A character for my thriller story

Real-world problems that black people face. One problem that I was gonna include was domestic violence

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I think that counts as in general to be fair

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True

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Okay. You can include domestic violence, but don’t go too overboard with it. What forms of domestic violence were thinking about including? Besides, racism, police brutality, domestic violence, and very unfair treatment, many black people struggle in their day-to-day lives. It’s hard not being able to find certain jobs and make a certain amount of money just because of our skin color. You can incorporate those things in your story, but of course, do make it a part of the plot of your story.

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It just depends on what your story is about and direction you want it to go.

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This is off-topic (sorry!) but I just wanna say I’m sorry for humanity. Discrimination has came so far it makes my head boil. As you said, black ethnicities struggle finding jobs and enough money. Sometimes they can’t get good education because of it, even trials can be unfair. All of this makes me really, really angry.

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Yeah. Struggling in life is not a good thing, and it’s not something people want to look forward to. I hate that my race of people have to experience that. Other minorities and races of people experience discrimination too :disappointed: It’s heartbreaking.

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I wish there was something I could do, but other than petitions there’s really nothing. As a part of LGBTQA community, I can somewhat understand, but not completely.

I’ll delete this after you like it so we don’t clutter the thread.

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No way I’d go overboard with it. This is a issue that’s actually quite personal to me.

Emotional/psychological, as well as physical and financial…

Black people can certainly be successful and still face racism. :heart:

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Not really off-topic. It’s ok.

Just don’t go too off topic

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I do agree with you.

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I have a story which touches on domestic violence (but doesn’t go into much detail). I think the most important thing is to try and step into the character’s shoes and really think about how the character would feel, particularly afterwards. So many stories just show the character moving on as if nothing happened.
Since you mentioned it’s an issue that’s personal to you, I’m sure you’ll be able to reflect the emotions correctly/respectfully/properly.

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Well, domestic violence isn’t the main plot, but it’s definitely an important part of the plot and has shaped the character into who she is currently.

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I am not the best at giving advices when it comes to characters, but I’ll try my best :smile::blush::

  1. About CC: If the character should be dark-skined and you’re gonna include some art scenes, my advice: don’t give the option of changing Destiny’s skin tone. But, if you aren’t gonna include art scenes in your story, then let the readers customize her skin tone, but make it limited. You can also include into the skin tone options some light-dark skin (as someone who has a dark skin, I can tell you that some dark-skinned people can have a light-dark skin. Including me).

I personally would rather the idea of no customization, but if you already want to give the CC option, then make it limited.

  1. Character traits: as PensiveShadow said, her race doesn’t define who she is. And I mean it doesn’t define her personality. I recommend you not use the character to state political views (I am saying it as someone who saw in many stories whose authors used the dark-skinned characters for something political).
    Another thing: I recommend you not to use the character to represent all the dark-skinned people. Don’t get me wrong! I am more than for diverse representation. I am not saying “don’t add diversity”. That’s definitely not my point by saying that.
    I’ll explain:
    For example, you and PensiveShadow are Muslims, but you don’t come here to represent all the Muslims, do you? And I am Jewish, but I don’t come to represent all the Jews or the Ethiopians. Not that I can do it. I represent myself. If I did it, it’d mean that every word I say or everything I do represents all the Jews and/or Ethiopians, but big time not everyone is like me. Not every Jew/Ethiopian thinks and acts like me. Same goes for you and PensiveShadow - both of you belong to the same religion (Islam), but does it mean that you both are the same in terms of your personality, behavior and your way of thinking? No. You have your own personality and so does she.
    Now, you understand what I am trying to say? If each of you is a person per se even though you belong to the same religion, so the character should be. Give her a personality, including flaws, but even if some readers don’t like these flaws of the character, it doesn’t mean that all the Afro-American or the dark skinned people in general are like that. We all have our own personality.
    So first, represent the character by itself.
    (I hope I worded it correctly and clearly :grimacing::grimacing:, so what I said wouldn’t create any misunderstandings).

  2. Background/Backstory - by the way, I like it how your story include the racism experience, because it’s something that exists, unfortunately. But, when you create dark-skinned characters, don’t include the background of all the dark-skinned characters the racism experience, since not all the dark-skinned people have experienced racism.
    So, it’s always good to raise awareness about racism - some people in our world aren’t aware of the racism experience that dark-skinned people experience (not saying that white peopl can’t experience racism).

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Thank you :yellow_heart:

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Yeah and people tend to only add dark skins when it’s only for race issues and nothing else. It gets annoying.

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Super common, even in some t.v. shows.

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