Today on All Things Writing we welcome an amazing guest blogger: Carolyn Evans-Dean. I absolutely love this piece she's written for us and hope she'll be our guest again!--Mary Ann
As a child
of the 1970’s, I grew up in a world where minority characters were based upon
widely held biases about culture. That decade ushered in a host of
award-winning media firsts, which included the creation of more culturally
diverse characters on television and cinema. Shows like What’s Happening, The
Jeffersons, Good Times, Different Strokes and Chico & the Man are a few
that featured minorities in leading roles. Unfortunately, all of the
aforementioned programs were sitcoms and serious depictions of minorities were
few and far between. While the appearance of minority actors on the tube was
considered to be a step in the right direction by some, others were enraged by
the stereotypes that were perpetuated.
For Asian-American
women, the roles were limited to bland, servant-type characters that lacked
depth. The men were relegated to delivering Chinese food. While the actor might
really be Japanese, there was no attempt at cultural accuracy. Unfortunately, Hollywood
believed that Asians were interchangeable.
Native
Americans were portrayed as heathens and the cast of most western films
featured bronzed Caucasians wearing mismatched tribal accoutrements to depict
the indigenous people that stood between real Americans and their manifest
destiny. Once again, Hollywood demonstrated that it held no regard for
authentic minority characters.
As a result,
very few television programs were deemed to be acceptable for viewing in my
childhood home. I was an avid reader, instead. In literature, the offerings
were equally abysmal and it was difficult for my parents to find books that
depicted even a single African-American character. When they did find one, the
character was either offensive or more of a shadow of a person. It was
particularly important to them to provide positive role models that looked like
us, as we were the only African-American family for miles.
Given the
media portrayals, it is no wonder that many minorities took umbrage with the
images on the screen and felt alienated by the industry. The American Dream was
revealed each night during primetime, but it didn’t include people that were
outside of the Anglo ideal.
With few
exceptions, the literary world wasn’t much different. In the late 1980’s, I
recall entering a drugstore to pick up a few things. Next to the usual
Harlequin-type books, I spotted a new series. It was clad in earth tones and the
intertwined black couple on the cover compelled me to make the purchase. I’d
never seen an African American romance novel before and was quite eager to
crack it open. Serious disappointment set in when I realized that beyond the
racy cover, the characters were culturally bankrupt. There was nothing that
identified them as having had any sort of black experience. It was essentially
a one dimensional blackwashing of a book without any real thought to developing
characters that were plausible.
As writers,
we need to be culturally aware of the characters that we create. If we opt to
create a character of color for no other reason than to lend the appearance of
diversity, it isn’t much better than making a conscious decision to exclude one.
So…how do we
decide when to include a minority character and more importantly, how do we
craft the character in a manner that is realistic? The answer is simple: Write
about things that are within your sphere of personal knowledge.
Take the
time to learn about the culture of the characters that you wish to create.
There is accurate information to be found on the internet, on cable channels or
in books. Of course, my favorite method of learning about culture is to dive
in! Many communities offer cultural and religious festivals which can be great
places to become immersed in the music, food and history of the various groups
of people that comprise the melting pot of America. Once you’ve stepped outside
the confines of your usual places and spaces, your writing is enriched.
Diversity
can bring something special to a story. It can provide a perspective that is
unique to a group of people with a shared set of experiences. For the reader
that is outside of that experience, it is a window into something that they’ve
never been privy to before.
Harper Lee
was exceptional at creating characters. In To Kill A Mockingbird, she
effectively captured the mood of the American South in the 1930’s. Jem, Scout
and Atticus are cozy characters to slip into and their speech patterns and
dialogue are authentic, rather than stilted. African American characters are
portrayed with depth and infinite understanding of the Jim Crow era. The secret
to her success was that the characters were familiar to her. Ms. Lee grew up in
a rural town setting and patterned the characters after people that she knew
intimately. They weren’t created out of thin air or based upon assumptions.
Does this
mean that writers should yammer incessantly about a character’s ethnicity to
ensure that the reader doesn’t forget? Absolutely not! Instead, allow the story
to reveal itself.
-Select a
setting that is appropriate for the story.
-Grant the
character time to reflect on past experiences through a comparison to the
present situation.
-Include a
few foreign words into the dialogue with a translation, where appropriate.
-Minimize
the use of slang, unless you are confident that it is being used in context and
can be conveyed in a manner that isn’t disruptive or offensive to the reader.
- Connect a
story to culture through the use of appropriate clothing, poetry, music, dance,
history, scent and food references.
-Use
psychology. Allow your character to be injured or scarred by their past
experiences.
-Allow your
character to laugh at his or her culture. We all laugh at ourselves from time
to time.
-Consider
addressing widely held biases about the culture. The origin of a stereotype can
be interesting to explore and a writer is in the unique position of educating a
captive audience.
-Accept that
your characterization will not be acceptable to all members of the minority
group that your character identifies with. Every human on the planet has a
unique set of experiences and unless your character was raised in an urban/rural/wealthy/poor/functional/dysfunctional/single
parent/dual parent household, you will be unable to please them all!
If you develop
the personality before you attempt to write, you will find that a well-rounded
character emerges. A character with a
“walk-on” role in your book should have a backstory, even if you opt to never
write it. Keeping the backstory in mind will assist you in creating well-rounded
characters, not caricatures. You might even find that you enjoy your peripheral
characters enough to devote a novel to expound on their story at a later date.
When it all
comes together, you will be able to effectively nurture a well-developed cast that
will keep your readers engaged and clamoring for more.
Carolyn Evans-Dean is a freelance
agricultural writer and women’s contemporary novelist from Central New York. She
enjoys channeling the voices in her head to bring a unique and diverse cast of
characters to her readers. She is currently working feverishly to finish the
third installment of the light apocalyptic series, Bystander: A Tale of the End
of the World as SHE Knew It! Click the link below to sneak a peek at Bystander on
Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Bystander-ebook/dp/B00756PYRG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1358188867&sr=8-2&keywords=carolyn+evans-dean
You can connect with Carolyn
online through the following social media venues where she enthusiastically
engages in conversations about agriculture, cooking from scratch,
self-sufficiency and common sense emergency preparedness:
Nice article! Thanks for this.
ReplyDeleteGreat article. I like that you open it up at least in part to the idea of any writer working in any hue of the so-called rainbow. For what it's worth, the one thing we still don't see enough of is people writing about the mixed race grouping. It's starting to come out, but not enough. The dynamics there and the turmoil are so ripe for drama.
ReplyDeleteLove your bulleted suggestions. Also, most of all, the issue of time and letting the story reveal itself. More power to you. You have the right mindset for writing truth.