J.M. Blackman

When I started reading Fantasy, I started with Tamora Pierce, Madeline L’Engle, Mercedes Lackey and Jane Yolen. I didn’t think of the characters of those books as any different from me, except that they were in way more fantastic situations. But as I grew into an adult, I started to notice that there was a pointed different between me and the characters I was reading about.

Almost none of them looked like me.

I wasn’t sure if that mattered until slowly I realized I’d like to see more diversity (and admittedly, more of me) in what I was reading. So, I wrote it. And sought it out in new authors. A very wonderful list of authors can be found here. It’s so comprehensive, I’ve barely scratched the surface.

But the point is that all of this thinking has been circling around in my head for years, and I’m sure I’m not the only reader who likes a little diversity in her literature. So, when author Cecy Robson got into contact with me and we started to discuss the lack of minority/mixed race in Fantasy, I knew it was something I wanted to further explore. And what better way to find out what other people think than by asking them?

So, I asked a few authors if they’d be willing to share their thoughts and they said yes! Which is how the “Minority Report” was born.

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I met today’s author via Science-Fiction & Fantasy Saturday. He’s got a knack for atmospheric SF (though that’s not all he writes) that even comes across in ten sentence snippets, so I’m excited to be sharing a very honest, and thoughtful Minority Report with author S.C. Wade.

More on S.C.:

He is a 26-year-old who lives in Florida. He works a full-time job but is nearing his goal of being a full-time writer. His fiction ranges from science-fiction to mainstream to the paranormal. His fiction focuses mainly on characters – not only how they deal with situations but also how they deal with each other.

From September 2009 to December 2010, he served as an editor for Flash Me Magazine, an online magazine that published stories 1,000 words and under. His first published piece is available to read online at Daily Science Fiction. And two of his stories were accepted into Villipede Publications‘ first sci-fi anthology, entitled The Glass Parachute, which is available to purchase at Amazon. He most recently self-published a short story as an ebook download, which can also be found at Amazon (as well as other online retailers).

Because S.C. is willing to help writers as best he can, he offers critique services on his website, scwade.com. Each critique (returned within 3 weeks) is free-of-charge with the word count maximum being 6,000 words. And for authors with shorter stories (1,500 words maximum) who would like a critique returned within a guaranteed 4 days, he has an account with Fiverr in which he charges $5 per story.

If S.C. isn’t working, writing, or reading, he is usually volunteering at his church, or at home spending time on Facebook. He plans to incorporate more traveling into his life as he wants to visit different places around the world.

S.C.’s Contact Info.:

• scwade.com
• contact@scwade.com
• twitter.com/shawncwade
• facebook.com/shawncwade

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1. How do you feel about the presence of minority or mixed race authors and characters present in fiction, specifically speculative fiction and all its varied genres?

I don’t think minorities and mixed race characters are very prevalent in speculative fiction. I can only respond based on what I have been exposed to and read, so my answers going forward has that as their foundation. With that said, minority/mixed race characters do HAVE a presence in speculative fiction, but most of what I know has not showcased them. They have been part of the “ensemble cast” if you will, but not the focal character.

It is something I have not consciously noticed until recently. But I do think that there should be a greater display of minority/mixed characters in speculative fiction. I know there are authors that fit that category – I am one of them! And while I do not write exclusively in the speculative arena, all of my fiction that has been accepted and published thus far has been speculative.

2. Why do you think the presence of such authors and characters is at the point that it is? Meaning, are there certain attitudes, stereotypes or expectations that accompany such authors and characters, or maybe that don’t accompany them that make the prevalence what it is today?

To keep it completely honest, I don’t know. I could try to conjure up an explanation, but there are too many variables to pinpoint the reason. And there could just as well be many reasons, based on each individual person.

3. Do you feel like something should be done about the popularity/frequency of minority/mixed race characters or do you think how it exists now is an accurate depiction of the audience of such fiction?

If I could divert slightly and think of movies, most speculative movies I have gone to, the majority of those in attendance have NOT been minority or mixed race people. So, is that to say non-minorities and non-mixed people make up the majority of the audience? Perhaps the movie-goer audience, but the simple fact of the matter is I don’t have all of the details to come to an accurate conclusion.

In terms of if anything should be done… Well, I am going to discuss black people, since I am that ethnicity. I think it would be pretty cool to see a “black movie” that is highly speculative to some capacity. It’s not so much that I want to see only black people in the movie, but every time you see a “black movie,” it has loads of stars and it’s always about some sort of relationship drama. Again, I know I digressed into movies, but even books I’ve seen on bookshelves that have black people on the cover. They are scantily dressed and posed in a provocative manner. It’s as if that is the stereotype for stories starring black characters. And since I don’t read that type of stuff, it would be very nice to read some speculative fiction with minorities or mixed race characters in the foreground.

The quote by Toni Morrison comes to mind that says, “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”

With that type of thinking, we can’t really impose what we want onto someone else. If an author isn’t comfortable writing about any particular thing, to try to force them to write about it would result in mediocrity, at best. If we enjoy one thing or would like to see something, let it start with us.

4. How do you decide what race your characters will be? Does it just come to you or do you purposefully choose certain races?

Very rarely do I choose races for my fictional characters. Most of the time I write the characters without much thought to their ethnicity, which could be an odd thing to do. But I’ve written one story describing the characters very generally. Meaning, I purposely didn’t give the characters any sort of skin color or exclusive attribute, because I didn’t want any reader to omit themselves from the problems these characters were facing. I wanted the characters to be relatable regardless of skin color.

I even had a comment on that story that mentioned how I didn’t describe the characters fully. But my intent was to NOT describe them, and I stuck with that. If it is our story that we are writing, I believe – as authors – we have creative license to do with it what we will. I am not knocking critiques, but there are some things the author knows about his or her story that he or she just should not compromise. Not designating skin color to those characters was mine.

5. What effect do you think reading books with primarily white heroines and heroes in them has on minority/mixed race readers, if any?

The fiction that I’ve read (and watched) has not had minority/mixed race characters as protagonists. But growing up (the parts I can remember), churches I’ve attended did not have an abundance of minorities. And I was home-schooled. So, I was never quite “around” minorities as a whole. So, when I write, I have noticed that my characters feed more often than not into that standard. It’s not a matter of whether it’s right or wrong, it’s just the matter of that’s how I grew up. One of my best friends has jokingly called me white on numerous occasions because I don’t fit into your “typical black guy” criteria, especially coming from the neighborhood I was born and raised for the first 14 years of my life.

What you’re exposed to continuously (fiction, movies, real life) determines how you will see things. Having a majority of non-mixed/non-minorities as characters has been normal to me, so I definitely do believe that reading books with primarily white heroes and heroines leaves impressions on a reader, more on a subconscious level. It could make the lack of diversity appear normal, and henceforth, that is what would be written. I don’t deny that diversity is absent in areas, but when it refers to something as broad as fiction, I don’t think it should.

I would like to think that many people gravitate to the characters and not the skin complexion, but I know not everyone is like me. To see a minority/mixed protagonist in a speculative piece of fiction would be great. But my main focus is a good story, a good plot. Whether my favorite character is white, black, red, yellow, etc. I really don’t care about their race. It would just be refreshing to see minorities as main characters.

6. If you could make one statement about the frequency/popularity of minority/mixed race characters in speculative fiction, what would it be?

The frequency of minority/mixed characters in speculative fiction is not as frequent as it could be. But we can’t force people to write about them and we can’t force more minorities to read more speculative fiction. Each person (not race) has their own interests and their own genres they take a liking to. Take me for example. All of those relationship-type, typical “black movies,” I could really do without. Yet, I can appreciate a good “chick flick” if it’s actually good. I enjoy mystery, thriller, science-fiction, superhero movies….

Although I’ve said I think characters should be more diverse and it would be nice to see minorities and mixed characters play the vital role, I don’t want them there for the sake of having them there. I want them fleshed out. I want them developed. I want the characters three-dimensional. If they die, I want to care, maybe shed a tear; maybe become annoyed at the author. More than anything, I don’t want skin color; I want people. Because you could have all the minorities and mixed characters you want, but if I don’t buy them as people (whether I root for them or not), it’s no good.

7. If you could ask successful editors one thing about their acquisition of books and whether or not a character’s culture/race plays into it at all, how would you ask it? Or rather, what question would you ask about this topic, if you could?

Well, if anyone is submitting their work to an editor, they are subjecting themselves to that editor’s opinion. Maybe race does come into play, but not so much because it’s prejudice but perhaps because they don’t find it believable. The way speculative fiction has been marketed as a whole has not included minority or mixed race characters as leads. Some could naïvely mistake that as being discriminative, but I don’t think it is. An editor has the right to accept or deny anything they choose to, and to ask an editor if race is part of their criteria would be opening them for a misinterpretation of their answer.

I would just tell everyone to write what you’re comfortable with and when you’re ready to grow, write what you’re uncomfortable with. Because growth begins by doing something you are a novice at.

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Thank you, S.C.–I agree whole-heartedly about not including minorities for the sake of having them. We don’t need token characters. That’s just as damaging and to be honest, insulting as the lack of inclusion of minority characters and authors.

Something that both you and Catana (out last Minority Report) mentioned is not forcing people to write about minorities, or to include minority authors in the canon. I don’t think it’s a matter of forcing anyone to do anything–that should never be done. It’s more an issue of finding out why we have thus void and addressing it. It could be a matter of a lack of interest and a lack of submission, but I doubt that. I think there’s a bigger problem, and I’m working on finding out what.

I appreciate that several times you said you just don’t know enough to make a statement about the lack of these characters and authors–that’s very valid. There isn’t enough explanation out there to really say why one way or another, but hopefully with conversations like this, we can get closer to an answer.

What do y’all think?