Basically that the MC has changed a lot since she moved away… she isn’t interested in what she once went along with just to fit in. Her old “friends” have moved on and don’t like the new version of her, and so through that exchange, she realizes that she doesn’t belong to that superficial world anymore.
Are you portraying all black and non black characters of color as aggressive people who police what white people are allowed to like? Is this character about to find a group of nice white people to hang out with instead? I think it would be offensive if that’s the only portrayal of racial and ethnic minorities, as antagonists, aggressors, hall monitors who are trying to stop white people from doing what they want to do under the guise of social justice. Does that make sense?
4 Likes
That makes a lot of sense. My MC is Lebanese. Her ex-friends are all from different ethnic backgrounds, but they are basically criticizing what she likes because it’s not what’s popular within this group of elitists.
Thanks for your help! 
4 Likes
My biggest anxiety is about my current story which also includes diversity.
My anxiety
I’m currently writing a story that is set in 1926 in Berlin (the time in the Weimar Republic). As you can imagine, most of the German people are white (in present time, we’re very diverse but still, most of us are white.) and it was rare to see POC or Asian characters in the 20’s in Germany… Since I don’t intend to write my story historically accurate due to the guidelines and because of common sense, people are complaining about the inaccuarcy in my story. For example, I completely removed the part about racism and antisemitism (it’s pretty obvious why I removed it). Not only because of the guidelines but because I want that every reader feel welcomed, no matter what race, religion, ethnicity etc. So you can say that I have good intentions. And because of avoiding hate, I even included CC, even the MC is clearly German (in my last story, I didn’t include CC for the MC because it’s not a “you”-story and I don’t think it’s pleasant to see your own chatarter suffer (the mc has PTSD). And because of not having CC, I got lots of hate… Really, I can’t understand the obsession with CC at all!). Well, the main cast in my story is white (obviously) and only the background characters are diverse by their appearances. For example, at the beginning of chapter 1, MC is in a bar where a band is playing and the singer of the band is black. She is referred as a talented singer and is well-liked by the audience. So, no racism in this story. But some people are complaining because of the singer’s race and are trying to educate me about history and MY culture (I’m German, btw). I even deactivated Fanmails because of those people which it saddens me because I’d like to receive fanmails, even constructive (friendy) criticism.
So basically, my struggle with my story is that if I include more diverse characters, people will complain about inaccuarcy, but if I don’t include more divers characters, I’m afraid that I will be called as racist, neo-Nazi (because of my nationality) or even anti-Semite. I’m a history student, so I know what I write in my story but at the same time, I’m concerned. I’m aware that it’s impossible to please every reader but I don’t want to give the reader the impression that I’m ignorant when it comes to diversity.
English is not my first language and I hope you can understand my dilemma. If someone has a solution, I would appreciate your help. 
3 Likes
It’s not an anxiety, but I wouldn’t write a coming of age story about a main character from a culture I don’t know a lot about because the likelihood of writing something really inaccurate or something that represents close to nobody growing up in that culture would be pretty big.
Having characters from different cultures, ethnicities, political standings and religions is not something I avoid, but I know that I would have to do some research, to again try to get things reasonable recognizable for people who actually comes from that point of view.
I think it’s really important to have diverse characters to accurately represent the world we live in. I don’t think that it necessarily has to be diverse only in ethnicity or only in religion, it really depends on the story, however, people are different and diverse in one way or another.
4 Likes
@CerealKiller, what are yours?
2 Likes
You little-
2 Likes
My biggest worry is that I’m not showing enough of how diverse the cast really is. Like, I keep getting messages from readers who are angry because all my characters are heterosexual. That isn’t true, not all characters are heterosexual, but it didn’t matter to the story yet. The only one whose love story got shown is the MC and she’s heterosexual, but the reader knows nothing about everyone else. So, I was wondering if I should throw in some scenes of one of the other characters to “prove” that not everyone’s heterosexual but that wouldn’t make much sense because their sexuality isn’t important in the plot right now. Can’t I just wait until it fits into the scene to mention someone’s sexuality?
It also makes me wonder why people just assume that the characters are heterosexual.
Added some tags
Closed due to inactivity