The organization at the center of my trilogy is one of global significance. As such, the characters in my story's universe need to be as diverse as the world they inhabit: our own.
Naturally, including an array of races and nationalities has been very important to me as I write this series. However, as a white woman living on colonized land, I have to be extra mindful of how I write those who do not look like me or have a similar cultural experience to my own.
The two most important things I want to avoid at all costs are stereotypes and cultural appropriation. The first is fairly simple to accomplish because I simply write my characters as whole people, not as artificial "tokens" that misrepresent their cultures and who they are as individuals. I have navigated the second by largely staying away from depicting the cultural practices of my characters. I do this mainly by using an "acknowledge and release" approach.
My unsophisticated method is essentially acknowledging any cultural impacts significant to the story while remaining an "outsider looking in". I've had to be particularly careful with this as I write Book 2. This is because much of the story takes place on land taken from the Indigenous people absconded by European settlers. I can't get into much detail now as I am actively writing the first draft of this book, but I am prioritizing mindfulness as I do so.
How do you approach meaningful and appropriate inclusion in your works?
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