I don't try to fill any quotas. My characters will be extremely diverse in a huge modern city but very homogenous in a tiny medieval village, it's just common sense. But I always include different age groups, they all matter in my stories, just like they do in real life. Sadly, usually creators focus only on one age group (teenage most of the time) and neglect all others. I think it hurts a story.
This is a very good point, and I'll admit I sometimes fall victim to such a problem. It's rare that people take into account different ages or go far enough to make main characters older or younger. I think i have maybe 4 or 5 stories where significantly older characters play major roles, but I have more than a dozen stories.
Just as 11keys said, diversity for the sake of diversity is just as bad. You can feel when it is forced.
I write fantasy, which gives unlimited freedom to write and create whatever you want, however the setting is inspired by my and countries in the region culture and mythology. I can't just throw random PoC from all over the globe to cater someone out of fear they will "cansel" me for not being inclusive. They do exist, their lands mentioned, some make appearances and tell about their culture to the main characters.
I don't go out of my way to make my cast diverse, it just sorta happens through the character design process, and through the writing process as I get to know the characters. I have gay characters whom I didn't initially expect to be gay. I have an ace character whom, when I realised that's what she was, I was like... "Oh, right, duh." Same with a trans-and/or-intersex character who will appear in the next chapter - though I'm not entirely sure of the details with her yet, female fauns don't typically have giant ram horns.
I'm also not typically explicit with any of this unless the story calls for me to be. I don't have a diverse cast because I'm trying to meet a quota of some sort. I have a diverse cast because that's what worked best for the characters. I think that helps me write them honestly and organically - they're just people, and I run with what works for them.
As for race, I'm writing a sci-fi, so most characters are aliens. But there's a wide variety of skin tones and such, because I love playing with different colours, facial features and so-on. So that's pretty easy.
I like how you think! It seems like in some stories or shows they dodge around what the character is when it's so much easier to say "the new couple, jim and jack, just moved in". It gets to the point and doesn't need all the fancy stuff describing them.
I try not to think that way too much.
I write fantasy too and I don't go into detail or even mention specifics of each person race and identity. It's just a matter of here's a girl who is clearly a POC but it's not referenced in the story or the subject of it. She's just there as a character to help the story continue.
Now, don't put diversity for the sake of it.
Don't have black character, have character that is black , if you get me.
Im honestly sick of seeing people put token characters, like black loud bigger woman , petite smart shy asian woman, etc....same works for sexuality, gender or disability
The characters you add to your story should feel organic and not reaching a quota. If you look at your work as statistics you need to fill, you lose grasp of whats more important, character's personality and growth. You're not making a commercial, you're making a story. Don't get upset if you don't have x number gay characters, lgbt people are happy to have just one well written one as opposed to 30 poorly thought out chars.
Diversity came slowly as a reassessed and edited the manuscript. I have a gay character although it is never stated but if someone asked, I would say certainly they are.
I also took a step back and assessed that perhaps my cast was not as diverse as it should be. And so I changed one of my major OC's to African American descent and I am so glad I did because that character became such an important role in the story that I wrote during the height of the Black Lives Matter protests last year that I can't imagine her differently. It is important to represent in literature and not stick to one type of cast.
My first book the ENTIRE cast was white and I don't think I could ever create such a flat cast anymore.
There's also a very real trap of reflexive OVER diversity based on fictional narratives vs real life statistical data.
I once looked into racial/sexual statistics for background crowd scenes on a story and was really shocked by the actual statistical data versus what I thought the numbers should be.
While I agree with a lot of what being said here, I still don't want to believe in the concept of "forced diversity." Stereotyped, unresearched, and overall poor representation, sure. But "forced diversity," no. (I think the only times would say diversity is forced is when a character is already established as one thing, usually a race, then in any reboots or remakes, they are changed to something else).
"Forced" just implies that any diversity, whether it be race-related, ability-related, or identity-related, is inherently unnecessary and is only in place to fill a quota as a opposed honest (or frequently inauthentic) attempts to showcase individuals or groups that exist. But it's not as though I don't understand why people would qualify these instances as 'forced' or as 'meeting a quota,' though I still would rather choose to see the silver lining in poorly represented minority groups. Poor representation is a great reference for what not to do. But I also understand the pain and perpetuation of stereotypes and the general negativity that comes about from poor representation, so it's not wholly without issue. Although, poor representation is still representation.
But it's a double-edged sword with no real correct answer as to whether "forced diversity" is worthwhile in the long run.
I totally agree with what everyone else is saying. I'll add that it also depends on the genre your story is. If you have tagged your story as LGTB+ the online expectation is going to be that your audience wants you to get in depth about that aspect of their lives most of the time. It'll be different than "this is my character, subnote, he is gay" like it'll be a large part of their character arc.
Like I had a main character to a book I write who is bi, and initially I was like, of course it's LGTB+ genre, he's bi. But, because the story is actually a fantasy, and because he does not date through the entirity of the story, it comes up in one chapter halfway through that he kissed a guy once at a party. Since he's like 14 and doesn't have dating experience, and everyone in the story already knows that about him and doesn't have any issues with that, that is certainly enough to say "ah, this character is bi" to my audience. It is not enough to be in that genre, however, so I quickly moved my story out of the LGTB+ genre when I realized it would be such a small amount of plot-time. Doesn't mean he's not bi enough, just means that my story was about fantasy plots.
As important as it is to me to be descriptive, I have very rarely even mentioned skin color in my stories unless it's an absolute must pertaining to heritage. I don't go out of my way to avoid it. I just don't see why it's important if it isn't part of the setting or plot.
My newer ones are based on ancient China, so that's a given on race. Older ones, however, that are modern day? You don't know what color the person is because it isn't important to the story. Why should it be? Unless it's my viking girl or my slavic guy in one of my romances, who cares? As long as the emotions, actions, important role they play in the plot are written well, their race doesn't and shouldn't matter.
As for sexuality, I've had a gay couple in one of my stories. They weren't there as filler or the mere sake of diversity/inclusion or as a stepping stone for the other characters. They were major characters. I didn't have to explore their sexuality. They were who they were and none of the other characters made an issue of it because it wasn't part of the plot.
Just write a good story. Don't get caught up in diversity. Give your audience the ability to insert themselves into the story so they can have that connection by not making an entire issue of focusing on one group. Treat your characters the way you should treat people in the real world: Don't see color and don't worry about what others do in the bedroom (unless that's the story genre you're going for lol).
Most of the time I just blind cast my characters. I don't really do it to get a pat on the back or anything, it's mostly just a reflection of how I grew up, in a very diverse area with a multiracial family.
Do not force yourself to reach a quota. That often leads to characters being side lined or being just pointless.
It's really important when including a diverse character in a story is to have them be characters, and not just a checked box on the list of making your story pc. You shouldn't have characters skin color, sexual orientation or gender identity not be what that character has going for them. And don't feel like you have to include diversity just because. Usually the types of people that complain about there not being enough diversity in media are the types of people that wouldn't really enjoy that media in the first place. It's important when writing a story (and this doesn't just end at diversity) to not try to appeal to every demographic under the sun. Because if you try to appeal to everyone, you end up appealing to no one.
Personally, I don't think about what race or orientation a character I'm creating will have. It usually comes in the later stages of making a character. And I don't think it matter for what story I'm writing, since the setting is this odd world where humans live along side anthro cats and dogs along with other mixed sub species.
Anyways, what I'm trying to say is to writing a character, you put their personality, goals, backstory, and traits first and not worry about making them diverse first
Simple.
Diversity based on setting of the universe characters are in.
Also, if different types of characters are in settings unique to their own, their should be an explanation why they are there. And don't forget to include culture in there as well.
I do have a lot of LGBTQ+ characters, the main cast is a polyamarous trio of varying sexualities,
Not to mention a lot of my characters are lgbtq friendly, Vernon grew up on a very gender positive enviroment (and doesn't identify as entirely male or female), Grey grew up on a gender role flipped society where males are more indoorsy and females are the warrior and leaders, Azreth is a dragon, and in the world lore all dragons have multiple genders and can shapeshift to match what they want... So JTA is very positive when it comes to that.
However, this is where I run into a problem of my world being populated by anthropomorphic animals, therefore race representation is inexistent because there are no humans,
Different cities and regions have different 'dominant species' based on geographic adaptability (or sheer force of will), fur or scale collor doesn't really matter as much for anthros, and no, and I don't think anthros with black scales or fur equate dark skin (hell a lot of people would call me racist for that)... And this a whole different can of worms that I'm not sure people really want to discuss.
There are still cultural influences, like accents, building styles and whatnot, but I'd argue those don't fit neatly into 'diversity' as well, there are lore reason why these are similar to things from our world, but will only get explained later (albeit people will probably already be able to tell why by my next episode)
I tend to just go with whatever pops into my head, to be honest. I don't care about having these diversity checkpoints because all I want is to write an interesting character that feels natural who just so happens to be either white, straight, POC, or LGBT+
You can tell when people add diversity just for pc checkpoints and it usually doesn't end well. I've seen many cases where creators have gotten a lot of flack by making these characters because of this reason and many of them were more like racial or gay stereotypes.
My comic is set at the end of XIX century Britain, so diversity wasn't exactly on the agenda at the time, like something based in modern times.
Despite this, I read and knew of real people like John Kent1, Oscar Wilde1 or generally speaking, queerness and diversity of the era, that inspired me to implement it on the story.
I'm trying to naturally incorporate it and not making a check list of "what's in or not" in order to be inclusive.
It doesn't feel wrong and weird when someone is introduced as queer and is and will be the only reason for the character to be in the plot?
