one's obligations as a writer (of fiction)

[aryanhwy]

This morning (or maybe yesterday, but it was this morning when I read it), hrj posted a very interesting post on Representation and Intersection, starting off:

There's a lively conversation online these days about representation of non-default characters, the intersection of identities, and the importance of representation that comes from authors' "own voices" (Twitter hashtag #ownvoices). That is, understanding the distinction between authors who are writing from within their own cultures, their own histories, their own identities, and authors who are writing those things as an outsider but who may have more access to publishing and publicity support, and who thus may become the "face" of those identities in preference to #ownvoices authors.

Sadly, I've completely missed this discussion, because I'm still mostly wholly adjacent to that subgroup on twitter (basically, I intersect with it via HRJ herself, and a few people I've started following because we've been involved in the same conversations and they seem cool), so what I have to say here comes from almost complete ignorance of the full conversation (fair warning).

Shortly after reading that post, someone in one of the FB grups I'm in posted asking about people's thoughts on representations of under-represented people written/produced by people who are not a part of the under-represented group, which was too perfect an opportunity to pass up to link to the post, and also for me to try to articulate some thoughts I've been having, particularly as in the last two years/few months when I've been (again) doing more fiction writing.

See, one thing that I've learned from reading HRJ's blog and following her (and the people she retweets) on twitter, is the importance of incorporating the entire diversity of the LGBTQ+ spectrum. I remember reading in this context -- in a post of hers? In a tweet? Sadly, I can't remember and can't find it -- something along the lines of "if your story doesn't include queer characters, you're effectively erasing a substantial portion of humanity, and something has gone horribly wrong". Reading this, I come away with a strong sense of obligation, as a writer, to make sure that things don't go horribly wrong. But how does this square with the idea that under-represented groups are best represented by members of their own group? Because I'm certainly not a member of that particular under-represented group.

Here are a few of the thoughts I had, that I posted in response to the question on FB (somewhat expanded here):

• Anything that I write that is not 100% autobiographical necessarily involves my being the voice of people who are not me, and this goes for any author. At some point, writing fiction, one must make up experiences and people who do not exist, and hence are not experiences of the author or identical to the author. Now, not all of these people/experiences are going to be/be from an under-represented group, but it's still a matter of putting words into the mouth of someone who is not yourself.


• No one seems to expect men to only write male characters or women to only write women characters. If we have different standards when it comes to People of Color or LGBTQ+ characters, where do these different standards come from? (I don't mean this to come across as "this is a double standard, and hence bad". I really do mean just "what is it that makes these cases relevantly different?") Why can a woman write a male character, but a white person can't write a black character? Is it merely a matter of balance -- women can write male characters because there are plenty of men out there to write them too, whereas there are (potentially) far more white people writing PoC than PoC writing PoC? This seems to me to be a plausible candidate, but I'd be interested in other alternatives.


• If I am right in understanding what hrj and others are saying, that stories which fail to take into account t the diverse spectrum of sexualities available do a disservice to everyone involved, then this entails not only that straight people are free to write LGBTQ+ characters, but also, as aluded to above, that they may have some type of obligation to do so.

I'm not sure if these thoughts are all jointly consistent, or how they relate to each other. But I certainly feel the pull of the repeated theme, that it is morally problematic for such characters to generally be absent from fiction, and it's something I've started paying more attention to. I started something new while in Australia, and am trying to take seriously the obligation that I feel has been engendered. The best way I can articulate what I'm trying to do in it is to make diversity of sexualities both prominent and incidental.

A follow up thought that I had was that I think genre makes a big difference. When one is, say, writing a contemporary fiction story set in this world, and writes a character from a different race/culture/sexual orientation, there are a lot more potential pitfalls than when one is writing fantasy/sci fi, where one has much more flexibility and freedom to simply make things up, to make things be the case simply by pretending that they are. In such a case, it's not clear that there is anyone who could speak in their #ownvoices. So does that make it better/ok for me to speak in what is by definition an other voice?

One of the frustrating things of having disparate thoughts is that there isn't any clear awy to end a post like this, so I'll just end it.

Comments

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I think the post of mine that you were remembering with regard to "what does it mean if there are no queer people in your world" is this one: http://hrj.livejournal.com/518095.html. (I found it by googling the phrase "what the fuck is wrong with your world", which I guess is a testament to using colorful language.)

You've pretty much recapitulated a lot of the usual discussion on this topic (as you guessed you would), so I'll just toss in a few comments in no particular order.

Re: men writing women and women writing men -- this is a point of contention. People *do* take issue with it. Generally when men are writing female-shaped characters who seem to function as wish fulfillment, but the topic comes up a lot when women are writing gay male romance. The question is much the same as for racial/cultural issues: are you writing from inside who that character really is, or are you writing a stereotype that you've pasted an identity-mask on?

No one says that group X *can't* write characters from group Y, only that doing it badly has consequences. And if group Y habitually gets very little representation in media, or habitually only gets represented by non-Y authors, then every single instance of "writing Y badly" has a disproportionate effect. The effect is not only on members of group Y who once more grit their teeth and say, "I don't recognize anything of myself in this character who's supposed to be me." The effect is also on people who consume that representation and walk away thinking, "Yes, this is what people in Group Y are really like." Because if Group Y are a literal numeric minority, or are simply socially marginalized and segregated, then media representations may be the only exposure the majority have to Group Y. The effect is also felt when cultural gatekeepers are among those thinking "Yes, this is what people in Group Y are really like" who then refuse to support media produced by actual members of Group Y because it doesn't fit the narrative that they expect.

Does it feel like a Catch-22? Well, yes. Write a character from another group badly and get slammed for it. Write only about people like you and get slammed for it. But then, writing was never a guaranteed win. Write a weak plot and get slammed for it. Write purple prose and get slammed for it. Write what someone else considers a Mary Sue and get slammed for it. Writing always involves making mistakes, learning from them, and trying to do better next time. The hard part is *always* knowing which criticisms are valid and insightful and which come out of the personal taste of the specific critic.

And another part of the Catch-22? You can totally tie yourself up in knots trying to figure out whether you're representing all the diversity in the setting of your story along all possible axes. (Answer: you can't. No story can.) One of the answers is to make sure every character is complex. That they all have hidden depths that only get hinted at. Maybe there's no good place in your story to note that the woman who keeps the corner shop has a learning disability. Maybe there's never an opportunity for your viewpoint character to discover that her best friend's great-grandmother was black. Maybe ... maybe all sorts of things. But *you* can know them. And if you know them, then bits and pieces of that knowledge will come out in the writing. But first you have to pay enough attention to the world around to know what all those maybes would look like. And *how* they would come out. Empathy is important, but it isn't always enough. And that's where learning from people who have actually lived those experiences is important.

It's sort of like researching historic material culture. Every once in a while, you find an artifact that you would never have predicted from everything you know before. So you'd never have put that artifact into your historic story before you found it, because it would never have occurred to you that such a thing existed in that world.

(Oops, gotta run. Could go on forever.)

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

This was all fabulous, thanks for it! I think a lot of these thoughts are lying under the surface of my own, but you've done me the work of articulating them. :) And yes, that's the post I was thinking of, thank you for finding it as I expect I will be referring back to it in my current project.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I suspect the most important aspect of "writing the other" is a constant awareness that one's own experiences are neither natural nor universal. Therefore the question always has to be asked, "How would this person's life experiences have different from mine? And how would that affect their perception and expectations of the world? For that matter, how would it affect the *reality* of their world?"

I think you've been running into a few of these questions with the whole "women in philosophy" topic lately: the understanding that your own experiences as a philosopher who happens to be female are not necessarily typical, and that understanding why other people would feel the need for a concept of "women in philosophy" means understanding the ways in which their experience of the intersection of studying philosophy and happening to be female differ from your experience.

Perhaps the most extreme current U.S. example of the different universes that people of different races live in are the horrific experiences of black people in police interactions that are only now being given the media attention they deserved because of cell-phone videos. That's a rather pointed example of how difficult writing someone else's experience can be. If you haven't personally experienced that constant, grinding awareness of what could happen to you or your loved ones with no expectation of justice or recourse, how well could you write a character who would experience it? (Along with all the other layers of experience -- I just picked that one as an extreme.)

When writing historic fiction, I deal with a constant dual awareness that my characters should be true to their setting, but that they should also be kind to the readers who identify with them. That I should never pull a bait-and-switch where I've invited a modern reader to identify with some aspect of my historic character and then punch the reader in the face with a hurtful stereotype or by using a worn-out trope that my reader has seen over and over again. My Catholic friends told me how refreshing it was to read a historic fantasy novel in which the Catholic church (or it's analog) isn't turned into a cartoon villain of oppressive intolerance. And now I'm trying to work very closely with my Jewish beta-readers to make sure that my Jewish characters have the same opportunity to have happy stories within a historically oppressive context that my queer characters do. And on down the line for all my other non-white non-Christian non-straight characters.

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

You're absolutely right that this sorts of reflections are stemming from a similar place as my women-in-philosophy post! Particularly the fact that I have to remind myself, regularly, that just because X worked for ME doesn't mean I can assume it works for everyone. It's precisely because of that fact that I still feel a bit anxious/guilty that I've failed some sort of obligation by prioritizing my own experience over the experiences of others.

All the rest of what you've said is all very good advice for me to keep in mind. I think I can even distill it down some :)

* Think.
* Recognize that your experiences are not universal.
* Avoid stereotypes

Which is good advice for pretty much any context!