I write people more than races!

I mention skin tone and race kind of in my descriptions, because skin tone is one of the first things you notice when seeing a person, and it’s arguably more important to know than eye or hair color.

Some people may complain but they should be ignored.

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Exactly!

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It’s a charged issue that the real world grapples with. However, I would caution against ‘I don’t see race!!!’ as a too fast, too emotional response that stops deeper thinking and may be harmful to developing empathy/understanding acceptance. It seems like such a clear-cut solution, but it ignores the very real human bias toward us-them. The last thing a writer should do imo is ignore human nature instead of attempting to explore it in their own way, make connections.

Anyway, I wouldn’t be so eager to give oneself a gold star for a world where the tribal bias is ignored, and readers also do not see themselves on the pages

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That is understandable.

I can’t escape this planet even while writing fiction.

LOL!

I’ll write skin tones in my story, but I am believe it to be a personal problem with me. When it comes to describing character’s appearance, I SUCK AT IT BIG TIME!!!

I hate those questionnaires that ask what is your character height, weight, skin tone, and etc because I have a very vivid imagery of the character. But I suck at describing the character physically.

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Let me lay your fears to rest. These questionnaires are absolutely useless.

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Thank you so much!

Unless it makes sense for the story or part of the story, then yes, but still no it is useless.

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What’s not useless, and, in fact, hugely powerful, is readers seeing people like themselves in the stories.

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Yes, indeed! I agree with that so much!

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People seeing themselves in characters and representation is important, as long as it’s not a pompous self-insert, and the characters themselves aren’t just defined by their appearance and ethnicity. Or there for the sake of it, without any development.

I was watching some videos critiquing Park from Eleanor and Park, and how he was an awful representation of a Korean-American character in fiction. And basically, he was just there for Eleanor to fetishize over in the end, and he didn’t even grow. He didn’t accept himself.

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That is true and makes sense.

Really? That is depressing and pitiful.

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Yeah, and some Black authors were pointing out how disappointingly stereotypical Rainbow Rowell had written Eleanor’s friends in school. Both Black girls. It seems like Rainbow lives in her own bubble, and she doesn’t bother to research things, or put much onus on anything outside of her limited experience.

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Yeah, that is why I stay clear of writing such fiction where I have to involve everyday people and focus on the real issues.

Pretty much anything that isn’t fantasy or science-fiction or even science-fantasy isn’t my thing.
Sorry.

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90% of everything is crud, but if the fear of writing crud stopped us, we’d not be writing anything at all, any character, any story.

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1% of that 90% is worse than you can even imagine

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Are you referring to that book you showed once before?
If yes, then you are absolutely right.

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It might hit worse because it feels targeted. I used to be triggered when I saw the heavy-handed portrayals of my ethnicity. And that was before the quickly building generalizing new narrative of this year which is going to haunt me for the rest of my natural life. But one of something can never truly represent, so you have to break past one-way-to-write and that includes writing others and self and reading others and self. Avoidance and being afraid to think about it, or, worse, bunch together only with people who think the same way you do (which internet is trying to achieve quite successfully) is a more dangerous slope than drooling over X until actually seeing past glamour.

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Same here :joy:

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Honestly? I think a writer should briefly mention the skin-color or texture (because maybe they’re humanoid, but not actual humans, so they may have dry or slimey scales, etc.) because it adds more to the story. And maybe there aren’t just white (Caucasian) or black/dark skinned people either. Maybe your humans have grey skin or they’re green or maybe they’re peach-colored?

I understand you don’t want to add someone’s skin type because of racial issues and the fact that it may not have anything to do with the story, but that’s from afar. Close up, it actually has a meaning: allowing different people to be represented. Some authors don’t add it at all into their story, and that’s fine because some can get away with it, but this can effect your readers in a negative light because many will see that you don’t say it and then automatically assume everyone is white. It happens more often than you think. It even happened to Hermione Granger (from Harry Potter). Her skin color was never described, so many assumed she was white. They even casted a white actress to play the part. It wasn’t until the stage play where a black actress became Hermione when everyone went up in rage: “She’s white!”

This can also cause problems with POC readers because they might think they’re not getting represented either, and may even pass up on the book just because it may feel as though there are no POC characters or that it’s “another white cast” if they’re looking for books with diversity.

Skin color isn’t always everything, but it doesn’t take very long nor is it hard to briefly mention it in a sentence that they have dark, olive, tanned, taupe, etc. skin. And if your characters are not from Earth, then they are of a specific race because there is no such thing as an African-American or an Egyptian or Polynesian from a world unlike ours. They’d have to be another race (a name you create), and therefore, they’ll have to have their own culture and lifestyle that you also create. You can base them off real life people, but still make it fictional and still make it to where it’s not focused on, but at least briefly mentioned so you A) represent various types of people, and B) give more depth to your world and story.

Take Avatar: the Last Airbender as an example. Completely fictional world with its own races, cultures, etc. although the world is focused/based off of Asian and Native American races and cultures as the Water tribes are based on Inuit culture, Earth Kingdom is Chinese culture, Fire Nation is Japanese culture, and the Air Nomads are based off of Tibetan culture. Their races nor their cultures are specifically stated because they are fictional, but you see it through how these characters interact in the world and visually seeing various things like architecture or clothing that tells you, “Oh, this is based off of this culture.” But Chinese, Japanese, etc. races aren’t said as they don’t exactly exist as we know it in the story. These characters just… exist. And that’s that.

That also brings me to the comment about “to write humans existing” because I’d like to add something: this kind of comment can be said about many other traits. Deformities, learning disabilities, body types, sexualities, so on and so forth. We all exist, and there are humans like this who exist on other planets (or could, hypothetically speaking). But we all want to be represented in a way where we can see ourselves and be happy that someone else saw us for who we are. If you replace “race” with any of these other options, like deformities or body types, then you’re erasing that representation. It’s fine to want to escape in a world where there are no real world problems, but when you say you just want “humans to exist” you have to bring those real world problems into the equation because simply existing doesn’t exactly cut it when nearly every book out there doesn’t have an overweight character or a character with no arms or a character who is transgender or a character who is deaf or a character who has schizophrenia or a character who has so on and so forth. The readers who want to see diversity don’t get to see it because all they see are people, and it’s okay to see people, but people exist in all shapes, sizes, and colors.

It’s just like white room syndrome. This is a common mistake for writers who can see the world in their head, but don’t write it down, and the readers have no idea what the world looks like. It’s a blank canvas to them. If you don’t give them those details you have in your head, they can’t see the paint. It’s invisible to them. You have to draw it out yourself to make sure they get the picture.

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That makes sense and I get you, but writing skin tone or any physical appearance makes me uneasy.

I have to describe it in the way I see it vividly in my mind. That is a challenge for me…still.

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I’d like to add something.

I feel like if you say there is a human group living in the desert, people will automatically think they are of a darker skin tone without you, the writer, having to say anything. So, if the desert humans are of a lighter skin tone, you might mention it?

But it depends on the type of desert. There are dry, cold places as well. If the sun is out a lot, it might be natural to think the humans have darker skin.

And if you mention a group of humans living underground in the dark, it might be natural to think they have paler skin without you, the writer, saying anything.

So then you might think to mention their skin tone if it’s not the tone someone might naturally think of. (Only if it matters to the story, of course.)

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