Diversity

[Thaal Sinestro]

I care more about writing/reading good stories than reading things that fill a diversity quota. You can't force diversity, authors have to be comfortable writing a diverse cast. A shitty story doesn't magically become better because it's diverse, and badly written "diverse" characters are way, way worse than a cast of all white, straight characters (although even then that isn't even a bad thing to begin with.)

Criticizing something because it's not diverse doesn't help things either. Writing's an art, and writers should be able to choose not to write something they don't understand without having their work criticized. It's superficial, and it lets bad writers get away with things others wouldn't because they filled that magical diversity quota. I agree that we need diversity, but the way it's getting pushed rubs me the wrong way.

That's all I have to say about that.

Right, but filling a "diversity quota" isn't really what I'm talking about. Also, of COURSE, integrating diversity isn't what makes writing good or bad, but being mindful and thinking about who you are representing and how you are representing them in a story is still probably a good idea. Like, we're writing in a fantasy world (for the most part) where being a minority probably isn't looked at in the same way as it is here. Taking a look at a character from another point of view, or even randomly assigning race and gender to a character might not even effect how the character acts, just give them a slightly different description.

And a big part of being critical about works that don't have a diverse cast is trying to simply point out that there are massively unrepresented people in fiction, like the way that fantasy rarely integrates strong female characters, which is thankfully changing due to people pointing it out lots and lots. How many black superheroes are there? Way less than there are white ones, and almost nothing would really have to change about their characters other than what color code is assigned to their skin.

Just think about YOUR cast. Do their races or genders matter at all in the context of the fiction you are writing? Are any of their races or genders pivotal to the story? Would being a different race or gender change them at all as characters? If not, then why not include a more diverse cast?