Welcome to Write Diversity. A collaboration of Wattpad users hoping to encourage more diversity in our writing. Before we get into the thick of it lets get some things out the way.

The following information was provided by Claudia from Writing With Color, my personal opinions and sesnativity reresearch provided by K. Hall.

Write Diversity: How to write yourself out the equation

Truth is even other people of color are sometimes afraid to write about or outside their own cultures. When I started writing I found myself debating do I want market or do I want to write what I know? Something I learned is a big issue among most writers.

It's incredibly easy to write people out of their own stories, even to write yourself out of your own story but what does that mean exactly?

It refers to a story that should conceivably have a diverse population of characters, but tends to only feature white characters. This can happen consciously or unconsciously, but it happens. Let's talk about it.

Firstly, Unconscious Erasure

Sometimes we can unintentionally exclude others out of their own stories. There are many reasons that this can happen: fear of failure, fear of criticism, and consumption of mass media. We've all be trained, whether we're a person of color or not that white is the default so we do exclude diverse casts because it takes a conscious effort to fight against our fears and eurocentric forms of entertainment.

We are all so used to seeing things from a eurocentric viewpoint that we exclude ourselves from being the hero. It's the self fulfilling prophecy; we don't see ourselves so we don't know how to present ourselves in our own story. We relegate our characters to the background because we've often been made to believe that is where they belong. And I would say the majority of the time we aren't even aware that we've done this.

Second, Fear of Failure

Many people cite fear of failing as a reason for not including diverse characters. Why is this an unconscious erasure? Because many people may not realize this is what is holding them back and they might not know how to move forward because of it. The fear of failure is something that runs rampant in writing culture. Sometimes it's simply known as writers block. As writers, it seems like we live our writing lives in a constant state of fear.

When it comes to diversity, having one more thing to potentially fail at can just be too much to handle for writers. If we believe that we aren't going to do well, we often don't write things that we feel uncomfortable with because we want to stay in our comfort zone. This is something that happens with most writers, white and non-white alike. It's especially unfortunate as a writer of color to be so afraid of...

Third Fear of Criticism

This also comes from the same place. Fear of criticism differs from failure because we assume that because we succeed that we will be free from criticism. People may criticise a story for anything and adding in diversity is just one more thing to criticize. The characters may not be "Insert Culture/Ethnicity/Sexual Orientation, etc" enough or they might be too ethnic. Some readers may wonder why there are diverse characters at all and some will wonder why there is not enough. There is no avoiding criticism, but writing yourself out of your own story (or someone out of their own story) closes one door of criticism that people can't call you out on and it's a shame.

Consumption of Mass Media

Everyone has been subjected to the same eurocentric media that runs across all forms of media. Books, TV, video games, music, and other forms of media are filled to the brim with a eurocentric viewpoint above other cultures and populations.

Sure, most forms of media aren't openly stating that other cultures are inferior, but by excluding diverse populations or making them into gross stereotypes, the message is subtle, but it's very clear. The message is that being white is better because you get to see yourself. The message might be so clear that as a person of color, you unconsciously write yourself out of your own story. With my webcomic Beyond Beauty, this certainly happened and I wasn't even aware of it until my mom pointed it out. I'm not even sure other people would have pointed that out to me because we're all so used to seeing white heroes. It's a little too late to go back and change the damage that's already been done, but fumbling through correcting the mistake will be a learning process for all of us.

Conscious Erasure

Conscious erasure is the conscious decision to exclude diverse characters from stories that should be more diverse. There are situations and settings in which characters of colors would be a part of and the chances of them interacting with white main characters on a regular basis would make sense.

More marketable

There are people who believe that not including a diverse group of characters would make the story more marketable. It's sad that there is a truth to this. It is a self fulfilling prophecy in publishing (and all media) that books about people of color don't sell. The publishing companies do not put marketing money into these books to get the word out. The book comes out and doesn't do well because nobody has ever heard of it. The publishing company now has an excuse to never publish a diverse book again. There is an interview on the interwebs with agents who say there is no return on investment for diverse books and writers of color. They also stated that they often don't receive diverse books from writers of color. The agent suggests that perhaps one of the reasons these books don't do well is that writers of color may not have the luxury of investing in their careers. I suppose this is a valid assumption in some ways. But what does that tell me as a writer of color who graduated with a degree in creative writing? It almost sounds like it's not worth trying. The key word is almost.

At the end of the day, the publishing business is still a business. They are looking at the bottom line and if diverse books don't bring in the money the way a story with an all white cast would, they just won't put the money or effort to do so. It doesn't sound like anyone can win in this game. This is what racism is. It's a systematic oppression that keeps minorities out of certain spaces. A story with a diverse cast is relegated to the "special interest" section of the bookstore or library while the all white cast gets the table and window displays.

People also make assumptions about how other people spend their money, especially people of color. People of color have a lot of buying power and if they saw themselves reflected in the things they already buy, they would be more apt to buy them. I sure as heck went to see the Princess and the Frog, I didn't even care how good it was. My 10 year old self was so happy to see myself as a Disney Princess, that I saw it twice in theatres and numerous times afterward.

Many people will go and support movies featuring people of color. Not necessarily because these are the movies we want to see and what we like to watch ( I didn't really enjoy Red Tails or the majority of Tyler Perry Movies), but because we know that if we support them the chances of them making more diverse movies will be easier and the quality would be better. The same goes with books as well. At this point, there is no excuse not to include diversity in anything you write. There's a deep desire for it and including diversity will expand your audience, not narrow it.

Easier to write
I would argue that writing about a white character is incredibly easy because white is the supposed default. I certainly fell into the trap for Beyond Beauty. I didn't want the ideals and constructs following my characters into the story in a world where such constructs don't really exist. I didn't want people thinking "Oh, wow, those characters really aggressive because they are (insert stereotype here)."

Writing about white characters is a neutral act because there are very few damaging stereotypes about white people that follow them into their stories. If you're white, it's just easier to write about characters that don't differ too much from your own experience. If you're a person of color, it's just easier to write about white characters because a white person's experience is a neutral one. It's assumed and drilled into us that the white experience is the universal experience. White people don't often have to encounter the same things a person of color has to face simply by the fortune of being white.

There is an assumption that writing about a diverse character automatically makes it an "issue" book, where a character of color has to fight against something that is deemed "inherent" to being a person of color. (i.e African-American people and poverty, etc). I'd argue that if we had more diverse books, this wouldn't really be the case. We'd be able to see that people of color can go on adventures and have fun and slay dragons and start revolutions too.

The illusion of relatability
"I just want people to relate to my character." This is an invalid argument. As a Black woman, I'm forced to relate to white characters all the time. I don't have a say in the matter. If I want to watch something, get invested in it, then I have to relate and care for the white characters that are portrayed.

For some reason, people can't seem to relate to characters of color in the same way. Sure there are cultural differences that could alienate some people, but there are fundamental human truths that go across all families. For example, most people just want to provide a good life for their families. How they do it is where cultures come into conflict. There are some cultures who believe that the whole family should work together and there are other cultures that believe that everyone needs to work for themselves. How are those not relatable situations? Everyone's been embarrassed once in their lives by their families. How is that not a relatable situation? Sometimes people have been in love and had clashes over a number of things. Maybe it's not always culture, but ideals and morals can cause people to clash. This can happen between cultures, within cultures, and with individuals.

So how do you make characters relatable? You write from a place of empathy. Maybe you aren't Black, but you can imagine how demeaning it might feel to be excluded from something. You might not understand what it's like to be excluded from things because of your race, ethnicity, culture, gender, sexual preference, etc... but on a personal level, perhaps you weren't picked to be on the basketball team or something. Take that personal pain and make it universal. You can take that experience and apply to another situation. You can heighten the emotion to make the story authentic. Maybe someone has said something to you that really hurt your feelings. It might not have been about a specific thing such as your skin color, but you know what it's like to have your feelings hurt. How might that feel to someone who was called a racial slur? Use that pain. Use your happiness. Use your experience to write about other experiences.. People are unique, but there are certain feelings–joy, sadness, pain, happiness, elation– that we have all felt and that is the thing that unifies us.

What You Can Do About This?

The Theme of this book is write your characters make them diverse, not to fit a quota, not to combat the things stated about. Write them because we exsist and your next best seller could inspire someone who sees themselves one day. Now thats out the way onto the jist.

This book contains:

Face Claims - A diverse group of POC models, actors, and artists you can look up and pull from.

Description Help - Several chapters cover skin tones, facial features, hair texture, and styling that don't include food.

FAQ - the section that will answer questions you may have.

A Suggestion Box - Please use this page to throw in face claims you feel we should add, subjects we should cover and topics you feel we have missed.

This book is a new concept and will be added to and revamped as goes so be sure to add to your library for updates.