wanted that in you work to begin with it should have been pointed out up front—or passed on. But it all depends on how such an issue would be presented.