Hello!
I have question.
My SFF is about the rise of fossil-fuel driven industrialization on a human-colonized (and terraformed) planet ten thousand years in the future. (The colony crashed for a couple thousand years and they started from scratch to rebuild a civilization, that's all backstory and world building.)
Because I focus on the technology/environmental impact of fossil fuel use, I framed it in 'Earth terms;' sort of techno-history, discovery of 'the new world' The wild west, the frontier. (Little house on the Prairie). I didn't give the names much thought because I was not setting out to write about ethnic issues, at all. To introduce a range of ethnically-diverse names seemed like a distraction.
But, people tell me 'everyone sounds white' probably because of the euro-derived names.
I'm thinking about mixing the names up a little bit. It's a legitimate choice from a story perspective - our space agencies chose and sent colonists from all over the world. And, it seems the idea of diverse casts and some calls for non-european settings is big in publishing right now. And, we currently (2018) live in a world where diverse cultures should simply exist without anyone batting an eye.
This morning, I added/swapped names from Asia, Africa, India to see what I thought. I'm ambivalent. For example, Alphonse is still Alphonse, but his last name could be a Swahili translation of 'stone' which is very fitting to his character arc.
I want the choice that is least distracting to the story. Again, it's not a story about ethnic issues, although there are class issues. I thought making everyone similar would put the focus on the environmental details (but ... people keep saying 'everyone's white' even though I never specify...) maybe making the cast names diverse is less distracting given our current issues.
Early comments from readers also said the european names like Ardelle and Alphonse were too hard to pronounce. So that confuses me too!
I'm curious for opinions. From a story perspective I can argue either side (using only euro-derived names, or expanding to include a range of name origins). I know this can be an issue where I haven't thought about all the angles, which is why your feedback can be so valuable. Thanks in advance.
I have question.
My SFF is about the rise of fossil-fuel driven industrialization on a human-colonized (and terraformed) planet ten thousand years in the future. (The colony crashed for a couple thousand years and they started from scratch to rebuild a civilization, that's all backstory and world building.)
Because I focus on the technology/environmental impact of fossil fuel use, I framed it in 'Earth terms;' sort of techno-history, discovery of 'the new world' The wild west, the frontier. (Little house on the Prairie). I didn't give the names much thought because I was not setting out to write about ethnic issues, at all. To introduce a range of ethnically-diverse names seemed like a distraction.
But, people tell me 'everyone sounds white' probably because of the euro-derived names.
I'm thinking about mixing the names up a little bit. It's a legitimate choice from a story perspective - our space agencies chose and sent colonists from all over the world. And, it seems the idea of diverse casts and some calls for non-european settings is big in publishing right now. And, we currently (2018) live in a world where diverse cultures should simply exist without anyone batting an eye.
This morning, I added/swapped names from Asia, Africa, India to see what I thought. I'm ambivalent. For example, Alphonse is still Alphonse, but his last name could be a Swahili translation of 'stone' which is very fitting to his character arc.
I want the choice that is least distracting to the story. Again, it's not a story about ethnic issues, although there are class issues. I thought making everyone similar would put the focus on the environmental details (but ... people keep saying 'everyone's white' even though I never specify...) maybe making the cast names diverse is less distracting given our current issues.
Early comments from readers also said the european names like Ardelle and Alphonse were too hard to pronounce. So that confuses me too!
I'm curious for opinions. From a story perspective I can argue either side (using only euro-derived names, or expanding to include a range of name origins). I know this can be an issue where I haven't thought about all the angles, which is why your feedback can be so valuable. Thanks in advance.
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