tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219281.post6925859505067618777..comments2023-09-16T07:50:15.160-07:00Comments on Simply Fred Smith: The Color of FictionFrederick Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06931988603225411355noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219281.post-71107259390869130562007-01-23T17:04:00.000-08:002007-01-23T17:04:00.000-08:00Hi Fred, great post.
Race/ethnicity is a huge com...Hi Fred, great post.<br /><br />Race/ethnicity is a huge component in the characters I create and, I think, not just for me but for every writer in general. Naturally then, socioeconomic status, educational background, urban or suburbanite, religious believe and gender comes into play as a result. As much as I would like my characters and their situations to be color-blind, the reality is that life isn’t so, and to create a character in such light would seem like a complete lie (even in fiction). <br /><br />At the end of the day it boils down to this: the experience of an African American will never ever be the same as that of a White American or a Latino American, and characters should reflect that. In turn everything changes then; the nuances, the actions/reactions of the character, the expressions, the storyline, etc. Yes, I know, things are changing and we are intermingling enough were lines are being blurred, especially with my generation (Gen Y), but race is much much bigger than black guys saying ‘dude’ and white boys getting their hair braided. At the end of the day the job of a writer is to tell stories that mimic reality. <br /><br />I actually loved your Keith character precisely because of his boldness and assertion of the L.A ethic hierarchy. It was expected in a story that was about the trials and tribulations in love and dating for a group of L.A man. Had the story taken place in, say, Wyoming then it would have been a different thing because places like this are homogeneous. Yet cosmopolitan cities like L.A and NYC aren’t, and race is an everyday issue. <br /><br />Sometimes I wonder: what if our greatest novelist weren’t telling stories that were race specific? Would there be a Toni Morrison? Garcia-Marquez?Josephhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17919339651556304621noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219281.post-73770444660221722342007-01-22T12:12:00.000-08:002007-01-22T12:12:00.000-08:00I don't comment much on blogs, but was inspired by...I don't comment much on blogs, but was inspired by your question. I'm taking a class now where we have been speaking a lot about the master narrative. It seems to me that when work doesn't follow the master narrative it's coined as African American fiction, gay fiction or even chic lit. As an apriring writer who has friends from various ethnic backgrounds I would love to create color blind characters and often find myself doing as such, but it can be difficult. I just want to create fiction. I don't want to be coined as a writer of gay fiction or black gay fiction. I just want to produce fiction. Labels can sometimes be narrow minded.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com