Fantasy and Sci-Fi Diversity

[Geneva]

This is more of a continuation of the discussion on the thread "Do Black People Play 40k?" (it makes sense in context) about the diversity in the Epic Fantasy and Sci-Fi genres both in regards of story and character development. Some interesting points were made such as the seemingly mono-dimensional culture and/or personalities of mythical races like Elves or Dwarves both in-universes and across the genre and the lack of character depth in a lot of novels.

This interested me as I myself am attempting to write a novel (but then again, who isn't) in this genre and have found many other books to be kind of stagnant in this regard. Of course, Sturgeon's Revelation can be called into effect here (that just as for every Game of Thrones there's going to be 10 Myrren's Gifts, for every Catcher in the Rye there will be 10 Twilights) but Sci-fi and fantasy seem to suffer from this more than any other genre bar maybe Crime Thrillers. Elves are all stuck up nature lovers without exception. Dwarves are all grumpy miners or war enthusiasts, without exception. Orcs are always chaotic evil monsters with no discernible goal other than to create misery, again without exception.

Not every fantasy novel follows this pattern but most seem to. A lot of it comes from the immense influence left by the genre shattering vastness of Tolkien's Middle Earth series. Since then about half the novels in the genre either attempt to knock off the Lord of the Rings, try desperately to be an improved Lord of the Rings, or just flat out rewrite Tolkien's lore with slightly different names. This is less true of course for Sci-Fi (although still applicable with different if at least more varied influences) but it has put the Epic Fantasy genre into a bit of a loop.

This is Fantasy! The genre of the fantastical. A place where suspension of disbelief allows for the imagination to go wild. Why so is it that Fantasy has seemingly been established as a rather boring and repetitive genre. Surely the phrase "predictable fantasy" should be something of an oxymoron.

Now, of course there are exceptions. A Song of Ice and Fire has character development that would have had Shakespeare envious, The Discworld is about as fantastical as one can get without the influence of potent hallucinogenics and even The Dark Tower, while not perfect, took a fresh approach to the concept with its Western-meets-Medieval-meets-Sci-Fi vibe. But why are the stand-outs so few and far apart compared to other genres of literature? Why, even now as I look at my bookshelf, do I see much tons of various fantastic horror novels, drama novels and others compared to my fantasy collection which consists of a handful of greats in a sea of I-feel-like-a-fantasy-novel-so-this-will-have-to-do mediocrity?

More to the point (You're only getting to 'the point' now? Geez, Genevaman! Speed it up a little.) what can be done to change it. Many are citing A Song of Ice and Fire as the "new Lord of the Rings". Will this vary the genre or simply take it down a path of GoT knock offs as well as LotR ones? What is the future likely to bring? Don't you guys really want to hear about MY novel? (*NO!*) Okay, okay, fair enough...

Anyway, discuss and debate. I'm interested to read up more on what people have to say as well as whether you agree or disagree with the above. Feel free to school me to hell and back if you don't, if it means a revitalised look at a genre I used to love then I'll gladly swallow my pride.

Cheers!

[WestRider]

I've had this discussion, and variants on it, a number of times with a number of Writers I know, and one thing keeps coming up: The variety is out there. It's just hard to find.

For a variety of reasons*, most of what gets written more or less follows the trend. So the variety is already hard to find, just by sheer numbers.

Next, Publishers are more likely to accept work that they know is a sure bet (i.e. basically the same as what's sold well before), and the surer the bet, the more they're going to be willing to promote it. This filters what's easy to find even further.

So first, you've got to actually go looking to find more diverse material. That will get you what's out there now. But if you want more, you've got to go a step further: Spend money on what you want to see. Don't just "like" it on Facebook or write good reviews for it on Amazon or whatever. Actually put dollars** down on product that you want to see more of. Publishers pay attention to this sort of thing, and if it starts selling better, they will start pushing more of it.

It certainly also helps to write positive reviews and such, especially if you make it clear that the differentiation from the standard is why you liked it so much, but money speaks louder than words.

*Most notably: There are more bad writers than good ones, and even many of the good ones were strongly influenced by the classics, and so stick somewhat to those templates.

**Or Pounds, Euros, or whatever. You get the point.

[Overread]

I think with the popularity of Ebooks and the fact that anyone can selfpublish an ebook we might see an explosion in both trash, but also quality diversity within all writing genres, including fantasy. Simple put the original gatekeepers (the publishers) are now partly removed if people choose to self publish. Thus we are freed of the patterns and selective process of the editors of select publishing groups, which should, in theory, allow for much greater diversity as to what can make it into the market.


Tolkien also has a massive legacy in this genre and he does indeed set in stone many of the world and culture elements for races; however lets not forget that Dungeons and Dragons also builds right off that andhas a massive current influence upon newer generation readers and gamers. So in part its something that has stuck; but lets not forget that much of what Tolkien wrote is also strongly based upon Norse legends - so even those looking back to a western old culture background are going to build in some Tolkien esque feeling elements to their writing.

[Psychichobo]

Yeah, it does bug me a lot, as I posted in that thread I do get fed up with wonderful worlds with lame-ass characters.

I think it's a problem with the way fantasy players perceive the worlds they create - they imagine a setting and then, like all nerds, imagine what it would be like being in that setting. However, they tend to do it from a 'tourist' perspective - where you're just being shown a fantastical world without getting to really know characters.
Therefore, characters and their development in general come second to the magical world.

There is also a comfort zone aspect - some people just like writing with a set of basic guidelines, so that they can create a story without having to develop everything from the ground up. The same comes from publishers (as has been mentioned) and also from readers - I once wrote a story with Beastmen with a thuggish colloquial accent and people found it strange. This is of course ironic given that in many fantasy writings, angry mindless barbaric Orcs and monsters tend to be able to speak in perfect Queen's English and often read it well too. But, that's what they expect.


As for eReaders... well, I don't know. As has been said, it will lead to the gems being smothered by the garbage, and Deviantart has proven to me that garbage does get adored and five-starred a little bit too often.

[Rakuall]

I think the lack of diversity is partly caused by familiarity, and partly by consumer hate-dom*.
For example, if you have a race of ancient, immortal, arrogant, highly magical, forest based race called Grellinks, your editors/consumers will likely ask why not just call them elves (and perhaps demand a change).
Similarly, if your elves are short lived yet predate all other races, prefer science to magic, and live in the prairies, many of your consumers will likely cry that your elves possess none of the traditional elven traits, and think less of the work for it.

For every person that claims to want diversity, there are 3 more who want 'diversity', and a dozen who'd rather play it safe/fear change.

*Buyers will complain about everything. in a 99.9% error free product, expect an inordinately large new one to be torn over that tenth of a percent.

[coff]

There was a recent article on Cracked about the stereotypes and poor representation in video games which has me thinking about the subject. Bioware seems to be their favorite target for falling into cliche/stereotype/trope. Though the article acknowledges that it is probably due to the fact that they're one of the few companies willing to push those boarders in the first place which brings their failings to the front.

The more I think about it without a truly broad cast spanning a number of ethnicities and hitting on many personality types within those it is nearly impossible.

You could try and write a story where everyone deliberately defies racial stereotypes but I'm sure there'd be someone there to call attention to the fact that it seems forced and awkward. Avoiding falling into the trap of using real world examples (thereby sounding racist myself) you could have an adventuring party where the dwarf is the mage and the elf is the fighter with a hammer but does that really fix anything?

I think the safest approach is to ignore that kind of thing all together. It's probably why X-Men have been a favorite of mine for so long (coff's going on a tangent). I never noticed at first but it has become quite obvious since it was pointed out that most superhero teams are all white males with a woman and a black person thrown on to round out diversity. JLA: Wonder Woman & Jon Stewart (Cyborg in DCnu). Avengers: Wasp & Black Panther (albeit BP was a late addition).

To be fair X-Men started fairly mono-chromatic but since Giant-Sized X-Men in '75 has maintained the most diverse cast of any group of superheroes. That and their original conception has been one of the downtrodden minority. The message stands to this day.

(I work at a comic book store).

I had a hard time a few weeks ago when a patron was complaining about Astonishing X-Men #51 in which they celebrated a gay marriage. He was telling me about being a father and how tough it was raising his children to be moral individuals when the comics he used to love were being filled with some kind of agenda. The irony of him hating that the comic was acknowledging homosexuality in a franchise solely based around a group of individuals who learn they are different during puberty and are hated and feared by humanity in general was apparently lost on him. That being said he spends over $150 a month at the store, which kinda prevented me from getting confrontational.

Uhg, it's almost 5:30 here and I'm rambling aimlessly. I should sleep. I'll double check this tomorrow to see if I am making sense or totally off base.

[Trygon]

The problem is that most Sci-Fi and Fantasy is created for its main audience; basement dwelling, sunlight fearing, pale skinned, forever alone teenage nerds. And it is by catering to their delusional man child fantasies that they make their money. Of course, these days things are changing due to Mainstream interest, but this will probably just create new problems.

[Psychichobo]

Thing is, I've heard the argument before that it can seem too forced and awkward to try and go against the grain. However, that's a bit of an overreaction towards the problem - you don't have to go to the opposing extreme to create a sense of diversity.

For example, a female character in a superhero world would often have this perfect Hollywood body despite her background or even species, and often has a superpower that's either feisty or based around empathetic peace loving concepts.
Simply giving her a more realistic physique would be a start, and as for powers give her a power that you'd find interesting or clever, one that you'd think of before thinking of a character to give to. There you go: you have a female character that isn't a mass of curves that heals people and weeps a lot.

I think the real problem is that people see being a woman/black/alien/elf/whatever is its own personality trait. When I was growing up a lot of cartoons had a team where often there was a token girl who didn't really do much apart from be sensible, and wasn't really allowed to have a character. Other characters had their own personalities and traits, but being a girl was treated as the same thing.

I dunno why I tend to get annoyed about sexism in particular. Maybe I just played too much Soul Calibur recently or something.

[WestRider]

Jul 23, 2012 20:22:00 GMT Psychichobo said:

I think the real problem is that people see being a woman/black/alien/elf/whatever is its own personality trait. When I was growing up a lot of cartoons had a team where often there was a token girl who didn't really do much apart from be sensible, and wasn't really allowed to have a character. Other characters had their own personalities and traits, but being a girl was treated as the same thing.

With only a single example in a group, it's nearly impossible not to get written off as stereotypical, or just a token. The counter-example that really makes the point for me just covered Gender, not race, but I believe the point generalizes: On their own, any one of the women on Buffy the Vampire Slayer could have been dismissed as a token, as stereotypical*, but when you've got Buffy, Cordelia, Willow, Joyce, Anya, Tara, and Dawn all fleshed out as characters and constantly contrasted against each other, it becomes much harder to see them as anything but individuals.

*This actually happened to Cordelia to a certain extent when she moved over to Angel later on.