writingwithcolor:

Writing With Color – General Topics

A collection of WWC posts that deal with more general writing advice, character creation and diversity topics applicable to most marginalized people, particularly People of Color and some ethnic and religious groups.

Writing Characters of Color: The Generals

• On “Overthinking” Writing Characters of Color
  
• On White Authors “Getting it Right”
  
• On White Writers Writing Characters of Color (I, II, III)
  
• Researching PoC + Supporting Writers of Color 
• So You Want To Save The World From Bad Representation
  
• Writing POC with Little Experience
• Writing Authentically From Your Own Experiences

Useful Non-WWC Posts

• Diversity Exists in the Real World by shiraglassman
  
• How to Write WOC and MOC if you are White by kaylapocalypse
• “I feel pressured to be inclusive in my writing!” by nimblesnotebook 
  
• On White Fear & Creating Diverse Transformative Works by saathi1013
  

Diversity/Representation Topics

• Diversity vs. Exploiting Cultures
  
• Diversifying a Predominately-White Cast
  
• On “Diversity Quotas”
• On Excluding Diversity Out of Fear
  
• Different Heritage POV’s in a Story
  
• Including Realistic Diversity Naturally
• “Normalizing” Protagonists of Color
  
• Villains of Color
  
• White-Dominant Rural Areas and Diversity
• White Privilege, Publishing, and Diversity Quotas
  
• Writing: Making Efforts in Diversity 

Character Creation

• Character Creation: Culture or Character first?
• Character Design and Assigning Race and Ethnicity
• Characters’ Races Added Last During Development 
• Determining your Characters’ Race and/or Ethnicity
  
• More on Assigning Race after Writing

Characters of Color & Culture

• A Discussion on Culture and Erasure
• “Culturing” Culturally-disengaged PoC
• Characters of Color with “No Culture”
  
• Mixed Race + Disconnect from Culture
• Stereotyped vs Nuanced & Audience Perception
  
• Tradition and Culture vs. Stereotype
  
• Western Neutral Characters
  
• ‘Whitewashed’ Character of Color?

Fantasy & Coding

• Defining Coding (& Islam-coded Fantasy)
• Denoting Race in Fantasy Setting
  
• Fantasy Races Based off of People of Color
  
• Naming People and Places, Avoiding Explicit Coding
  
• Racially-coding Aliens
• Real Religions in a Fantasy World
• Religion in Fiction & Fantasy
• South Asian-Coded Fantasy Caste System
  
• Whitewashing in a Fantasy Setting
  
• Including Racism in Fantasy
  
• World-building: A Fantasy World without Racism
  

Writing Sensitive and Controversial Topics

• Do I Need Permission to Write About Marginalized People?
• Writing a Genocide to which you have No Personal Connection
  
• On Outsider-Written Stories About Issues Of Another Group
• Outsider-Written Stories, Issues of other Groups, Speculative Situation
• Writing about Prejudice between People of Color
  
• Reclaiming negative, dehumanizing stereotypes outside the group
• Representing yourself when “yourself” isn’t white

Racism and Micro-Aggressions 

• Everyday Racism, Friendship and White Allies
  
• Incorporating Micro-Aggressions in Writing
  
• Racist Characters + Including Racism in Stories Not “About” Racism
  
• The Pitfalls of Racist Character Redemption Arcs
  
• PoC Educating White Privileged Friend (Context: Black Characters)

–WWC