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  1. Fluer Gestio

    Fluer Gestio New Member

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    Breaking some stereotypes

    Discussion in 'Character Development' started by Fluer Gestio, Jan 27, 2019.

    With my writing I do include a lot (LGBT, interacial, adoption, home issues, etc) But I'd like to do more. In my latest script the LL is black. What would be some stereotypes behind how a black female looks and acts? I know what is empowering for white women sometimes isn't empowering for black women
     
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  2. Thomas Larmore

    Thomas Larmore Senior Member

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    You say you want to "break" stereotypes, but then you ask us to tell you the stereotypes for black women?
     
  3. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Seeking sterotypes for the specific purpose of breaking them seems risky. It may make more sense to create the character and then try to find out whether you have inadvertently used any stereotypes.
     
  4. Veltman

    Veltman Active Member

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    By doing this you risk the material you write being unnatural and forced, or even worse: preachy. I would strongly advise against it. Write your characters naturally and let them be people, not just allegories for social criticism.
     
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  5. Azuresun

    Azuresun Senior Member

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    Even then, stereotypes aren't inherently bad. You could probably find a real person who embodies most stereotypes out there, even the bad ones. But crucially, those real people have a story behind why they are that way, and there's more to them than the stereotype.

    In the context of fiction, the problems comes when a character is just the stereotype, because then they start to feel flat and unconvincing. Let's say a black woman is cast in the familiar archetype of "protagonist's sassy best friend"--that's not bad in itself, the problem comes when she doesn't have any nuance or depth to her own character other than that role. So rather than accumulating a list of "thou shalt not"'s, I'd suggest coming up with the character and then checking if there's any aspects that need more development or justification.
     
  6. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    Writing With Color has a great many incredible articles about a great many racial topics, they even posted recently about that specific question, and their Resources page has a lot of links to similar sites that handle LGBT+ issues instead of / in addition to racial :)

    I don't see how. This just seems like another form of research to me. Writers are famous for spending thousands of hours every year researching
    • Nautical engineering in 17th-Century France
    • Textile weaving in 8th-Century Persia
    • Political rifts in 1910s German government
    • Bomber tactics of 1940s Britain
    • Metallurgy in 3rd-Century BC Greece
    What makes this different?

    I don't see how it's possible to do that.

    When you portray a Black character as somebody who's either a) an incredible hero or b) an innocent bystander, you are inherently casting social criticism against the popular "Black people are dangerous thugs" lie, for example.

    The fact that people learn as much about the real world from fiction as from non-fiction, or more (whether any of us like it or not), makes it a lot more complicated than that:
    1. Are there major characters in the story who belong to the same group, but who don't have the same stereotypical trait?
    2. Are there major characters in the story who have the same traits, but who don't belong to a group that the trait is stereotypically assigned to?
    3. (Your point) Does the characters with the trait that's stereotypically assigned to their group also have other traits?
    Fiction is not empty, worthless, meaningless, and a waste of time and energy. How can it benefit us as writers to pretend that it is?
     
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  7. Bone2pick

    Bone2pick Conspicuously Conventional Contributor

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    Why am I not surprised?
    No, you're not. And "black people are dangerous thugs" isn't a popularly held belief.
     
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  8. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    ... Should we maybe take this to the Debate Room?
     
  9. Bone2pick

    Bone2pick Conspicuously Conventional Contributor

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    If you haven't noticed, I make an effort to stay out of there. I prefer to use my time on this forum to discuss writing theory. The only reason I engaged you here is because you were making claims about using black characters—which I use, and I'm sure nearly every member here does.
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2019
  10. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    Yes, as do I. 4 of the 7 main human characters in my novel are Black, including the lead protagonist who gets the most development. 3 of those 4 Black characters are homicidal sociopaths, but:
    • They are fleshed out beyond being "Black homicidal sociopaths"
    • The three white characters are also homicidal sociopaths
    • The only major character who isn't a homicidal sociopath is Black
    It was pretty easy to do this.

    "In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act" (unknown origin, despite being popularly misattributed to George Orwell)
     
  11. peachalulu

    peachalulu Member Reviewer Contributor

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    I tend to think more about place, background, a person's personal history than using color or identity as my go-to point to determine character. With those things you can build the character into something that's more than a label it's a way they're reacting to life. And they're reacting to it based on past hurts, successes, their neighborhood, how charismatic or anti-social they are etc rather than just -- well, this is how I think cause I'm - Hispanic.

    I'm not sure how you can research - how to write a black character as that could turn into a stereotype in and of itself. I prefer observation - just watching people. Empathy is going to be fostered more from watching people or interacting with them than being told what you should or shouldn't do. And give it to a trusted beta reader when your done see what they think.

    I find stereotypes have been fostered more from fast fiction than anything. Genre writers who are anxious to sell, when they see what has worked for others they'll use it hence we get -- the gay best friend, the annoying jock, the golden girl, the bitch, etc. We're never going to get rid of them. And this isn't a slight against genre, I love genre, but it is what it is - sometimes very trendy.
     
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  12. Bone2pick

    Bone2pick Conspicuously Conventional Contributor

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    This brings absolutely nothing to the table. Everyone believes their positions are the "truth." The Flat Earth Society could just as easily try and score points with this same quote for their arguments.
    And? What point are you trying to make here by appealing to effort? It would be just as easy to have none or all of the characters be homicidal sociopaths. So what?
     
  13. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    Those aren't mutually incompatible ;)

    Writing With Color has some incredible articles about how to create well-rounded characters without resorting to racial stereotypes :) Have you ever heard of WWC?

    Are you sure we shouldn't take this somewhere else?
     
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  14. Bone2pick

    Bone2pick Conspicuously Conventional Contributor

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    That depends, how many more inconsequential quotes are you going to try and press into your service here?

    Honestly, I'd rather discuss writing theory out in the open, rather than debate any other topic in a sub-forum that new members and lurkers can't even view.
     
  15. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    Whether there is such a thing as the concept of "truth" or not sounds a little larger than just "writing theory" to me.
     
  16. peachalulu

    peachalulu Member Reviewer Contributor

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    How so? If a Hispanic is raised in wealth and prestige how would his thinking be much different than a white man raised in wealth and prestige? Keeping their backgrounds identical.
     
  17. Bone2pick

    Bone2pick Conspicuously Conventional Contributor

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    It sounds larger than "writing theory" to me as well. I never questioned the concept of truth in this thread, I merely pointed out the insignificance of the quote you used.
     
  18. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    A Hispanic and/or Latino boy raised in wealth might or might not have to spend every day putting up with his white friends telling him he's "one of the good ones" while insulting all the others, but a white boy definitely wouldn't have to put up with that.

    Plus, Black children raised in wealth are far more likely to fall into poverty as adults than white children raised in wealth are likely to. The difference in likelihood probably wouldn't be as strong with a Hispanic and/or Latino boy, but I can't imagine it wouldn't be there.
     
  19. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Well, I said what I said, but now I find that I don't disagree with you. I suspect there's a nuance of difference here that I'm not quite seeing even though it's in my own head.
     
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  20. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    Nice, thanks! I've changed my mind about a lot of things while researching these kinds of topics :)
    Maybe it's the difference between

    I've learned that X is a stereotype, therefore I have to do anti-X (potentially replacing one stereotype with another)​

    versus

    I've learned that X is a stereotype, therefore I might want to consider doing an unrelated Y instead​

    Could that be part of what you're worried about?
     
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  21. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Yes, I think that's part of it. And shifting a step further, with the anti-X scenario, there's a risk of finding things that are associated with a cultural identity A and "anti" ing them in a way that suggests that the character isn't really A, oh, no, they're much better than that--they have all these superior Western-white-straight-male characteristics instead.

    So I'm looking at the slippery slope between "characteristics X, Y, and Z are associated with demographic A, but that doesn't mean they're universal in that demographic!" and "characteristics X, Y, and Z are associated with demographic A, so they're bad."
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2019
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  22. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    Hence the importance of finding out as much as possible, ahead of time, about what marginalized people have said about how they want their communities to be portrayed :)

    I’m a white Christian man that people assume is straight. There is a lot of nuance about other people’s life experiences that I’ve been sheltered against learning my entire life.
     
  23. peachalulu

    peachalulu Member Reviewer Contributor

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    I don't think a writer should ignore this possibility cause in any predominate group the odd one out might get targeted meaning the white boy might get off scot free in a predominately white group but in another race group he could just as easily be picked on for being white and hear equally stupid things.
    I'm just not sure any writer's go-to thought should be a minority character is odd one out just because of his minority status therefore … same old reaction/responses. If you rely on this it's still turning a character into a type. And this is why writers keep churning out books with stereotypes.

    It's kind of like nerds. Sometimes when they become the underdog specifically because of their nerdom it gets irritating. They're picked on cause they're little and weak, they couldn't possibly be picked on because they were self-deprecating jerks. Behavior is carefully constructed to adhere to a label rather than some interesting conflict.

    And I think that's where most of the trouble is -- lack of interesting or fresh conflict or a refusal to create actual questionable behavior -- when a minority character appears the same old conflict is rehashed and the same old responses made - making it predictable and boring … especially if it's their main conflict.
    Also context is important. Some people are bigoted, some just say things to get under your skin and attempt to manipulate you and too often there's no nuance made between an actual bigot and just a jerk. And then there are people who have become so nervous at saying the wrong thing that they're sounding equally ridiculous by making race relevant in everything - as a black woman how do you feel …. ?
     
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  24. Manuforti

    Manuforti Active Member

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    I think if you set out to limit a characters attributes, positively or negatively on race, you are pandering to bias.

    Having a black innocent bystander in a work of fiction should not be conflated with activism surely?

    And thugs need love too Craig.
     
  25. Fluer Gestio

    Fluer Gestio New Member

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    THANK YOU. I meant this question exactly how you are stating it. I wanted to know if I should let her have straight hair or be quiet and soft!! The media portrays black females as dangerous people I'm not trying to purposefully do the opposite of these stereotypes, I'm just trying to figure out how I should write this character! I am a new writer and I just didn't want to write a "Black Woman" This character is literally a woman trying to get off of an island and it's supposed to be a comedy, I didn't want to just fall back on racist stereotypes to seem funny. I'm sorry if I worded it wrong or confusing but I'm just starting out!
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2019
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