Guidelines for Writing Fantasy Characters of Color: From a Fantasy Writer and Reader of Color.

There are many great fantasy stories featuring people of color. The Burning and The Nameless Republic are a couple that come to mind. Fantasy readers of color like me are always looking for stories with strong characters who look like us. The truth is you can be a white writer and create an awesome character of color.

It may be hard at first, but I’m here to share a few tips readers and writers can learn from. This isn’t only for white authors. Every wordsmith can gain valuable insight from this piece. Read on to learn more about writing good characters of color in fantasy.

Show their humanity

While Asians, blacks, whites, and other peoples are very different culturally, one thing we share is that we must get out of bed each day and deal with life. All races struggle with depression, experience joy, and must make hard decisions. No matter what race you are, life will happen to you.

Fantasy is a great way to explore this truth. Instead of having a character of color with only one characteristic: his skin tone, show him go through the same struggles as any white character. Ask the important questions when crafting him: What does he fear? What is his conflict? What are his convictions? What does he live for?

Asking questions like these will help your produce a believable, non-stereotypical character. Show him struggle with relationships, money, power, or something else. Make him behave like people in real life. Have him experience all sorts of emotions just like you would a white character.

This is a lot, but once you practice these things several times you will find them quite doable. Readers of color will appreciate you and will be more eager to support your platform.

Show them in a variety of roles.

Not all writers are guilty of this, but sometimes people of color in fiction are portrayed only in certain walks of life.

This does people of color a disservice, for we come from all backgrounds on planet Earth. In fiction you can have a character of color who works any kind of job, be it a healer, a politician, or something else. People of color in fantasy can be in any occupation and can have any intelligence level and skillset.

People of color can also have any sort of personality. I won’t point fingers, but sometimes writers fall into stereotyping a certain racial group as far as how they behave in a story.

The cure for this is remembering that characters of color are people. They’re race is an aspect of their character, but they shouldn’t be seen through the prism of skin color. A character doesn’t act a certain way because he or she is brown, but because of their motives, how they were raised, etc. Remembering characters of color should have variety will make them more believable, making everybody, especially readers of color, happier.

Don’t overemphasize their race.

Readers want to know characters of color as people. They desire more than their skin color.

If you’re writing a POC in fantasy, avoid stating their race in every scene they’re in. Absolutely, you must describe their skin color from time to time, but mentioning their race all the time makes the reader feel like you’re forcing something down their throat. It can also pull them out of the story.

Race is part of a character, not the defining aspect. What’s most important is making sure your character of color is known for her personality, mind, actions, and emotions.

Give them agency.

Often you should make your black or brown or Asian characters proactive, diligent, and resilient. Show them fail and get back up.

It’s fine to have characters of color who aren’t like this. Not every character can have agency for not everyone in real life does. But it’s important we have many characters of this sort to give fantasy readers of color someone to root for. Someone they can look up to that looks like them.

Mix them with white characters.

Like in real life, people in fantasy worlds emigrate. No land is completely homogenous.

If you have different races mix in your stories, this can show that humans are all people with people problems. Having whites and other races of characters work together in fantasy can have a positive influence on the real world. It shows that people can still be a team despite their differences.

True, if you’re pulling from African history in your fantasy world, most of your characters will likely be black or brown. But like I said, people emigrate. You can have a few white characters in your story and still obey the rules of worldbuilding. Your readers will appreciate this.

 Conclusion.

Fantasy is not exclusive to one race. All people can be featured in these stories. Hopefully all writers will give their characters of color as much humanity as whites and portray them accurately.