Guest Author – Brenda Murphy

What is diversity? For many white people the first thing that they think of is people of color. This leads to writers randomly inserting characters of color into storylines because the writer felt obligated too, or the call for submissions stressed that they were looking for diversity of story lines, or perhaps because they feel that they should for whatever reason.

While it is admirable to strive for diversity in our writing, it is necessary to step back consider what is diversity? Who represents diversity? What can I do as a writer to improve my story and have characters that are rich and full of life and not cardboard representations or tokens to indicate that the writer is down with inclusion?

As a disclaimer here, I am not an authority on all things pertaining to diversity but speak as a white gender non-conforming queer woman (Butch, for you old school types) and I can only speak from my experiences, your mileage may vary.

Diversity, as a term, broadly refers to demographic variables, these variables can include:

• Race: A social construct, and often the first thought, when white people try to write diverse characters.
• Religion: A frequently forgotten aspect of diversity, despite the current obsession with all things Amish.
• Sexual Orientation: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Asexual all fall under this category of diversity.
• Ability: Differently-abled people, this includes people with differing physical and cognitive abilities, as well as individuals with chronic illness.
• Age: Perhaps the most overlooked category when thinking of diversity.

I know that many writers struggling with how to include diversity also leave out diverse characters because they are afraid of getting it wrong, of unintentionally offending someone or causing emotional pain for their readers.

So how do you move your writing beyond tokenism and stereotypes? Read books by diverse writers. Read for an understanding of how they write about characters similar to themselves. For example if you want to write M/M fiction read books written by gay men for gay men, if you want your lesbian characters to ring true read F/F fiction that is written by lesbian women. Read fiction written by women and men of color, read fiction written by LGBTQ writers, read romance written by writers from other cultures, other backgrounds, and other countries. Read diverse writers, see how they do it, learn and incorporate it in your writing. If you need a list of diverse writers to get you started these are a few of my favorites:

N.K. Jemisin
Fiona Zedde
Helen Oyeyemi
Chimanda Ngozi Adichie
Sonali Dev
Beverly Jenkins
Lashonda Barnett
Megan Hart

About Our Guest – Brenda Murphy

Find Brenda’s work in the upcoming anthology:

First (Sensual Lesbian Stories of New Beginnings)

I am a writer, lover of sideshows and tattoos. I have kids, a partner, two dogs, a naughty parrot and a life that is full. My life is a circus and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I review books, blog about life as a writer with ADHD and publish my photographs on my blog Writing While Distracted . I celebrate my passion for food and cooking on my food blog Quinby Kitchen Sideshow .You can find me on Facebook by clicking here . If Pinterest is your thing, I am there too, and you can find me by clicking here .