[I promised I'd write a continuation of my thoughts, wrote it, then failed to actually post it. But in that intervening time we've had Malorie Blackman getting abused for asking for more diverse characters in children's books, and the latest round of hate for Anita Sarkeesian looking at how women are portrayed in video games. Clearly this is a conversation that needs to keep happening. So here, at last, are more thoughts of mine. But read Part One first, if you haven't already.]
When people aren't
arguing that minority characters should be represented in fiction in
the same numbers that they exist in real life, they tend to swing the
other way. We shouldn't be including characters just to fill some
sort of quota, or to make a point. People don't like to be preached
at. They should only appear when it's relevant to the plot. Any
number of characters could be gay, or trans, but it's just not
mentioned because it's not important to the story. Just look at
Dumbledore.
It's a seductive
argument. Stories whose sole purpose appears to be to deliver a
diatribe on a topic dear to the author are tiresome, whether one
agrees with the message or not. And characters should always be
connected to the plot, because that's the point. We leave out all
sorts of things that don't move the story along, like visits to the
toilet where nothing out-of-the-ordinary happens. We don't need to
see a character peeing – we can just assume that it happens.
But these aren't
questions of diversity. These are questions of storytelling. If you
can't find a way to reference a character's sexuality without making
it a message or an integral part of the plot then you're just not
that good a writer. We talk about our lovers and our ex-lovers all
the time, because they're important parts of our lives. These are
people we willingly spend a lot of time with; why wouldn't they come
up in conversation with other people? So unless you're writing a
story set somewhere that a gay person would feel the need to hedge
and say 'partner', it should be easy to include that information.
And even if they are reduced to saying 'partner', the contrast with
other people should still signify something to the reader.
I didn't always think
like this. There's a tendency to be suspicious of the 'token'
character who deviates from the norm set by the rest of the group,
and of the 'rainbow' group where every member carefully fits a
different demographic like a manufactured pop band. I would tell
myself that it was enough for me to know a particular character was
gay, without having to put it into the story and risk making them the
'token'. Drawing attention to their sexuality felt like shouting,
"Look! I put a gay character in the story! Aren't I inclusive?
Give me a biscuit!"
And then people who are
much better than me at this sort of thing (I love you guys) pointed
out that if you don't make these things clear to the reader, it will
be assumed that they're straight. People don't read books and assume
that anything unstated is open to any possibility. They assume that
it's the default. If you don't mention that a character has a
catheter up their hoo-hah, we'll assume that they pee like anyone
else.
I've been using
sexuality as the example here. Signalling the presence of non-white
characters is easier, because it can be in their name, or the
physical description when they first walk onto the page. It's not
information the character has to volunteer. Sexuality has to be
offered, if you're not including a lover in the story. And gender?
That, I will agree, is tricky.
Trans characters are
unlikely to reveal their status in normal conversation, if the story
isn't specifically about their transition. Why would they? Who they
used to be, or what's inside their pants, is unimportant. What
matters is their own identity. But that doesn't mean we have to
entirely ignore the possibility of non-binary gendered characters.
Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice has non-gendered characters. Iain M
Banks' Culture universe gives us characters that can and do change
gender on a whim, and Player of Games includes a species with three
genders (in which the female still gets the short end of the stick)
Julian May's Galactic Milieu has intersexed aliens, and Iron Council
by China Mieville has Qurabin, a monk who can access hidden secrets
at the cost of losing something else in the process, and lost their
own gender early on. No one knows if Qurabin is male or female, not
even Qurabin. There are any number of options out there, if only we
think of them.
Thinking is key. If
you never come up with a character who deviates from the Cis White
Straight Able-Bodied norm, you lack imagination. You shouldn't need
'quotas' for minority characters, because they should be showing up
anyway. Especially in speculative fiction, where the world and its
peoples can be anything you can think of. Why limit yourself?
