kais

I don't think so, @Tsidqiyah. Sorry!

A good read for writing women in fantasy.

Hey @Silk, you still around these days?

Heeeey its Monday and no Silk. Guess I'll make the call. Tsidqiyah, AuthorityHellas, EthanBassett and myself for this week. One slot is open if there are any newbies or lurkers.

If you're not following the colossal racist firestorm that I posted about earlier, you might have missed this delightful development. Someone was so upset that the Twitter user called out the racism in public instead of politely keeping her thoughts to herself that they e-mailed her editor... to complain about the unprofessional conduct of someone calling out racism publicly. Sometimes I just can't with publishing.

Oh certainly! I didn't mean to imply you shouldn't be angry that your country was misrepresented. It sort of ties in to the overarching problem of the USA trying to include diversity but not understand it enough to do it well. Will get back to you on blogs, @Ernei Let me get a list put together.

Sadly, I am not. White author + white agent + white editor + white-led publisher = problematic books. Its a perpetual problem in the publishing industry. Likely no one in that chain saw anything wrong with the book. Jumping from one privileged person to another, the issues that affect PoC would not have even registered. This is why having diversity in the field is so desperately important. ...and then when she couldn't because the entire premise was a hot racial mess, she dug her heels in and told a WoC her thoughts weren't valid. Nope. That's some twisted stuff right there. There are hundreds. Pick your sub-genre. You after racial issues, sexuality issues, gender issues, general diversity issues, women's issues...? I'm sure there are some for 'publishing isn't what is used to be and now it's hard for white men to get published' ones too, although I'll only link to those if we all understand that it is in jest. I think you're confused here. The character was whitewashed because the character is Asian and was played by a white actress. Doesn't matter what flavor of white the actress was. It's still take one of the very, very few Asian characters in mainstream cinema and handing the role to a white actress. In @neongrey's words, that vile. Well my books are far from pop culture, but Yor is Polish, if that helps at all. One of the professors in my academic unit is from Poland. They're certainly over here. This is a really inflammatory statement to make in the USA, so I want to unpack it for you. I understand that Poland may not necessarily have the same race issues that the USA has, so I want to try to explain this to someone who isn't part of the culture they are critiquing. Marvel is a US company. It makes films in the USA, generally for US audiences. As such, we as US people hold them accountable to accurately represent the diversity that makes up our country. Here in the USA, white is privilege. It doesn't matter if you are Italian-white, Irish-white, Polish-white, etc, your whiteness gives you advantages. Diversity here is not about what country you came from, it's about not whitewashing or trampling down cultures that are overlooked (the way black culture is completely dismissed) or forcibly erased (Native cultures). It's about admitting our current and past problems with non-white peoples and actively working to fix them. White culture of all countries is celebrated in the USA. People are proud of their ethnic heritage and hold to their old ways in many families. None of these people need be afraid to discuss their culture, or their heritage, or where they came from. These are celebrated, mainstream parts of white culture in the USA. Because of this, Celtic isn't diversity. Polish isn't diversity. Groups in the privileged white majority claiming they are underrepresented is offensive. It is offensive to groups that truly are underrepresented, or not represented at all. Arguing to have another white character of any nationality when there are already ten white characters and maybe one black OR one Asian (cause usually you don't get both at the same time) is not alright. In the USA we have too long a history of minority suppression and too many problems with racism to let Marvel, a company that influences young people's minds, get away with telling our youth that it's okay to make an Asian character white. We, as a country, are not going to move past our racial past and present with this kind of attitude.

For a better understanding of problematic tropes and race in popular literature, here is a link to a Twitter account that just reviewed a new book with all kinds of racial issues. White Twitter got offended that diverse Twitter didn't like it. White Twitter doesn't like being called racist. White Twitter needs to sit down and listen to PoC. The book in question is this one.

Also up for the 7th pending space.

As an add on to this after some reflection-

Would you be open to me doing an LBL on your submitted doc? I can be a lot more specific in an actual document and better show you how some simple rewording could fix a lot of this.

Let's do this! Overall Um. Hrm. Allandria reads still like just a method to develop Lyzell. It's getting better, please don't think it's not, it's just still got issues. I think you could cut about half the length and not lose any content. Some of the dialogue is redundant with the internal monologues. I'm still really bothered by Allandria, in that she still has no motivation of her own, or drive. She exists in this chapter entirely to wax about her husband and his goals. The fridging is better at the end, although still there are smatters of it here and there. You're getting better! Nice work with revising. Keep at it! As I go - surprisingly tender opening - page three: awkward sentences with 'his voice tremulous' - the prophetic stone info dump on page four is a lot of words for very little information - heavy redundancy on page five. If she knows he'd be disgusted for putting her in danger, we don't need to hear him say it. One or the other - she's sort of full of herself, no? Thinking about how he thinks she is strong and fearless? - page six and this is very awkward. We're in the wife's POV but all she thinks about is her husband. Does she have any thoughts of her own? Any motivation of her own? What are her goals and purposes in life? - page six: all this war around them and they still haven't left. This needs to move faster. It appears to be drawn out only for authorial info dumping - page eight: I like that she now checks the door first. Makes more sense - page ten, top of page: She's paralyzed by fear. My fridge sensors are tingling. How is a trained warrior panicking this much, and the scholar is the one who has to settle her? - Lyzell doesn't believe her. She's definitely going to be fridged - page 13 hit textbook fridging. Her injury drives our male protag - In a strange twist, we appear to have a double fridging... - Why does she need her dead/almost-dead husband to tell her what is going on? Intuit, woman, please

Overall Some stilted language and a few rough patches but overall this really hit me in the feels, especially the end. As I go - page two makes me LOL - page two: why couldn't she win a physical war with him? - page four: she landed on a puffball? Like a mushroom puffball? Did she choke on the spores? Those things are vicious if you explode them - page four: this 'dumb girl' thought line is... do girls really think of themselves in these terms? - end of chapter 20 is reasonably tense - third to last paragraph on page seven reads all kinds of awkward. That is a lot of self realization all at once.. reads very author voice. - page eight: I'm not really engaged in this battle anymore. It doesn't really have stakes. At first it read as an interesting skirmish, but without stakes it just is dragging - page ten: as I read this I realized what was bothering me-- boys stealing girls' clothes is... it makes me uncomfortable. It makes me not like Ray at all, and makes him come across as a bit of a creeper. - page ten: with that said, I like the end of chapter 21. I think you could clean it a bit by having him leave her undergarments. That would skeeve me out less - page fourteen: I don't know how I feel about grandpa being actually mean. I always found him endearing - page fourteen: woah, random POV switch. Jarring - page nineteen. damnation it. My heart just broke.

Overall My memory says this is much better than the original. Right now though it sort of lacks urgency. I don't really care why the protag is asking to curse this other person, and I'm not too fearful or impressed with the surroundings. I think the storyline is there, it just now needs some tweaking and fill in. Good to see you back! As I go - Exaggerated male anatomy. Heh. Although usually graffiti has a fair number of breasts involved, so I have some questions about this world already - crab and 'scuttled' next to each other makes me think the man is a crab - page 2: end of this first interlude and I'm not particularly engaged. The first few paragraphs had me, but I don't have any real emotional buy in right now. Hooded man walking through alleys and seeing other hooded figure is slow - reveal at end of page two really tells me more about the society than I think you might have intended - The priest is indeed very Yoda-speaking - To the point where they had to cover up anything that could give away even as little as their age. Awkward. Had to read three times and I'm still not certain what you're trying to say - the paper imagery I really like - I think it needs to end on a stronger note. The end doesn't make me want to turn the page and dive into the first chapter

Looks like just the four of us then!

@Silk Are there any newbies wanting to sub? Right now its @Eagle of the Forest Path, @Coop, @TKWade, and myself.

I would also like to sub on the 31st.

Some time in the next, say, month (maybe two?), I will be needing some alpha readers for book three. It'll be a rough ride, but probably won't make your eyes bleed. Anyone think they'll have time to have a look?

That would work for me.

Yes. I speak a number of languages, and Japanese is by far the most formal. There's that scene in Lost in Translation with Bill Murray where he is shooting the ad and the Japanese director gives like a thirty second speech which the translator turns into about three words. That sums up Japanese in a nutshell. Although formal words are a cake walk compared to learning tonal languages. I'd take Japanese, and it's delightful lack of tense, over a tonal language like Chinese or Thai any day. Although Thai is a very simplistic language other than the tonality part, so maybe I shouldn't list it...

Another one down - Lab Girl, by Hope Jahren I didn't buy this. It was sent to me by a friend, one of some ten people who insisted I just had to read this book because it is so me. The writing was fine. It was a familiar clean, to the point, little embellishment style that I use. In that respect I found it easy to read. Mostly though I just found it confusing. The field is too similar to mine, but without the focus. This particular writing style does not tend to lend sympathy to characters or contribute to author voice (and let me tell you, that is something I struggle with every day), and so I was bored. Why should I cheer for a character I have no connection to, other than our eerily similar lives? So, yeah. If I ever write a memoir, may it not be this. Or at least if it is this, let me have figured out author voice well before the writing of it, so I don't bore the pants off of another scientist who gets told to read it.

To answer your question from the previous thread ( @Ernei) yes, in the USA we have to pay for university. Now there are many scholarships available, and generally the more disadvantaged you are the more you can get (for instance, native people would likely never have to pay for a university education). The problem is that the marginalized people who could benefit from these programs either don't know about them or can't access them. Many times the applications are online, and not everyone can afford the internet or a computer or knows how to use a library. So we have many resources to make uni free, but the ones who would benefit the most can't really get to them. It is a troubled system. I speak German, so I understand where you are coming from with Sie versus du and such. We do have a sliding scale of modifiers in English, but they're much more subtle. My students might call me 'professor' or 'doctor', both of which are appropriate. They may also call me my first name if they know me, which, depending on the person, can be alright or not. What they can not do is call me 'Mrs., Ms., Miss, Mr.', etc, or even ma'am or sir. These are lower titles, and are trumped by my doctor and professor title. So using a lower title is very insulting--even more insulting than just using my first name. In high school and such we usually just use Ms./Mr. and then the last name. First names would not usually be acceptable in preparatory school. For my contribution I want to mention that in Ontario (where I used to live), milk comes in bags and I don't think we're allowed to tell anyone why. So if you go to Ontario and you make a comment about bagged milk... watch out. We're coming for you in the night.

Pulling from @neongrey's thread to continue the cultural learning. Here be a dedicated thread to discussions of various cultures. Here also be dragons. Drop in and tell us about your unique experiences! (psst! @Ernei! Tagging so you don't miss this)

Unfortunately, none of the people currently on RE are of biracial descent of the kind you describe (unless they're lurking, or have never just presented as such, which would make sense since this is a pretty white board) and therefore are not really qualified to answer your question. You need to pose these questions to the group in question. A large part of what perpetuates the cycle of marginalization is speaking for a group one is not a part of. We can attempt to make educated guesses based upon our understanding of US racial interactions, but our responses would be coming from a place of privilege, and not really the voices that need to be heard here. Now, if you wanted to talk about including characters on a gender or sexuality spectrum, those voices are at least somewhat represented on this board, and you could score some definitive answers. With that in mind, here are some Twitter voices to check out. You don't need a Twitter account to see their feeds, you can simply click on the links. This author is a biracial YA author and one of the leading voices in defense of marginalized writers. She's often in the thick of things, so watching her feed can be a good way to get a feel for YA book politics in the USA This author has her debut book coming out very soon to much critical acclaim (and a HUGE acquisition bidding war!), and deals directly with the Black Lives Matter movement and black marginalization in the USA This author as sort of a lens to view @neongrey's responses through. As a warning for all of this though - if you (as in, the collective 'you' of this board') find @neongrey's responses sometimes caustic and over the top, YA book Twitter will be hard to swallow at first. Marginalized writers, especially those in the YA community, are really tired of being told to play nice and having to constantly explain things. These ladies (for the most part, the authors of this community are female, with a smattering of trans, nonbinary, or gender fluid) take no prisoners. Go down the Twitter rabbit hole with an open mind and a willingness to learn and be uncomfortable, and you will do just fine.

To truly answer this question, you'd need to ask it to a mixed race person, or several mixed-race people. I can tell you, from a USA standpoint, where this question falls. There are, generally, three 'camps' on writing stuff like this: 1) You're a writer. You make your living off of seeing other viewpoints and writing about them. Write whatever you want 2) Stay in your lane. You do not have the right to appropriate someone else's background or heritage to make money and you do your best when you tell your stories, not those of others 3) Include diversity in minor characters, stay in your lane for major characters unless you are willing to do the correct research to properly portray a main character out of your lane White male writers tend to (certainly not all the time!) fall into camp 1, which infuriates writers of color and other minority writers to no end. Camp one is something you can get away with if you are Tom Clancy or JK Rowling. If you're a big enough seller it doesn't matter who you piss off (and wow, did JK Rowling piss people off with her last HP thing). There is a strong vocal minority advocating for camp 2, however in my opinion camp two is not viable. It could easily be taken to extremes. Does it mean I can only write nonbinary characters because I was not socialized male? This camp has grown from a desire to make diverse characters reflect real diverse experiences, and not what white people consider the diverse experience. I get it, it just has some obvious flaws. Camp 3 is what most writers, I would hope, aspire to. Which means for you, if this mixed-race character is a major character, you need to do some research on what that means socially, economically, etc. You can get 'sensitivity readers' for this type of stuff, where you write outside your lane and want to make sure what you wrote is not offensive. So you write your book and then you pay a sensitivity reader who belongs to the minority group you are writing about, to read your book and tell you what needs changed. Sensitivity readers is a debatable topic as well, since one could make the argument that if you can't see what you wrote is offensive, you shouldn't be writing it. Basically no, having a mixed race character is not in and of itself offensive (I think, again, this isn't my lane so you'd best ask someone of mixed heritage), but if you portray that character in a way that is not reflective of that heritage, you have offended. And YA book Twitter is not a group of people you want to piss off, let me tell you. Actually, with that in mind, are you on Twitter? I have a list of people you might want to follow to get a feel for the YA author groups of marginalized authors, and what they fight against every day.