Reading to Write

[julieandrews]

I'm reading "The Wave in the Mind", a collection of talks and essays by Ursula K. Le Guin. In "The Question I Get Asked Most Often", she talks about ideas and the idea of 'idea' and influences or lack of influences and lots of stuff to chew on.

I came up with what my answer would be to 'Where Do You Get Your Ideas?' I figured I'd answer 'Books.' and leave it at that. And then the next time I was asked, I would answer 'Television.' And so on and so on.

Of course this also turned out to be one of her answers:

Where do you get your ideas from? From books, of course, from other people's books, what are books for? If I didn't read how could I write?

We writers all stand on each other's shoulders, we all use each other's ideas and skills and plots and secrets.

Naturally this also comes on the heels of me reading a bunch of other essays, including "Unquestioned Assumptions" wherein she discussed writers and works that assume the reader is white, male, straight, Christian. And also on the heels of Wiscon, where all this sort of stuff is on the tops of everyone's minds and the tips of most people's tongues.

So it occurred to me, or at least it occurred to the conscious part of my brain, that the only way to write non-white, non-male, non-straight characters is to read more of them. And I'm pretty good about reading the last two, but not so good on the first one. I'm getting better.

So I'm going to read more, but not stop trying to write non-white characters in the meanwhile.

I know a lot of you are going to reply, or at least think, 'duh'. So I'm not saying this is anything profound. Just thought I should write it down. Maybe others will get some use out of it. At the least, it'll be here to remind myself if I need reminding.

(Also need to read more good female characters so I can write more female characters that interest me. Which is not the same thing as non-male.)

Comments

[dwesley.livejournal.com]

"So it occurred to me, or at least it occurred to the conscious part of my brain, that the only way to write non-white, non-male, non-straight characters is to read more of them."

While this may be an option, I don't think it's the best option. If I(a white guy) want to write a black character, or a gay character, or a female character, then I need to be able to crawl into their head and understand what motivates them, what pisses them off, what makes them hurt. I think the best way to get that insight is to have discussions and interactions with real people, rather than rely on the characterizations of another author.

It's the difference between eating a freshly cooked meal and eating the same meal after it's been refrigerated for three days and reheated. It loses something.