Losing yourself when reading

[nightdreamer]

Originally Posted by springs1971

Very NLP.... and interesting, but I think there is an inherent danger, if we write to type and that is disappointing the reader - we're asking them to buy in to our world early on and to do that I think it's only fair to put our wares out pretty early.

I agree completely. I recall some story (no idea what it was now) where there were two boy-girl couples. At the end it turned out they were all gay and sort of switched partners. I would have been OK with it if it had come out at the beginning, but as it was I had this entire understanding of their relationships in my head and got really pissed off with the author trashed it. It might have been a variation of the "shock ending" cliche in Hollywood, which I also despise. It seems like a substitute for a good ending.

[Phyrebrat]

Originally Posted by The Judge

Yet it strikes me that there are risks in delaying giving that information too long, and readers might get annoyed at having to revise their whole conception of a character several hundred pages in. Perhaps it might work with such things as sexuality and attitudes, but skin colour or sex are going to be harder to keep quiet about.

Anyway, an interesting article.

Just had to say thank you for this article. It is very interesting and important to me.

Regarding Race
When I read It it took me a long time (into the book) to realise that the Mike Hanlon character was African-American. I'm not sure if this was down to King or my assumption. As a 15 year old, my assumption didn't bother me as much as I'm sure it would these days.

At the moment I am enjoying (thoroughly!) Danielewski's House of Leaves. As a 40 year old - and one who is trying to write and that therefore presupposes I am more alert when reading - I was surprised to find out, some 250 pages or so into the book that one of the characters is black. To the characters in the book, his ethnicity is immaterial; they had an established long term relationship with the character, so it was irrelevant for it to be brought up, until a school teacher arrives outside of that social circle and notices the door was opened by "...an Afro-American in a wheelchair...' I was delighted and had a 'wow' moment. (Maybe that sounds a bit nerdy of me, but I really enjoyed it - of course if someone now comes on and says 'no, he's described as African-American on page 26" I'll be very ashamed of my inattention ).

I was watching a Deep South drama movie some years back starring Samuel L Jackson. I forget the name. He has murdered or attacked a couple of white 'rednecks' who raped his daughter. There is a court scene where the Defense counsel ask those present to close their eyes as he leads them through a guided visualisation. He then asks them to open their eyes and ask themselves what 'colour' the girl's skin was.

So, there are three examples there of how diversity can be handled and/or really work in a story.

I realise I may have rattled on a bit, but I wanted to say that because of my work being focused in Afro-Caribbean communities in London, I have really looked at things like this in a totally different light and TJ's post is so important.

Go to Waterstones; they do not have a 'white writing' section, but they do have a 'black writing' section. Does that really mean black characters or black authors? Okay, getting off topic now...

pH

[David Evil Overlord]

Originally Posted by Phyrebrat

I was watching a Deep South drama movie some years back starring Samuel L Jackson. I forget the name. He has murdered or attacked a couple of white 'rednecks' who raped his daughter. There is a court scene where the Defense counsel ask those present to close their eyes as he leads them through a guided visualisation. He then asks them to open their eyes and ask themselves what 'colour' the girl's skin was.

pH

I think the movie was "A Time To Kill", based on a John Grisham novel.

[James Coote]

This is why it is always jarring to see a film/tv adaptation of a book I've read.

There is a parallel debate with anime/manga about whether the character depictions are western/Caucasian or race-neutral in appearance

[Fishbowl Helmet]

Originally Posted by David Evil Overlord

Some writers list all the characteristics like eye colour, hair colour, etc. even if they don't matter to the plot.

Terry Pratchett described a character (in Going Postal?) by saying he had a face like a clenched fist. How's that for the "spirit" of the character?

My favorite of those style descriptions has got to be Joe R Lansdale's Flaming Zeppelins / Zeppelins West. He describes Calamity Jane thus:

"Away from Annie and her goodness, back to gunfights, card games and stinky whores like Calamity Jane -- mean as a snake, dumb as a stone, crooked as a politician, with a face like the puckered south end of a northbound mule."

[Peter Graham]

Actually I disagree I think Dumbledore's sexuality played a huge part in the Harry Potter stories.

Really? May I ask how? To me it was an irrelevant detail, which is why it was quite rightly no trumpeted in the text. That said, the reader reseponse model is entirely subjective, so if you felt it was a big issue, I'd love to explore that further.

Regards,

Peter

[Toby Frost]

I agree with our kid Peter fromt North here. In far-future stories, I assume that everyone is a kind of brownish and/or so similar in outlook and background as for it not to matter.

I have a character who I know for certain to be black, but it isn't relevant to the story so it hasn't been mentioned at all. Similarly, there is one who may be gay - it doesn't make a lot of difference when your main activity is carrying out commando missions. Likewise religion: it's tacitly assumed that everyone does their own thing quietly and without fuss, and if they don't, they can join the generic crazy-hate religion established for exactly that purpose. The most important virtues - moral fibre and spiffingness - are shared by all.

Also, of course, there's not a lot of need for inter-human bigotry in the future. Being slightly different pales into insignificance when your enemy is bright red, has four arms and breeds in a test tube.