What Makes Fantasy Epic? (Emerald City Comic-Con 2015 Writing Panel Notes)

What Makes Fantasy Epic?

Peter Orullian, Robin Hobb, Patrick Rothfuss, Peter V. Brett, Steven Erikson

Moderator: Ellen Guon Beeman

The definition of epic fantasy, how it’s evolved, and how they create their worlds.

Would you say there are specific styles, plots, or characters that make it epic?

RH: It’s a story that is world-changing. But the author decides the size of that world.

PR: Everybody does it for a different reason. Ultimately, it’s about bigness. Bigness of book, bigness of story, bigness of world. He doesn’t think he belongs in epic fantasy – more heroic fantasy. His works are big in scope of character.

PB: These genres we cram works into to place in a bookstore are useful tools, but he knows no authors bound by the rules of specific subgenres. These labels are tacked onto the work after it’s done to sell it. Broad in scope, characters go on journeys.

PR: Likes the term BFF – Big Fat Fantasy is a clear, defining label.

PO: Different labels are attached by different readers, which frustrates the marketers too. It’s interesting to think about reader response defining category as well.

SE: Epic fantasy is the origins of literature. The trunk of the tree. Everything else has branched out from that. Yet it doesn’t get the critical acknowledgement that other epics do.

PR: It’s a weird inverted hierarchy – stories are classed by their props rather than their substance. If you think about it, Stranger in a Strange Land is sci-fi because there’s a Martian, when really if you think about it now, it’s more urban fantasy. Cowboys equal westerns. It’s not about substance but about scenery. Props of epic fantasy: Horses, nobleman, prophecy, etc.

PB: Magic is the defining part of fantasy, which is why there’s such a big argument over whether Star Wars is fantasy.

PR: Can’t agree that magic is a defining characteristic. It’s a sense of the wondrous, and magic’s an easy way to achieve that.

PO: Believes that magic is a vital part.

PB: Even if there’s no palpable evidence about it. Magic can be subtle.

PR: This may be a semantic discussion. Fantasy engages with the wondrous.

SE: It’s an extension of imagination.

PR: And science fiction is a subset of fantasy.

Specific characteristics that the hero has to display?

PR: You need a protagonist. Defining characteristics – we have tropes, but those are getting hammered into gravel to the better of the genre.

PB: The hero is *stubborn*.

EGB: Persistent.

PB: Sure, if you want to be nice about it. Bossy.

PR: We have done a better job of remembering what a hero is all about. A big person. Ancient Greek definition: A great man who falls from a height with a tragic flaw who screws up everything. A lot of genres have moved away from that, but fantasy has not. Superman is an adolescent power fantasy. He doesn’t have flaws.

SE: We have infantilized our heroes. Fantasy as a genre is not immune to it; but it’s more that action films reduce the notion of the hero to sociopathic vengeance. Issues with notion of hero. He tries to dismantle it.

PR: In Smallville, who was the interesting character as the show progressed? Lex Luthor. Superman’s so perfect, it’s the villain who’s more interesting. Like Herod. The one people show up to watch.

Are writers moving away from the flawed hero?

PR: We’re all about the flawed.

PB: We’ve even taken it to having the villain as the protagonist in different books. The idea of the cartoonish villain doesn’t exist so much – people have legitimate arguments about what they want and demonize the other side to justify their path of violence.

SE: Villains don’t think of themselves as villains.

PB: One trait that connects them is they solve their problems with violence. That’s what infantilizes them.

PR: There’s an SMBC cartoon – about Superman getting confronted by various “I’m not the villain,” and Superman doesn’t know who to punch. Terry Pratchett’s stories had characters on the edge of the stories that you get to know. Characters who initially are viewed culturally as the bad guys, you realize are just guys. And not a boring story because he showed a dozen times that the people you thought were bad are actually just people. It’s a lesson the world needs to hear a dozen times before it starts to soak in.

PO: It’s a powerful thing when you see the villains do something compassionate, when you get a chance to see that side. And when you see them do this, it throws the reader for a loop, deepens the story when you show the other sides. And when good characters make bad decisions in the interest of good – character building techniques. Done more often these days and it’s good.

In terms of techniques of where to start, do you have any advice? Where do you begin?

All: Draw a map!

RH: Never started out to write all the books she did in the same setting. Never sat down and said, “I’m going to do that.” It unfolds and unfolds and unfolds. You start to see connections. A lot of our writing happens in the subconscious. It’s a game you’re playing with your own mind.

PR: In terms of where you start, we’ve dug a deep groove in the genre because Tolkien had such a deep shadow. LOTR hit and suddenly there was a huge market demand for more like that. And that led to less-than-artistic books being wrote. And that begat a third gen of Tolkien-esque, and people decided to ask, “What is epic fantasy” and they defined it upon that. Tolkien didn’t define that. He was just a geek about languages and mythology. His passions informed his world and that’s what made it so cool and appealing. PR cares about history, sociology, dead religions and writes about that. You should write about what you dig. Do *that*.

PO: It’s interesting that there’s fantasy being written these days where something doesn’t need to be punched. It’s not necessarily all large scale wars.

PB: Violence can solve some of the problems.

PO: So much in PR's books that is written is cerebral. The hero doesn’t need to be scaling toward an epic grand scheme.

PR: Different characters approach things differently.

PB: Characters can find other ways to solve the problems.

PR: Classic quote: Fairy tales exist not to tell us there are dragons, but that dragons can be beat. That’s an oversimplification – we live in a scary world and it’s easy to feel powerless. In the folk tales someone disadvantaged used their cleverness to overcome a big problem. That metaphor is so appealing and gets repeated so often that it becomes the problem.

SE: It’s almost an oversimplification to simply just look at Tolkien as the progenitor. Stuff came out of pulp fiction and noir, too. Bear in mind that he’s not the only launching point. His legacy might be that he’s holding back Fantasy in terms of criticism. And when writing a series, you can screw up your editors by saying, “No, you can’t cut that because that comes back in Book #X.”

Audience Question: When you learn the rules of thumb and agreement that they can be broken, how much can you break them once you know them?

PB: That’s a big part of being a writer. We learn the rules and then we break them. Knowing where those rules are makes the work much stronger. Easier when you understand them before breaking.

PR: Successful criminals know what the law is. (Called lawyers usually)

SE: We all know the tropes. We’re taking on the subversion of those tropes now.

PR: Do whatever you want so long as it works. Best rule, but the most useless guidance.

RH: IF you’re breaking a rule solely for breaking, that’s not okay. “This is my story. My story breaks the rule, and that’s okay”.

PO: Rule avoidance is a problem, too.

Audience Question: How much can you make an epic fantasy mundane?

RH: Depends on how much you stretch it. If you’re writing anything mundane in your world you must be as accurate as possible in those mundane things in order for the reader to believe those fantastical things.

PO: Except for traveling.

PR: Shadowfax the horse is a big part of what made Gandalf cool.

Audience Question: When do you put themes of making fantasy more grounded in reality with themes you can relate to in the real world?

RH: When he has more questions than answers, he looks at something from several different angles, not to give the reader answers but to explain the world to herself.

PB: There are two parts of the story – what happens, and how the characters feel about something that happens. And the latter is more important. And what happens takes a back seat to the adventure. Emotions should resonate with the reader.

Audience Question: How do you name things?

PB: Big book of baby names. Changes the spelling.

PO: Finds consonants and vowels that sound good together.

RH: The obit page will take back to names that have become uncommon. Also play around with language. Take a Latin-based noun and turn it into somebody’s name. Eg. Verity sounds pretty but also means truth.

PR: Not enough time to talk about it right now – this needs its own panel.

Audience Question: When using legends and myths – are things to avoid? What do you do to avoid tropes?

Legends have been told and retold.

PR: Avoids prophecy. Such BS.

SE: You can have the prophecy so confused that no one can figure it out.

PR: Cheap tension, not developing story enough.

PB: One thing is consistent: There was a time gone by previous to another time for our heroes in almost every major story he can think of. A moral guide that seems inherent in most fantasies.

PR: Legend – something happened in the past; prophecy – something happened in the future. Legend is better because it’s a mystery you’re trying to uncover. He’s morally offended by prophecy.

PO: In world development, past events can influence your world as it is today. He’s not a fan of prophecy, either, but legends can be peppered into work.

SE: You can also use prophecy to mess with readers’ heads.

Looking Past the Target Audience (ECCC 2014 Writing Panel Notes)

And here we are, just under the wire. I saved the best for last; this panel on avoiding dated tropes, othering, and how to approach writing diverse characters in one's work was lively and intense. There's a lot of great info here. This actively extends the conversation touched on in other posts, such as Everything We Know is Sexist: Now What? and Writing Diversity. A discussion that should never end.

No, I don't normally wait a full year to post all of my notes from a convention, but I'm glad I finally have the opportunity to get these posted. Don Rocko and I are driving down to ECCC 2015 later today. In the meantime, enjoy what I learned at this awesome panel!

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Looking Past the Target Audience

Rachel Edidin, Regina Buenaobra, Cheryl Lynn Eaton, G. Willow Wilson, Andy Khouri, Sfe M., Scotty Iseri

What this Panel is About
- Brief history: This panel started a year ago because of the lack of intersectional diversity
- This is not Diversity 101. This is much more.
- Intersectionality: What it means to look at diversity from an intersectional angle

RB: Intersectionality assumes that we all live at the intersection of different identities, we’re a mix – power dynamics and struggles with various identities, not just one single identity

RE: When someone is described as from a mixed race background, assumption that it’s “White and (something).”

Panels often address one subject – the women’s panel, the queer panel, etc.

There are still a lot of stereotypes

Diversity in media and representation of characters – what does it mean to see yourselves in media? What do you look for? What do you latch onto when you find it?

CLE: Depends on age of person. When younger, visual representation was important, but as she got older wanted to find meaningful stories, creators of colour, women telling stories.

AK – Looks for intersectional characters. Lots of characters are delineated. White guy from Kansas, black guy from Africa. Willow’s Miss Marvel is Islamic American, dealing with tension that is rarely represented.

This not just about allegorical representation, but otherness, because people grow up thinking allegory is enough. Often the “different” character is used as cautionary tale. Healthy character stories, people living fulfilling lives, are never told.

AK: Example: Queer villain trope in fantasy

RE: There’s a consistent trend of queering and effeminization of male villains, even female villains – this is about moving beyond that.

RE: Geek culture – default definitions of not what a geek is, but what they look like, what their identity is, how they identify and react with that culture. What are your interactions and challenges?

SI: There have been growing pains – geek culture is now mainstream culture, cons are big, whereas as a tribe we’ve been historically downtrodden and pushed aside. But the fake nerd girl bullying is a reaction to all these new people in our party.

AK: Geek culture used to be defined as your interest in fringe tings, but now everyone has to share their experience of being into something few people used to be interested in.

CLE: By being part of a minority, it can be frustrating when you fall into different groups and those groups cut you out because of certain parts of you (coloured, female, etc).

Mandarin short on Thor 2 video: Mandarin goes to jail, and the assumption is that he is LGBT.

GWW: The impression is that when you’re in a fringe group, there’s an assumption it’s okay to other different groups. Even you’re part of a minority, it’s okay to make fun of everyone. There’s the assumption that you will find no allies in some groups. Someone even more on the outside than you are is still okay to make fun of. And then allies you could have had feel they don’t belong. There’s an unconscious need to keep the people you see as beneath you down.

CLE: It’s cute when you do it with Star Trek vs. Star Wars identities, but with these other identities, it hurts.

RE: If you ever hear someone call Big Bang Theory “nerd blackface”, tell them to go to hell. This is something you see in feminist communities, too. In one group, women who were gamers, comics fans, and yet heterosexual felt that because they were girls they had to make it clear that they were super straight. When we talk about women in comics we don’t mean “Women like you”. So, how do you change the landscape of the industry, the community?

SI – Looking for women writers for tv show, to maintain that balance in the room, but looking at narrative tropes of sci fi, not wanting to do star wars where bad guys are eerily foreign yet slightly familiar, looking to make a show with a good balance of creative talent, diverse, but anti the usual stabs at ethnicity (token character, etc) – imagine a world beyond that where they don’t have to do the Xmas ep.

CLE: Don’t have to do the Xmas episode when you have those people in the group to begin with. It’s normal, it’s natural. It’s up to the people in charge of building the community, the hiring, to make this a reality.

GWW: And as much as we talk about how important it is to have representation on the creative side, but also we need them on the editorial and executive side, because they are the gatekeepers. The conversation needs to also be, who’s on the other side of the table.

RE: Statistically, people hire other people of their own backgrounds because we’re humans and tribal and look for people like us, people we feel “safe” around. Left to our own devices, there are a lot of decent people perpetuating stereotypes.

RB: Questioning things is important. Example: ArenaNet – has 2 canon queer storylines, a pansexual race, looks for things that may speak to a different audience.

AK: There are benefits to hiring a diverse audience. The nature of the Internet mitigates a hiring bias. Not just people writing about their Xmas, but coming from different backgrounds influences the way you experience the world and the stuff you want to talk about. Maybe not to do with their personal identityy, but what they’ve discovered based on their journey.

CLE: Don’t just say “let’s have a diverse group for diverse experiences” – don’t come away assuming you can write about your culture. Your experience as your identity can write these things, but remember that the filter you were raised with will colour your story. But don’t think you can’t write about a culture because you haven’t experienced that culture directly.

SI: Having a wide variety of experiences affects us overall.

RE: We all bring our defaults and filters, they impact everything, small ways you interact with the world. Who’s doing it right, and what are they doing we can emulate?

AK: We are.

GWW: Ms. Marvel (young Muslim female superhero) – She didn’t think it would work, but she’s happy that Marvel sought it out. It’s stunning, but it’s a choice. At the end of the day, you want as many people interested as possible, but it’s rare to actually see thinking like that. And it’s not a model minority book, either; it’s a story about a girl in Jersey.

SI: Archie comics has done a good job. All characters of Riverdale are American high USA and that’s all normal, even the gay and black characters.

RE: Don’t ask why a character so demographically scattered, ask why aren’t they. With fiction, you can create that.

AK: Show Lost – a very diverse cast, each with their own backstory they bring to the present adventure.

AK: If you build it, they will come.

RE: ECCC tries to program to the audience they want to have, not based on what people who came last year liked. They’ve deliberately created space for diversity. Last of Us: main character is scruffy middle age dude. DLC and book - Naughty Dog deliberately wanted a story that people who bought the game didn’t necessarily want to see, a perspective they wouldn’t necessarily stumble on – intense teenage girl friendship, with the girls romantically involved, and this story made an interracial lesbian teenage couple the central characters. Using that is really cool and smart.

Question: What are good practices for privileged authors who want to include minorities, identities they don’t have?

RB: Ask people of those identity to read your work, review them. More than one.

CLE: Have friends of these various. The wider your world is, the wider your writing is going to be.

GWW: One also has to be psychologically diligent about the difference btw being an ally and being a savior – don’t put your idea of what success looks like into the mouths of these characters. Don’t just go with your own default narrative. An ally listens. Change your identity to allow someone else’s perspective into your life.

AK: Writing this stuff requires living and having experiences, learning about and getting to know people. Don’t just reblog what’s already out there. Go beyond what your understanding of what life is about.

SI: When asked if “is this offensive”, think, is this person going to get more of “okay” or “well, actually” – responsibility to educate rather than just being offended. Question whether it’s your story to tell. IF someone’s already out there writing that story, then give them the privilege and platform to pass it on to that person.

CLE: Mentoring also helps – allow those folks to mentor you.

Tweet other questions to @raebeta; tumblr extends conversation. This topic is waaay to big for one hour, one panel, seven people; so check out thatonepanel.tumblr.com

Writing Diversity (SIWC 2013 Notes)

  
Wow, it's hard to believe that SIWC was over two weeks ago. I had a fantastic time, made a lot of great connections, and came away feeling absolutely energized. Which was a good thing, because after I'd sent off everything that had been requested from me during the pitches, it was all of a sudden November. And that means NaNoWriMo.

(Can I just say how much I love the Greater Vancouver community? There are multiple meetings taking place every day across the Lower Mainland, and being there is like stepping into a maelstrom of creative energy. Flourishing. Vibrant. Absolutely incredible.)

Back to SIWC. One of the highlights for me at this year's conference was the opportunity I had to meet fantasy author Jim C. Hines, who you may recognize from his Gender Swapped Cover Poses. His keynote speech was well-deserving of the standing ovation it received. His class, Writing Diversity, felt like a great complement to the PAX Prime 2013 panel, "Everything We Know is Sexist. Now What?" that examined the lack of diversity in video games. In both cases, it boils down to the writing. And that means us.
 
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Writing Diversity
Jim C. Hines
This is about creating more realistic and honest diversity. About the danger of stereotypes and token writing.

First, the obvious question – Why is this middle class straight white dude lecturing about diversity?
-    It’s important.
-    It’s a problem.
-    It’s something he cares about.
-    It’s something he’s tried to listen, learn, and talk about for years.
-    Not all of these ideas are his, but these are his words.
-    What he’s learned from listening to other people.
-    He’s in a position to address it, to bring attention to it.

It’s hard to write the other, because it’s not our lived experience. How do we do this?
-    Fear of screwing up is prevalent.
-    Lots of others speak about this, so don’t listen to only him.
-    Sometimes this stuff doesn’t occur to us because it’s not something we’ve experienced. (But that was the problem.)
-    We need to have someone come along and say, “Yes, it’s great you have these books, but I don’t. My kind of people die in the first chapter, are the sidekick, fill a narrow range of characters.”
-    We can do more than that.

Statistics
-    The current state of publishing: The Cooperative Children’s Book Centre sampled 3600 different YA/Children’s books. Found “The total number of books about people of colour, regardless of accuracy, was less than 8 percent  of the total published.”
-    Melinda Low: looked at YA novels for 2011. Of all of them, less than 1% had LGBT characters.
-    Cover art: Men on cover are usually portrayed as their character in book. Active. Women on cover of book – odd poses that flaunt their bodies, the weapon is an accessory, boobs are pretty, let’s look at them. Narrow, uncool.
-    This is not about meeting quotas. No one is saying when writing a book you must have this diversity. The only time quotas come up is from people trying to shut down these conversations. No, this about trying to undo quotas, the unspoken quota that 90% of books must be about white men.

Diversity
-    All of this stuff we talk about here is a reflection of our society – the prejudices, the oversights, get reinforced every day. We see it so much that we stop seeing it. It’s become normal. It’s why he participated in the cover pose calendar.
-    Diversity is many things: Gender, sex, sexual orientation, religion, disability, age, cultural heritage, colour of skin, English not second language
-    Throne of the Crescent Moon: about a crotchety middle aged guy. So many protagonists typically mid-20s or teens (for YA).

Why this matters
-    Writing’s hard enough, so why add one more layer of stuff?
-    Getting an email that says thank you for this character, or this is the first time I’ve seen this character treated respectfully, is awesome.
-    If you have spent most of your life being invisible, and you see this author saying you exist, it’s important.
-    Stories teach us a lot. They’re the most important thing of anything. How we relate to the world, understand things, why history classes suck because they destroy the story and give you dates and facts. We learn from stories. So if we learn that the world is dominated by 25-year-old handsome white men, that sinks in. If we learn that black people exist but mostly in the background and to die in the second act, that sinks in.
-    Stories are powerful. And no, it’s not necessarily our job to approach with “how can I change the world today” but it is to recognize that when we write stories with all white folks, that’s not okay. We’re choosing to exclude most of the world from our stories, and that’s not okay.
-    “…When we exclude—intentionally or otherwise—characters of color from our work, we do send a billboard message to readers. We tell them that people of color aren’t there, aren’t important, aren’t worthy of our stories. That they don’t deserve to be part of the conversation of our books. That reading isn’t for them. That they don’t matter. That they don’t even register on our radar.”—Sarah Ockler.
-    This stuff matters. And yes, you can have a successful career never doing this. But your stories will be much weaker, and they will be lies.

Recommended Book: Writing the Other by Nissi Shaw and Cynthia Ward

So how do we do this?
-    Writing about a person respectfully, not just cultural appropriation.
-    Cultural appropriation: “Oh look, shiny. I’ll take this.” (e.g. Washington Redskins, Atlanta Braves. Sexy Halloween costumes for women.
-    Surface level stuff.
-    Gypsies. Big in Fantasy. Shiny stuff, free lives, travel everywhere. The term gets used unintentionally. Yet for many, gypsy is a racial slur.
-    We do it unintentionally because we haven’t stopped to look deeper.
-    If you’re just taking shiny bits out of the culture, you’re going to fail. People will leave nasty notes. If you’re going to write about anyone, you must do it respectfully. These characters need a background and a history and a culture. Talk to people. LISTEN to them. Learn from them.

How do you borrow without stepping on toes?
-    Borrowing pieces from existing culture: he asked, Why did the culture evolve this way? Why is this a cultural norm? Does this make sense? (e.g. In the 3rd princess book, Sleeping Beauty is described as dark-skinned and from a desert culture. The culture evolved around the desert’s harsh environment.)
-    Also, do enough research to know when you are getting into very sensitive areas. One thing to look at taboo of turning away a stranger, different thing to dig up sacred religious ritual and steal it.
-    How to handle religion when opinions within a religion means different things? Just like any other character, try to do it respectfully. Do it so they’re not a caricature, have reasons for believing things. Remember, every character is the hero of his or her own story. This is part of who they are, what they grow up with, this is what’s important to them. Go beyond the one dimension.
-    Shepherd Book: the only representation of religion in Firefly.
-    Avatar: the cartoon, not the movie that doesn’t exist – Heavily influenced by eastern cultures, and not in a shiny bits way. The animators spent lots of time studying these cultures and learning about them. Affects the story. Good example.
-    Bottom line: it comes down to research. Find these people. Listen to them. It’s easy to make the effort to find people “not like you”. Still not about quota. Broaden yourself. Find people who disagree with you.
-    Remember that listening to people doesn’t mean agreeing with them. If it doesn’t work for you, that’s fine.

Description: How to describe these characters
-    Without description, there’s an assumption from readers that a character is straight and white.
-    Some people skim read and make assumptions (like the mistaken assumption that Rue in The Hunger Games was white and people got mad that she was cast in the movie as black).
-    When doing description, it’s okay to be blunt, to have a character say, “she looked Indian in appearance”. Avoid the chocolate skin and almond eyes, the cliché and purple prose, because that can be offensive. Find other ways to say it.
-    Are there other options than comparing people to food? Yes, wood, for example. Find other things that are brown, dig deep for comparisons.
-    Don’t overthink it.
-    Be aware of drawing examples between nonwhite skintone and things that have come from exploited races (e.g. coffee, chocolate).
-    Be true to the character. Just because the bisexual character chooses someone that matches with heterosexuality, or that choosing means that you’re either heterosexual or gay, doesn’t mean you’re making a statement about those issues. When you address it in text so that if someone complains, you can say, “no, I know what I’m doing.”
-    Take away the tokenism. Have more than one character like that. So the burden doesn’t weigh down on them all by themselves. As you’re writing, keep this in mind. If there’s just the one, pay very close attention to what baggage you put on them, because people will react.
-    Beware of assumptions and stereotypes. For example, just because a character is autistic does not always mean that they are a math genius who counts cards and amasses rocks.
-    A lesson learned: In his Princess Series: Sleeping Beauty is dark-skinned, a lesbian, and a rape survivor. She’s the only one of these things you know in book 2. She’s also the only tough, kick-your-ass character. But that was a problem because she took the burden of representing all. He was asked why. His answer was, “Because that’s her character. That’s her backstory.” But it doesn’t change the fact that this one character falls in many problematic areas and he realizes now that he could have taken steps to fix that.

Writing Dialogue
-    Do it carefully.
-    English as a second language is often portrayed as very stupid, filling a stereotype.
-    One or two examples sprinkled throughout is very effective.
-    Consider idiom and vocabulary. Idiom’s the last thing we learn – “eg. it’s raining cats and dogs”. You can do a lot to show the character is intelligent but communicating from a very different context.
-    Some use English, but use their language for sentence structure.
-    Words they’ve learned from reading only, but they can’t necessarily pronounce.
-    Puns are hard to translate because they depend on the language.
-    Give them really bad jokes that make no sense in our language, but are hilarious to them.

Don’t immediately kill off your own non-white character.
-    Be aware of secondary characters.
-    When you put these supporting roles in there. And why you put them in there.
-    No sassy gay best friend, the Asian dragon lady or martial artist, the native American vision-quest person
-    Stories are powerful. We’ve seen these very narrow stories. If that’s what goes in, that’s what comes out. We’ve absorbed that. So, step back and ask, Who is this character? Not just the gay character. The gay jewish computer programmer who lieks to brew his own beer.
-    “Colour doesn’t matter” – yes it does. We still have the prejudices. This still affects how we grow up, our values, who we become. Who are characters are. But it does not DEFINE or limit them. All things should not be dictated by their characteristics. It is dishonest to say that’s the only thing that affects this character. It’s equally dishonest to say that it doesn’t affect this character’s choices.
-    A lot of time we start these stories and write them as issue stories. Autistic character means all about autism, gay character is all about them coming out. As if it’s the only story about them. Identity is layered and complex and messy. Seeing other cultures in stories can be frustrating if they only see one piece of them.

“Why did you choose to make this character [insert minority]”?
-    This is a stupid question. Valid, but the stupid comes in that we only ask one side of it. If the character is a straight, white male, there should be a reason for it, too. Depending on the setting, culture, and time period, that will affect what kinds of characters you can bring in. But be careful about what history has erased, too.

Everything We Know is Sexist. Now What? (PAX Prime 2013 Panel Notes)

 

August was a fun month of weddings, traveling, and general mayhem. I sent off some queries to agents for the novel I'm trying to sell; did a *lot* of reading in my subgenre (YA High Fantasy); and got ready for Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle, where I, as usual, had a blast. I didn't catch con crud, thankfully, but I went back to the dayjob on Wednesday and am still catching up on sleep. Regardless, the convention was worth it. So many good things happened. It made stuff like receiving rejections on queries while *at* PAX just a tiny bit easier. I even took some notes!

And that's what I have to share today.

Before we go any further, yes, I am aware of the recent kerfuffle. (Understatement? Perhaps. But I like to keep things polite here.) As for how I feel about it? Let's just say that M.C. Frontalot, brilliant nerdcore hiphop artist and someone I have admired since meeting him at PAX '09, said it best.

So with that in mind, let's talk about non-standard representation in video games. Or rather, the lack thereof...

Everything We Know is Sexist. Now What?

Regina Buenaobra (Community Manager, ArenaNet); Jessica Price (Project Manager, Paizo Publishing); John Sutherland (Writer, VidGameStory), Anna Megill (Narrative Designer, Airtight Games), Matthew Moore (Game Designer, ArenaNet, Cameron Harris (Editor & Story Consultant, Freelance), Tom Abernathy (Writer & Narrative Designer, Freelance) 

Note: Matthew Moore was kind enough to give me a copy of the slides from the presentation, so the following notes include those, but also include a lot of the elaboration that happened at the panel. I was delighted that all of the panelists encouraged me to share this. 

Note from the Panelists: We are about to present opinions that are our own and not necessarily those of our employers (even when they probably should be)

What’s the problem?
-    Sexism, for one …
-    Though we’re also talking about issues of race, sexual orientation, etc.

Problem:
-    The 2012 game player gender (market) is 55% male, 45% female.
-    The gender of protagonists in games from 2012, however, is 51% male, 45% choice, and only 4% female. (This number is closer to the number of people working in the game industry.)
-    The potential game player market in the US is 51% male, 49% female.

Human beings have a tendency to do their creative work from their own thoughts, needs, and life experience.

When recently creating a game, one panelist sought ideas for vignettes for NPCs, and every suggestion was sexist. The people making the suggestions resorted to stereotypical situations without even being aware of it.

Why do we care? Why should we?
-    Lack of diversity in general.
-    There’s a creative side to it as well: new takes make it more interesting.
-    Creative consequences of the same old stuff: boredom, lack of expansive information. Not unrelated.
-    Who’s making these games really has an impact on how they get made and the broadness of the vision.
-    We don’t want to read and see and experience the same thing again and again and again. That won’t happen if we keep relying on our tropes.
-    Hollywood is telling fresh perspectives of stories.
-    Stories about a straight, white, male are getting old.
-    The gender of protagonists in movies from 2012: 65% male, 19% female, and 16% mixed ensemble.
-    The gender of protagonists in books from 2012 is much better: 43% male, 41% female, and 16% mixed ensemble.
-    The TV market is getting better, splintering, targeting small groups and bringing those to life. And they’re reaching wide audiences because of it.

Why else we should care: Video game dollar sales are slightly, steadily down from 2010.
-    Not growing.
-    Not reaching out to new audiences.
-    Probably because they’re not trying new things.
-    We don’t want video games to become a niche medium.

Furthermore: Lack of diversity in viewpoints, characterizations, plots, story structure, etc. limits the potential of games as an art form.
-    Game consumers are artistically malnourished.
-    Art that gives its power to  move us is commonality, but also diverse experiences.
-    Sexism hurts everyone.
-    It hurts men too, because the typical male protagonist presented is a man who’s physically strong, the ideal man. Marketing executives point to and justify how much money that stuff makes and assume the game will sell better with it.
-    On a professional level: Paternity leave, child care issues; sometimes men have issues that are perceived as falling in the female realm that aren’t extended to them because they’re men and not women.
-    We need more interesting characters with diverse backgrounds. It doesn’t make it easier to make them if we stick to the tropes.
-    If you like shooters, they are still making them. The number of action and shooter games offered at the launch of each new X-Box has increased.
-    Most importantly: Making more types of games doesn’t mean less of games people already like (the core game types) will decrease. Just that it makes more options available to consumers.

So, what should we do?

1.  Check our assumptions and our perceptions.
-    Look around at the crowd in this room, at the number of people here. How many are women? Turns out that there were 3 men for every 2 women were present at this panel. (Even though most attendees thought there were either more women, or that it was a 50-50 split.)
-    This is important because our perceptions of what is fair are now off.
-    Geena Davis Institute: “We just heard a fascinating and disturbing study, where they looked at the ratio of men and women in groups. And they found that if there’s 17 percent women, the men in the group think it’s 50-50. And if there’s 33 percent women, the men perceive that as there being more women in the room than men.”
-    In games, even when the lines were divided equally, the men had the more important lines. That’s the first step you have to take.
-    Use the Bechdel Test: Find a movie with two women talking and if it’s not about a man, then that passes the test. Observation. How many of them actually pass? Games pass it even less. Think about this test. Do you have women in it, do they have names, do they talk to each other? Is it about a man, a relationship, parenting, shopping? This is a good rule of thumb, the lowest bar you can clear, when dealing with diversity in video games.

2.  Read, watch, and play things made by people who aren’t like us.
-    The canon English literature: almost all of it is by men. Shapes how we write. This becomes problematic because even women learn how to write women from men because our perception has been shaped by male writers. Literary voices have been shaped by male writers. It’s been changing. The best way you can learn to write those characters is if you learn from the horse’s mouth. So, read people who aren’t like you.

3.  Learn to recognize tropes.
-    Trope: A literary or narrative device.
-    Cultures have common sets of tropes. Tropes have baggage.
-    A trope is not evil or bad. They can be useful. Just use them mindfully.
-    Do it in a way that subverts the trope, or defend to your league so they know why you’re using the trope as is.
-    Marketing wants quick story hooks.
-    The more you know what a trope is, the better you can put it into a game and sell it and make your vision happen.

4.  Ask ourselves why we like the things we like.
-    Rather than just mindlessly liking them.
-    What is it that you actually like about it? Can you get things without mindlessly importing all the details (like with pulp)?
-    The presenters aren’t saying these stories can’t be told, just that we need to think about this stuff.
-    And think about who the perceived audience is. Who is the character designed to appeal to?
-    (Aside: Google “Lawrence Croft”)
-    (Aside: Google “100 Sexiest Men Alive”. Turns out they’re not the muscle-bound men we see in video games.)

5.  Improve our work!
-    Try to be inclusive (even when we are afraid we’ll suck at it.)
-    Look over your work. Does everyone have to be (straight, white, male, etc?)
-    Make sure you interrogate yourself while you do your craft.
-    Practice “flipping” exercises with gender, orientation, race, etc. What happens if this character is a man / woman / different race / gay / trans / etc?
-    This has often resulted in stories that are more moving, more interesting.
-    Experiment with trope subversion.
-    Constantly ask yourself, is this what I want it to be, or is this just intellctiual comfort zone stuff, tropes too well worn, or The Unexpected Choice? That moment you take readers/customers in a direction where they think they know you’re going, then change trajectory: it’s important. If you do that, you’ll constantly be surprising people. And the more you do it, the less you’ll find yourselves having to revise your choices.
-    Show your work to people from different groups to critique.
-    Friends, family, people you trust. Generally you can recognize the broad strokes. But words have baggage. E.g. Calling a woman “frigid”, or an African American person “articulate”.
-    Don’t let “perfect” be the enemy of “good”.
-    Complaint from male writers who don’t know how to write women so they don’t bother trying
-    Writing anything is this: trying to make something knew, exploring the scary white page and trying to fill it up with stuff.
-    If you are not secure expressing the experience of those you don’t know much about, get to know them.

6. Address issues.
-    Support inclusivity; be an ally to undeserved groups and those who are working for change.
-    If you see it,  you don’t have to be the person being victimized to take that issue on.
-    Speak up when something is troubling.
-    Listen to the people who are telling you it’s a problem, and do something about it.
-    Address the issue vs. trying to appease the people coming to you. Not “Should I put in more women characters”, but “Fix the dialogue.”
-    Be aware. If you’re the creator, it’s hard to step back and look at what you’re doing, but it’s worth it.