[ SECRET POST #1660 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1660 ⌋


Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Sorry for late, epic traffic.

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 90 secrets from Secret Submission Post #237.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 3 - too big ], [ 1 - this happened because people kept having 'secret wars' posting replies back and forth. The longest one I remember went for over 5 weeks ], [ 1 - repeats ]
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I'd say think about whether it makes sense or not. If you're writing something set in your environment or say, medieval England, it would feel odd to have racial minorities there. On the other hand, if you're writing about say, LA, it would feel lacking without any Asian characters there because there is a large Asian population. Figure out what makes sense.

If you need to write minorities you're not personally experienced with write them as third generation or so. Their families will have lived in the area long enough, it will feel natural that they won't have as many foreign customs. That and find one of the writing sites and look for a beta, then describe your circumstances to them privately and ask for feed back directly on that.

[cold-river-blue.livejournal.com]

This was basically my thoughts... if you're writing in a setting where the real people are 99.9% homogeneous, it'd be weird to shoehorn in some diversity. But if you're writing about a place where the real people are heterogeneous, or would be expected to be, it'd be equally weird to have them all be the same race/ethnicity/religion/etc. In either case, unless your main character's sidekick is a black guy whose major interests are dancing good and running fast, I don't think anyone is going to get up-in-arms about you writing experiences you haven't lived.

[fireholly.livejournal.com]

There were black people in medieval England. The Romans, whose empire extended to parts of Africa, would send soldiers of any race to England while it was under Roman rule; there were Phoenician settlers; and although this isn't a terribly historical source there's even a token Moorish knight in the King Arthur mythos.

I understand what you're saying, and I'm sorry to pick you up on such a small detail, but English anti-immigrationists and racists like to insist my country was completely racially homogenous until the 1970s so I feel it's kind of necessary to call people out on this one whenever it's brought up, even if it's meant innocently.

[(Anonymous)]

I was guessing there would be a couple, but let's face it, most of medieval England was relatively homogeneous, as opposed to say, New York.

Basically my point was that it's a case where a character of a racial minority could feel really awkwardly shoehorned in (as Mel Brooks spoofed in Robin Hood, Men in Tights), and where it wouldn't be odd if there were more racial minorities. I wasn't saying "There were no other races in England at the time," just that they were relatively few and far between and a story wouldn't be lacking if it was missing a character like that.

In the same way, where I'm from there are relatively few people of American Indian decent, that doesn't mean not any, but if you were writing a story set in my city, it could still feel right without a Native American character (not that you couldn't have one, just you wouldn't need to). On the other hand, if you were doing something in South Dakota, it would feel odd if there weren't a Native American character. (In contrast the story where I'm from would have a Hispanic character, the Dakota one might not.)

TL;DR - I wasn't saying there were no racial minorities in medieval England, only that there were probably a small enough percentage that it wouldn't be necessary to include one to get the right feel for the period. (As opposed to saying you cannot include them.)

[fireholly.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I get what you're saying, and I agree.