>>>>05:07

@lindmo

6 ай бұрын

Serious attention needs to be given to ALL characters in a story, not just the POC. And I doubt that every POC has the same experience. This might be a surprise to you, but white people are completely different to eachother, they have different backgrounds, different relationships, different personalities, different social status, different experiences, different struggles. Their white skincolor does not make them similar in any way, and if you think so, you are kind of racist yourself. I thought ethnic characters could be just as diverse, but you are saying ... no? They all come from the same place?

@aaronhunyady

5 ай бұрын

Thanks for highlighting that part. POC can write white characters, white people can write non-white characters (let’s avoid perpetuating an expectation of segregation), but always do your homework to make sure you’re not perpetuating any harmful stereotypes. Here is the key: ALL token characters and token identities should be cut from the story. If your publisher demands a token character, you’ve got to rewrite a storyline until you stating the character’s identity is crucial to the storyline. Is the group of friends diverse? Then that’s gotta be relevant to your story. Does the group of friends all have identical backgrounds? Then that’s gotta be relevant to your story. Even unnamed extras whose sole purpose is to show the background of a location or a group in the book should have an important storyline reason why the reader needs to know what these people look like. Also, speculative fiction writers (and Netflix/Amazon movie adapters), for Mendel's sake please learn about genetics. An isolated village that’s been interbreeding for thousands of years is not going to have white characters and black characters. They’re all going to be the same shade of brown with similar bone structure and hair. Make it make sense.

@lindmo

5 ай бұрын

​@@aaronhunyady Spot on, except the part about the isolated village having "the same shade of brown". That would of course depend on location. Cold and little sun = white skin & hot and exposed to sun radiation = darker or completely black skin. But your general outrage about lack of genetics in modern storytelling is spot on. Also, and this is controversial, I think the idea to always avoiding "harmful stereotypes" is kind of stupid. Why? Well, here is an example: Someone is walking around in Harlem and they get robbed. Who are the perpetrators? Well, three white guys - to avoid stereotyping ... huh? or what about avoiding Harlem as a place of danger alltogether, put the robbery in Beverly Hills instead, by a gang of rich women - to avoid "harmful stereotyping". Suspension of disbelief be damned! Or you write a story where a person in a small village in Chile, take a "siesta", then stop and erase it because you don't want to commit "harmful stereotyping" (the idea that latin americans are sleeping in the middle of the day), totally ignoring a long cultural tradition with historic roots in many countries around the globe. A "stereotype" is only harmful if it is a blatant lie, but few stereotypes are, and therefore they should not be banned. Also harmful are stereotypes which paint every character with the same brush, like having ten white men in your story and every one of them is either stupid or evil, but that would be covered by the acutal problem then is "lying" and "suspension of desbelief", not "stereotyping".

@aaronhunyady

5 ай бұрын

​@@lindmo I would disagree on your definition of “harmful stereotype”. The key word is “harmful”. In some cases, yes, having the MC accosted by a gang of black men in Harlem would perpetuate a harmful stereotype. In other cases it would not. It depends how the author treats the situation and its role in the story. To me, “shade of brown” covers the gamut of human skin colors (except rare genetic conditions).

@lindmo

5 ай бұрын

@@aaronhunyady Perhaps our disagreement on that topic has more to do with the word "harmful" than "stereotype". I believe there are very few stereotypes that are actually harmful. And someone thinking they are "offensive" does not count. Life is filled with offense to everyone. Here is an example of a stereotype that could be harmful: rich capitalists = greedy bad guys. This could be harmful because it could make people hostile to capitalism in itself. But it's a risk I'm willing to take to let people make whatever art they feel like making. Actually the only "harm" that can come from "stereotyping" is only possible if the audience is stupid. Like watching a black robber in a movie and saying "See! All black people are robbers!" I mean, how stupid can you get? I think most people are more intelligent than that and considers that robber a single character without any broad representative value. The story does NOT need to contextualise or justify the use of the ethnic actor in that part. Unless black robbers are impossible in real life. But alas, POC are just like the rest of humanity. No worse, no better.

Another thing to add, in addition to the responsibility authors have, is focusing on how much publishers are part of the problem. I know many people who’ve been told to “add someone who isn’t white or straight so we have diversity”. Publishers push authors into adding a token character so that their book gets published and they (the publisher) can pat themselves on the back for being oh so modern and inclusive, which is definitely on the authors to point out how inappropriate that is, but also on the publishers to stop being dicks and maybe just seek out minority authors in the first place.

@LochanReads

Жыл бұрын

I co-sign all of this! 📣📣📣

@pavelvurbanov3802

5 ай бұрын

Congratulations you've discovered agenda

Your sentiment at 5:14 that “serious attention needs to be given as to why that non white character needs to exist in your story” reinforces the idea that white is default. If, for white authors, white characters are allowed to exist inherently but BIPOC characters require a specific justification that means that you’re asking white authors to treat BIPOC characters like a plot device almost. BIPOC characters aren’t allowed to just exist with their own internal lives, they must exist for a purpose. I’m not saying that stereotypes and token characters aren’t a problem, they are a problem whether they contribute to the demonization or fetishization of a group. But I don’t think it’s a problem because they fail to capture the nuance of the represented group, it’s a problem because characters that are poorly developed and one dimensional shouldn’t go in your story and token characters are often that. I find it very odd to argue that all minority characters must be written with the nuance of the cultural and societal factors that they’ve experienced at the forefront of their characters because 1) it implies a lack of an ability of the part of minority characters to engage with common experiences because those experiences must be colored by their race or gender etc. And 2) minorities aren’t a monolith. Even if 1 was true you cannot make the argument that all members of one minority share the same set of experiences and reactions to stimuli because they don’t. They’re individuals with their own thoughts and feelings. As much as race permeates society and affects each member of an identity group it affects them all differently. I think the issue with tokenization is that white authors are not writing token minorities with empathy, instead as characters that exist to look pretty in the background rather than characters with their own thoughts, and opinions, and well rounded traits. You mention in another comment that you think race should affect personality, experiences and story because not all races have the same experiences. But not even all members of the same minority group have the same experiences, nor the same reactions because minorities aren’t a monolith so I don’t think even that will fix the problem. Obviously stereotypical representations should be cut out with a knife but I don’t think we should argue white authors should cut out minority portrayals altogether unless they have a purpose. White authors should instead be writing minorities with the same level of depth and complexity to the white characters in the story, even if the same level of nuance can’t be achieved. This all being said I agree that we need to increase the amount of diverse voices in publishing, it can only be a positive trend.

I'm mixed-race, Irish/Mexican. I'm currently writing a comic set in Louisiana, with a protagonist that is African-American. To me, the character would have the exact same traits, personality, and overall story regardless of her race. Just because she's black doesn't change the fact that she is who she is. Even so, I'm worried out of my mind that if I ever do get the series to go somewhere, people are going to hate me because of her. I've put so much thought and time and effort into every aspect of this story and its characters- and race doesn't matter to me. I made her, THEN decided she would be a black woman. I just don't wanna be called a racist or anything.

@LochanReads

10 ай бұрын

I think the character's race should affect their traits, personality and story, because not all races will have the same experiences. I'm currently working on a follow up to this video where I address how authors can write characters of a different race into their stories without standardizing them, hope it helps x.

@Sdir

7 ай бұрын

​@@LochanReads we will wait for that video thank you! We're making a story where one of the main characters is POC and we're looking for good tips. Settings of the story placed in russia (we're from there), and we don't (yet?) have any plot-related reasons to this character being not white, but we see some POC people in our town and it's really bothering us to make some contribution?? in russian representation of non-white people. In russia level of racism is endless, people even dont consider themselves racists, but at the same time saying horrifying things. So our intention is making our POC character is the one of the main characters so people could see him and just get used to the thought, that it's an absolutely okay and POC people are existing in our country (one of the main argument of russian racists that "there are no black people in russia why would we even care", meanwhile there are! even in small town like our T_T), because we really don't see a lot of representation in "russian internet". So with that being said, we really want to write a POC character properly and really appreciate any help! 💛 Sorry for that big comment ahah..

@5Gburn

5 ай бұрын

Write what you want to write. We really need to band together, because this fear mindset should absolutely *not* be happening to creatives. Think of it this way: Creatives--especially writers--are the ones who trailblaze. Now how can we trailblaze, wielding butterknives?

@musashi542

5 ай бұрын

Fun fact, race also plays a huge role

@flowerbloom5782

3 ай бұрын

@@musashi542what if in your story fantasy, it doesn’t. Like it’s in a fantasy setting?

I think we need to cut out all of the gatekeeping. I've seen authors receive flack simply because the antagonist in their story was PoC. I've seen people like Nia DaCosta complain that white people shouldn't write about black people and then go and direct a movie full of white caricatures. Now I hear that white authors are afraid to have PoC characters because they worry they will be criticized for not having an accurate portrayal. I think the idea that people can't write about an experience they haven't lived to be laughably wrong. That level of gatekeeping will mean you will only ever seen straight, white males in a world full of white characters and then those gatekeepers will turn around and complain that there isn't any representation in stories. We also need to stop acting like it is only white authors that do this. As a Latino I see Asian, Arab, and Black creators use Latino caricatures all the time. This gatekeeping is dangerous to the hobby of writing.

@LochanReads

10 ай бұрын

watch 05:07 again please ☝🏾

@massivedamagegaming9004

Ай бұрын

@@LochanReads You need to read Janny Wurts' Empire Trilogy.

As an 'minority' author, I personally don't care. I think it's absurd to nitpick another person's writing. It's a book. If you don't like what you are reading, read a different one. I don't think anything can even be a misrepresentation becuse each book is a representation of the author themselves, not nessesarily the characters they write about. There are infinite variations of people and to say that a certain type of person 'shouldn't be written that way' is inevitably going to invalidate a person who is actually like that sort of character. It may not fit with how YOU think of yourself. You may even strongly dissagree with how that character lives their life or thinks about certain topics, but ultimately that type of person is bound to exist. As far as the majority of authors being white goes: what are the majority of readers? The size of the readership is (to a certain extent) going to affect the amount of writers in that area. The majority of writers are white women. Why? Because the largest group of readers in America is also white women. If someone wants to write: they write. If people like the book: it sells. If you have a problem with the book: that's fine, but it's not an author's responsibility to validate the reader. Any book written is ultimately for the author themselves. If it has good representation: fantastic! Excellent choice, but sometimes the purpose of a character isn't to be themselves but to affect the main character in the way the author needs them to: aka stereotypes. If the MAIN character of a book is a minority than that probably needs more consideration, but even in that case: books sell according to what people enjoy reading and identify with. You wanting to shove your own perspective of how a POC should be represented is frankly very close-minded and a little bit elitist.

Outstanding analysis and critique. Thank you for presenting this content.🙂💛💚

I guess I have it a lot easier simply by sticking to the Fantasy genre and basing the experiences of characters on a fictional world… It’s still a lot of research when basing a group of people on a real culture, but I think there’s less you can do wrong. (And sensitivity readers can then just look over it, to make sure. They can gladly have my money if it means the reading experience isn’t tainted by accidents that shouldn’t be published.)

@LochanReads

10 ай бұрын

love the idea of sensitivity readers! 💯

@5Gburn

5 ай бұрын

Sensitivity readers are a deathknell to creativity.

@grilled_platypus

5 ай бұрын

@@5Gburn How exactly? Especially if the experiences of the characters aren’t based on the real world?

this is great, thanks for sharig. It always pays to research

I’m creating a character who I’d like to be a person of color but I don’t want their main focus to be on their race. How can I achieve this without undermining the fact that they ARE a person of color and HAVE HAD unique experiences because of it? Is it even necessary? Btw, they aren’t the main character, but they are a friend of the main character, so I do want to expand their personality more than I would a side character.

Okay; so I haven't actually watched this yet haha, (sorry!!) but I just wanted to say thanks in advance for the help, I'm about to write a fan fiction requested by one of my readers who is a POC and I just really want to get this right :)) she's one of my besets friends, and I also want to expand my repertoire of writing characters without coming off as disrespectful. Thanks a lot for the help

You're wrong on all counts. If an author can only write about things that they have personally experienced, then we wouldn't have all the remarkably complex characters of Shakespeare. Gay writers could only write about gays and POC couldn't include white characters. The poor couldn't have wealthy characters, etc. Literature is a way of bridging differences and experiencing different points of view. What you are suggesting is that artists don't consider how people all fit together. You can pick up a book and assume that all the characters are white, able-bodied, and middle class, or the author can tell you that Detective Miller is a middle-aged black man. 'Nuff said.

I'm a gay male mm romance author (publishing my first novel this year) and I almost didn't write it. I know it's not exactly the same as POC in the industry, but you mentioned queer stories. When I was researching authors, novels, and a community. What I originally found was hostile reactions to my questions and concerns. I'd found a forum and when a discussion about a book came up, usually by a cis woman, I'd state what I disliked about it. Immediatly I was attacked for my opinion. I was told I didn't know what I was talking about, that these books were not for me, it's women writing for women in a space they feel safe and that a man shouldn't come in and push them out. I became angry. I was being told that stories about my life, my experiences, and my trauma were not for me. Luckily, I found a few groups on Facebook that did not share these opinions. I'm part of a group of queer men who write mm romance, a few mixed groups of mm romance readers/writers, and even been on a few Facebook days where we rotate through male authors who discuss their work. We are not trying to take over mm romance, we are trying to be heard. These are our stories. I'm fine if non-gay women write mm romance. What I don't like is when we are fetishized and when that is brought up, attacked for not understanding or saying it's just a story, it's fiction, etc. While it is just fiction, these stories give people a false idea of the gay experience, our lives, and no matter how small, people will bring these ideas into their lives.

I hope you don’t mind a quick question! First of all - I’m white. I want to write a fantasy story about a POC girl living in a bigoted “village” - the story is very much her finding her own strength and defeating the evil that has nothing to do with her race. Im not trying to hurt anyone so I’m just wondering if - as it is a fantasy - would I be alright with writing it as there are no links to real world culture although does experience racism. I’d love to hear your thoughts! ❤ Also not related but you have such a beautiful soul and speak so incredibly🥰

@LochanReads

Жыл бұрын

I'm planning on releasing a video answering this soon!

@miaellison2469

Жыл бұрын

@@LochanReads Amazing! I look forward to watching it! Thank you so much :)

@danferrusquia2819

11 ай бұрын

Hello! I for one would love to see more black and brown fantasy protagonists, and I believe fantasy is the easiest genre to write characters whose experiences you’re unfamiliar with in because you’re making up the rules of the society from scratch. Definitely a lot easier for a white author to pull off than, say, an African-American college student recovering from self-loathing thought patterns while navigating the hellscape that is the sociopolitical climate of the 21st-century United States

Hello. I am working on my first book which is going to be all about inclusiveness and I came to find your video as part of my research. I understand where you are coming from and agree 'to a point' that no one can tell an authentic story from a different person's perspective better than that person who is experiencing it, of course; it goes without saying. I want to point out though that as works of fiction, 'being' fiction [does] give, (and should give) authors the license to be creative with the characters they create and do not necessarily 'need' to feel bound to reality, unless that is the author's overall goal. But then they'd be writing non-fiction, of course. Take movies about celebrities (any celebrity), most, if not all, movies about celebrities are exaggerated beyond how the real person actually lived because who would pay for a movie ticket to see (what would, in essence be) a documentary. So, it is entertainment, it is fiction. But, I think instead of telling white authors to stop doing something... it 'sounds' like what you really have a problem with is that the PUBLISHERS are choosing to work with white authors more than people of color. Is that correct? I am trying to write a hopeful (and hopefully inspirational) story based on real life events with fictional characters and even though you said you are not telling white authors to stop it, it still kinda sounds like you are saying it anyway. Because you are. White authors have nothing to do with who publishers work with. The statistics you shared only confirms 'published' authors, correct? (emphasizing published) If so, it is still only half the situation. You'd need to include statistics of non-published writers and the demographics of those authors therein to capture the full scope of the problem. I am not even looking for a publisher (myself), I just want to self-publish this first book and if it should garner interest, great, but it is not my motivation in writing this story. Please be mindful that while (it appears) there are authors (and publishers) that may fit into your narrative, there are other people out there, like myself, who, out of sincerity and over a year of research simply want to tell a story that people can connect with. Both myself and my Korean wife of 20+ years were bothered by your generalizations of the entire world; in her case being lumped into a category of people who only want stories of people of color, told by people of color. I personally, would love to see equality for all authors of all backgrounds and to that end, we'd need to start at the industry level to start making that change to make that difference. Create your own publishing company that primarily focuses on people of color and gives them the platform that they deserve. Thank you for your time in reading my lengthy comment, please know that I mean this as constructively as possible.

As a gay white spanish author (with sooo much to learn), i appreciate very much your amazing analisis ❤ Thank you!!

I have a black oc for PJO and came here to make sure he didn’t follow any harsh stereotypes. The few I know of that he follows have unrelated reasons He can’t swim because in many past lives he has drowned and since he is constantly partly possessed by said past lives he gets a brutal sense of dread yet draw to the ocean, being scared that he may just let himself drowned if he finds himself stuck in deep waters. He had an abusive dad because the dad was a contract killer(why Melinoe was interested in the parent in the first place since gods are attracted to those who represent their domains in some way) and he was practically raised up to be a weapon

@theboogyman569

27 күн бұрын

I wrote him because he is meant to be the doppleganger of Hazel, just like how Leo was the doppleganger of Sammy. So he’s black because he is identical to a canon black character for the story

I am puerto-rican and dont care if someone is racist. I have four african character(1 of which is a main character), One puerto-rican and a white character ( who is also a main character) in a fantasy story I am writing. I dont care. Oh and one mixed race. Any way Toodloo.

Segregation, much? I'd like you to try an experiment: substitute the "white" in "white authors" in your video title to any of the following and see if it'd fly: *Black *Jewish *Muslim *Gay *Lesbian... Stop, please stop, bucketing white people based on them being white, and any of the other groups based on their stereotypes (including how they feel about any given thing). I'm a Jewish conservative from Bloods territory in Los Angeles, for example. If you think I don't say "yo," well you're wrong, dawg. Maybe we should think about the *actual* roots of a person: how and where they grew up. Better believe there are preppyblacks who grew up in the suburbs.

@catherinemichele2710

2 ай бұрын

Agreed. I'm a white person who grew up one of the few white families in the projects. I really don't think anyone would like for me to write the reality of the people who made our lives a living hot spot. If someone wants their heritage written better then by all means do a better job. Help the world learn by your story and not your prejudice.

Omg you are Sooooooooo gorgeous & The sound of your voice is soothing.

So I was wanting a diverse cast of ethnicities in my story/webcomic that relates to the plot, so will need to do a lot of research on their cultures etc. however I won’t write as if I’m living that experience as it isn’t appropriate for me to do so. Thanks so much for the informative content, it has really helled

The way I RAN to watch this

Genuine question here as a first time author looking to self-publish. I have written characters of colour that I feel are integral to my story for a few reasons. For one, I have written one as the heart of the story as she is the smartest character, the one that is able to look at the bigger picture in situations where other characters are too willing to rush in without a proper plan and also has a previous tie to the antagonist. I have also given her a sister who is a bridge between her new and former life who is going through her own conflict on whether to leave and start a new life or whether to stay with the antagonist. I have first and foremost made sure to write these characters as characters and avoided tokening. It is worth noting; however, that my story takes place in 1877 and I felt it necessary to make reference to the difficulties these characters would face in a post-civil war America. This is not the focal point of these characters but I feel it would be inauthentic to write them as if none of these troubles existed in the time period. My intention is to do this as respectfully as possible and as such have not gone into too much detail on this as 1, it's not what my story is about and 2, I don't feel like it's my place to drudge up the pain of the past. But in researching the time period, I have also found many stories of black figures that have gone mostly untold that I feel are very important and I want to honour that in some way as well. My question is, does it sound like I'm getting the balance right here? I want to tell a diverse and authentic story without causing any offence and that's why I'm here.

@5Gburn

5 ай бұрын

Write the story you want to write. We need to stop kowtowing to this overblown sense of having to get everything right and molding our creative vision so that it's popularized--which has frankly been fueled by social media into an absolute garbagefire. At the end of the day, every person is unique, but common human experiences abound. Write about those and you'll be golden.

Subscribing so I don't miss the follow-up video! Very interested in your perspective, and I get what you were saying in the video (don't include token minority/marginalized characters, essentially). I think there's also something to be said for self-reflection; as a white, queer author, I know that I'm deep enough in queer culture to do a good job telling a variety of queer stories, but I am DEFINITELY not deep enough in black culture to write a black character without falling back on stereotypes. And I'd rather admit that to myself and do the work of growing than just soldier on and write rubbish.

@LochanReads

9 ай бұрын

yesss thank you!! hopefully I'll put that video out soon! ❤️️ I'm glad you understood the point about tokenism :)

I really appreciate this video. I recently started my writing journey but as a white author I already knew that there were going to be some challenges writing any non-white characters. I don't want to misconstrue or misrepresent the very real experiences that people of color face... Perhaps when I become a more skilled writer (and after doing tons of research) I can try, Or maybe not, either way, thank you for the video!

I get what you are saying! As a white person and passion to be a writer, thank you. I seriously appreciate videos like this as they’re eye opening and of course representation is important but it needs to be done right. As you said, an author shouldn’t put a minority character JUST to have a minority character. That’s tokenism and can easily lead to harmful stereotypes whether it’s intentional or not. And I see that some people in the comments aren’t getting it. She’s not saying that white authors can’t write minorities whatsoever, please really listen to what she says at 5:07. White authors of course can write minority characters but it should be done with the intention of them having an actual purpose to the story, not just something to check off on a list or to have them just to have them. That’s what she is saying. And of course she wants more minority authors to be brought to light, she is right, they do need to be brought to light. That is completely valid and what she said is true. An author of a minority will write a character of the same minority group better than an author who is not, that’s just the truth as one has a mutual understanding while another one doesn’t, at least not on a personal level. That doesn’t mean a white other can’t write good minority characters though, of course they can, it’s just important to do research as well as listen to minority voices. I hope to see more diversity in authors as well as I too believe it’s super important! ❤️ Thank you for making this video! ❤️

Is there anyway you could help me with mine? My family (main characters) are black but my villain is white. How do I describe the mains without being disrespectful?

@LochanReads

10 ай бұрын

Love that you're working on your own story 💯 I'm planning on making a video discussing exactly this.

but would that logic not preclude POC people from writing non-POC people in their stories, as they do not share their experiences?

Why is the perspective of a black person different for a white person?

My process of creating a story often originates from characters I draw and for this particular story I drew main characters that struck me as Southeast Asian or Middle Eastern. I'm from a former soviet bloc country in Europe though so I don't feel entitled to try to come up with a storyline focusing on the characters cultural heritage etc since I can't have much of an insight into it. However, my story is just a wee fantasy about queer witches in love and the world it takes place in doesn't need to reflect reality, it even takes place in a fictional town/country, so my first instinct would be to just describe the story the way I please without focusing on the characters ethnicity. But the more I think about it the more I worry that people could feel like the characters were whitewashed since they were molded to a white person's experience, despite it taking place in a world where none of this matters. I've been looking up videos on this topic but they all seem to cover only the idea of a white author trying to appropriate other's cultures for tokenism, heeelp :((

@LochanReads

Жыл бұрын

you have the right attitude my friend! thanks for sharing; now I have to start planning a video to answer your question 😊

If authors shouldn't write characters who have a different skin colour, gender, sexual orientation, etc., every story would only have characters of one skin colour, gender or sexual orientation. If your story excludes people who are not like you, it becomes a pretty boring story, I'm afraid. Stories are about the interaction of different people. And how is someone taking someone else's space? The space is virtually unlimited, as everybody can create an ebook and publish it on Amazon. Most of these books probably aren't good, but it's up the the readers alone to decide which books are worth to read.

This is brilliant! Beginning to end brilliant. Thank you.

@LochanReads

Жыл бұрын

why thank you very much! x

“Only 15%” Literally the same proportion as amongst the general population. Why didn’t you check that before you said it?

Excellent points here! Ashley from bookishrealm also has another great video on this topic, if you haven’t seen it kzread.info/dash/bejne/kZudm6-xoLKopso.html I think the question “What value is added?” is critical to ask.

@LochanReads

Жыл бұрын

Ooh that sounds good! 👌🏾 thanks so much for sharing that with me Britt! 💕

What a ghastly video.

I'm trying to do an honest job of a book I'm writing, because I do have poc in my story that are necessary. That's why I'm here. All I can do is try to give an honest 360 degree human view of things.

@LochanReads

Жыл бұрын

i appreciate that. x

Thank you so much for this. As a white writer (currently working on my first book btw so COMPLETELY inexperienced just fyi) I place a great deal of importance in making my characters as realistic as possible. The very last thing I want is for any of them to just feel like a list of rigid bullet points that cannot be deviated from at any given point; and this, of course, extends to writing POC. On of my characters is part-Thai (I say PART-Thai btw because its an important part of her backstory that I’ll spend a lot of time exploring (just specifying bc I don’t want y’all thinking I’m whitewashing my own characters or something)) and I want to represent that without disrespecting the Thai culture. (‘Thai culture’? Is that right? Am I overthinking? I hope so.) I still have a lot more research to do and fleshing out of the character to do before I feel fully comfortable with my efforts. I don’t want her to become a bunch of bullet points. With all that said, I do have 1 question that I would really appreciate being answered: Is it ok to name a character who is a POC with a name not from their culture? eg. calling a Chinese character ‘Jimmy’ (not in the scenario where its said characters English name (I think that’s a thing, isn’t it? Am I overthinking again?)) I ask this question in relation to the same character I was talking about earlier, which again, is to do with her backstory. I don’t want anything to come of as disrespectful. Thank y’all so much for reading, thank you for making this video, and I hope you have/have had a wonderful day.

This reminds me of when women published under male names so people would judge their writing by the content and not by gender. Thanks to this poisonous spew people will be publishing under black sounding names for the same reason. Is there no end to hate?

@LochanReads

Жыл бұрын

😖 even if white authors published under "black sounding names" their ignorance about black issues which don't affect them, would still show in their writing. Even the most stereotypically ghettoized black or African name can't hide poor representation. pretty sure i filmed and edited a whole video explaining this.

🧡💜🧡💜

Geez Louise! How about you write the stories you want to write, and I’ll do the same.

The amount of people in this comments who didn't watch the full video and are just commenting to be reactionary

I’m confused. Correct me if I’m wrong. Are you saying white authors can’t include characters who are not white?

@Ed_Gein_crafts

10 ай бұрын

I think that is what she was getting at So I guess we just all need to make all white cishet stories for now on in all white nondiverse worlds because God forbid we write a character we aren't ..

@LochanReads

10 ай бұрын

05:07

@flowerbloom5782

3 ай бұрын

I think it’s important to remember why you are creating the character. Not that you can’t write minorities. But are minorities side characters are just there and exist unlike their white counterparts who have a role? Just in general approach the character with purpose. Maybe they are comic relief or the sage of the story idk.

So basically if your white just write white cishet characters ... got it

@LochanReads

10 ай бұрын

watch 05:07 again please ☺️