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I was thinking about Writing the Other the other day. Yeah, I know, this is not a subject I normally think about, partially because I get caught up in the emotions that are sometimes unfortunately connected to it, especially online. I'll be honest, I don't necessarily avoid confrontation, but I don't ignore it; it's more that I know I don't know enough of the subject to want to voice an opinion about it.
Anyway--I started thinking about why I would have these emotional reactions. I'll admit--I do have a tiny reactionary part of my brain that says "why are you telling me to put [x] in my novel?" I usually shut it down, though...I know it'll only cause trouble. I'm also open-minded enough that I'm okay with adding a character with a different ethnicity or gender or orientation, if it calls for it. There's a large number of strong, important female characters in the Bridgetown Trilogy that I'd like to think pass the Bechdel Test. I also have humanoid aliens who are truly Other--their societal norms and emotions are often quite different from the Terran society they inhabit.
But enough about my trilogy. The point of this post is that recently I started thinking about what it is that makes me think "why are you telling me to put [x] in my novel?"
I know for a fact that it's partly reactionary. It's the nonconformist in me saying "stop telling me what to do, I want to do it myself, on my own terms." But it's also partly not really knowing enough. Speaking for myself, I think I don't put that many different ethnicities in my novels--or at least make it obvious that they are so--because I'm not entirely sure how to go about portraying them. Any characters I've created have always been more focused on the inside, the spirit within, so to speak. I try to get inside their brains and figure out how they'd react to the situations at hand.
This is all well and good, but I started thinking...yes, these are just normal characters, easily playable by any ethnicity...but why am I not focusing on the character as someone who was born non-white? And that recalcitrant nonconformist spoke up again: because you don't want to be forced to write something you don't want to put in. Well then, I said back. Why not?
And then it dawned on me--this is the same reaction I have when I'm assigned a writing prompt to work on, which I'm then supposed to share with the class. As a writer I've always hated strict writing prompts, even when I was a kid. I hate work meetings where we're supposed to come up with some kind of feel-good story about how awesome we are. Assignments with strict guidelines always irritate me. [And this is why I didn't follow in my dad's footsteps and become a reporter.] And worst of all, I've always had a strong aversion to analyzing the details to the detriment of the whole. And putting specific Others in my stories felt like when I started noticing 80s cartoons having at least one African American, one Asian, one boy, one girl, etc...I was fine with the inclusivity, but the end result often felt forced and hokey. But really, it all boiled down to the fact that if I'm forced to write a character or a story I'm not interested in or don't know enough about, the end result is horrible and hackneyed, and a waste of my time.
And from there, I said... Well, that there has to be one of the stupidest excuses for not writing that you've come up with in a long time. You can do a hell of a lot better than that.
So. What should I do?
The first thing I had to do was some spring cleaning in my creative brain. I had to empty out the reactive emotions. Get rid of the don't-wanna, the can't-be-bothered, the I'm-happy-being-an-ignoramus. Do some homework, all on my own schedule. Right now I've made it a point to start reading more novels by non-American authors. I've already realized some time ago that I gravitate a lot to Asian and Russian authors, as I'm drawn to their writing style. Sergei Lukyanenko's Night Watch series was fascinating to me because it manages to be very cold and clinical in its delivery, yet intense and purely emotional at the same time; everything is felt and processed fully and completely. I also found Japanese writers like Miyuki Miyabe and Haruki Murakami (and recently, Chinese writer Chang Rae-Lee) fascinating because the flow of the story is not just about the plot but the poetry of it. It wasn't just about the story, but the unfolding of it as well; a very spiritual connection with life as it happens. These are just two examples, and I'm attempting to expand on my reading material from there.
This made me look deeper at the characters I was using in my novels that are still alive and in various forms of writing or revision--the aliens and the humans in the trilogy; the brother, sister, and girlfriend in Can't Find My Way Home; the villagers in The Children of Dun Corran--and to my surprise, and often embarrassment, I started noticing where I was failing them. Many had been simply one-dimensional reactionary characters, reacting thoughtlessly to whatever conflict I threw at them. Others had been token characters (many "I think I'll put a young girl here" or "this guy just happens to have a Spanish last name") that fell horribly flat. I could indeed to a hell of a lot better than that.
So. End result: How do I write the Other?
With care and humility, for one. With eyes opened wide, for another. I have to remember that when I'm creating characters, I have a hell of a wide palette to choose from. The writing process isn't completely about telling a story, it's also about investigating those within it and how they're affected by it. And it's not about blindly saying "I want to include a person of color/specific gender/orientation/belief system" either, for that's forcing something when it shouldn't be forced. It's about saying "I think [x] could/should play this role" and expanding on that. It's about taking a good hard look at the central casting in my brain and expanding it, and contemplating who would be an interesting and entertaining choice for the role. It's even about looking past the percieved boundaries of color, gender, and orientation; include these characters, but don't inhibit them. Make them shine just as I would any other character in my created universe. No one's forcing my hand, no one's demanding I do anything. I'm just broadening the palette I have to work with, really.
[Don't get me wrong, I'm not belittling or lessening the importance of the dialogue about Writing the Other in this post, far from it. This post is all about myself. This is just one White Dude Writer's War against the laziness of his own brain and his travails in trying to figure out how to end that war. Not win it, but end it.]
Anyway--I started thinking about why I would have these emotional reactions. I'll admit--I do have a tiny reactionary part of my brain that says "why are you telling me to put [x] in my novel?" I usually shut it down, though...I know it'll only cause trouble. I'm also open-minded enough that I'm okay with adding a character with a different ethnicity or gender or orientation, if it calls for it. There's a large number of strong, important female characters in the Bridgetown Trilogy that I'd like to think pass the Bechdel Test. I also have humanoid aliens who are truly Other--their societal norms and emotions are often quite different from the Terran society they inhabit.
But enough about my trilogy. The point of this post is that recently I started thinking about what it is that makes me think "why are you telling me to put [x] in my novel?"
I know for a fact that it's partly reactionary. It's the nonconformist in me saying "stop telling me what to do, I want to do it myself, on my own terms." But it's also partly not really knowing enough. Speaking for myself, I think I don't put that many different ethnicities in my novels--or at least make it obvious that they are so--because I'm not entirely sure how to go about portraying them. Any characters I've created have always been more focused on the inside, the spirit within, so to speak. I try to get inside their brains and figure out how they'd react to the situations at hand.
This is all well and good, but I started thinking...yes, these are just normal characters, easily playable by any ethnicity...but why am I not focusing on the character as someone who was born non-white? And that recalcitrant nonconformist spoke up again: because you don't want to be forced to write something you don't want to put in. Well then, I said back. Why not?
And then it dawned on me--this is the same reaction I have when I'm assigned a writing prompt to work on, which I'm then supposed to share with the class. As a writer I've always hated strict writing prompts, even when I was a kid. I hate work meetings where we're supposed to come up with some kind of feel-good story about how awesome we are. Assignments with strict guidelines always irritate me. [And this is why I didn't follow in my dad's footsteps and become a reporter.] And worst of all, I've always had a strong aversion to analyzing the details to the detriment of the whole. And putting specific Others in my stories felt like when I started noticing 80s cartoons having at least one African American, one Asian, one boy, one girl, etc...I was fine with the inclusivity, but the end result often felt forced and hokey. But really, it all boiled down to the fact that if I'm forced to write a character or a story I'm not interested in or don't know enough about, the end result is horrible and hackneyed, and a waste of my time.
And from there, I said... Well, that there has to be one of the stupidest excuses for not writing that you've come up with in a long time. You can do a hell of a lot better than that.
So. What should I do?
The first thing I had to do was some spring cleaning in my creative brain. I had to empty out the reactive emotions. Get rid of the don't-wanna, the can't-be-bothered, the I'm-happy-being-an-ignoramus. Do some homework, all on my own schedule. Right now I've made it a point to start reading more novels by non-American authors. I've already realized some time ago that I gravitate a lot to Asian and Russian authors, as I'm drawn to their writing style. Sergei Lukyanenko's Night Watch series was fascinating to me because it manages to be very cold and clinical in its delivery, yet intense and purely emotional at the same time; everything is felt and processed fully and completely. I also found Japanese writers like Miyuki Miyabe and Haruki Murakami (and recently, Chinese writer Chang Rae-Lee) fascinating because the flow of the story is not just about the plot but the poetry of it. It wasn't just about the story, but the unfolding of it as well; a very spiritual connection with life as it happens. These are just two examples, and I'm attempting to expand on my reading material from there.
This made me look deeper at the characters I was using in my novels that are still alive and in various forms of writing or revision--the aliens and the humans in the trilogy; the brother, sister, and girlfriend in Can't Find My Way Home; the villagers in The Children of Dun Corran--and to my surprise, and often embarrassment, I started noticing where I was failing them. Many had been simply one-dimensional reactionary characters, reacting thoughtlessly to whatever conflict I threw at them. Others had been token characters (many "I think I'll put a young girl here" or "this guy just happens to have a Spanish last name") that fell horribly flat. I could indeed to a hell of a lot better than that.
So. End result: How do I write the Other?
With care and humility, for one. With eyes opened wide, for another. I have to remember that when I'm creating characters, I have a hell of a wide palette to choose from. The writing process isn't completely about telling a story, it's also about investigating those within it and how they're affected by it. And it's not about blindly saying "I want to include a person of color/specific gender/orientation/belief system" either, for that's forcing something when it shouldn't be forced. It's about saying "I think [x] could/should play this role" and expanding on that. It's about taking a good hard look at the central casting in my brain and expanding it, and contemplating who would be an interesting and entertaining choice for the role. It's even about looking past the percieved boundaries of color, gender, and orientation; include these characters, but don't inhibit them. Make them shine just as I would any other character in my created universe. No one's forcing my hand, no one's demanding I do anything. I'm just broadening the palette I have to work with, really.
[Don't get me wrong, I'm not belittling or lessening the importance of the dialogue about Writing the Other in this post, far from it. This post is all about myself. This is just one White Dude Writer's War against the laziness of his own brain and his travails in trying to figure out how to end that war. Not win it, but end it.]
