[00:13] Rachel: Hey writers. Welcome back to Story magic. The podcast will help you write a book you're damn proud of.
[00:18] Sam: I'm Sam.
[00:19] Rachel: And I'm Rachel. And today we're going to talk about LGBTQ representation in fiction. We are joined by a wonderful guest, Sam Cameron. Sam is here to talk about this very important topic. I'm really grateful to have her here today, so I want to introduce her to our listeners. She is also a longtime listener, which is very exciting. Sam Cameron, she her is a high school history teacher. Ya author and author accelerator certified book coach, specializing in kidlit. She believes all children deserve to see themselves represented in great books. They deserve a chance to read your story, and you deserve a chance to tell it. So welcome, Sam. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.
[01:04] Sam: Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here. I love this podcast. I'm really happy that I get to talk to you about this issue.
[01:11] Rachel: Me too. I am too. And it's so wonderful to have you guest hosting while Emily is out on maternity leave. We've had such a great group of guests that have joined me, so I'm very appreciative that you could fit this into your schedule. And like you said, this is a very important topic I can't wait to get into have I don't know that I've said this on the podcast before, but you're part of our tenacious writing program, and I have talked about it there. But I am bi, and so this is really important to me and something that I'm also learning myself and knowing that I think we can jump right into this conversation of with LGBTQ plus representation, I always feel very nervous about getting it wrong. I always feel very nervous about, like, I don't want to make any mistakes, I don't want to misrepresent, I don't want to do any harm with my story. And so usually that leaves me feeling very timid and very nervous of how to navigate these waters. But as a member of this community and trying to be more vocal about that, I do want to get it right. So can you talk to us a little bit about perfectionism and how that plays into including this representation in our stories and how do we navigate that?
[02:31] Sam: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm by two also, and I think that a lot of writers feel really strong pressure to get this right, and the perfectionism definitely comes in. And I think it's something that whether you have some sort of way that you're marginalized or not, there's a lot of pressure to get it right because it is so important. Right. You have this responsibility to either elevate stories that haven't been told or potentially, if you do it wrong, you could be causing more harm. So I think that there is a lot of pressure on writers to get this right. And as a result, you kind of end up in this situation where some writers, especially really writers who are coming from a more privileged perspective, sort of react to this with, like, I don't even want to deal with this. I don't even want to wade into this at all. I'm just going to write the characters who are like myself. And that's its own kind of problem because then you potentially end up with only having characters who are white, cisgendered, straight, able bodied, straight size, like all of those things that are normed in our culture. And that causes its own kind of harm. Because then it just kind of perpetuates this idea that there's only one way to be, quote unquote, normal in our society. So that's not really the solution, even though it might feel safer. And so I think the framing around perfectionism here is to actually acknowledge that you are never going to be able to do this perfectly, just like you're never going to write a perfect story that everybody loves. You're never going to perfectly represent a marginalized character in a way that everybody universally agrees is a good representation. And so rather than letting that freak you out and just throw up your hands, like, oh, why should I even try? Think about it as just any other part of craft, right? You don't sit there and go, well, I can never create a perfect plot. Therefore I'm not going to try. You do try. You do the research, and you learn how to do it. And I think it's the same thing with representing marginalized characters. You learn how to try to do it the best you can.
[04:41] Rachel: Yeah. Hearing you say that, we're both book coaches. We both handle craft and teaching a lot, developing stories, but it's very in such a good way, a little convicting to me to hear you say it's just like craft. Of course you would just learn how to do it. Of course you would. And that seems, like, so simple. I mean, like, such a duh. That's what I mean.
[05:12] Sam: Yeah. I think as we get into some of my more specific suggestions about how to do this, some of you in the audience might be sitting there going like, oh, that just sounds like developing characters because yes, that's what it is. You're just doing some extra work to develop your characters.
[05:28] Rachel: Yeah. Okay, so let's say you have a student come to you that's like, I really want to tell a story that includes these characters. What are the steps you would tell them to start learning, to start taking actionable steps, to start diving into this with confidence that they can build a well rounded character that also has LGBTQ plus representation in their manuscript.
[05:56] Sam: Yeah. So I have what I would say, like, I guess five things that can go into this. So one is research. The first one is research, and I can go into more detail about that in a minute. The second dimension is having beta and sensitivity readers. The third is just in general in your life, cultivating a greater awareness of bias and tropes. The fourth is to make sure that when you're developing your characters, that they are more than their marginalization. And then the last one is that you can say the quiet part out loud sometimes, that sometimes it's okay to actually put voice to your discomfort rather than trying to make your characters perfect because people aren't perfect.
[06:44] Rachel: Yeah. Okay, so let's jump in then. Where do we start?
[06:49] Sam: All right. So research, I think, is a good place to start. So if you know there's a particular community or type of identity that you want to represent, the first step is to do quite a lot of research into that community and the history of that community and people's experiences. And even if this is a community that you yourself are part of or something that you identify with, I still think the research is important because none of us is born endowed with an understanding of tropes. I know for my own self that I think I probably internalized a lot of misogynist and biphobic tropes without knowing it.
[07:31] Rachel: Yeah.
[07:36] Sam: I feel like there's, like the trope in literature of it used to be that if a woman had sex, she had to die. Right?
[07:44] Rachel: Right, yes.
[07:45] Sam: Or like, if you had an openly queer character, they had to die. And that wasn't entirely gone. It still isn't entirely gone. And so you internalize those things even if they're affecting your identity. So doing research about the history of the community you're trying to represent, even if it's part of your own identity, I think is important and as much as possible, trying to find resources that are inside the community as opposed to outside. So, for example, let's say you want to write about a transgender character, and you're like, oh, The New York Times has all of this reporting about gender affirming care. So I'm going to read these New York Times articles, and they have all these op eds that are written by transgender people, and that's where I'm going to start. And that could be totally fine as a starting place, but you're going to get a very different perspective from The New York Times, which is outside the community, versus if you read The Washington Blade, which is an LGBTQ newspaper, or GLAAD, which is GLAAD, it's a media advocacy group. And actually, if you read Glad, you'll see that they're very not happy with The New York Times and the way that The New York Times reports on gender affirming care. Right. So you'll end up with a very different perspective. So, yes, definitely you can look at those outsider perspectives, but as you're doing your research, look for the ways in which people in this community actually represent themselves and talk about the issues that are important to them. And within that, a subset I will say about that. When you're looking at insider sources, start with professionally created sources rather than interrogating the people in your life. I've been guilty of this. I've definitely have friends who I'm very grateful to that I went and asked them all sorts of questions about their experience with their race or their gender identity and whatnot, and they were very gracious about answering my questions, and I didn't know any better. But the reason that it's a good idea to start with the professional sources is that your friends might be okay having those conversations with you, but they might not really want to talk about it with you. And there's all these people who have made it their paid work to compile resources about this. So start there rather than immediately talking to the people that you know who happen to identify this way.
[10:20] Rachel: Right. And when you approach those people, regardless of where they're friends or not, you might expect them, oh, well, if you were my friend, we should talk. But you're also asking them to do a lot of emotional labor to share their experience with you, and especially for that unpaid labor. That's not fair. We should be compensating the people who are able to share their experiences with us. I think that's really important because that's something that I've learned myself too, because it is your first instinct. A lot of time to go, oh, I know someone. I should go talk to them and see what they say. Let me bombard them with 20 questions about how hard it is to be this identity. And then you're like, well, wait a second, actually, that's probably not the right way to approach this.
[11:05] Sam: Yeah. So Google is your friend if you really have no idea where to start, right. Looking on Google Googling questions, do your normal, whatever, media literacy hopefully you've got some media literacy skills to know how to sort of tell the difference between types of sources. Look to see, oh, is this a source created by people inside the community or outside? I do also have some sources that I can recommend. So Glad is a good one for LGBTQ issues because they do publish specifically about Tropes and media advocacy because their whole mission is about better representation. If you're looking for resources on representation around race or ethnicity, there's a Tumblr account called Writing with Color. They have a lot of really great resources and articles, and there's a famous book called Writing the Other. And the creators of this book also now have a website that has all sorts of webinars that you can enroll in and buy that go, like, deep dives on specific topics or, like, specific identities and learning about how to write those sensitively and providing kind of an overview. So those are all good places to start if you really, truly know nothing and don't know where else to look.
[12:34] Rachel: Awesome. I'm going to put links to those two specifics in the show notes so people can easily access them. Swipe up and see it. I'll include writing with Color, which is the Tumblr page that you recommended, and then writing the other, the book by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward, which I'm actually currently reading for our tenacious writing program. We're doing Book Club on it, so I'm very excited to share that too. And then don't forget the other two resources that you mentioned were The Washington Blade and can I'll just throw links in there, too? We'll link it all up. Okay, awesome. What else? Where to next?
[13:20] Sam: So I think the next part to talk about is outside of doing specific research about a community, you know, you want to represent, it's also helpful just like, generally to broaden your awareness of tropes and bias in just whatever is the water that you're swimming in in your culture. And you can do this by going to those sites, for example, that I mentioned. But also, some of it, I think, just comes from reading widely or listening widely to people, creators from different backgrounds and kind of hearing what they have to say. So what opened my eyes up to this was totally by accident, a friend of mine turned me onto the podcast, which please, which is about it's two female scholars, Canadian female scholars, talking about Harry Potter. And it's delightful. It's incredibly delightful. The two hosts are extremely smart, they're very funny, and one of the things they talk about quite a lot in the podcast is they talk about the antifat bias in Harry Potter, which in 2019, when I first heard this podcast, that was not a thing I had any awareness of whatsoever. Like, no conscious awareness of, right? I definitely had a lot of implicit bias about it. So they talked about the fact that JK rawling throughout the books uses fatness as like a shortcut for moral degeneracy, that a lot of mean characters in particular are described as fat. And what they point out is that this is not a characterization she invented, it's just that she's relying on an existing cultural language that characterizes people in this way, and that's why tropes work. But it's also what makes them so pernicious, right, is that your audience doesn't have to explicitly be aware of them, and in fact, it actually works better when they're not. And so, listening to this podcast, I suddenly realized that I had a minor character in one of my stories who I basically had done the same thing. Like, I hadn't done enough characterization of him. I was relying on his body size and his body shape as a shortcut to get the reader to decide that this character was villainous, right? And so I was like, oh, this is horrible. I've done this very harmful thing. And also, it's lazy writing. I didn't actually do the work to make an interesting, good character. So I went back and I reworked that character. And I was like, well, what would happen if I made this character conventionally attractive and very muscular? And as soon as I did that, I had to do a lot more work to communicate to the reader that this was a villainous character. He also became much more sinister and much more interesting than he was when I relied on the trope. And none of that would have happened if I hadn't just been reading and listening and becoming open to other biases that I wasn't even paying attention to. So I think part of your research is not necessarily just looking at the communities you're explicitly trying to represent, but just generally educating yourself about the water you swim in. Like, what are the tropes and the biases that are prevalent in your culture?
[16:41] Rachel: Right? Yeah. Okay, so I'm thinking now from I guess I have a couple of questions, so I'm going to try and put them in order. When I think of like, okay, I want to catch myself to see if I do that. I want to make sure that my manuscript isn't doing that. So one of my questions is, okay, I need to do the research we talked about, that I need to become aware of my biases and my tropes. And then in the writing process, I probably need to do a read through. Am I making conscious choices with my characters and their descriptions and how I have characterized them? If I'm feeling like, man, I don't know that I'm catching it. I am nervous. I'm not sure that I'm actively doing the work I'm trying, but I still think that I might be having things that I'm not aware of. What should I do?
[17:34] Sam: So there's a couple of things you can do. So the first that I'm going to talk through is a little more detailed way that you can look in your own manuscript that might help you catch and then also what you can do if you're not sure that you're catching things. So one of my other suggestions, we talked about research for the specific community you're representing. We talked about generally broadening your awareness. And then another important step is to make your characters more than their marginalization. So to quote Walt Whitman, we contain multitudes, so should your characters. So a quick check that you can do, some questions you can ask for your characters is for any character, what purpose does this character serve in the story? Which you probably should ask anyway, right?
[18:23] Rachel: For a secondary character.
[18:24] Sam: I know you guys have a whole episode where you talk about the purposes that secondary characters serve, right?
[18:31] Rachel: Yeah, go ahead. I was going to say I can't remember which one it is, but I.
[18:38] Sam: Was actually just looking at it recently because I was having this conversation with a client of mine and we were talking about the purposes that their secondary characters served.
[18:47] Rachel: 39 Episode 39 there it is.
[18:50] Sam: Yeah. So listen to episode 39 and ask yourself, what purpose does this character serve? And what you want to look for is that all of your characters are critical to the narrative in such a way that removing them significantly alters the story. And if you have a character who doesn't actually serve a purpose and they're just there because of they check a diversity box or they're the butt of a joke, that's a good indication that you're struggling with your representation because they need to matter. And then the second thing you can do is make a list of the character traits that describe the character and use that to determine, can this character be distinguished from other characters by features other than their marginalized identity? So, for example, if you have a gay character, are they distinguishable by the same types of characteristics that you would use to differentiate between straight characters, or is their sexual orientation their only defining feature and stereotypes related to sexual orientation? These questions actually come from the Vito Russo Test, which is kind of like the Beckdell Test. So for those of you not familiar, the Beckdell Test was created by Alison Beckdell to test for representation of female characters. Incidentally, she's also queer, but this was for female representation. So the Beckdell Test is, is there more than one named female character? Do they talk to each other? Is their conversation about something other than a man? And so the Vito Russo Test is kind of like that, and it was developed it actually wasn't developed by Vito Russo, but it's named after him. He was a film historian, a film critic, and he was one of the co founders of GLAAD. So the questions in the Vito Russo Test are, do you have explicitly identifiably queer characters? Do they serve a purpose in the narrative? And are they distinguishable by characteristics other than being gay or trans or whatever it is? So asking those questions of your characters and actually making identify explicitly identify what purpose do they serve and what are their character traits? That can be a really good way to check your own work.
[21:25] Rachel: Yeah.
[21:27] Sam: And then let's say you did that. So, like the example you gave, you've done the research, you've done the check, you're still not sure the next step is the beta reader or the sensitivity reader.
[21:38] Rachel: Right?
[21:40] Sam: So some guidelines with beta readers and sensitivity readers. So a sensitivity reader just refers to someone. So, like, a beta reader might read your book looking for just the general reader experience, whereas, like, a sensitivity reader is someone who is looking for specifically issues of representation. So some guidance for sensitivity readers is you want to try to get feedback from multiple readers about your representation rather than relying on one. And that's just because no community is a monolith. So just because one person says, yeah, this is fine, doesn't necessarily mean that you've caught everything.
[22:26] Rachel: Right?
[22:28] Sam: So it's good to get multiple readers. Now, a lot of times, people, when we talk about sensitivity readers are talking about getting people from within the community that you're representing. However, I recently read a really interesting piece by Brooke Warner, who she's the creator of. She Writes Press, which is a hybrid publisher. And she wrote about the fact that you can actually sometimes have really good sensitivity readers who aren't from the community that they're reading for, and you can have really bad sensitivity readings done by someone who is part of the community. Right. So, like I previously mentioned, I was not endowed with a spidey sense for anti queer tropes just because I'm queer. In fact, I was actually probably more susceptible to internalizing those than someone who wasn't. So I had to learn what the tropes were before I could actually be any use to anyone as a sensitivity reader. So just getting someone who identifies with that community does not necessarily mean that you're going to get a great sensitivity read. So you want somebody who has some awareness of tropes or who can tell you a little bit about how it would make them feel or know something about the stereotypes. And then the last sort of guidance with sensitivity readers is you want with any type of feedback to listen for consensus. So if you have multiple sensitivity readers tell you something that you wrote, made them feel a certain way, and it's not the way you wanted them to feel, that is an indication that you probably want to revise, right? So, like, if there's something you put in there that multiple of your sensitivity readers are like, I found this hurtful, and it wasn't a part of the book where you want them to feel that way, right. You might have a reason, like, you might have a character who's intentionally hurtful, right? And so then you'd know that you're achieving your goal. But if there's a character who's not supposed to be hurtful in that way, and you have multiple readers telling you that, that's an indication that you might want to revise, right?
[24:42] Rachel: Okay, so we've done the research, or we're doing we're doing the research. We are building or cultivating our awareness of these different biases and tropes that we've internalized through culture, through society, perhaps even things we've internalized that might conflict with the very way we ourselves would identify. We've also worked really hard to build characters that are dynamic, that are well rounded, they have goals. You can see why they're important to the story outside of their check a box identity. Then when we're still reviewing our manuscripts and we're like, okay, I really want to make sure that I'm not doing any unintentional harm, I'm not doing any I mean no harm. Let's just say we don't want to do harm. Then we can search out beta readers, sensitivity readers that can read this with that eye to help us determine where we need to revise catch things of, like, oh, I didn't realize how that was coming across. I need to revise it at that point. So do you suggest getting sensitivity readers, everything else? I think we can all agree that's an ongoing process that's like an ongoing learning. Throughout your writing process, do you recommend sensitivity readers at any particular part of the writing process? Is that something that you should get when your manuscript is almost finished or maybe a little earlier? Because you're not quite looking for plot things, you're looking for character things, like yeah. At what phase do you think this is something we should really incorporate?
[26:18] Sam: Yeah, so you might want to do some sensitivity reading earlier than you normally would, possibly, even when you're in the outlining phase, because some of these tropes are things that can appear in your plot or in the way that you've actually planned out the characters. So, for example, I think a problematic queer trope that you see a lot is the trope where you have a queer closeted bully who is bullying the only out kid at school.
[26:50] Rachel: Right.
[26:51] Sam: And then, miraculously, these two people end up in a relationship, and it's like it's a horrible trope because it's abusive.
[26:58] Rachel: Right.
[26:59] Sam: And it kind of falls into the trap of villainizing one of your two queer characters. And if your whole story is based around that trope, you'd like to know that before you get actually too deep into the weeds of writing it.
[27:15] Rachel: Yeah, that makes tons of sense. Yeah. Okay, cool. So you said earlier, okay, so that's four of our things. We've gone through four of your actionable steps, and then the last one that you mentioned earlier was saying the discomfort out loud. Let's talk about that. Tell me a little bit more about what that means.
[27:33] Sam: Yeah. So this is something that probably will show up when you're drafting or revising, which is that I've felt this my own self, and I think I've seen other writers feel this too, which is that you've done all the research, you know what the tropes are, you know what the problematic things are, and being perfect is impossible. Right. That so many of these there's so many things where not everybody within a community agrees on a term to use, or there's just so many times when we put our foot in our mouth. And so because you've done all the research and you know how things are supposed to be, it can kind of lead to this feeling like you have to create these perfectly enlightened characters who then maybe put their foot in their mouth by accident. You're trying to figure out how to not to do that, and it's just not realistic. And you kind of end up with these characters who might be a little flat or they might feel kind of preachy, and it's also just really hard. You might be totally at a loss for what to do because you're just trying to do something perfect that doesn't exist in real life because we're all dealing with bias of all kinds in real life. And so if it's relevant to your story, it can actually be okay and actually useful to have a dialogue on the page about bias. And especially if you can do it in a way that's that's not preachy and gives actually the reader a chance to go through that checking of their bias in an approachable way rather than being talked at. So I know that this sounds a little confusing, and I picked out a couple of examples that I can read because I know you all like examples.
[29:23] Rachel: Oh, totally.
[29:24] Sam: Let's do it. So these are both examples. These are both books that are about queer characters. And the selections I picked are where the characters are putting their foot in their mouth about race or ethnicity or culture because so the two authors I picked are Alexis Hall, who wrote Boyfriend Material and a ton of other really excellent books, and Becky Albertalli, who wrote Simon Versus the Homo Sapiens Agenda. So I'm going to read an excerpt from Boyfriend material by Alexis Hall first. And I know you guys swear on this podcast. There is swearing.
[29:59] Rachel: Sweet. Let's do it.
[30:00] Sam: Go for it. In this excerpt. Okay, so the main character, Luke, is at his apartment with some of his friends who have come over to help him clean his apartment because he's been living in squalor for years and he's finally ready to clean his apartment. We all flopped down and waited semi patiently for James Royce Royce to introduce the food. I'd never quite figured out if this was a chef's thing or a hymn thing, but he got borderline huffy if you tried to eat something he'd made for you before he told you about it. So he announced this is a traditional pork pie with hot water crust pastry. Sorry. Not suitable for priya. But it's a picnic. You can't have a picnic without a pork pie. Priya gave him a look. Yes, that's absolutely true. I have all these magical childhood memories of how every summer I'd go out into the park with my family and my mum would make Roti and Samosas and Reita and a pie none of us could eat. Then when we got home, we'd lend it to the Jewish family next door so they could take it out on their next picnic. I'm sorry, darling, that was culturally insensitive of me. But I did make you a lovely quiche. Oh, she perked up. Is it the broccoli and goat cheese? One caramelized red onion cream and Stilton. Okay, I'm sold. You can keep your pie infidels there's. Also went on James Royce Royce with typical ceremony, a Kale Waldorf salad with buttermilk dressing, a selection of handmade dips, including the hummus you were so fond of last time, Teresa. Some of my homemade bread, naturally, and a range of local cheeses. Then. To finish. We have individual raspberry fools in Mason jars. And don't worry, Luke, I brought my own spoons. Priya dragged a cooler out from behind my sofa. Well, I brought beer. She struck a Royce roisian pose. It's a sumptuous hops based beverage served in a bottle. I'm seeing what you're doing there, Priya, he mocked, glowered at her over the top of his black rimmed hipster frames. And since I've already blotted my cultural copy book, I've always wondered why you're okay with alcohol but not with cakes. You want the long answer or the short answer? What's the short answer? Fuck you, James. She grinned, and he asked warily, the long answer? Because in case you haven't noticed, I'm not a very good Muslim. I fuck women, I drink alcohol, and I don't believe in God, but I grew up not eating pork, and so it still feels weird to eat an animal that rolls around in its own shit all day. Actually, pigs are very clean animals. Yeah. She shrugged. Still not going to eat them.
[32:31] Rachel: Love that. That's very clever. That's a great way for these characters, too. I didn't feel I haven't read the book, so I'm not sure how they've been interacting so far, but it felt like they have a friendly ish disposition. A friendly disposition to just to banter with each other and to explore these things without honestly authentically.
[33:00] Sam: Yeah, absolutely. So these characters that you hear interacting in the scene when the book takes place, they're all, like, 27 or 28 years old, and they've been friends since college, so these are close friends, and they're all queer. They're all of some different flavor of queer and, as you heard, have different racial and cultural backgrounds that come up in the other. So part of I think what works about right, aside from the fact that it's charming and it's a loving way of addressing the bias, is that one, the problematic statement gets called out. Right. It's not just like left alone to be there. And to be honest, if Alexis Hall hadn't called it out, I probably wouldn't even have thought of it or noticed it in the book. But the other thing that I think is useful is he's not just doing it because it's, oh, I said this thing, and now I need to call it out. It's actually relevant to the story. So the story as a whole is very much about themes of messiness and imperfection and how people can love you even if you're not perfect. And so that whole interaction just models the story point, even though the people who are talking aren't the main characters.
[34:16] Rachel: Yeah. I'm really glad you've looped in the story point, because when you said earlier that this discomfort, we shouldn't just put it in the stories just to highlight discomfort. Right. Like, it's serving a purpose, and we're able to tie that purpose back to the story point. I was actually going to ask you about that, of like, okay, so when we're making the conscious decision of.
[34:43] Sam: What.
[34:44] Rachel: Are the discussions we're having, what are the points that we're going to call out, what are these things that we're going to say that we're going to give? Pushback on. We're still making sure that it's related to the themes of our story, and we're not including it simply to maybe even cause pain in others, but to put it there. Just to put it there. It's there because, like you said, this is relevant to messiness and imperfection, and these friends are messy and imperfect, and they're calling it out, and it sounds like learning and growing together.
[35:16] Sam: Yeah. And the second example I was going to read is from Simon versus the Homo sapiens agenda. And very similarly, this is an interaction between friends and the purpose of having the problematic statement. And then the call out is it's actually relevant to the plot that Simon has this bias and this blind spot that he's not aware of at the beginning of the story? And it's actually Becky Albertalli giving the reader some clues about a central mystery in the story. And there's a couple of times where this bias is called to his attention, and part of it is also to clue the reader in that there is something important that Simon is missing throughout the whole story. So in this little excerpt so Simon is, for those of you not familiar with the story, simon's high school. I think he's a junior. Yeah, I think he's a junior in the story. And so he's at a Halloween party, and he's had a little bit to drink at this Halloween party when this scene takes place. Simon, how much did you drink? Asked Leah. I'm twisting the ends of her hair. Leah's hair is so pretty, and it smells exactly like French toast, except that's Abby, Leah smells like almonds. One beer. One most excellent, most delicious beer. One beer. I can't even begin to express how ridiculous you are, but she's almost smiling. Leah, did you know you have a really Irish face? She looks at me. What? You guys know what I mean. Like an Irish face. Are you? Um, not as far as I know. Abby laughs. My ancestors are Scottish, someone says. I look up and it's Martin Addison wearing bunny ears. Yeah, exactly, I say as Martin sits beside Abby. Close, but not too close. Okay. And it's so weird, right, because we have all these ancestors from all over the world, and here we are in Garrett's living room, and Martin's ancestors are from Scotland, and I'm sorry, but Leah's are totally from Ireland. If you say so. And Nick's are from Israel. Israel? Says Nick, fingers still sliding over the frets of the guitar. They're from Russia. So I guess you learn something new every day, because I really thought Jewish people came from Israel. Okay, well, I'm English and German and Abby's, you know, oh, God, I don't know anything about Africa, and I don't know if that makes me racist. West African, I think. Exactly. I mean, it's just the randomness of it. How did we all end up here? Slavery, in my case. Abby says, and fucking fuck. I need to shut up. I needed to shut up about five minutes ago.
[38:07] Rachel: Nice. So tell me why this works. Tell me why you said that. The author is trying like we're showing something to Simon here. We're showing him that he has a bias and it's making him a little blind. And he, in this moment, is like, oh, my God, what am I doing?
[38:25] Sam: Yes. And there's a couple of other times before the bias is fully relevant to the plot where Simon has it pointed out to him by different characters. So it's not the same. Abby isn't the one who points it out to him every single time. But there's a couple of other times where it's explicitly stated or pointed out to Simon different elements of this bias of the way he thinks about or feels about black people that he interacts with. And I think it also serves, like I said, not only for Simon to realize that he's been missing something all along, but also to clue in the reader that this big mystery Simon's trying to solve, part of why he can't solve it is because he has this blind spot.
[39:11] Rachel: Got it. That makes sense. So our author here is very clearly cluing us in, and Simon at the same time, through using the discomfort that you're missing to you've got work here to do.
[39:27] Sam: Yeah. And it's also relevant to the story point, just like the boyfriend material example. So I think probably Simon versus the homo sapiens agenda. Simon's gay. He's closeted. And the story is about him striking up an anonymous email conversation with another gay closeted kid at his high school. They don't know who the other one is, and he's trying to figure out who this other boy is that he's essentially falling in love with over email. And so the whole story is about how Simon is kind of invisible, feels sort of invisible because there's this part of his identity that people don't see. And it's a lot that that element know what people see and how people perceive us. So in addition to Becky Albertalli planting these clues for us, it's also once again relevant to the story point.
[40:16] Rachel: Wow. I need to check both of these books out. I have not read them before, but they're going on my goodreads in my Libby as soon as they're so delightful.
[40:25] Sam: So delightful. And both the audiobooks are great.
[40:28] Rachel: Oh, I love it. So the author is using these problematic and uncomfortable statements to address something relevant to the story. So when we as writers are navigating these waters I think what I'm picking up here is that we don't need to shy away from the difficulty like the discomfort. We just need to be very careful about how we choose to put it on the page, how we show it.
[40:53] Sam: Exactly.
[40:53] Rachel: Yeah. And that also requires I think it's very smart how you've laid out these actionable steps for us, because I don't think you can get here until you have done the research, until you've learned all the tropes. You need to be aware. You need to be conscious of the different sides. I mean, not sides. That's not the right word, but you know what I'm saying? You need to be conscious of this before you can just decide, oh, I'm going to put a problematic statement on the page and see how these characters react to it.
[41:29] Sam: Yeah. Because Becky Albert Alley, for example, had to know enough about racism and anti black bias in order to have this black character who would authentically call out this white boy who she's friends. Right. For this thing that he said, for having this blind spot. You needed Alexis Hall to know enough about Muslim South Asians in Britain to create this gay Muslim South Asian woman who would have this relationship with this other guy in such a way that when he says the thing, alexis hall notices that it's problematic and can call it out from this other perspective. So, yeah, absolutely. You have to have done the research and have the awareness before you can get to the point of showing it on the page in that way.
[42:17] Rachel: Yeah. And it's so important to get here, though. It takes the work, but the results are beautiful, brilliant stories that change hearts and minds. And it's important that we have these voices on the page. So it's like, for someone who perhaps is like, thinking, how do I do this? Oh, my God. It just seems like a lot of work. Like, number one, you need to check yourself, because this is life and we need to be representing the people around us. And like you said earlier, it's not any harder than learning craft in and of itself. This is just another part of the human experience that you need to learn. But number three, what beautiful stories, what amazingly powerful narratives that result from doing work like this and from putting it on the page and not shying away from it.
[43:11] Sam: Yeah, exactly. And not just for helping people who don't see themselves represented, getting to see themselves, but also for people who have that same bias, who maybe didn't realize they had it until they get a chance to experience that call out through a character, rather than having to experience it in their own life, is very powerful.
[43:34] Rachel: Yeah. That's how I think I went through a lot of personal growth, was by reading lots of stories. And I'm an avid manga reader, so I read tons of manga that had all sorts of different identities and characters and that changed me. Helped me open my eyes to some internalized behaviors that I had had and internalized beliefs that I had had that were just not true and that were also not congruent with the type of person that I wanted to be. Very important. So I know there is also this sentiment of shouldn't I just stay in my lane? Yeah. What do you think about that?
[44:21] Sam: Yeah. So there's not a simple answer to that. That question is so complicated and people are really divided on this. So for those of you not familiar with the idea of staying in your lane so staying in your lane is the idea that you shouldn't write about or you shouldn't have a point of view character that is marginalized in a way that you don't share. So what that would mean is that if you are a man, you shouldn't be writing about a point of view character who's a woman. If you're a white person, you shouldn't be writing a point of view character who's a black person, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And on the one hand, this seems like a decent rule of thumb because it protects in the logic of the stay in your lane. It's not saying that you can't have characters who are marginalized in a way that you're not. It's just arguing that they shouldn't be point of view characters, right? So it reduces the likelihood that you're taking from somebody else the ability to represent themselves. Right? It's an idea of, like, if you're a privileged person, you should make space for marginalized people to represent their own experiences. So that's one piece behind the idea. The other part behind it is that it reduces the likelihood that you're going to create like a really harmful representation. Now, the people who don't agree with that, there's a couple of reasons why not. So one is that it can sound a little bit like a double standard. So for example, if we stick with the gender example, the argument is that a man shouldn't write a female point of view character, but that a woman could actually write a male POV character. And the logic behind that is that if you are a marginalized person, you have to intimately know the majority culture in order to survive, right? Like, if you're a CIS woman, you can't make it through the world without knowing about male spaces and having to make it through male spaces, you know, about man stuff. Whereas men, CIS men can go their entire lives without having to go into female spaces or know things about women's experiences because the world is built in such a way that they could do that. So that's the reason behind that argument. Even though it sounds like a double standard, but even though there's lots of examples, again, sticking with gender know CIS men who have written very poorly done female characters. You also have, like, Scott Westerfeld or Philip Pullman who've written these really dynamic, amazing female hero characters in know, the Uglies Leviathan Golden Compass, who are really compelling and three dimensional in a context where there's not necessarily a lot of that to go. So so that's one of the sort of drawbacks. And then it gets even more complicated when you bring in sexual orientation and gender identity, I think, because if we insist on staying in your lane or own voices or whatever you want to call it, you get into the situation where people are potentially being pressured to come out when they're not ready. Because if you're writing about sexual orientation and gender identity, it might be that you're closeted or questioning and you're not ready to publicly be out yet. So, like, in my own case, because I'm bi for a long time, I just didn't write about queer characters because I could be straight, assumed I could kind of hide behind that identity, and I could write about my attraction to women by writing about it from a male perspective because I wasn't ready to be out. So even though I wanted to write about queer characters, I didn't feel like I could. And then you have cases like Becky Albertalle, who I was just talking about, who wrote Simon versus the Homo sapiens Agenda, there was all sorts of really ugly stuff happening around. So when Simon vs. The Homo sapiens Agenda became a major movie and it was called Love Simon, the film version yeah. Suddenly that drew a lot more attention to her book. And so you had all these people saying, like, wait a second, this woman is CIS and straight. Why is she writing all these books about queer teenagers? And it kind of pressured her to come out as by and to figure all this out in public in front of this giant audience, which isn't a thing that anyone should have to go through. So I have mixed feelings about this idea of stay in your lane, because on the one hand, I think there are some really compelling arguments for letting a marginalized group of people represent themselves if you're a privileged person, not trying to step into that space. But on the other hand, you can have some really great representation come out of people writing outside their lane, or you can have this issue where if we insist that everybody has to follow this, then you have people being pressured to come out or being outed when that's not what they want. So I think that if you find yourself compelled, like if you're writing from a place of privilege, meaning that you identify in a way that is what would be normed in our society. So white, able bodied, cisgender, straight all the way down the line, and you find yourself wanting to write a POV character who is marginalized in some way that you are not. So you're straight, but you want to write about a queer character. For example, I think it's really important for you to do some very deep thinking about why does this story feel important to you to tell? What are you trying to do by telling the story? What are you trying to explore and why are you the right person to tell this story? Like, are you the right person to tell this story?
[50:34] Rachel: Right.
[50:35] Sam: And to just kind of keep in mind that if you do decide to move forward with it because you have a compelling reason and you do think you're the right person, you kind of have a responsibility to do it as best that you can. And you also have to just be aware of the fact that your name is the one on the book. So you have to know that people are going to come at you and you have to just be okay with that and either stand behind what you did or be willing to apologize. And if that idea of doing that feels not possible, then you might want to reconsider writing that book right. Or that story. Or maybe you just write it for yourself and put it away for a while while you think about it some more. So that's what I would say on that. It's not a simple answer, but I think you really got to do some internal, deep internal thinking.
[51:25] Rachel: Yeah, that makes sense. And I also don't hear you saying, if you decide this is not something you want to do, then you don't have to do the work. I think people can take from the stay in your lane argument or the stay in your lane opinion that okay, if I choose to stay in my lane, I don't have to still educate myself on all of the facets of the human experience. I can just write what I know and live in my happy little bubble as if nobody else besides me exists. That's not at all what the point of this argument is. It's that there are voices that can highlight things and if you are not educated within this arena, it might not be the right choice for you to do it, but that doesn't give you an excuse not to educate yourself.
[52:19] Sam: Right? Yeah, exactly. Because even if you decide to stay in your lane for your point of view characters exactly. Probably your point of view character doesn't exist in a world that people like them because none of us exist in that world. Yeah, I mean, it would be so boring. It would be so boring.
[52:38] Rachel: Yeah. And I see that argument, too, of like, in fantasy where, well, it's a fantasy world. It can be whatever I want and it's like, come on, I think you're veiling something.
[52:50] Sam: Yeah, well, also you have to know as a writer of fantasy and science fiction, like yes, you're making up a world that doesn't have to have the same rules as the world that we live in and doesn't have to have the same associations. But your reader doesn't live in that world. Right. So we use all sorts of language in our fantasy books. So here's a random example off the top of my head. Spartan. Right? You might describe a room in your fantasy novel as Spartan. There's no spartans probably or never was a sparta in the world that you created. But your reader still knows what that word means because right, so, you know, you so if you're going to say, like, oh, I can write this fantasy book in English and all of the words that are in English then you're implicitly making the assumption that your reader is coming from a cultural perspective and they have a cultural language that even if your world doesn't follow that logic, you're essentially translating your world into ours.
[53:50] Rachel: Yeah, exactly.
[53:52] Sam: Right? So those cultural assumptions and things that are going to be there.
[53:57] Rachel: If you're writing a fantasy world, a speculative fiction world where you're like, well, I don't have to deal with this because it's speculative and so I can just make it however I want to be, and these problems don't exist in that world. You're like, okay, maybe think about that. But also, like you've just said, that doesn't mean those problems don't exist for the reader. That doesn't mean these realities of marginalization don't exist for your reader. And the whole point of writing a story is to get inside a reader, like to speak to a reader. That reader is reading your book, hoping to find themselves in your book, to be entertained, to be moved, to feel, to feel. And if you're going to choose to cut out feeling, you're doing a disservice, I think, to your story, but also to our world, to your reader, but our greater world.
[54:49] Sam: Yeah, and you can definitely play with imagining a different reality. So if we get back into queer representation, something that I've noticed is really common in a common trend right now in fantasy and science fiction is basically writing a world in which homophobia or transphobia has never existed. Right. Or just like imagining, well, what if we just lived in a world where people could always marry whoever they wanted and whatever, and that's totally fine. There is something valuable in doing that thought experiment, but you're going to come up against dealing with our own biases. Like, I've actually done this. I had a fantasy world I was working on where I was trying to write a fantasy world where what if we just didn't have homophobia and transphobia? And what I started to run into is that I had based a lot of the plot on it being a patriarchal society and having this female character. And suddenly I started running up into all the stuff of like, wait, okay, hang on a second. How can they be finding ways to make it make sense that they're patriarchal but not homophobic and not transphobic? And that was leading me to have to grapple with that issue even though I was trying to create a world in which it wasn't an issue. So you live in the world too, you and your reader also. So even if you want to do, like, a thought experiment like that, you're going to have to think about these issues.
[56:18] Rachel: Yeah, that makes sense. I want to run through the things really briefly again. So we have our five action item steps. We have our research. We have cultivating awareness of the bias and tropes around us. We have making sure that our characters are more than their marginalization and wrapping up into that. Like you mentioned earlier, Sam, just generally strong character development. These are characters that still have the same goals, stakes, obstacles that any other character would have. Incorporating beta sensitivity readers. Beta sensitivity readers. And then lastly, navigating around that discomfort, saying it out loud, thinking through those questions like, why are you writing the story? Are you the right person to tell the story if you're including an identity that's not your own? As a point of view character discussing, how do I navigate my lane? What is this? And ultimately, I think just being very thoughtful and considerate and open minded, too, to learning. Like you've said multiple times, it's not going to be perfect. And so along those same lanes, we also need to be open to feedback when we get it. Always keeping our minds open to learning and growing and incorporating new things as we continue to write and continue to grow.
[57:40] Sam: Yeah. Easy peasy. Did not cause you any emotional turmoil whatsoever?
[57:45] Rachel: Not at all.
[57:45] Sam: Not make you feel uncomfortable at all?
[57:48] Rachel: Yes. Sit with your discomfort if you're having it. Work through your discomfort. I'm going to put a bunch of links into our show notes that we've talked about so far, and then I know, before we sign off, I would love for you to tell us about the quiz that you offer for people to gauge whether or not their manuscripts are LGBTQ plus inclusive.
[58:14] Sam: Yeah. So I created a quiz. It's called? Is my manuscript LGBTQ plus inclusive. And it's a series of questions that will walk you through the Vito Russo test, which I talked about earlier in the podcast, and also actually will help you to test your manuscript for some of the most common, problematic LGBTQ tropes. And when you take that quiz, in addition to getting a quick diagnosis of how LGBTQ friendly your manuscript is, you will also get added to my email list, and you will get my notes from this podcast and also more detailed notes about what all of the tropes are and some of the history. And you'll be added onto my email list and my weekly substac after that.
[58:58] Rachel: Love it. Awesome. Ten out of ten. Also recommend Sam's Substack. I am on it. And I always get so happy when I see your emails come through Monday. I think I got one this morning.
[59:10] Sam: Yes. I send out. Thank you. I'm so glad you like it. I send out substac updates on Mondays and Wednesdays. So on Mondays, I have what's called the TP diaries. So my company is called Truant Pen. So the TP stands for Truant Pen, but also like, toilet paper for your shitty draft. I love that. And so the TP Diaries are what I've been doing right, how I implement the strategies that I teach other people in my own writing, and how I fall down and make mistakes and am very imperfect all the time to try and just make that visible. And then on Wednesdays, I send out some action items. So if you liked the sort of practical action advice that I gave here, that's the kind of thing that you'll get on the Wednesday update.
[59:52] Rachel: Awesome. And I also know that you just started an instagram didn't.
[59:57] Sam: Did. Oh, did.
[59:59] Rachel: What's the handle? Let's all go. Follow Sam.
[01:00:01] Sam: The handle is at Truantpen, which again is the name of my company, and I've been enjoying kind of wading into this world. So as we're recording this, we're a few days away from the beginning of Hanukkah, and I've been working on a series of posts about eight books that have influenced me this year. One for each night of Hanukah.
[01:00:21] Rachel: That's awesome. I can't wait to read them. I am such a huge proponent of people being not social media, not social media in general, but about authentically sharing what's important to them on social media, like showing up and let's just get to know each other. So go follow Sam, and I'm going to put the link to your quiz in the Show Notes as well. So go take it, do this work, get your diagnosis, and then check out the rest of Sam's resources. This has been such a pleasure having you today. I really just am very thankful for your vulnerability and sharing and your knowledge and helping us all together learn and improve and tell better stories. I think this is really important. So thank you for coming on and talking about this with us today.
[01:01:08] Sam: Yeah, thanks for having me. It's super important. I'm glad to be able to share this. Yay.
[01:01:13] Rachel: Awesome. Well, if you want to build a successful, fulfilling, and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on our email list. Sign up now to get our free email course, the Magic of Character. After seven days of email magic, you'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the night. Link in the show notes. We'll see you there.
