Top Ten Tuesday: It's a Freebie!

Alright guy’s today’s Top Ten Tuesday is a freebie! Recently I’ve been thinking about writing not just reviews but posts on things such as, writing, authors I like and why I like them or other things I just enjoy. This was a perfect opportunity to talk about the recent push towards diversity I’ve noticed. So (before I lose my courage) here we go.

Four reasons the new diversity trend makes me worried.

Bear with me Y’all I’m not saying it’s an entirely bad thing. 

But with every good thing that comes about in literature new problems show up. Just look at the call for Strong Female Characters outcry. It was a perfectly reasonable request and resulted in some great characters. 

Unfortunately we now have the extreme opposite (I like to consider it an overexcited correction)

female characters who aren’t allowed to emote or be in danger without being called weak damsels. In fact there’s recently been an increase of articles talking about the over-correction and how to fix it. Diversity can, and probably will develop similar problems and I’ve been thinking about them for a while now.  

Diverse books, just not good books

Books can now be praised for being diverse as opposed to actually well-written. 

Don’t get me wrong there is plenty of opportunity for books to be both diverse and good. But recently I’ve seen, and even read, books that were just terrible. But they got a free pass because they included diverse characters. Full disclosure guys that makes me angry. It feels like the author wrote a terrible book, jumped on the diversity band wagon, and let the hype do the rest for them. 

Sure, not everybody does it on purpose but I find it silly that people will rush to elevate and defend am author or their story simply because they learned that diversity sells.

Some people really don’t know how to write diverse characters

I don’t know if this is shocking to anybody but if you want to write a book with characters that are blind or disabled or anything else you actually have to do research to learn how to write them. 

The diversity trend encourages rushed, ill researched, ‘diverse’ characters who are more insulting than anything else. 

There’s a reason there are so many ‘How to Write Diverse Characters’ articles all over the internet. If you’re going to smack people over the head with how cool you are because all your characters are diverse they better be decent characters in the first place.

I have authority issues and people telling me what to write rubs me the wrong way

This is a very personal issue I have so please don’t get peeved with me. I just don’t like that society can say ‘yes, this is important write about this,’ and everybody will do it. To me writing has always been very personal and ultimately creative. It’s how I express myself, even if I say I’m writing this thing or that thing for fun or just to see if I can. Given that, the idea of another people deciding what should and shouldn’t be written makes me uncomfortable. 

I don’t know guys maybe I’m just crazy.

Books that care more about the Message than crafting an interesting story

Do you guys remember when we were in high school lit classes 

and we’d read the strangest books? They were the kind that were chosen not because they were actually good (from a writer’s standpoint at least) but because they portrayed some sort of message or literary technique in the most obvious and ham-handed way possible so that the average high-schooler couldn’t possibly miss it.

Now, passing over how insulting that is I’ll get to the actual point. I’m afraid that authors will focus too much on making a story into some sort of agenda or ultimate message instead of a compelling story. It’s always been my belief that an author can do both, and that ultimately the point comes across better when the story as a whole is a work of art. Look at Harry Potter for example.

 I guarantee that everyone has gotten some sort of message out of this series and it’s well written to boot! I would just caution authors to be aware of which is more important when their writing, after all decent writing and characters have already been ditched by authors recently. I don’t think we’re that far from reading a modern day book in lit class just because it ‘represents diversity’.

All that being said, I don’t hate the Diversity Trend. At its core, it is trying to do something good and encourage well rounded, well researched characters or places or narrative’s in general. I just want people to be aware of the problems that come along with it. I don’t want to hear how modern and cool this one book is when I read it and found it badly written or badly plotted. 

I don’t want to see cardboard-cutout characters with the word ‘gay’ or ‘disabled’ scrawled across them. Then subsequently see the same carboard-cutout characters elevated for being vaguely diverse.

              Maybe, being aware of the problems now will keep the author community from having to adjust again in a few years. 

I know this is a freebie list but hey! If you like lists or just want to see who started these crazy Top Ten Tuesdays go the Broke and theBookish. They’ve got some interesting stuff and they’re nice enough to let newbies like me join in. 

Bye