+1 for Fantasy Diversity!

More changes happen as we get further into the second draft.

So, I made a semi-important decision which, in the end, was not really that hard to do. Here’s a little backstory to the whole decision. When I first started writing the book that I am, it was the short story of four courageous adventurers who turned out to be me, my brothers, my cousin, and a family friend just having a very wild imagination. From the original version, only two characters have…

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+1 for Fantasy Diversity!

So, I made a semi-important decision which, in the end, was not really that hard to do.

Here’s a little backstory to the whole decision.

When I first started writing the book that I am, it was the short story of four courageous adventurers who turned out to be me, my brothers, my cousin, and a family friend just having a very wild imagination. From the original version, only two characters have stayed – a female general named Zenti and the family friend. With the latter, it has only been a reference to him, as one of the characters bears the same name.

I realized today that something was off. I have been trying to find a way to have a more racially diverse cast of characters. The answer was staring me in the face (pardon the cliche). My family friend is, in fact, African American.

I mean, I was aware of this beforehand. In regards to the book, this is a new concept.

So why not make the character with his name dark-skinned, too?

To be fair, he is not the only dark-skinned character in the first book. A good portion of the people in the book are olive-skinned, including the protagonist, just due to the placement of their continent. But there is one other character who is distinctly mentioned as being dark-skinned, Rük. It just means that now there are two in the first book – Cedric and Rük.

+1 for Diversity in Fantasy!

Kind of.

We’re getting there, folks.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a character description to change/add to.

I am sure at this point a lot of people are wondering why I’m so adamant about racial diversity in fantasy. After all, I’m not a racial minority. If you can’t tell from the Gravatar pic, I’m just a young white dude who loves writing. I’m not trying to make up for any racism I’ve had in the past. I just didn’t grow up that way. I’m not trying to make some statement about racism. To be honest, I’m not totally sure why I’m so adamant about it. I’ve just come to realize that there isn’t a whole lot of representation in current fantasy, and I think it would be cool to change that up a bit. I’m not saying everyone needs to write a minority character in their book. That’s their call. As for me, I have my own way of doing things, and that’s just fine. Gabriel out.