Diversity in fiction (and what to do with old characters)

[PFA]

So as you may or may not know about me, I tend to hold onto my story concepts for literal years. Most of the fiction I write today is based on something I came up with 10+ years ago, just that I've been slowly working out the kinks over time.

That said, one of the things I've run into is that the majority of my characters are white. Understandable, I suppose—I made a lot of white female characters as a kid, because I myself am a white female, and people tend to write what they know. That isn't to say I never tried to diversify, because I definitely did! Just that sometimes my attempts to diversify were a bit, um... questionable.

Enter this guy!

SPOILER: Click to show

This is one of the main villains of Niji Chikara, a series where people become villains due to a dark energy that possesses them to do evil. But this character is a unique case where he was already a wanted criminal before becoming a villain, therefore making him even more of a public menace. And my younger self opted to give him a decidedly bronzier skintone than... literally the entire rest of the cast at the time. Hmm.

It's also worth pointing out that this is an image I just recently drew of him. I asked on another forum about him for the sake of an unbiased opinion, and in the (much older) image I used as demonstration, apparently some people couldn't even tell the difference. Whether this was a result of my younger self's inexperience with drawing darker skin color, or an attempt to whitewash away the inherent racism, I'm not fully sure.

SPOILER: Click to show

Either way, the fact remains that I purposefully drew him with a different skin color than literally every other character. Which left me unsure about what to do with him.

When I asked about it on the other forum, the majority opinion was that I should leave the character as-is, but that I should make one or more of my main characters a POC to balance it out. The problem is, as mentioned earlier, I designed all of the main characters a very long time ago—as white. I wouldn't really be comfortable with drastically changing their designs after drawing them the same way for so long. And while I can (and have) add in more characters with different skintones, even characters with major story roles, I'm not sure how much it matters if they aren't literally main characters.

So yeah, I dunno. How "main" is a main character? How important is it to balance out your POCs? Am I overthinking it? General thoughts on diversity in fiction?

[June Scarlet]

Ah this is such a tricky topic, and one I'm familiar grappling with. I remember in college being so discouraged by it that I was like, "I'm just going to write animal fiction, where that's not an issue." But I mean, that's not necessarily practical for all stories. So it's something I've been working on as well.

This makes me think of something I'd decided about my comic project, Crime Show. I have two main characters, and some time in the last year, I decided that it might be nice if Franklin Fuzz were Hispanic. He and Lisa Copper are here: ntwriters.proboards.com/post/2731253/thread

Now, I consider them early enough in development that it's not really a problem to change things around. And it's not like he was assigned anything before. Of course, now I've been trying to think of how to show he's Hispanic. I mean, I haven't even figured out how to name-drop their names in the natural course of the comics yet. And I guess every detail doesn't have to be spelled out for the reader. I don't know how much it matters for a limited-run series of short comics anyway.

I did this partly because of some feedback I had on a background character. Now, it's a series called Crime Show. It's going to have criminals in it. So my first attempt was to draw and color the suspect as a blue-gray featureless character. Because it was like, what am I supposed to do? That choice didn't work out, and there was a discussion in the art chat about what to do. I was worried, because pretty much all the characters besides Lisa and Franklin are one-off suspects. I didn't want to portray anyone as being bad. And I'm still not totally sure how I want to handle it.

I saw better points raised on Discord, but it's starting to get late for me, so I'll have to stop here for now.

[PFA]

So uh, we ended up talking about this mostly on Discord instead of here. XD Figured I'd do a quick follow-up post for those not in the Discord!

After some discussion of the matter, I came to the conclusion that the main issue was my hesitance to redesign the main characters. I was so used to their designs and how they looked in my head, that anything else felt like it wouldn't be "them" anymore. But then I decided, well, that's not really a good reason to not at least try it, so I did.

And um. I ended up liking it a lot more than I thought I would. In part because it actually helps make the characters look more distinct from each other, which is something I've been pushing in their designs anyway, haha.

(May still play around with it some more, but)

SPOILER: Click to show

So yeah, that's pretty much where I'm at now. Feel free to continue discussing the issue as a whole, though!


(Another thing I didn't really mention, about the character in the first post, there's definitely more to him than I described; I mostly just wanted to highlight the concern I was having. That said, I'm still thinking of ways to make him more nuanced and interesting, so feel free to chime in with opinions on that if you want.)

[Celestial]

Late reply, but wanted to a) promote posting on the forum and b) sum up my thoughts.

First up, the fact that your recognised this as a problem in your works and want to try to rectify it is a very good thing. It is always difficult to confront your past mistakes, and always admirable to put in the effort to fix them.

I do really love those character designs you've come up with. ^^ They definitely have a lot more obvious diversity, both in design and the meaning of the word as we're using it now. From now, however, it's a question of trying to figure out their diversity not just by appearance but culturally. That is also an important part of representation, I believe. But it is the harder one. Same goes for other diverse characters.

I firmly believe that diversity needs to have a good reason behind it and should not be done just for its own sake. More representation, for the sake of the story, to have positive role models, all are excellent goals. Just for its own sake, it is disingenuous. Nor does a lack of diversity make for a bad story, contrary to what some may think. All that matters is that it serves the story and works within it. Which I think yours does. Like you said, there's the character design aspect. ^^ I hope you can work something good out!

[Twillie]

I agree on finding diversity beyond appearance, that was something I was planning on mentioning in an uber long reply that I may or may not ever finish xD But yeah, I was gonna say that diversity goes beyond just skin color, so if you're looking for ways to differentiate your characters but are unsure about greatly changing their designs, you've got options.

At the end of the day, you're also not obligated to make changes you're not comfortable with. If you do revise your characters, let it be because you genuinely want to, and not because it feels like someone is telling you to do a certain thing. Like Celes said, it sounds like you've hit a maturing stage in your writing where you're noticing dated aspects of your characters, so it does indeed seem like you want to update them, which is great. It's also good to step outside of your comfort zone and experiment with these things, as what may feel scary at first actually turns out easier than expected. But if there's something that really does feel out of place or forced, it's alright to say no to using it. I do feel like there's such a thing as trying to do too much at once, which can just make you feel even more uncomfortable with the work, or it can make the attempted diversity backfire with a lot of unchecked problematic elements unintentionally thrown in as well.

I'd say keep on pushing, both with the designs and the characters themselves, and see what more you can discover about them! Getting over that initial hump of resistance is a good first step, and there's always more to learn and to practice with the infinite amount of diversity in humanity out there.

[Liou]

White characters never need the excuse of having their cultural background explored in order to be depicted in fiction. I don't think racially and otherwise diverse characters should need that excuse simply in order to appear.
While diversity for its own sake would be disingenuous if one were doing it for one's own reputation, and while it is important to not bite off more than one can chew in terms of research, and not to tell stories that are not ours to tell (so, to not bite off more than one can chew from our neighbour's food),
diversity is still just a reflection of the truth? Different people just happen to exist in reality, and to not represent them is just censoring reality. That is what some of us are trying to make up for nowadays.
I've seen a lot of internet / video discussion on the need for representation of minority characters in storylines that aren't especially relevant to the issues faced by their respective minorities, but where they can simply exist as people in the same way as non-minority characters play parts in stories. Not that this should replace the storylines which do explore their backgrounds and issues, but in parallel.
If your cast's cultural background is supposed to be explored and play a part in the story, then it makes sense to stick to what you know. And even if it isn't, there are things that are very tricky to write about if you've never had a possibility of experiencing them first-hand. So a lot probably also depends on how much of a point of view each character has.
Balance is hard writing is pain yay.
(Can't comment much on your redesign of the group of four characters, I can't tell what's changed but that's probably because I have no comparison. They do seem distinct from each other, if that's what you were going for!)

[Twillie]

At least when I mentioned diversity beyond appearance, I didn't mean exploring culture to justify a character's race or anything like that. I don't think that needs justification, no, just like a white character doesn't need it. What I meant was expanding your library of characters through multiple traits. What subcultures, nationalities, creeds, traditions, crafts, etc. could also be incorporated into a story and be represented in ways they usually aren't? And these don't need to be tied to the POC characters, nor do they need to be extensively deliberated on in story. Just like people in real life have multiple dimensions, I find it fun exploring these kinds of layers with characters of all kinds.

[Celestial]

I agree with Twillie, but also, I think it's important to show a character as more than their skin colour. It's not just appearance that makes a POC or any ethnic minority, but their background, upbringing, and experiences, which will vary from culture to culture. I'm not even talking negative experiences. Those can be left out entirely, depending on what you want to present in a story. But I do believe real representation goes beyond just saying "oh, I'm [x]". I think we can all agree that if we have a character who is, say, LGBTQ+ or disabled (for example. This can extend to culture too) not having either of those things come up and treating them, for all intents and purposes, as if they did not have that aspect of identity, we'd be crying foul that the writer was trying to have their cake and eat it too. These things matter. You (and using general "you" here, nobody specific, don't worry) cannot claim to have good representation, or any representation, if you don't show at least a little of what it's like to be that person, without stereotypes but as a person with that aspect of their identity. Just like cis white straight people have those things as aspects of their identity, but we don't notice because that's "default". That is more than skin-deep.

In the case of race, this may be more complicated because some of those distinctions are arbitrary and also defined in our world by prejudice. In that case, I'd leave it to the person's judgement what would fit their story. I firmly believe it's okay to write a story where you don't tackle experiences of prejudice or our current broken societal woes. In fact, I find it helpful. Too many people already deal with that IRL, we don't need our suffering thrown back in our faces in our fiction too. Show us a good world where we don't have to deal with that.

[Moni]

yo what's up it's me here with an Unpopular Opinion!

now i am documented as saying that i do not put much weight on Representation (TM) and am in fact perfectly content with whatever as long as it doesn't have Unfortunate Implications. i also really don't really consciously have Representation in my work; i just put what i'm interested in in there. however, i do recognize that it is a good thing to include at a general level and it's good to reexamine one's biases from the past; this is commendable.

people are giving you a laundry list of "oh this vs. that" and while they have good thoughts on the subject, i'm not gonna comment on any of it. mostly because i don't think i have much to add and you've got a good variety of excellent points here, but also because i think sometimes it can be a bit paralyzing actually moving forward with all the "... but... but..." qualifiers people hang about the whole place.

here's my advice: if you're going to chuck in something unfamiliar, just make sure you enjoy the process of learning about the group of people you're writing about. like. focus first on the things you think are cool, and you'll pick up little bits and pieces of other things that will lead you to other things, etc, and you'll have a more holistic understanding of the culture over time. it's really obvious as a reader when a writer legitimately enjoys what they're writing about and has enthusiasm for learning about it--even if they get some minor details wrong--and when they incorporate that stuff into a character who feels like a Person.

[PFA]

Thanks for the responses!

I mean, I guess the weird thing about Niji Chikara specifically is that it's a series that parodies a lot of anime tropes, and one of the things I decided early on was that it would be unclear if the characters are actually Japanese or something else—which makes me hesitate to elaborate too much on the characters' ethnic backgrounds. Not to say that I couldn't, just that it's something I'd have to think about.

That said, to paraphrase a comment from the other thread, "if race doesn't matter in the story, why not make some of the characters POCs?", which I'm inclined to agree with—even in a story where race is ambiguous (or even fictional), there's no reason why different skin colors can't exist. And there's definitely no reason to typecode "different skin color = villain" without racism being a part of the plot.

[June Scarlet]

Hello, yes, I'm going to borrow this thread for my own purposes rather than make a new one covering basically the same topic, thank you PFA for giving your permission to reuse it.

I've got an upcoming comic series called Crime Show. They are all 2-5 panel one-offs. I've written 21 scripts so far. They star two detectives, Lisa Copper and Franklin Fuzz. There's also the Coroner, Mary Macabre, whom I've written zero scripts for, and might never actually show up, but I have a design for anyway.

For reference, this is how they all look:

SPOILER: Click to show

Lisa and Franklin


Mary

In addition, there's five other characters who make an appearance. This is where I consider the rub to be. Four of them are either criminals or suspects. The fifth one's an animal, which I'm not concerned about. All of these characters only appear in one comic each, not reoccurring characters. There are no background characters/crowds.

With such a limited cast and amount of comics, I'm not sure how much diversity I can show. And I don't really I want to portray any as a criminal or suspect. But I tried drawing as just a blue-gray featureless figure, and it didn't really work.

SPOILER: Click to show

I've seen a similar idea used to portray humans and owners and Neopet users in Neopian Times comics, so it's possible I just don't have the style quite nailed, but I think it's more likely that it just doesn't work here. So I think I do need to pick out more realistic colors and features. But like... which ones?

There's the usual discussion, but I also have a concrete question as well. With four criminals to portray, and only six humans total appearing in the comic so far, which diversity should I show?

[Moni]

June Scarlet I wouldn't really feel pressured to have all the suspects/criminals be WASPs either, because it kind of carries with it this impression that white is the default, if you're thinking about that sort of thing

Crime Show takes place in a vaguely-metropolitan area, so it would feel super strange if there wasn't at least some diversity in the criminals and suspects. This isn't about how *realistic* it is ofc, you're more worried about the message it sends, if I'm reading this right.

If you want a start, You can approach this numerically--ie have the proportion of representation on the "bad guys side" and the "good guys side" be about equal, and from roughly similar backgrounds. It's not perfect but this will give you a rough guide to not "unbalance" things too much by subconsciously referring to stereotypes, and it's a good starting place.

That isn't to say that criminals can't have background-related means or motivations, it just has to be incidental to what they're doing and not especially heinous in comparison to everyone else.
Also, the context/plots matter too, obviously. as long as you don't have (let's make up a stereotype) ASIATIC HORDES STEALING MATH TEXTBOOKS BECAUSE OF THEIR STEPPE BLOOD AND THEIR BLOODTHIRSTY CULTURE and it's not a bunch of [insert dominant sociocultural group here] just beating up minorities, i think you'll be okay.

[June Scarlet]

Moni Sorry I took so long to reply. Made my post on a quiet weekend, only to come to a busy week.

So... what does WASPs mean? I can tell it's an acronym, but it's the same as the bug, so I'm not sure how to search it. I can kind of tell what it means from context clues, but I want to be sure.

I do agree that diversity is important in the suspects and criminals, as well as the police. Hopefully if I show a variety of suspects from different backgrounds and such, then I wouldn't really be targeting any one particular group.

By approaching things numerically, do you mean, like, if I have someone from Group A on the force, also have a criminal from Group A? That's an interesting thought. See, I was thinking if I have someone from Group A, Group B, and Group C on one side, then I'd want to show Group D, Group E, and Group F on the other, to show as much diversity as possible. But I think your idea is good as well.

Yeah, I don't plan on their group really informing much besides how they appear in the comic. I'm probably putting too much thought into it anyway, because they appear in like, just a few panels anyway.

Anyway, Moni, thank you for your thoughts, they are really helpful!

[Moni]

June Scarlet ah, WASP is an acronym for "white anglo-saxon protestant."

yes, that's what i meant. it's the easiest "lazy" solution to this problem imo, just because it frees one from overthinking about the context each and every character is put in; you could also try to be as diverse as possible ofc.

i do agree that you'll be fine!