Week 21 - Diverse Thoughts

 

Update – Finally, something succeeded. I did, for starters. I began making a short daily schedule with time earmarked for writing, dealing with the paid work, and doing mundane chores. And it flippin’ worked. I started writing again. I got the paid assignment done ahead of schedule. I took time out at the end of the day to wind down and slept a whole lot better. Then I took the weekend off for Memorial Day and fell right back into my unproductive habits. I’m going to call that my vacation. I get another assignment tomorrow so I’ll be going back to the now-proven plan. I’m going to get another sub out in the mail by the end of June. This I swear!

I continue to be popular with Hong Kong bots, and my US numbers are starting to jump from single to double digits (10 counts as a double digit, remember). My reader from Switzerland still shows up occasionally, and there’s a new one from Singapore. I can’t believe I don’t have more traffic from Russia; I thought they had bots that hit blogs for a living. What’s the holdup, comrade?

$$$$

I could have had a second sub this month, but didn’t find out about the opportunity until the deadline had passed. Maybe that was a good thing. I’ll let you folks be the judge. The publisher was Berkley Books, a division of Penguin Random House so it’s legit. They had a three-day open window, same deal as the one I entered: synopsis, set number of opening pages. More genres, though. Mine’s a mix of a couple but still would have fit. Except for…

After the fact I went on the site and checked their specs. It was pretty much the same as the one I entered, with one additional paragraph that included the words “diversity” and “fresh new voices.” That right there told me all I needed to know, and what my chances would have been. They want publishable (and hopefully sellable) books, but that’s secondary. Their primary goal is to show how progressive they are by checking as many diversity boxes as possible.

I am a woman. Once upon a time that by itself would have made me a diversity hire. However, just being a woman isn’t good enough any more. Gay is the in thing now. Or being trans. Or being a person of color, as long as it’s other than white. If you’re a black trans lesbian with no previous experience, you can write your own ticket. Don’t believe me? Check out who’s been writing Marvel and DC comics for the last five years. In addition to being female, I’m white, straight, and over the age of 50. Strikes one, two and three right there. My book’s protagonist is a straight white male doing traditional straight white male things (he’s a private detective). Forget about getting a turn at bat; I’m not even going to make it to the plate. Not at any publisher that openly states they’re looking to include inclusivity.

What I’m about to say is going to be offensive to a lot of people. Fortunately, most of those people are on Twitter/X, which I’m not. I doubt if any of them are reading this blog. I should be safe enough to speak my mind.

Here’s the deal: I’m a white woman. I grew up in the ‘60s in white suburban neighborhoods in a lower middle class white family. This continued into adulthood, by chance more than choice: I moved to Amish country to be close to a job and just stayed there. Not much racial or gender diversity on display here. That’s my background, that’s my comfort zone. It’s what I know. Writers are always told to “write what you know.” When I write, all my characters start out white and straight. Except when I’m writing M/M romance; then they’re white and gay. Or nonhuman. But that’s a whole other topic. The point is, white and straight is my default mode, and that’s not in fashion right now. What, and who, I choose to write about may cost me sales, or even publishing contracts.

But here’s the thing. I’m not against diversity. I grew up reading science fiction, where all the nerds and misfits hung out. All the ideas conservative mainstream publishers wouldn’t touch were crammed into one little genre. So were all manner of writers, of varying skin tones and sexual persuasions. Nobody really gave a damn, as long as they told a good story. Yeah, women still had a better chance if they used initials or unisex pen names, but that was fading out by the ’70s. Mostly. J. K. Rowling’s publisher advised her to use initials because they were afraid boys wouldn’t read a book written by a woman. Again, I digress.

My characters start out white and straight. That doesn’t mean they have to stay that way. I’ve already had characters swap race and gender while I was writing. My M/M romance Belonging was conceived with a traditional straight man and woman couple until I discovered Supernatual. Then it became secret Wincest fanfic. It was my best seller to date, by the way. I “cast” Sam and Dean in another book. Dean made it through intact, but Sam turned into a brownskinned man. His character just worked out better that way. I’ve got another book, already written, in that stalled series of mine, where a character who was meant as a walk-on tribute to Buffy the Vampire Slayer morphed into a bisexual Pacific Islander/Hawaiian woman and became vital to the plot. I was really proud of myself for that one. I was checking diversity boxes that didn’t even exist. That was a couple years back, though. Pacific Islanders have their own tribute month now, shared with Asians.

Maybe I could have sent that one to Berkley’s open call. I don’t think it would have helped. Because, in spite of her inclusion, the lead is still a straight white male, in love with a straight white woman. (Who shapechanges into a rattlesnake. Where’s the reptilian shapeshifter representation? Huh?) I’ve already got plans to give Hawaiian Girl her own story, but that won’t happen until after the series is over, and the series heroes are all straight white males. With guns. From Texas. I think that project may be doomed.

Too bad. That’s how I conceived that series, and that’s what I’m sticking with. Same for the detective story. It was supposed to be an all-white cast, but the mercenary characters’ series had been created in the late 1970s, so their number had to include a token Black member. He ended up adding to the story, and necessitated a race change for another character. None of that changed my lead, who will remain straight and white. Nor would it have swayed the editors, whose quest for good books is just a smokescreen for an opportunity to virtue signal.

Books aren’t supposed to be about representation. They’re supposed to be about the story. If a trans black lesbian writes a compelling, superior book, by all means snatch it up and get it into bookstores. That’s what you should have been doing all along. Quality books by any writer deserve to get a shot. Those books enrich us all. But if you’re going to pass over good books in favor of box-checking, or force changes to a story in the name of “representation,” that’s not diversity. That’s tokenism, and that doesn’t help anybody. Least of all the writers and the markets you ignored for decades and are now trying to court because it’s trendy. And now that I’ve successfully shot my budding career in both feet, I’ll shut up, like a good little straight white woman writer. See y’all next week.

 

Not the Time or Place

I’ve finished my binge reading of the Throne of Glass series, with the most recent book, Empire of Storms, currently out on the shelves. Damn thing ended on a cliffhanger. Now I’ll have to wait an entire year for the grand finale. I should have read more slowly, but I was getting these books from the library and only had two weeks each. Even free comes with a price.

I was going to write a book review of the series so far, but a couple of reviews on Goodreads sent me off in the direction that follows. Overall the series has been getting rave reviews from the Young Adult-reading audience it’s aimed at. There have been dissenters. Some I agreed with, some I didn’t. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion.

I don’t agree that an author is required to put some particular element, either overt or subtle, into his/her novels, just because a reader thinks it should be there.

What prompted this were the couple of negative reviews where the readers complained that the author hadn’t put enough people of color, or LGBT characters, into her story. It was strongly implied one major character was black, from this fantasy world’s equivalent of Africa. Two walk-on minor characters were gay. One lead character came out in dialogue as bisexual. That was pretty much it. The other characters, male and female, were depicted as white, straight, and oh so very physically attractive. As far as I can tell, this world doesn’t have any fat people of any age, race or orientation. Maybe magic really burns off the calories.

I think what may have brought on the gripes was the way the last book played out. At the end of the 700 or so pages, every major character had been paired up with a lover of the opposite sex. (Including the one main character from the first four books who doesn’t even appear.) Even the bi guy falls for a woman. One character who might possibly have been lesbian, or at the very least asexual, has a sex scene (admittedly an awkward, forced-feeling one) with a lusty, unbelievably handsome male. I can see where readers who support the gay cause would feel like heterosexuality is being crammed down their throats.

As a woman who waved bye-bye to 40 quite a while ago, I get a mite peeved at all the books with women barely into their twenties calling all the shots. Especially because they’re all thinner than I ever was or will be. Like real life, fiction is not fair.

And y’know what? Too frikkin’ bad. To me, and to the complainers. This isn’t my book, or yours. It’s the writer’s. This is how she chose to tell her story. If it doesn’t fall in line with your personal agenda, you’ll just have to suck it up.

Yes, inclusion of other races, peoples, and sexual orientations is a good thing. “Infinite diversity in infinite combinations.” That was part of the philosophy behind Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek. He put blacks and Asians and women on the bridge with all the white guys. And a gay guy (George Takai), even if we didn’t know it back then. The most popular character on the show turned out to be the biracial alien. That was Gene’s vision. He fought for racial and sexual inclusiveness (and for Spock’s pointed ears). That was the story he wanted to tell.

But now that society has finally caught up with Roddenberry, it’s reached the point of getting out of hand. Now everything needs to be racially and sexually diverse. Whether it's logical in story terms or not.

Thor did this quite well. The inclusion of black and Asian Norse gods worked because they were people, not races. I notice from the commercials the remake of The Magnificent Seven is racially diverse. This is historically accurate. There were more black and Hispanic than white cowboys back in the real Old West, and a large Chinese population. But World War II movies? Sorry. The armed forces weren’t desegregated until 1948, by order of President Harry Truman. (Even then, actual desegregation didn’t happen until the 1950s, under Eisenhower.) Not to mention it’s totally ludicrous. The covert spy team sneaks into Nazi Germany, and they don’t think the black guy’s going to stand out? Gimme a break.

Here in my neck of the country we’ve had complaints that Valley Forge has no monuments to the Asians who fought in the American Revolution. That’s because none did. If it makes you feel better, there is a monument at Gettysburg to Stand Watie, the Cherokee leader who commanded the Confederate Indian Cavalry in the Civil War. Happy now?

Harry Potter didn’t have any gay characters. (Dumbledore wasn’t outed until after the series ended.) Neither did Twilight. Nobody seemed to mind. Twilight had a teenage girl lusting for a dead guy a hundred years older than she was. Nobody minded that either. Hunger Games described Rhu as dark-skinned, yet people were pissed when a black actress played her in the movie. You just can’t win.

As for me, I write M/M romances. That’s guy-on-guy, for those of you not up on the terminology. Should I be chastised for not including more women and straights in my gay love stories?

Here’s the deal: Sarah J. Maas has the right to write her series any way she wants to. If she includes—or doesn’t—peoples of varying races, religions, sexual orientations, ages, weight classes, eye color, left-handedness, or anything else you think she should have, that’s her decision to make. If what she writes doesn’t jive with your personal expectations, don’t read her next book. It’s as simple as that. If you’re really that pissed at her lack of inclusiveness, then I suggest you balance the scales by writing your own book, and make the characters as diverse as you think they should be. This is why writers write: to read the books we want to read. If the book you want to read isn’t out there, then go write it yourself.

As for me, I’ve got a WIP I expect will stir up a fuss. It’s about a circus run by shapeshifters. Since, in my view, the animal form’s continent of origin determines the human form’s race (shifters have to blend in with the majority population, after all), and most circus animals come from Africa and Asia, most of my characters are going to be non-Caucasian. Except for the hero, who’s white. Oh wait, he’s a gay guy. But the woman who owns the circus is straight. Looks like I’m not off the hook. We’ll just have to wait and see what the readers say.