A Sad Truth

So the other day I was reading an article that demanded that every single book needs to have one LGBT person. Doesn't matter the type or gender, they just need to be a reoccurring character with some good character development. You know, I'm the type that's all for diversity. I believe you should try to represent more for the masses, it's unfair to have an all snowy white American/British/Canadian cast all the freaking time. However, I also don't believe we should absolutely freaking placate to other people just because.

This world doesn't cater to you, so I don't have to either.

Wait...

Doesn't that just defeat the whole purpose of my opening paragraph? Yes and no. While I do believe in diversity, I don't think that you should have 'token characters'. When I was a kid, my mom would watch TV with me and would sigh and say 'token character' whenever a person of color would show up on certain programs. This was the late nineties and early two thousands, so it happened a lot less than when the bulk of my audience was growing up, but that character still stood out like a sore thumb. If the writers of the show really cared about diversity then they would add more characters of ethnicity not just one. You don't have to add diversity because that's the hippest thing, you don't have to cater to other people, just yourself and maybe your moral compass.

In my own WIP I have a mass of heterosexual characters, and the only one on the other side of the court is an asexual character, Yup, not even gay or transgender, they just don't care about sex. Did I add them in because the asexuals have been screaming for proper representation? No. He, yes it's a guy, just doesn't like sex; there's no need for some deep or hidden meaning in it. I also have two Japanese characters, a white woman, a black teenager, and a white guy. Did I choose these characters to be this way just so the minorities in question can have representation?

NO.

Seriously, when you begin to write things just because you don't want to offend people, that's when you know your stuff is going down the crapper. If anything your writing should offend people! It should make them think long and hard as they write angry tweets on your Twitter. It should worm through their brains to the point that the whole meaning of your story is twisted in their eyes and they found an entirely different, albeit ridiculous, message of your book. You're a writer and you shouldn't have to cater to anyone, that's why there's genre and even age and sexuality shelves. If they want something specific then google search it like everyone else. But if they just want a good book that just so happens to have gays, an Indian protagonist, and even a sociopath, then so be it.

I'm gonna go play Uncharted now....