Am I hiding the ball?

I'll say this bluntly: When people read a book, most of the time, the MC's appear within their mind how the reader wishes them to appear like. Unless the writer updates the MC's looks, the reader will keep on reading without a clear description.

Our minds fill in the blanks, even when the have been filled previously.

I have no problem with reading about a black character. Hell, 'Who Fears Death' is about a white woman, in a black world. I had the hardest time reminding myself she was white, while telling myself all the other characters were black. (I'm white) And I enjoyed that book.

Unless your character is a strong black, those who values their root's culture, I don't think anyone will have difficulty.

As long as it doesn't feel like, "you're breaking from the norm", you will be fine.


Also, I don't know any black fantasy writers. Maybe that's the problem.

I'd be a bit annoyed to find out something like that in book 3. Not due to him being black specifically, but in the same way I'd be annoyed if I imagined the character with brown hair in books 1 and 2 and in book 3 it's revealed he has blond hair. And I'd probably still imagine him having brown hair anyway. So I'd put it up front in book 1.

kuwisdelu said:

I'd be a bit annoyed to find out something like that in book 3. Not due to him being black specifically, but in the same way I'd be annoyed if I imagined the character with brown hair in books 1 and 2 and in book 3 it's revealed he has blond hair. And I'd probably still imagine him having brown hair anyway. So I'd put it up front in book 1.

Click to expand...

Agreed. This really wouldn't work for me.

Unfortunately you will have to tell your readers in book 1 because the default is white.

You need to describe your character at the beginning of book one. No matter what he looks like, you'll break the reader's concentration and shock them more by springing the description in the third book. If the author doesn't provide a description, most people just envision the character looking kinda like themselves. I'd be upset to find out something like that in the third book, just because it is something so very basic about the character.

It'd destroy the feeling of connection the readers have to the character too. As a reader, I want to believe I've gotten to know the MC inside and out in the last two books. Finding out the image I've built of the character in my mind is completely wrong in book three would yank me out of the story.

Plus I think all characters should have the option to be influenced by their backgrounds. If you hide something like that, I'd think you're unnecessarily limiting all the very cool cultural knowledge and history the character could have access to.

I don't think having a black main character will prejudice most readers or publisher against you. Maybe the big seven publishers in NY would want an "every man", but the readers won't care. I can't imagine the smaller presses I've worked with caring either. They'd think a black MC adds uniqueness and depth to the story because it does.

Assuming that your readers won't like a black kid is like assuming they'll all be close-minded jerks. Generally the fantasy fans I've met are accepting of all kinds of people, whether real or imaginary. Look at the wild fan following for Firefly. It has two black MC's, and Zoe and Shepard Book are both total bad asses. Or there's Commander Sisko in DS9. Not books, but still very popular fantasy/scifi stories.

I say you should be bold and go for the character and the story you want to write. That book is your heart, and your blood, so make it the best you can. Ultimately, the story sells the books. If the story is great, the agent, the publisher and the readers will follow. Good luck.

I wouldn't hide it. A small percentage of YA books have protagonists of color. What if Walter Dean Meyers was too afraid to write honest stories about black kids? Or Sharon Draper? Or all the rest of the authors who do it. Instead of a few, there would be zero.

It seems that many YA agents are actually looking for MC's that are not white, so you should be playing this up, even mentioning it in your query letter. Also, Tu Books is specifically seeking fantasy/sci-fi/mystery with characters of color:

http://www.leeandlow.com/p/tu.mhtml

I say describe the kid.
If you want to write for the little black kid you were, write it! You can't be the only one waiting for your swordsman/wizard/spy.
As others have said, it's wrong to tell readers to make something up, if you're going to go "A-ha!" and spring a description on them later. Especially if, odds are, regardless of their colour, they're going to make him white.
And, if the black kid is the only one not described, what message does that tell the black reader? That they're invisible? That they're supposed to be hidden?
A compromise: why not describe him as black, and let the readers make him as black as they want?
For all the 'white readers won't read this' stuff, readers can be weird. I haven't read more than a dozen pages of 'The Hunger Games', but I've heard about the 'Rue' fuss. Apparently some people were able to ignore that dear little Rue was described as black in the book, and appalled that she was visibly black in the movie. People see what they want to see. Or, more to the point, don't see it.

If you are going to describe people, do it up front. I absolutely hate when an author springs a description on me when I've already got a picture in my head of what the character looks like.

One of my favourite authors is Terry Pratchett. And I won't watch any films or TV programmes of his work because I don't want someone else's vision of his characters in my head.

For instance, the Duke of Ankh looks like Ken Stott in my head. That's who he is and someone deciding that another actor should play him would be totally wrong for me. It wouldn't be Vimes. So I don't watch them.

So if I had an idea of how your character looked and you sprung someone totally different on me, I'd be really pissed off.

Do descriptions as soon as possible.

And one more thing, I don't care what colour a character is as long as he or she is a rounded character. A real person. As a reader, I'll go with them wherever they take me, colour don't make a damn difference.

All I ask is don't lecture me.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=250672

Second post, Kitty rocked on this point. Though it won't prevent her from doing it again by mentioning it here....

And sad, but true, the default is white.

I know how you feel about not finding stories with protagonists like you. It utterly sucks. However, the industry, despite everything, has gotten a little better and more YA is accepting of PoCs (Adult not as much).

You might also want to look up Cindy Pon if you get discouraged. She's an AWer. Her story went that she had to submit it to 104? places before she got published and she was flat out told to her face that a publisher wouldn't publish her book because Chinese settings simply don't sell. She still sold and got a second book out after it. Her books, in my personal opinion, rock my socks off. Especially the first edition cover of the first book, which to be obtuse, if you can find that cover buy it over the other one! Support PoCs on covers! =P

Fight! I know it's hard, but fight. Be heartened, because I went into an indie bookstore today (after a trip--soo worth it. I think I'm addicted to that smell) and I found that there was a PoC on an Octavia Butler cover. I about died of happiness. OMG, there is a PoC on the cover. (I wanted to scream it to this section of AW instantly.) A black woman on the cover! TT And she wasn't alone. (The Barnes and Nobles wasn't like that for the same book. It had an edition without anyone on the cover. Boo.) If a PoC can make it to the cover, (which has been an issue for years) I think that you can safely write a young black man into a book and find a publisher. Especially YA.

So be brave and mention it in the first book. I have a lot of things stacked against me, too, and I'm not sure if it will get published because of those things, but remember that what we are fighting for is a generation that doesn't have to look at bookshelves and feel absolute despair. Because you know as someone from that group, you can do it better than anyone else outside of it.

If you fight, everyone else will and then you won't be fighting alone. There will come a time when publishers aren't like that. And I will say it, but some indie bookstores are better than your main chain for this kind of thing. (I was spazzing out today and dying by taking down titles I'd never seen before. PoCs (A shelf dedicated to the subject in sociology)! And Persian cooking. oooo~ Books on Hmong! Women's rights studies... Ooooo~ They also stocked books on racism where none of them started out with colorblind is a good thing. YAY! )

I've got a book cooking that breaks the conventions, too. It doesn't do Minority Pathology Porn. It's not set in a common era known to any of the countries it refers to. Most people will auto-think it to not be historical at all. And the POV characters are females. Three strikes, at the very least, but I'll still try. If that one fails, jokes on them there is a second story I can ship out on its own I can work on in the same area and time period. I'll keep trying until I hit it.

Because it's like you said, you don't want another kid like you wondering where all the books are that truly represent them. I'm willing to fight for that.

I know this is an old thread, but I just ran into it and wanted to pop in and mention that I'm not the only editor out there actively looking for PoC in SFF for young readers. You might be interested in checking out the Children's Book Council's Diversity Committee, which is just one of the many ways that we're working on awareness in the industry, particularly editors reaching out to sales and marketing to break down old ideas about what books sell and don't sell. The mission of the Diversity Committee is to talk about it within the industry, but we're also reaching out to writing organizations and schools. The SCBWI is working on its own outreach to writers of color as well.

The numbers, as you can see from the CCBC's annual stats, are abysmal in both diversity of content creators and diversity of content itself. We've got a lot of work to do in this industry, and it will require everyone up and down the chain to be more open to diversity--selling it, buying it, and writing it.

Be bold! You're definitely not the only one.

Lots of editors are looking for more diversity--and we're working on getting the word out to agents, too. Personally, that's the only kinds of books I work on, so by all means, do consider us at Tu Books when it's ready!

I'm working on a project with two PoC in the protagonist's immediate circle, and didn't find an excuse to bring up either one of their ethnicities until page 52 of this draft.

I really didn't intend for it to be that way, but with the first person narration, it just felt really awkward and tokeny to have her say "YP, my Chinese-Jewish friend" or "David, who is native." She doesn't introduce anybody else by physical characteristics, so it didn't make sense that she'd introduce that as a surface detail. So I decided to wait until something in the story made it relevant, and...yeah. That's how long it took, at least this time around.

But I am concerned that in the space I've left, reader prejudices are going to sneak between them and the text. I don't give them any reason to assume the characters are white, but I don't give them any reason to assume they're not, which is kind of the same thing in our cultural climate.

So. Anyway. It's a challenge. I'll figure it out.

Emmet, your POC are supporting characters so you have more time to reveal who/what they are. I don't think pg 52 is that big of a deal.

Reader prejudices start before they've even opened your book. Most characters in any book that isn't an "issue book" are perceived as white, straight and able bodied. Sucks, but until more marginalized people get into the biz on both the creating and publishing side it's what we're stuck with.

djrashn, I'll bet you the Brooklyn Bridge you've unconsciously put out cultural markers that point to his ethnicity without needing to wave a big neon sign. Even in a world with wizards and magic the way he talks will show if he's Southern or inner city or second generation Caribbean or recent African immigrant.

Worrying about if readers get it is an exercise in heartbreak. If they do great. If they don't...well as long as they buy the book right?

I read a wonderful book called "Zone One" by Colson Whitehead because I heard an interview on NPR with the author.

It's not YA, so maybe this isn't relevant. But in "Zone One" it wasn't until about 3/4 of the way through that another character says something about the MC being black. It's just not mentioned before - the focus is on the post-apocalyptic storyline - the characters all relate to each other as equals - survivors clearing zombies out of NYC - he's the only black person working in this crew.

The author is black. I haven't read any of his other works, although I will, so I don't know if this is his usual style or not.

The "reveal" didn't bother me. But there wasn't much interaction between the characters - it was more of a monologue - thoughts of the MC about old world vs new world -

I'm not doing a good job of describing the novel - I loved it, admired it - so here's a review if you're interested.

RE: your original question - The reviewer says: "The only ostensibly interesting things about him are his nickname, Mark Spitz (the explanation for which is withheld so long that the payoff stakes rise perilously high) ..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/books/review/zone-one-by-colson-whitehead-book-review.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

There are woefully few of them, but YA fantasy with PoCs protagonists DO exist, from both debut and established authors. On top of that, many agents and editors (and readers!) are looking for them. It's unlikely to stop your book from getting published. (Which is not to say you won't encounter any prejudice...)

I wouldn't hide your character's race either way. In addition to the excellent reasons listed above--well, if you hide his race, then how will the kids you're trying to reach know that they're reading about a character who looks like them? In my opinion, that's more important than trying to hook the white kids.