Diversify - Tumblr Posts
Developing Diverse Characters...
...is hard. About a week ago, I started doing character development for a series I really want to write. The trouble with this is that I have been trying, with some difficulty, to invent a plethora of ethnically and sexually diverse characters. As a white, formerly sheltered, bisexual young woman, I've realized just how hard this is going to be for me. A few issues I've realised are:
I am white, which means I don't have a full grasp on what it's like to be a person of color in 21st century America, let alone a queer person of color in 21st century America.
I'm only halfway out of the closet. I've told some people about my sexuality (they were all, thankfully, very accepting) but I still hesitate to tell others. Because of this, I have not experienced the same criticism and hate that other members of the LGBTQ+ community have and therefore, I will likely get it all wrong.
I grew up in a very sheltered home and I mean sheltered as in, wasn't allowed to watch anything but Little Einsteins, Bob the Builder, and VeggieTales (bit of an exaggeration but you get the point). Despite the blinders having been removed in recent years, I'm still figuring some things out.
Then there's the issue of asking myself the question of if I'm including too much diversity. Nearly every character I've worked on so far is included somewhere among the LGBTQ+ community and while my aim is to cover a broad spectrum of sexual and romantic orientations, ethnicities, and lifestyles, the worry that I'm doing too much still creeps up on me.
And those among many others.
While it may stand to reason that, with enough research, it is possible to portray a mostly lifelike representation of everything I'd like to include, I always strive for the utmost accuracy in my writing. That, and I know I fall spectacularly short of the mark sometimes. All that being said, my goal would be to spread awareness while simultaneously not misrepresenting or offending any group or private individual. Of course, I do recognize that someone will get offended, no doubt. And I recognize that no one is perfect in any sense of the word.
Still, I hold to my claim: developing diverse characters is hard.
Reblogging to spread awareness, if we truly want diversity in our media, we need to make sure creators can easily access credible info on these cultures
tweet
Something like this would be so colossally helpful. I'm sick and tired of trying to research specific clothing from any given culture and being met with either racist stereotypical costumes worn by yt people or ai generated garbage nonsense, and trying to be hyper specific with searches yields fuck all. Like I generally just cannot trust the legitimacy of most search results at this point. It's extremely frustrating. If there are good resources for this then they're buried deep under all the other bullshit, and idk where to start looking.