Writing - a discussion

[amberdreams]

I was on tumblr the other day and I came across some writing advice in the form of a long list. I didn't make a note of the blog I was on, or copy the list itself but basically, it went along the lines of:
By all means, include African Americans in your story - BUT do not presume to tell their story, it is theirs to tell.
Include Native Americans in your story but do not presume to tell their story, it is theirs to tell.
Include gay men in your story but do not presume to tell their story, it is theirs to tell.
Include transgender characters in your story but do not presume to tell their story, it is theirs to tell...
and so on.

I'm sure you get the gist, and the point they were making.

At first sight, I was nodding in agreement - this is merely an extention of the old adage 'write what you know', isn't it? So yeah, I could see some validity in what they were saying. But then I got to thinking. Surely, by the time I'd eliminated all the categories of people in their list whose stories I was not qualified to tell by dint of being who I am, the only protagonist remaining for my stories would have to be a short, fat, middle aged white woman.

Who the hell wants to read about me? I (and everyone else) would be reduced to self insert fic, which I abhore.

I feel suddenly I'm sounding like a Daily Mail reader, but surely this is political correctness gone mad.

Or am I missing something here?

Feel free to pitch in!

Comments

[alexisjane.livejournal.com]

I can see where they're coming from but "Write what you know" is such terrible advice. If we held to that there'd be no sci-fi or historicals or any stories that weren't about writers sitting in a room navel gazing.
I think this is a push back from too many people writing about other cultures and not bothering to fact check. Sensitivity readers are so important. It's easy to attribute behaviors or history to a different culture that we've learned through the media, that just aren't true, or to erase parts of their history altogether in an effort to be respectful that just ends up being insulting.
It's too easy for inexperienced writers to slip into writing stereotypes. We've all done it...coz writing is hard. But to say no one should ever write outside of their own experience is just daft.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

yes, that's what I was thinking - surely the advice should be "do your research" and "don't assume everyone's the same" - not "don't you dare write from the POV of a minority".

[herminekurotowa.livejournal.com]

Hobbits! Don't forget the hobbits you can write about! :P

[dizzojay.livejournal.com]

Don't discriminate against the orcs!!

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Most orcs are too tall.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

but what happens when I have the hair on my toes lasered? I'd no longer fit the hobbit criteria or understand their hairy feet!

[dizzojay.livejournal.com]

I get their point, but if you can't write about something you have no experience of, your options would - as you say - be very limited.

I see no harm at all in writing the story of a specific group of people or a minority, as long as you do your research - take the time to walk in their shoes, and show empathy.

[kalliel]

I think the original post (I saw it, too, in Cars fandom--where one might make the argument that we're all writing about what it means to be a car, lol--) was about not writing work that was purported to be like, about what it means to be trans, or what it means to be Native, while still allowing room to write characters--even main characters, or narrating characters--that hold those subject positions. Anyone can tell stories with and about these subjectivities--ideally with a sensitivity reader, as AJ suggests--but the creative ethics get really muddy when you start writing something that is explicitly about defining someone else's experience. Aside from the dangers of, well, getting that experience dead wrong and your readers waltzing off into the sunset thinking they've been enlightened (it happens), it sets up the publishing industry to assume that that's what queer/PoC/etc. writers should be writing, too. Like, if a PoC is going to publish a book, that book has to be about what it means to be PoC, because what else do PoCs do all day but contemplate their existence, right?

There was another blog post going around about editorial comments endemic in the worlds of Asian American writers that will add notes like, hey, your Asian character is looking in the mirror. Won't she notice her slanted eyes and think about her race in this moment? I think you're missing a valuable opportunity for exploring the Asianness of your work/character!

And while, yes, Asian American do negotiate their Asianness and it factors into their lives significantly more than a white character's (non-)Asianness factors into the life of a white character, they probably... don't do that... when they're casually glancing in a mirror in the morning. Yet the expectation is there, because the narrative convention is there, because that's what Asian characters written by normative/mainstream/probably non-Asian writers have historically done.

This is HUGE in the Native community as well, because Native history is so inextricable from US settler histories of the allure of "going Native," "playing Indian," and appropriating Native culture in harmful ways. The most famous example is probably The Education of Little Tree, which in its time was often hailed as a doorway into peculiar Native ways, a deeply Native book, a book that gets at the core of what it means to be Native American--except it was written by a white man. That guy was literally pretending to be Indian, but the key, I think, is intent. Setting out to write "what it means" or "the experience of" with an authority you don't or can't have (and usually being intensely defensive of that authority all the while. Saying stuff like "I am allowed to write about Native ceremonies because my wife is Native and I lived on a reservation for four years," for instance.

Barring the fact that writing about Native ceremony is more complicated than that--regardless of whether you're Native or not--I think the notion isn't that you're forbidden from bringing these things into your work if you're not Native. But there has to be nuance to the approach, you have to think long and hard about what it is you're doing and whether the story you want to tell is a story you should tell/can tell, and the corpus of what has come before, and what those colonial/oppressive histories have borne out, is something that writers do need to think about, and are responsible to. You gotta to the work, basically. That work isn't all research, though a lot of it is--it's also analysis, ethics, a little soul-searching. And even then, sometimes the answer is that a story simply is not yours.

It's a sticky subject, for sure! And probably not one suited to a succinct, easily packaged and enthusiastically re-blogged Tumblr post. XD Though I've noticed that's how Tumblr's discourse tends to fly. (But then, Tumblr also uses the very term "discourse" in a weird way, so.... XDDDD)

[alexisjane.livejournal.com]

Thisallofthis!
I think as a writer you have to second guess yourself all the time when you're writing from a different perspective, not as a "oh, I'm a terrible writer" thing but just as part of the craft. Someone somewhere will always be offended, but making an effort goes a long way. I was thinking about the whole JK Rowling snafu and couldn't understand why she didn't get the opinions of any Native readers before she erased the whole culture. Surely someone would have said something?

I think it really helps to be in a writing community where you can ask questions. I know one of my characters wanted to use the term "colored" and I was having five fits about it as I couldn't find a way around it. But I spoke to a couple of POC writers and they all said it was appropriate for the time period and were completely fine with it. I'm still expecting shit for it from someone but I know I've done my due diligence...even though the line is still making me squirm : ) x

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Due diligence is actually a good term for it, I think. Otherwise you'd be writing something that wouldn't ring true to ANYone, let alone whichever minority/culture/gender you are supposed to be inside the head of at the time.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

But if you want the central character (or one of your central characters) to be Native American, or black (and now I feel I have to justify saying black instead of African American because I am using it in a wider international context here), or Asian, or female if you are a man, or a man if you're a woman, or a car...! - then you do have to delve into, up to a point, what it means to be that person. Which means you have to have at least some understanding of and be able to bring in elements of what it means to be whatever it is that your character is.

As long as you do that research and can delve into your character's background and way of thinking, then I'd say go for it. What I objected to was the implication that if you are not the same as your protagonist, then you have no right to tell their story. I totally understand that there are dangers in having (say) a white person writing another race's narrative, but if a) it's fiction and b) the author isn't trying to pretend they are that race and setting themselves up as some sort of authority on that race, then I feel this is ok.

Personally, I wouldn't attempt to write a main protagonist whose culture and way of thinking was too distant from my own, because even with extensive research I wouldn't be able to do that character or culture justice. There would be too much in the composition of that character that would be alien to me. Even for fiction. And for a secondary character (which I have written into one of my novel attempts), I'm hoping to get someone of that culture to read those parts to make sure my character rings true, just as I'll hope to have someone American check over my white American characters. I don't want to write caricatures!

[kalliel]

I think an important distinction here is what is the story about? Is it about being this identity category?

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Ah mmm - my stories would not be about being 'something/someone' - well unless you count one of my heroes being an alien life form who thought he was human and finds he isn't. But in those circumstances I don't think I'm going to upset any other aliens when I define what it means to be him.

[kalliel]

I think that's the key. I didn't like or re-blog the original post, so I have little hope of every finding it again, but if I recall correctly it was rhetorically set up so it was like, "Do write PoC characters, don't write stories about being a PoC," etc.

If you aren't yourself a PoC, your PoC characters can be PoC, and their being PoC is going to be a part of who they are, but that story, in the hands of someone who is not a PoC (and more specifically, not whatever specific ethnic/racial heritage that character is), should probably be about literally anything else that PoCs do besides, well, be PoC.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

I understand that - though I don't think that post really got that point across as well as you are! But in that case, if you have (as I have) a character who is Native American, is a shaman who lives on a reserve, is a key element of the heroes' story and interacts with the other characters doing Native American things - like helping a character get their head straight after a traumatic experience - should I not be writing those things, those actions, or defining my character as a native american? His world intersects with the world of my lead characters, and I want him to be central to their story - and it's important to the story (at the moment) that this native american element is there.

I've seen comments on blogs what would tell me I don't have any right to write this character. I see what you're saying - but how far does one go before one hits this wall that says stick to white mainstream characters because you are one?

[kalliel]

This is a moment where research and sensitivity readers and an individual assessment of the situation come into play. In this case, you're up against a lot that requires much thinking through. As mentioned somewhere in the above threads, you don't want to pull a JK Rowling with Native culture. (Major caveat being I only know of this through Native studies, so I know that people were mad--but I don't keep up with Harry Potter news, so I don't actually know "what JK Rowling did.")

And I do think "research" here should be qualified in that that step would be more than finding and applying information, because people will say stuff like, "I've been to a sweat lodge once, I Know This Thing." I'm not at all saying that's what YOU would do!!! But when writing Native characters, these are the kinds of narrative history you're up against, and that your readership might be especially primed to expect/brace themselves for/be more inclined to assume that's where you're headed.

A question you might ask is, what tribe is your shaman? What are the shamanic practices particular to that tribe? If you're not of a particular tribe, this can get dicey, because greater specificity means greater opportunity to fuck something up. A way of managing this might be creating a fictitious tribe that leans on but does not expect to emulate exactly some of the traditions of actual communities. This is a strategy employed by both Native and non-Native authors like. (Native writer Linda Hogan's People of the Whale is about a fictitious tribe loosely modeled after actual indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest.) Concerning potential shamanic practices, it's typically frowned upon to write about most actual practices--considered private, privileged information--even if you're a Native writer, so that's why I want to qualify what research means in this context.

You mentioned not wanting to write caricatures--and I think a lot of the advice that the Tumblr post intended (but I agree with you, did not particularly explain) to keep people from doing just that. Because they have this character, say, who's Native, and suddenly everything about him has to tie back to his Native-ness. Like, he is this way because he's Native. He thinks this way because he's Native. Even if maybe the story itself manages to avoid being about Being Native, this character's whole existence might still end up being about Being Native. Versus, like, being a dude. Being a Faulker fan. Being Christian. Whatever else!

In fact, Sherman Alexie goes so far as to parody this occurrence--because it's that common--in his film, Smoke Signals. A character's father passes away, and he meets a friend who's also heard the news. And the character asks, wait, how did you know that?

And the second character says, in mock-Native "shamanic" fashion, something like, "I heard it in the wind! I heard it from the earth!" only to punctuate this performance with the very practical, very un-shamanic, "Oh, and your mom was just in here, crying."

XD

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

I've read some Sherman Alexie having come across him during my research.

Actually that's a good idea, inventing a tribe instead of trying to fit a real one - especially as this is really a fantasy sci fi book and not supposed to be real life. I am thinking of re writing the thing - some other advice I read somewhere that said don't edit, re-write - so this would be a good opportunity to free up the existing words from the constraints I imposed and have to a certain extent grown away from since I started it. Cool beans!

I suppose one of my problems is, in this particular instance, I don't realistically expect to have an audience. I'm thinking of putting the novel out there, but have no real expectation of it getting published or read. So to a large extent, it's written for me. But on the other hand, I want other people to read it so therefore I work on it as if they will ...

[alexisjane.livejournal.com]

Re: the JK Rowling thing, I think this article covers most of the points that were made - http://nativesinamerica.com/2016/07/dear-jk-rowling-were-still-here/

Re: Amber's character. Please don't feel you have to rewrite the character just because you think you should. Seriously. Have a sensitivity reader give it a once over, because you might change things that are okay and overlook stuff that you might not think is not okay. There are groups on Facebook (Multicultural GLBTQ Literature is one) where you can have an open discussion about this stuff and get some really good advice.
TBH when I asked the question about using the term "colored", all the POC were actually cool with it because they understood the historical relevance and that genuine representation is important. It was the non-POC people who thought I should put a disclaimer in the front of the book, or change it (I include myself in that group btw). So until you've had someone actually read the character in its context, I would just write it the way your character is asking to be written. The fact that you're not oblivious to these issues, that you've researched and are a general good egg is half the battle, Hun.

Also I was thinking about the difference between writing about and write as... I heard a great explanation of the difference between MM romance and gay romance. Gay romance being about the experience of being gay and MM being a romance where the protagonists happen to be gay. Anyway... ♥

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Oh thanks for the Rowling links, that controversy had completely passed me by. Actually I'm not thinking of rewriting my character just because of this angle, it's more because I want to take a good look at the book as a whole, and this character is currently (I think) a bit too throw away where I think the story needs him to be more fleshed out to reflect his importance. Which means I need to make him something more than a token 'other'. He also happens to be gay! Maybe I'm trying to cram to much into him... Another reason to reread the whole thing and sort it all out. Maybe it has no merit at all and I should start over.

[dancing-adrift.livejournal.com]

a) This entire discussion has been fascinating and enlightening. Thank you, amberdreams and others!

b) Of course my thought this whole time was, "How does this apply to writing slash fanfiction?" (when I am a straight female, not a gay male). I've never heard the distinction between gay romance and MM romance, but I liked hearing the definition. Not something I knew about, but it's a cool thing to now know :)

c) It's interesting to me to think about the difference between 'writing a POC character' and 'writing a character who happens to be a POC'. To maybe throw a wrench in things with an example, in college, I had a roommate who was born in South Korea but adopted and then raised in rural Minnesota. I think about her cultural experiences growing up (very 'white', 'hick', even) and then how she was perceived in college ('Hey, you're Asian! You should join the multicultural club!" even though she has no recollection of her time in Korea)... and it's like... I don't know how to put into words what I'm thinking, I guess. Maybe what I'm trying to say is... Each person is different, so each character is going to be, too. Whatever character you write is unique because YOU are writing them. So you're the one who asks the questions and makes the decisions. 'Okay, this character is Native. What does that look like for them?' - and then do the research to figure out the best way to convey that history, that background, to the best of your ability. If that means a sensitivity reader, great! If it means you create your own sort of fictional, Native-adjacent tribe, great!

The fact that you're already thinking about such issues with such an open mind is a great start, as far as I'm concerned. And thanks again for starting such a wonderful discussion! :)

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Thanks for joining in! It is a really interesting issue - I'm glad so many folk have commented as it's really helping get things straight in my mind. Not only about my 'novel' character but about fic in general.

[amypond45.livejournal.com]

I can't help but think about writing as an excercise in imagination, in writing about what you don't know in your everyday life. Acting is the same. How can an actor who grew up in Texas in an intact family possibly hope to understand how to play a monster-hunter from Kansas whose mother died when he was a baby? Being human means being able to put yourself in someone else's shoes, being capable of making that imaginative leap. I guess to me that's as least as important as being politically correct.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Indeed - I'm sure 90% authors write about stuff they don't know and have never experienced.

[frozen_delight]

"Write what you know" is a terribly stupid writing advice, at least when you take it literally. I mean, you can write decent crime novels without becoming a serial killer, and most of the authors writing about perfect romance probably haven't experienced anything nearly so perfect in their own lives.

Some subject matters are more delicate than others and I feel like you should have a basic awareness if something is a difficult, contentious subject and why when you write about it. BUT - you are writing fiction. On the risk of sounding too much like Foucault, the very act of writing is an act of violence. You are never going to produce a story which does perfect justice to everyone and everything. Nor should you have to. If people want unbiased information on a specific subject, they should consult a dictionary. If they want a handy moral guide, they should check out the immensely rich self-help guide literature. Fiction doesn't exist to be factually or morally right, it exists to be good fiction.

And, guess what, intimate knowledge of a certain situation etc. isn't enough to do it justice in writing. For instance, most fanfic is written by women. Yet, I've rarely encountered more misogynist fiction anywhere than in fandom. Going by that alone, one should probably make it a rule that women must never ever be allowed to write about women because clearly they're doing it wrong! Which would be absurd.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Yes I do think sometimes people forget that fiction is, by its very nature, fictional! But as you say, a good writer will put in enough reality to make the fiction believable, and I suppose that, in a way is where the problem lies. Some people will read fiction and take it as fact, some writers will write fiction badly and/or without any concern for the way it might be received, and we end up with a conception problem that can endure for decades, whether it's about women or gays or Red Indians who always go whoop whoop with a hand over their mouths and say kemosabe a lot.

[fairyniamh]

Write what I know... If I did that, every lesbian would be a butch dyke (the label my aunt uses to describe herself.) Gay men would be black and flamboyant, white and closeted, or white and prefers to be called sister, rather than brother. I'm not gay though, so I shouldn't use the people who shaped my youth as inspiration.

All ex-military would be harsh and mildly abusive, but should not write about the stories my dad told me, because I am not military.

I should not write about losing a parent, but I can write about losing a child. I should not write about grandfathers, but I can write about absent grandmothers.

What a load of hog wash. I've written about 9-11, even though I was not near any of it. I've written about cancer and cancer recovery. Never had it, but I know people who have, and none of them felt slighted about me writing a cancer recovery story.

The thing about stories is... most are fictional and only the people who are offended by fiction are those who are overly sensitive.

If they think I will not write my Black, Gay, Flashy Djin, simply because I am a white straight woman, they are sadly mistaken. Any issues with me writing a black person may be taken up with my Black Auntie (not my lesbian aunt). She will gladly stomp them into a puddle of goo. (My family is very colorful and variant.)

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

While I appreciate there are sensitivities, I do think some people are over sensitive...though of course those people would just dismiss my opinion because I'm white, middle class, etc etc...

[manzanita-crow.livejournal.com]

I'm curious. Not a writer myself, but it is something I've always wondered about. If something is set in a racist/sexist/other-ist milieu, is it more insulting to gloss over that fact or to be true to that time/place?

I'm pretty privileged myself (white, middle class, physically able). The only way in which I'm obviously the 'disadvantaged' is being female. But I find it quite patronising when people gloss over the sexism of past times. I'm a big girl, I can handle the historical reality. How do other people feel about that?

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

I suppose the answer to your first question is - it depends. It would depend on the purpose of your story and its intended audience - but having said that, there are ways of showing the attitudes of an age without it being the focus of the story, and without necessarily dwelling on them. And if those attitudes were something inescapable and universally present, then I think you'd have to show them and deal with them, regardless of the story's purpose. So if you want to write a light fluffy romance perhaps it's best not to set it between two slaves in the deep south during the Civil War unless you want to tackle some seriously unfluffy issues.

[milly-gal.livejournal.com]

I can see what they're saying but if we only write what we know - O.o Nothing would ever get written! Also, come on, just because we don't have life experience of an event or a lifestyle, that doesn't preclude us from empathy. I don't get pissy when someone writes about an abusive domestic relationship and has never even sniffed one, let alone witnessed it or whatever. It's an extreme example but it's still a valid one. Through writing we learn, we research, we *try* and understand.

As a writer/author you constantly second guess yourself as it is; am I making this too generalized, am I offending someone, is this too much??? I think 'write what you know, and ONLY what you know' is the worst advice ever.

And can we just for a moment point out that it's not just minorities that get broadly generalized in fiction by people who haven't got a clue - white middle class and able bodied people almost seem to be the frowned upon set now. If you don't happen to have something that makes you different, then how dare you have an idea or opinion (sorry, harsh, but true).

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

You might get pissy if that person wrote about an abusive relationship and totally misrepresented reality, though. A bit like the way 50 Shades shows an abusive relationship dressed up as BSDM and therefore ok. And it wasn't only the people in the BSDM who thought this was irresponsible and potentially damaging, as well as bad writing.

I guess I can see that there are occasions when people should shout about misrepresentation and inaccuracy - but also that if marginalised groups yell about every little thing, the impact of their outrage is diminished and often ignored. It's about picking your battles, methinks!

[milly-gal.livejournal.com]

Thing is hun, they do. All the time. I've tried politely to point that out to people when they go completely over board or just run rough shod over what actually happens, but it's a free country and those people will continue to write what they want. I don't get pissy because I'm sure I've written shit that is so off base it's painful.

As for Fifty Shades, that was the biggest pile of wank known to man. She should be ashamed of it, seriously.

Picking your battles indeed.

[blythechild.livejournal.com]

If writers never wrote beyond their own experiences, Harper Lee never would've written To Kill A Mockingbird, A.A. Milne would've never written Winnie-the-Pooh, and the entire genre of speculative fiction/sci-fi wouldn't exist. I think white authors need to do their homework before they embark on a serious exploration of of a character or reality that isn't familiar to them, but to avoid it entirely? Yeah, that's political correctness gone haywire. And, honestly, isn't 'including' non-white/non-straight characters but 'not telling their story' almost the same thing as NOT INCLUDING THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE?

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

That last would be my worry - or that writers who aren't trans, gay, black, Asian or whatever it might be then leave out any character that might be contentious, and thus perpetuate minority or marginalised statuses...

[dear-tiger.livejournal.com]

I've been on this subject a lot with different people in texts and emails, for reasons of this just finished original#2.

You know, I've read or browsed through a lot of books based in Russia (or fictional world based on Russia), and if they weren't written by an actual Russian, they don't know their head from their ass. That goes for Valente, too, who did amazing research and still got it all wrong. I'm sure you've seen lots and lots of books try to be British and end up utterly stupid. Even though my culture gets fucked up, I like that it's not a sacred cow. I want people to be curious about Russia and write about Russia, and if they fuck it up, we can point and laugh, just like we point and laugh at any book that screws up something royally. Movies NEVER get medicine correctly. It's like a precious unicorn when they do. But medics don't have moral outrage parties on tumblr about how the civilians/muggles (both excellent terms for non-medical people) exploit our lives' work and use it as a setting for cheap melodrama while butchering everything that goes into being a medic AND actually making our daily jobs harder by creating these false ideas. I never ever want to see some, IDK, medical justice warrior generating butthurt and outrage on social media by pointing out what clown had gotten nursing or doctoring ass-backwards on TV. And those clowns DO make our jobs and lives harder. Prime example is resuscitation. Every asshole to ever make a show/movie about a miraculous impossible rescue needs to get punched in the face in the ER by an angry family member (occasionally high, occasionally armed) and then sued.

There's some argument floating around there about colonized cultures and historically oppressed whatevers. I think this kind of double standard is a very slippery slope and I refuse to get on it.

People get shit wrong all the time - medicine and Russia, same as gayness and Thailand. But lack of historically recent oppression by a western power doesn't entitle you to respect, so we just point and laugh. I'd rather point and laugh. I don't want my culture to be taboo and untouchable for anyone except the enlightened. Get curious about it. Write it and get it wrong. Then we can talk about it and learn. But if we're too afraid to even speak about a subject lest we cause butthurt, then how will we ever learn anything, or learn to see points of view and opinions different from our own? Even within the same culture, there are vastly different perspectives on the same topic. "Only I know the truth about A because I'm a member of A, and you STFU" is incredibly ignorant. It's not about teaching others about your culture but rather about basking in your special and unique snowflake status. There is no correct way, even within the same culture. I want the conversation. I want to see other people's perspective on their culture as well as my own. And I'm not gonna get it if I put a barbed wire fence around the entire subject and attack every "other" who dares to approach it.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's the difference between perpetuating negative attitudes to a marginalised group as opposed to misrepresenting a profession or a country. Especially if you are a well known writer who would be widely read and therefore have some influence on your readership.

Hmm. I am being reminded of another reason I preferred writing fantasy. There you can take issues and explore them without people jumping up and down because some aspect of their life or culture has been offended, Not that I've been widely enough read to have anyone jumping up and down about my writing for any reason!

Was that link to #2 supposed to lead to something of interest because it didn't seem to work.

[dear-tiger.livejournal.com]

Nah, it's just LJ being weird and highlighting everything with a hashtag.

I tend to think people need to get over themselves, but I'll admit to being in the (marginalized?) minority on the issue. We can laugh and poke fun at stupid mistakes. But we prefer to frame it as ~hurtful. Keep framing yourself as a precious, marginaluzed victim, and it'll never end.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

I'm inclined to agree with you.

[zara-zee.livejournal.com]

This is a very interesting discussion. I agree with many here that if we only wrote about our own experiences there would be a lot of very boring books. Fiction isn't the same as a diary. It is a creative endeavour. It uses imagination. It is an opportunity to explore being someone we're not.

However...the concerns about appropriation are also valid. I think, from what I've read, the concerns stem from the tendency of writers who are within the dominant group to assume knowledge they don't have, fail to research, fail to consult with the minority group/s in question and essentially produce awful, crude, misinformed stereotypes who the readers in the dominant group then use as their basis for what that minority is 'really like'. I think (hope) there is less of that these days because writers are more culturally aware/sensitive and...we're having these kinds of conversations!

Another aspect that I've seen brought up is that mainstream publishers are far more likely to publish white men than anyone else, so it tends to be their views on things that influence the perspective of the dominant group and maybe those white men should stand back and give the WOC the chance to tell their own stories in their own voices?

As writers though, many of us want to include a diverse range of characters in our fiction and I think we should. But it has to be done with a lot of sensitivity and awareness. I mean, you can't effectively channel someone who is 'other' than you if you're using an outsider perspective. Like, I'm white, so if I have a character of colour looking at herself in the mirror she's not going to notice her 'ebony skin' and her 'almond eyes' or whatever, because that's just her and has been since she was born.

Anyway, interesting topic and very well worth discussing. :)

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Absolutely - and that point about characters 'noticing' aspects of themselves that they would never do in real life merely for the purpose of the narrative is a good one. Basically we need to master the best possible omniscient POV so we don't have to put our writing inside anyone character's head and we'd be sorted. As long as our omniscient narrator isn't a sexist, racist, homophobic whatever, of course!