forum Making diverse characters, woo!
Started by @jupiter-sun-of-sweater-town group
tune

people_alt 68 followers

@threesacult group

I think the best way to go about it is to just let diversity happen naturally, if that makes sense. Instead of going about it like, “I’m going to make a Black character”, or “this character is going to be gay”, you want to make them just people first. While for many people, their ethnicity and sexuality is a core part of themselves, it’s not a personality trait. I think the most common pitfall I see is people letting their characters that are minorities fall into stereotypes, or just going “this character’s gay” and making it their only personality trait. They’re all people, regardless of race, gender, etc., so write them as such! And do your research!! If you have a trans character, for instance, and you’re cisgender yourself, you’ll have to research that. How people might transition, dysphoria, etc. If you have a muslim character, you’d want to research that religion, and so on. Above all, write them as people first, like you would any other character. Again, being a minority isn’t a replacement for personality; just put in as much work writing them as you would with other characters (possibly more, as you might have to research some things to avoid being stereotypical or just incorrect). I didn’t touch much on diversifying personality here, but I hope this helped some with the first part! I’m glad to see you’re conscious about this; many writers aren’t. Good luck with your projects!

@jupiter-sun-of-sweater-town group

Thank you! This was very helpful. I just want to make sure that everyone has the chance see a character and think "they're like me!" Like, I'm a redhead and you honestly don't see those super often. I always get excited when I see a character who's a red-haired girl, and while I know my case is a very small example, I want to give that to other people.

@threesacult group

Yeah, makes sense! I try to do the same thing with my characters. Being nonbinary myself, I know how much it sucks to have no representation, so I like making my cast diverse so everyone can find themself represented in some way. I’m glad you found my advice useful!

Selcoeurl

Consider CJ (but note that he's still very much a work in progress). The details were: he served in the Navy as a corpsman, he and Naomi know each other from then, there may have been a mutual unspoken attraction which they never acted upon, they are somewhat foils and counterparts to each other, and he covers up his pain with humor. His being black and bi and calling Kieron a "cub" at least once just kind of happened.

Brandee has always been Asian or Eurasian. She just ended up being a bit more multiethnic.

I think I just kind of casually decided one day that Kieron is Samoan (or, if we want to get pedantic, he's afakasi).

Talula has always been black. She's also probably more multiethnic than I necessarily thought about her being; but I've always imagined her looking Sudanese, and that hasn't changed.