Disclaimer:
Now I am not sure if ‘brown’ is offensive to some, but that is the correct term where I am from. Actually where I’m from ‘brown’ covers all both the Middle East, South Asia, South America, and Africa. So basically it covers ‘not white’. And before you come for me, people in spain and portugal are within the range of ‘white’ if you are European. Also we do not use the American terminology of ‘ethnicity-country’ (like african-american). In Europe your ethnicity is defined by the country you have citizenship in. So if you are a black person born in Sweden, but moves to Germany. Well, you’d be Swedish, living in Germany, unless you apply for citizenship in Germany, then you’d be a German person, born in Sweden. And look I am not saying that racism and oppression isn’t a thing here, I am just saying we do not divide peoples cultural self based on skincolor. And it might be real strange to some, but if you’re African-American and travel to for instance France to live. Guess what? You’d be an American living in France. I mean we don’t differentiate on the American people either, you’re all just Americans to us. The cultural color divide in the US is unique to the US. Anyway, so when I say brown in my text, I tried to find the right word to say ‘not white but not black’ – dude, where I live it’s called mulatto, and I know that is offensive to some, and that is why I tried to find another word. And I loathe the word ‘mixed race’, that is quite frankly offensive to me. Look I don’t know if you know, my oldest kidlet’s dad is from sicily, and if you knew how many times I heard shit like ‘mixed race children are always so exotic’, and it makes me angry. I don’t know man, I think both ‘mixed race’ and ‘exotic’ are fucking offensive in that setting. Anyways – that’s why.
And also I want to throw in there, I know there are many reasons for people to be in wheelchairs, they don’t have to be paralyzed, but the two characters I talk about are both paralyzed.
Character descriptions, the bane of any authors existence. How much, how little… and how much is too much?
I mean you could do as Tara in My Immortal (which is actually the worst example I can think of)
We can easily agree, this is too much – like we don’t care. Also it doesn’t tell us shit, besides the fact she is into emo fashion.
I think all authors can agree, this is not how it’s done, period.
Now I don’t actually agree with this youtuber often, I like her author takes most of the time, but I flat out disagree with her on some of the books she hated, and some she liked. For instance the fact that she didn’t like ‘only the good indians’ blows my mind, because I think it’s a fucking masterpiece.
Anyways, she is perhaps a tad shrill in her video about Sarah Maas, but that doesn’t make it any less relevant. Because what she slams Maas for is her portrayal of black people.
It’s a very real issue, and since I am not black and I can only observe this on an intellectual plain. I compare it to how some men describe women.
It’s just easier to throw this video in here, than to dig up examples on that sub myself. And yeah no women admire their tits in the mirror when they exit the bath, or actively think about how they look when they run for their lives.
… and lastly, break the heels off stilettos, doesn’t make them into flats – just saying.
So from that perspective I get it, I mean we can laugh at that. But when people of minorities are described offensive, or just really badly which then becomes slightly offensive, well it’s a whole other ballgame.
Now in my book Heart Shaped Tattoos, the lead character, Otis, has a black mother, and a hispanic father, this is something I know – not something that is mentioned in the book. And I looked through it real quick (or rather searched for some specific words) and I mention several times he has hazel eyes, I also mention he has freckles, and even if I didn’t find it, I think I mentioned he looks ‘sunkissed’, perhaps I edited that out, I simply don’t recall if that was in that book, or in one of the others in the series.
Because as you know the premise was the same characters returning, just with other names and relations. So Otis, well he is also Ari, Theo and Salem. And that is why I honestly don’t recall if the remark about his skin being ‘sunkissed’ was just edited out for being corny as all hell, or if it’s hiding in one of the other stories.
But what I do know for a fact, the only time I mention Otis’ ethnicity is in this one place.
So Nayland, or the Unmaker. Calls him a ‘cajun cookie’, but apart from that it’s pretty non descriptive as I mentioned above.
Same goes for Adam, and Early by the way. I do mention that Adam is blond, and that he looks like he wears nice boxers, and also smells like expensive cologne. That description goes with him being upper middle class, and also the observations about how Adam look, comes from Otis’ pov, so it’s what he concludes pretty much.
And as far as I know Early isn’t really described all that much, besides his leather jacket, and that he has black hair and pale yellow eyes. But then again, he returns in the other stories as well, just like Adam by the way. And even if they have different roles in the other stories, their appearance doesn’t change all that much. I mean the general stuff like skin and hair color.
You could argue that I do very little to portray Otis, when the only direct description is the one above. This is actually not because I am afraid of describing him, and also it’s not a question of ‘the black support’ like in Maas’ books. He simply is just mixed heritage, there is nothing more to it.
Also I might add that Heart Shaped Tattoos (or any of the other books) are not placed anywhere real, it’s all just fictive cities, landmarks and so forth. I mean I do imagine Heart Shaped Tattoos in some weird version of America, that is much more prevalent in the sequel (The Cold Hollow Tapes), but sort of American mixed with eastern europe somehow. I don’t know man – it’s just a made up place in my brain.
And another of the stories are pretty obviously somewhere in Wales, but again, made up place. Made up culture.
and yet another story is pretty clearly in France, or somewhere French. But like the others, all landmarks and cities are made up by me.
My point being that their appearance are also stuck into these fictive worlds, which even if they are somewhat leaning towards social realism, it’s also magic and paranormal. This is because I don’t want to be bogged down by a culture, even if I borrow from cultures when I set a story in something semi recognizable. Then I have not lived in all the countries I borrow from, and over half of them I never visited, and I don’t know the first thing about their culture for real, besides what I can see on a screen or read in a book. And personally I think I’d do both them and myself a disservice in trying to portray it true to either history or current time.
The best I can explain it, is perhaps with L. She is someone I know who reads through my stuff because she is all around a nice person. And sometimes she edits, sometimes she just goes through it for context and storyline.
Now there is a segment in Cold Hollow, which is in the same world as Heart Shaped Tattoos where Tay talks on the phone with Adam.
And L. got back to me with her feedback after having read the first two chapters or something, and said something along the lines with ‘people in the US would drive, someone in uni would have a car, they wouldn’t use a shuttle or a train’. Just pointing out this is not verbatim, it’s just the gist of what she said.
Anyways I remember I said. ‘But it’s not in the US, it’s just a fictive place’.
And it is on purpose that I was much more conscious going forth, also editing the text already done. Making sure to add in things that are uniquely Scandinavian for instance, and some that are recognizable as Eastern European, just to drive home the point that it’s not set in the US.
And why is this important to me? well as I said before, because I don’t have to abide by culture norms. Look just to take Cold Hollow as example (which is something I know noone has read), but anyway, like 90% of what is going on in that story would never fly in the US, and other parts would never fly here in Scandinavia. And so when I unshackle myself from culture norms, I get to make it up as I want to.
I admit I did take a lot of inspiration from American culture, but I made sure the setting is very obviously fictive.
And why am I spending so long talking about this?
because of culture norms.
It’s also culture norms which makes people read things differently. Something that would offend me, wouldn’t necessarily offend you and visa versa. Because we have different culture norms. And I don’t mean the big things like oppression or genocide, we can all agree those are terrible, across the globe.
I mean the small things.
Take Otis, had I put him in a realistic setting in the US, he would most likely (sorry to all the Americans) experience more prejudice, from for instance law enforcement, than he does in my story. But in my fictive setting, his skin color and cultural background isn’t really important, besides as a descriptive tool, and that is why he isn’t described more in depth. What is important to Otis’ character is his background with a single mom, working a low income job that doesn’t support the family in a sustainable way.
Ergo what is important here is that he comes from poverty, and grew up with a mother that wasn’t available in person or emotionally for her children.
This is in no way related to his ethnicity, and that is why I keep that out of the story for the most part.
Did I do this on purpose? Absolutely.
Look first of all, I would hate for people to think I made assumptions about families like Otis’ based on culture, and on the other hand I also didn’t want to erase his culture, or whitewash it if you will. Which I would do if I for instance didn’t make it overly obvious that we are not in the US, and also made a deal out of Otis’ mom being black. Only to then say ‘but that isn’t important’.
In reality it’s smoke and mirrors, the fact that I don’t mention any cultural markers, and again that is not because I don’t think he has them. But it’s because this is a fictive world, and in this fictive world, where his mother is from, isn’t important. Her terrible parenting is however crucial for Otis’ story.
It is the same with Adam. I don’t mention his cultural background, but I do mention his hair color and eye color, and that he grew up in a good family and had a normal childhood.
I never mention Early’s cultural background, but I think he has some like Turkish genes, perhaps Romanian? And that might shine through eventually, but not as a cultural anchor.
So you could say I describe the white dude Adam as this poster child for the nuclear family, and Otis the brown kid as the deprived kid from the projects.
Sure I do that, but I had no reason to. It just happens to be like that because I needed the dynamic between Otis and Adam to work. And when one doesn’t quite relate to the others norm, you have an excuse as an author to elaborate and explain via the characters, and also observe and understand via the characters. So basically it’s a writing trick, a tool to explore the characters with questions from another pov, and inner dialogue.
Generally speaking, Adam sees the world from a place of order and conservative values, while Otis sees the world from a survivor’s pragmatic standpoint. And through the story, they realise they might not be as different as they think. And Early he sees the world through a lens of emotions, very much locked into experiencing everyone around him in extremes.
In Cold Hollow we find Adam in a wheelchair, now characters in wheelchairs are notoriously agonizing to write (yeah I’m looking at you Stephen King!), and it takes a lot to make them interact on equal footing with the rest.
In one of the other stories, we also have a main character Gideon, in a wheelchair. And I don’t know why I did that to myself, and that might be one of the things I am going to edit out.
Do I dislike people in wheelchairs? not at all, but I fucking hate writing it. Because even if I do work within a fictive culture in a fictive country. Wheelchairs are just wheelchairs, and since I worked with many people in wheelchairs in real life, I also know how much care it demands, and the not so well known problems that people who are paralyzed waist down, will encounter. like loss of muscle mass, soars, catheters, diapers, infections, upper back pains if the wheelchair isn’t fitted right, and the list goes on.
And when I wrote that other story, I had to stop myself from not adding too many details, but without them it was just weird.
So because Adam is a supporting character in Cold Hollow, I can get around all that pretty easily. But would I advise anyone to write a main character in a wheelchair, or with any type of handicap? No, never.
I can’t tell you if I think it’s worse if you know your stuff, or not. But to write a main character with a defining handicap, takes up so much of your character, and it limits you a lot as well. Because suddenly you gotta think in for instance ramps, medical attention, and practical problem solving to mundane things, that would be hard to perform for the person on their own.
I mean it’s not like I don’t think there should be a broad representation of people from any and all walks of the world. But I also think you should give it thought, because if you don’t you’re gonna end up as Maas – inserting the obligatory lesbian amputee from angola, because you need representation. Working it in as a minor supporting character, because then they were there, and you can tick off that box.
Never ever fucking force representation, I don’t care if people will call you out for writing all ablebodied, straight white people. I personally find it far more offensive when characters are shoehorned in there just because you need that ‘minority checkmark’.
And if you ask me, that is Maas’ crime. It’s not that she suck at writing black people in a fantasy setting, or that they are all supporting characters. No, it’s the fact that she clearly forced them in there for whatever reason. These characters didn’t need to be black, they just are because you need a black person in your story or you’re racist.
And that is what gets to me, you know? I find that stupid offensive. It reminds me of those spaghetti westerns I grew up watching, where all the native indians, were just white extras painted in the face.
So to turn that argument against myself, did Otis need to be brown?
no he didn’t, but honestly. I created him with someone special in mind, a person that I happen to find very beautiful. And that is the only reason I have. In case you’re curious, I guess I can dig out a picture – I mean he is an actor, not someone I know in reality. But you see the reason I don’t just tell you, is because I find faceclaims creepy. And while we all do it to some extent, I like to keep mine private, because I mean, Otis is the character I made for you, that he might resemble someone who is a real person, in my head is just personal.
DREAMS OF A LOST MOONCHILD 
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