Moniquilliloquies.

gr8writingtips:

whenever you create the slightest deviation in plot/character development make a college au. make so many college aus.

mmanalysis:

I’ve been following a writing blog and one of the topics that came on was writing in a character’s race. There was a lot of different p.o.vs with quite a few people saying they shouldn’t have to write in a person’s race, especially since they don’t like descriptions.

In my opinion I think it’s necessary. Unfortunately, if you’re not a straight, white guy you pretty much have to add descriptors in to your character. Now for some it’s easy because you can just use a name like Henry Chang and people will know you’re talking about a Chinese person. But what about a name like Alex Johnson? This name could belong to anybody. Also remember the whole Hunger Games debacle with people finding out Rue was black despite it even stating it in the book? If there’s no description, most likely people will default it to a white person, including people who aren’t white.

If you don’t want to add in a descriptor than hey, more power to you. I just don’t think that you can dismiss the reasons why others have to put it in. Adding in physical descriptions is more for the reader, especially the kids of color who are trying to find main characters that look like them. If we can have stories that reflect various cultures and ways of living, why not race? I think the same should be applied to a white character as well. Now, I do believe that this shouldn’t be info-dumped on the readers and needs to be integrated organically in the narrative, but it still needs to be stated.

My own personal reason for why I say this is because a few years ago, a family friend picked me and my mom up from the airport. Driving in her car, I talked to her then 12 year old son about various books like Harry Potter. Then this little black boy asks me how come there aren’t any black characters like Harry Potter in books or movies. That’s why I put them in to my stories so there’s no ambiguity and that kids of color will know that they too can be the heroes and not just sidekicks.

P.S. Don’t rely on book covers either if you go through the traditional routes. They might just put a white person on your cover despite the main character being black. Just ask Justine Larbalestier.