Other Points of View

    In recent weeks, I have been doing a lot of looking into tropes and the misuse of them by the larger creative community. One of the things I have always felt I have been good at in writing is finding logical explanations for things beyond the reason of "just because."  I love characters with realistic motivations and reactions to situations. Hell, anyone that has ever discussed storytelling with me at any length know that my favorite stories are those in which the protagonist is a normal person thrust into extraordinary circumstances. It's fascinating for me to imagine myself in the character's place, debating what they did versus what I would do.

    That said, I found that on occasion I have used negative stereotypes to portray women and minorities in an unflattering light. I think this this stems from a few things, some of which were beyond my control until very recently.

    The first of these is, unfortunately for me in this regard, I am a male, white American. Just by nature, I gravitate towards characters that resemble me, and Lord knows the mass media caters to this. It isn't that I care less for characters outside this demographic, it's just when I write, I fall back on what I know. How many other people out the have heard the axiom, "Write what you know"? Even if you aren't an author, I'm sure this kind of advice makes quite of bit of sense, and starting out it is a very helpful tool. But part of getting better is learning when you don't need the training wheels anymore.

    As a fan of fantasy and science fiction, the overwhelming majority of material I encounter is both male and Caucasian centric. Take a moment to think of the main characters of all of the shows in this genre. I did. I was surprised when I couldn't think of a single person of color and only a handful of women. All this had been doing had been reinforcing my natural proclivities of using white men as heroes.

    The last one was something I had some awareness, but didn't realize that I knew so little about. I'm talking about the misogynist treatment of women in tropes. Don't get me wrong, as a man, I love a damsel in distress. Of course it's empowering to save the girl. And it has its place in fiction. Just not always in mine,

    So I'm just going to keep being me, keep trying to think outside the box, and keep an open mind. This was more of a random musing post, and less of a topic thing.