Ethnicity, Gender, and Language in Your Novel

I was up at Gamehole Con earlier this month helping out TPK Games at their booth. I found some time to wander the dealer room, and at a second-hand book booth I found an old copy of Conan The Avenger. This is one of the first books "discovered" by L. Sprague de Camp (the claim is that he found incomplete and unfinished Conan manuscripts left behind by the original author Robert E. Howard, and there are some who think de Camp just wrote his own stories and passed them off as found work), and it takes place during the infamous barbarian's middle age. He's king of Aquilonia, and a sorcerer steals his wife. So he must trek across Hyborea to save her.

Classic Conan stuff right there.

Enemies crushed, and driven before me. Cue the lamentations of the women.

The book reads more like a collection of short stories chronicling the journey than it did a novel, but that's par for the course during the pulp era. Unfortunately, what was also par for the course was that characters who weren't classically European in appearance tended to be given some seriously racist (and sexist, if we're honest) descriptions. In some stories this wasn't that big a deal, because Conan was constantly surrounded by fantasy Greeks, Britons, and generic townsfolk. In this book, though, Conan had to travel across the map to reach his enemy. That meant he was going through Turan (fantasy Middle East), Koth (generic fantasy African kingdom), Vendhya (fantasy India), and finally Khitai (generic Asian fantasy realm composed of Vietnamese, Chinese, and Japanese cultures and symbolism).

This, of course, meant that Conan was surrounded by characters who weren't of European descent for most of the book. It also meant there was a lot of truly awful, teeth-grinding descriptions. Khitai was the worst (with phrases like, "the slant-eyed beauty" being used in what I assume was intended to be complementary), but there were problems all throughout the book.

Which brings me to today's point. This isn't just a problem with books from the pre-Tolkien age, when the world was backwards and ignorant. We still have them today. They're just a little more subtle now.

The Difficulties of Description in Today's Fiction

We've moved on from the barbaric era of pulp, and our goals are to keep the good things those storytellers brought to the table, while scraping off the dried ichor of xenophobia and ethnic prejudice. And, by and large, we've managed to get rid of the actual descriptions (and a few of the tropes) that defined that era of fiction. We no longer use phrases like, "a visage redolent with the savagery of the dark continent," or, "the delicacy of the female will," to describe characters. Or, if we do, we get called out on it by everyone from our editors to our betas.

But all we've done is put down the obvious problems for harder to spot ones. To paraphrase another social issue, sexism didn't mystically vanish just because women are in the workplace, and a few of them have become CEOs.

Goddamn, it's like these tropes just won't die!

One trope that's gained traction over the past several years is using food to artistically describe someone's skin tone. Chocolate, mocha, caramel, etc. have all been used to make it clear that a character has darker skin. Is that functional? Sure. But the problem is that it seems to be the only way many writers have of explaining to the audience that a certain character isn't white. So, if you find yourself walking into the kitchen to check a dessert's color, it might be time to try another metaphor.

There are other things that bear examination, too. One of my personal pet peeves is writing a character's accent. This happens a lot when someone has a brogue, but it happens when someone is French, Southern, Russian, or just speaks a particular dialect of English that's unique to a single area. This makes the text hard to read, often requiring putting the brakes on the pace for the reader to figure out what a character is saying, but it also enforces the, "my way of speaking is correct, and everything else is a deviation from that." A literary version of the, "why don't you people learn to speak proper English?"

Those are just common ones I've come across as a reader, and during my brief stint as an editor. Other problems include overuse of the word "exotic" to describe someone, the use of the word "gypsy" when we aren't talking about the Dom or Roma people and their culture, and generally not examining the word choices we use, the ideas we're presenting, or asking why characters who look and act differently get to remain cardboard cut-outs while the more relatable (and usually white) cast get to be fully fleshed-out.

Every Character Deserves a Full Treatment

One of the most common questions authors like George R. R. Martin, and creators like Joss Wheadon, continually get asked is how they write such great female characters. And the response is always something along the lines of, "they're characters, and people, who happen to be female. Why is this such a hard concept for people to grasp?"

Why indeed, George. Why indeed...

That same, zen-like logic can be applied to many of the problems authors face with gender and ethnicity as spectra. By rolling up your sleeves, fleshing out concepts fully, and making sure that every character has a story of their own to tell (even if that story never shows up on-screen) you will have a better novel. Not only that, but it's habit forming. If you get used to doing the heavy lifting of research, and you train yourself not to use certain phrases (and certain words) thoughtlessly, the end product is going to be better, overall.

Now, as always, this comes with the implied disclaimer that it's your book, and you can write it however you want. I am just some guy with a blog, and I can't tell you what to do. However, what I can say is that as a writer, as a reader, and as an editor, I want to see work where the author doesn't rely on language, or tropes, that feel like they came out of the roaring 20s.

Conan is a great character, and his books are still fun and engaging. But we should attempt to capture the spirit of adventure, and the richness of the world-building, instead of porting in all the damsels in distress, and backwater tribesman just looking for a big, white guy to lead them to victory.

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing post. I hope it was helpful, and as always, that I manage to plant a seed. If you'd like to help support me and my work, why not go to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to toss some change in my jar? And, if you haven't done it yet, why not follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter to make sure you don't miss any of my updates?

Diversity in Fiction, and The 2016 Oscars

If you own a TV, listen to the radio, or browse the Internet, chances are good you've come across the budding storm that is the 2016 Oscar Diversity Scandal. If you haven't heard about it, somehow, then check out this article quoting the academy president, this video, and this list of highlights.

Up to speed? Good.

So what does the lack of diversity in mainstream film, and the significantly bigger lack of diversity in film awards, have to do with people writing books? Well, a big part of it is the argument that crops up, and which I have to listen to, every time this big, scary, capital-D discussion comes up. It doesn't matter if we're talking about college admissions, actors, authors, imaginary characters, or CEO job positions. The argument goes something like this:

"It doesn't matter what a person's skin color/gender/background is. We pick the people who do the job best, and who make us the most money."

I smell self-serving bullshit.

The argument accomplishes two things for the person making it. First, it depicts them as a truly color and gender-blind person. They're only interested in results, this argument protests. Second, it says that everyone has the same opportunity, and that because everyone has that same opportunity, those who come out on top did it all themselves.

I'm sick of hearing this, because it isn't true.

First, The Obvious

Before we get started here, I am aggressively white. My ancestors came to America from Norway and Sweden, via England and Ireland. I'm also male, and come from a middle-class background. I am often the subject of unfair treatment, but that treatment always benefits me. Because of the way I look, the way I talk, and because of my cultural heritage, I'm playing the game of life on easy mode in America.

A reference shot, for those who've never seen my book jacket.

I have never, for example, walked into my local comic shop wearing a Batman tee shirt and had someone demand I prove my fandom by asking me a slew of obscure trivia questions. I've never had someone ask me whether the book I was selling at a convention was full of "chick stuff." And I've never had someone insinuate that I got one of my stories published because the editors wanted to have someone of my ethnicity/gender/etc. in their book in order to score "diversity points" with readers.

You know something else that's never happened to me? I've never had someone tell me, "you can't do that," when I said I was going to be an author. More specifically, I've never been told that people of my gender or ethnicity don't write horror, sci-fi, or fantasy, as if that opinion was a fact. Editors have never suggested I change my work when I write stories with main characters who shared my ethnicity or gender because it, "might have trouble selling." I've never had to write under a pen name because readers are unlikely to buy a book if they think it was written by a man. Most notably, though, I've never had trouble finding representation in any of the fiction I love. Movies, comic books, novels, TV shows, and even video games have provided me with a life-long parade of manly white men whose adventures I have followed.

The idea that other people have to deal with any of the arbitrary barriers I just listed, and whose most common representation in the media they love is as comic relief, villains, and stock characters, is something that I think we should address head-on.

An Example of Social Factors

Anyway, back to the issue at hand.

My point is that movie studios aren't a colorblind mass who choose actors, directors, screenwriters, and composers based on an impartial judge of talent and past performance. It's just as often that someone lands a starring role because they fit a certain look, said something clever at a party, have the right friends, or graduated from the right college. It is, by no means, a merit-based career where people are rewarded based purely on the talent they've displayed.

To show the kinds of ripple effects unseen social barriers can create, I'd like to present an example that has nothing to do with movies or books, but which is illustrative of the impact social challenges can have on entire groups of people for generations.

This example is full of terrible stuff, so have a silly puppy before we start.

Have you heard of the Federal Housing Authority? Well, one of the many responsibilities this federal organization had was helping people become homeowners. The logic was that the more people who bought homes and owned property, the steadier the economy would become, and the better off society would be as a whole. As such, this organization gave out mortgages at lower rates to qualifying people. It was a good idea, but it was an idea with a heavy streak of institutionalized racism running through it.

You see, for many decades, the FHA gave out housing loans to white people who wanted to buy homes, but found reasons to deny minority applicants. This helped ensure that white neighborhoods stayed that way, but it also made sure that many minorities had to either get more expensive loans, or make due with renting. This allowed white families to acquire property, and to begin accruing wealth. Said wealth was handed down through the generations, providing firmer footing for their children and grandchildren.

This lending policy was eventually discovered, and steps were taken to reverse it. However, the rock had been thrown into the pond, and the ripples were still going. Because predominantly white families had been allowed to buy homes with low rates, the recipients had been able to move up the financial and social ladder. Minorities, on the other hand, had often been forced into poverty, saddling the next generation with debts and hardship instead of upward mobility. It was theoretically possible for these other groups to move forward now, but instead of starting at the beginning, many families were struggling just to get to the beginning after generations of hard living and wrecked credit scores.

The ripples go further than individual families, though. This lending policy contributed to minorities being segregated into low-income areas, and helped stop people from moving up financially. Additionally, when education was funded by home and property taxes in the school's area, it meant that schools from affluent, white communities received a great deal of funding, while minority-dominant schools received significantly less. This led to a gap in the way the next generation was educated, and the resources they were allocated. More graduates came from the schools with the funding to hire good teachers, and from communities where families weren't struggling to overcome a slew of other obstacles in addition to making good grades. The result? More of the kids from the predominantly white communities went to college, got degrees, and made the necessary connections to help them get further in their careers.

You still with me?

Now, none of that means there weren't people from bad homes or poor neighborhoods who didn't end up being successful. It doesn't mean there weren't failures in the affluent communities. It doesn't mean that those who achieved didn't work for their successes. However, it's a lot easier to graduate from high school if your parents have good jobs with benefits, if you have teachers who are happy with their salaries, and if you don't have to work a part-time job to help out with the household bills. And it's a lot easier to graduate from college if you were able to get grants and scholarships, or if your parents can help you pay the costs, so you can focus on meeting people you need to know, and getting the degree you need.

So What Does That Have to Do With The Oscars?

The point is that these kinds of background manipulations happen at all levels of society, including movies and books. There isn't a dearth of minority and female roles in Hollywood because the picky public won't go to see them (just look at the rave reviews for the last Star Wars film, or Mad Max: Fury Road). The dearth comes from the money men only being willing to green-light projects that conform to their expectations. Additionally, it isn't that female action figures don't sell. Executives don't want to confuse their demographic by making toys of action-oriented women like the Black Widow, or Rey, even though there's a huge market demand for them. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; we've decided these movies don't sell, so we don't make them. Because there are none of these movies, everyone assumes it's because they don't sell.

After all, why would you refuse to make something if there were hordes of fans lining up to throw money at you for giving them what they want?

The same thing happens with books, too.

What people are asking for with the Oscars, and with most other fiction awards, is not to take awards away from white actors, or white authors. Especially from our favorites, whom we all agree have earned those awards. What we're asking for is genuine opportunity for people who haven't been given a shot. That the next time Hollywood is making an action movie where the hero's ethnicity isn't specified, that you consider casting someone who isn't a straight, white man in the role. Or, if Hollywood really wants to branch out, to purposefully tell stories from someone else's perspective.

No one is denying the talent on display at the Oscars. What we're asking is where are all the other talented people who deserve recognition as well?

Thanks for tuning in to this week's rant. For those who'd like to help support me and my blogs, check out my Patreon page. As little as $1 a month can be a big help. If you want to make sure you don't miss out on my future rants, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter, too, while you're at it.

We Are The Dreamers of Dreams: How Authors Impact Readers and Society

Take a deep breath, close your eyes, and think of the most influential piece of art you've been exposed to. It might be a painting, a film, a novel, or a poem. Look at the events in your life, and ask how that piece of art changed the way you look at the world. Did you let go of grudges with your family? Decide to change your career? Did you finally start going to the gym more often? Whatever you did, picture that change in your world view.

Now imagine if that change swept through an entire culture. That's the power authors, as a whole, are wielding.

Your word processor is jammed barrel-first against society's brain pan.

I hear some of you coughing "bullshit". I'd like to point out that William Gibson created the idea of "cyberspace" while writing on a typewriter, Aldous Huxley predicted a world where privacy was a dim memory, and Jules Verne showed us a future where humans traveled above the clouds and beneath the seas. Dozens, if not hundreds, of writers out there have used their stories to present possibilities, ignite imaginations, and to show their readers a world of potential.

What's Wrong With That?

What's wrong with it is that literature is a double-edged sword. It can be used to shine a spotlight on the evils of the world, and it can even motivate people to fight against those evils. "Heart of Darkness" is a prime example. On the other hand literature can also be used to strengthen cultural stereotypes and to enforce the status quo.

Want to try that one more time, real slow, and in English?

All right, let's use specific examples of negative impact here. Maria Nikolajeva, a professor of literature at Cambridge University, put together a conference to discuss how books like Twilight are affecting young adults who read them. A full report of it can be found here, but what happened was that a bunch of academics got together to discuss whether or not a blockbuster book crammed to the gills with conservative, Mormon lessons about how young women should think and act thinly disguised as a sexy, angsty vampire story was affecting how teenagers were seeing the world. The answer; basically, yeah. Take the initial impact and expand it as a thousand knock-offs try to cash in on the fame of the original, and culture has been carpet-bombed with exposure to a given idea. In this case the idea that abusive relationships are, in fact, the most romantic things out there. That's going to lead to problems sooner, rather than later.

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

One story may not be able to truly shape a culture. Even runaway successes only have so much force behind them. However, think of the novel that shapes a new genre or sets a trend as the head of a spear. If enough other novels, even ones that aren't seen by many people, follow that same path then you don't have just a single smash; you have a stream from a literary power washer. That kind of thing can upset the balance, or dig in established social norms even deeper. It can also turn vampires into something unrecognizable.

Let's think about women's roles in popular fiction. How common is it for a woman to be the main focus of a story, and not a side character or a love interest who must be alternatively wooed or saved from danger? How often are female characters referred to by their physical attributes? How often are characters who don't fit a cultural standard of beauty given important roles in fiction? The answers to all of these questions are indicative of the relationship between fiction and the culture the stories are a part of.

And that is just the tip of this shit.

You can expound on these questions for all sorts of social issues. How are homosexual characters treated in a story? Are persons with a trans-identity featured in a positive way, or even featured at all? Are inter-racial pairings common in a story, or are they so radical that they must become the story? Are characters from ethnic minorities shown in strong roles, or are they simply used as lackeys? Alternatively are characters from the dominant cultural ethnicity shown as being better at activities that typically belong to an ethnic minority (swordplay, martial arts, music, etc.)? All of this, and more, can make an impact.

These stories will then go on to shape the generations that read and watch them. If all the heroes are white men, the message in that is that other genders or ethnicities simply aren't hero material. If women are pushed to the side and turned into damsels in distress, sex objects, or both, then the message to girls is that you are someone else's happy ending rather than someone in control of her own story. Even if a writer didn't mean to send that kind of message, and he or she is just going off experience and cultural cues, the story will still be broadcasting this subtext.

But I Just Want to Tell a Good Story!

You're preaching to the choir, friend of mine. Personally I'd just like to write stories about Western gun hands taking on towns full of vampires, or alien-human hybrid super soldiers uncovering government plots. But as writers we have to ask ourselves "why?" whenever we choose to make a decision with our stories. Only by doing our very best to present realistic characters in believable stories which reflect authentic worlds and cultures can we use our impacts for the greatest good. Of course it's also possible to write stories which reflect nothing more than crass stereotypes which supplant real research with appeals to the audience's basest prejudices. After all, that's part of how "50 Shades of Grey" got so damnably famous.

As always, thanks for dropping in on the Literary Mercenary. If you'd like to keep us running feel free to donate on the button in the upper right hand corner, or check us out at our Patreon page. If you'd like to stay up to the minute with our updates, just follow us on Facebook or Tumblr. Lastly, if you're really curious about that hybrid super soldier thing, go check out Heart of the Myrmidon at Amazon here.