As you’re probably aware, there is growing consensus within the writing and publishing spheres that it is critical to do representation well. There’s a growing awareness that our stories need to do a good job of depicting diverse characters, especially discriminated-against minorities. The natural follow-up question is, How do we actually do that, though? Oh, how I wish there were a simple, straightforward answer to that question. Instead, it’s one of those questions we need to continually wrestle with in order to grow and strengthen our answer.

In this post, I’ll give you the answer I’m currently working with in my editing and writing practice. However, before we get to those guidelines, I want to discuss why this topic can be so hard to talk about.

Why This Topic Can Be So Tricky to Discuss

One of the trickiest parts of my job as a developmental editor is giving feedback on representation and sensitivity concerns. When we talk about these issues, emotions tend to run high. When someone says, “This theme/characterization in your book could be handled better,” it’s easy to hear, “You are a terrible, bigoted person for writing this.” That’s never what I mean, and I have to be very intentional to ensure my message is clear.

There’s also a risk that any sensitivity “rules” will be too rigid. Stories are fluid, complex depictions of fluid, complex people. It’s really hard for any rigid writing rule to serve all stories. That’s why it’s better to approach writing principles as flexible guidelines rather than dogmatic mandates.

That idea is easy for people to get when we’re talking about any other writing topic. However, this flexible writing framework is often harder to apply to topics that have moral implications. When ethics and potential harm are on the line, we want clarity. We want rigid rules that allow us to know, for certain, that we’re doing good—we’re not the bad guys.

The problem, though, is that morality itself is like any other human endeavour: complicated, nuanced, and messy. To do a good job of morality, we need to be able to face and wrestle with the messy bits.

To that end, we first need to acknowledge that the messy bits exist without panicking. It is normal for people to make mistakes that accidentally harm others. It is normal to find yourself in a moral dilemma where there is no objective correct action. It is normal to be missing critical information.

To handle these messy situations well, we need to accept our human limitations without succumbing to crippling shame. If you can let go of the part of yourself that needs perfection, you’ll actually be better equipped to find a constructive path forward.

All that to say, even though this topic is of critical importance, the following insights are all still guidelines, not rules. This flexibility can actually challenge us to engage with these ideas on a deeper level. In a messy and complicated world, nuanced and flexible moral guidelines are more useful, even if they feel less comfortable.

So, with this preamble out of the way, let’s look at my actual guidelines.

Diversity & Representation Guidelines

After listening to various discussions on this topic, I’ve boiled down the key talking points into three writing guidelines:

1. Write Complex Characters: To avoid harmful stereotypes, write minority characters with nuance and complexity.
2. Write Diverse Characters: To avoid harmful minority erasure, write diverse casts of characters.
3. Write Stories You Know: To leave space for disadvantaged minority writers (and to avoid uninformed depictions), leave the stories that deeply explore a community’s experience of discrimination and trauma for writers who are from that community.

These guidelines seem straightforward, but they can be hard to achieve, even with the best intentions.

Some Common Challenges

First, harmful stereotypes have been so omnipresent in our media that they are very easy to subconsciously absorb and unintentionally replicate. What leads well-meaning people astray here is simply a lack of conscious awareness. So, to gird yourself against this foible, all you have to do is take the time to listen. With the internet readily available, it is so easy to access information on these topics.

Second, getting the balance right between Guideline 2 and Guideline 3 can be especially tricky. On a practical level, you can’t include every marginalized identity in every story. In stories that focus on a small cast or on isolated communities, it’s not always feasible to force more diversity into the story. In those situations, you’ll need to hold Guideline 2 very lightly.

Then, sometimes including a character with a marginalized identity into your specific story’s context will compel you to depict their community’s experience of discrimination—at least to some degree. This is especially true in genres like historical fiction. My general piece of advice in that situation is to acknowledge the reality of discrimination as serious, real, and relevant without making that experience the primary thing that the story is about. That advice can be easy to say but harder to implement.

So, at the end of the day, Guidelines 2 and 3 are sometimes just in conflict. They can put you in a bind where you can’t fully fulfill one without also breaking the other. Often, the available solutions will all come with their own pros and cons. In that situation, you can ask yourself, What solution would serve my story and my audience the best? and Which solutions carry the lowest risk of harm? Those questions should help you find a constructive path forward, even if it’s not a perfect, no-risk path.

Further Resources

Finally, here are some resources I’ve found useful for grappling with these two points of challenge. Though this list is in no way exhaustive, here are some of my favourites:

• The Ultimate Resource: The website and organization Writing the Other has a plethora of resources on writing diverse perspectives. This is the place to start any thorough study on how to depict specific communities with care and accuracy.
• For Feminist Concerns, Stand-Alone Videos:
  • Trope Talk: Damsels In Distress by Overly Sarcastic Productions.
  • The Ethics of Looking and the “Harmless” Peeping Tom, Abduction as Romance, and Stalking for Love by Pop Culture Detective.
• For Queer Concerns: See Rowen Ellis’s channel, including Why Are Disney Villains Gay / Queer?, The Evolution Of Queerbaiting: From Queercoding to Queercatching, and Debunking Asexual and Aromantic Myths with Alice Oseman!.
• For Racial & Feminist & Queer Concerns: See Princess Weekes’s whole channel. Some good ones include Why Are There So Many Confederate Vampires? and Tall, Dark and Racially Ambiguous.
• For Disability Concerns: See Jen Campbell’s channel, including Let’s Talk: Villains and Disfigurement.

I hope you’ve found these guidelines and resources helpful! While it’s important to do your best to avoid harm, don’t let the fear of making a mistake keep you from writing. We need good stories, and we won’t get them from fearful inaction. So, even in the face of risk, keep writing and telling stories. We need them.