Here we focus on writing and publishing fantasy and science fiction for young readers from 7-18--and for anyone who loves to read a good story. Check out the archives, and feel free to ask a question about publishing if it's not answered here already.
I was just checking my spam filter, as I occasionally do, to be sure that I haven’t overlooked some real people making real comments. Some of these bots are getting to be nearly indistinguishable from real people if you weren’t really paying attention to the URL attached to the comment and weren’t that great at English to begin with. But sometimes they’re just a work of passive aggressive art, and I thought you’d get a kick out of the best specimen or two.
I haven’t checked in here for some time because I thought it was getting boring, but the last several posts are great quality so I guess I’ll add you back to my daily bloglist. You deserve it my friend
I love how I “deserve” their attention now that I’m no longer boring.
Exactly. I imagine it is. Very good stuff, I agree totally.
Exactly what “it” is this spammer is agreeing totally with, I have no idea. But they think I’m dumb enough to approve their comment so they can link to a spammer directory.
The one below that was a comment telling me that Apple was much preferable to the Zune… which Microsoft killed how long ago??
And in the “flattery will get you nowhere, especially when you make no sense” category:
Im a huge fan already, man. Youve accomplished a brilliant job generating positive that people have an understanding of where youre coming from. And let me let you know, I get it. Excellent stuff and I cant wait to read extra of one’s blogs. What youve got to say is significant and needs to be read.
And, of all things, a new one is trying to tell me they posted certain posts on Reddit! Really?
By the way, the new version of WordPress has a nice preview feature when you hover over a URL in the spam filter, so you don’t have to click on the link and worry about infecting your computer with a virus or something. VERY nice feature, WP!
I’ll be in Utah this February again this year for the excellent science fiction/fantasy convention Life, the Universe, and Everything. It’s the convention’s 30th anniversary this year. Normally it’s hosted at Brigham Young University, but due to scheduling difficulties it’ll be held this year at neighboring Utah Valley University only a few miles away—and a few miles closer to my greatest restaurant love, a restaurant I have yet to find matched in New York City (seriously), Sakura. Seriously, best deep-fried sushi (sometimes called tempura—not just for shrimp!) that I’ve found anywhere. Particularly the Geisha, Spider, Firecracker, Ninja, and Hawaiian rolls. If you’re in Utah and you haven’t discovered this place yet (and you’re not Jessica Day George) GO. It’s SO GOOD.
But I digress. (Good sushi can do that to me.)
Anyway, my point is that you need to attend LTUE, especially if you live in the Intermountain West. Sure, they’ve started charging a nominal fee (it used to be free), but that fee makes sure this great convention can continue to happen every year, giving them a modest budget for facilities, guests of honor, and so forth. The committee that runs the con are all volunteers.
Speaking of guests of honor, I’m looking forward to meeting a longtime internet but not (yet) real-life friend, James A. Owen. He’ll be talking about both writing and illustration, including a whole seminar on how to draw dragons, so if you’re an illustrator, you want to come to this LTUE.
Also attending will be the Writing Excuses team—not just locals Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler, but also SFWA vice president, puppeteer, and author Mary Robinette Kowal, not to mention a number of locally-based pros, writers and editors like Mette Ivie Harrison, Larry Correia, James Dashner, Bree Despain, J. Scott Savage, Tyler Whitesides, Chris Schoebinger, Robert J. Defendi, Lisa Mangum, and many more.
Check out the full schedule here (where there may be some tweaks to the schedule, so you might want to check back before the con), but here’s my schedule:
Thursday, February 8, 2012
10:00 AM—What Exactly Does an Editor Do, Anyway? (Rick Walton (M), Stacy Whitman, Suzanne Vincent, Lisa Mangum, Kirk Shaw)
11:00 AM—Middle-grade books for boys (Tyler Whitesides, E. J. Patten, Michael Young, Stacy Whitman(M))
2:00 PM—Feeling Fake: What to do about that pervasive feeling that everyone belongs in the publishing world except you. (Sandra Tayler, Jason Alexander, Ami Chopine (M), Stacy Whitman)
7:00 PM—A Vampire is NOT your Boyfriend!: Real Vampires (Mette Ivie Harrison, Michael R. Collings, Dan Lind, Stacy Whitman(M))
Friday, Febrary 10, 2011
No panels for me, though I will be around the convention, so I’m open to individual meet-ups for lunch (particularly at Sakura…). I’m also looking forward to James Owen’s main address this day, and the Writing Excuses live podcast. .
Saturday, February 11, 2012
1:00 PM—Writing Cross-Culturally: Mistakes to Avoid, or, How to Avoid Cultural Misappropriation (Stacy Whitman)
This will be a workshop in which we talk about all the mistakes that even well-meaning authors can make in diversifying our writing, and how to use strong worldbuilding and characterization to prevent that. Also: how making mistakes doesn’t mean we’re racist—it just means we’re willing to learn.
2:00 PM—Plots, Subplots, and Foreshadowing (Bree Despain (M), J. Scott Savage, Brandon Sanderson, James A. Owen, Stacy Whitman)
I’m not on the following workshop, but want to highlight it because both Sandra and Mary are people to learn from, and given that the workshop will be two hours long, you’ll get an opportunity to really go in depth.
3:00-5:00 PM
- The Published (and aspiring) Author’s Toolbox: Learning skills for networking, blogging, social media, and self-promotion. This workshop will teach principles and give you a chance to practice skills to integrate networking, blogging, social media, and self-promotion into your professional life without being the person who annoys and without pulling you out of balance with yourself.
Given that today is Martin Luther King Day, and that we’re still dealing with book banning based on race even today, I’d like to make a booklist in honor of those books banned in Arizona. Let’s crowd-source. This can be a pretty wide list, and some of the books might be a little radical, if by “radical” we mean considering that Columbus might not have had the best of intentions when it came to indigenous peoples in the Caribbean and on the American continents, but I think that books like this are important to the discourse in this country, especially in places like Arizona where they’re dealing with the confluence of several cultures with conflicting goals. After all, couldn’t that apply in so many places in this world? How will we come to understand one another’s points of view if we ban those viewpoints? From the Salon.com article:
Another notable text removed from Tucson’s classrooms is Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest.” In a meeting this week, administrators informed Mexican-American studies teachers to stay away from any units where “race, ethnicity and oppression are central themes,” including the teaching of Shakespeare’s classic in Mexican-American literature courses.
Here’s the list of books banned in the Tucson school district last week (source). What other books like this should we celebrate?
*For more on the situation in Arizona, see here and here.
BANNED MEXICAN AMERICAN STUDIES READING LIST Curriculum Audit of the Mexican American Studies Department, Tucson Unified School District, May 2, 2011.
High School Course Texts and Reading Lists Table 20: American Government/Social Justice Education Project 1, 2 – Texts and Reading Lists
Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years (1998), by B. Bigelow and B. Peterson
The Latino Condition: A Critical Reader (1998), by R. Delgado and J. Stefancic
Critical Race Theory: An Introduction (2001), by R. Delgado and J. Stefancic
Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2000), by P. Freire
United States Government: Democracy in Action (2007), by R. C. Remy
Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History (2006), by F. A. Rosales
Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology (1990), by H. Zinn
Table 21: American History/Mexican American Perspectives, 1, 2 – Texts and Reading Lists
Occupied America: A History of Chicanos (2004), by R. Acuna
The Anaya Reader (1995), by R. Anaya
The American Vision (2008), by J. Appleby et el.
Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years (1998), by B. Bigelow and B. Peterson
Drink Cultura: Chicanismo (1992), by J. A. Burciaga
Message to Aztlan: Selected Writings (1997), by C. Jiminez
De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views Multi-Colored Century (1998), by E. S. Martinez
500 Anos Del Pueblo Chicano/500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures (1990), by E. S. Martinez
Codex Tamuanchan: On Becoming Human (1998), by R. Rodriguez
The X in La Raza II (1996), by R. Rodriguez
Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History (2006), by F. A. Rosales
A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present (2003), by H. Zinn
Course: English/Latino Literature 7, 8
Ten Little Indians (2004), by S. Alexie
The Fire Next Time (1990), by J. Baldwin
Loverboys (2008), by A. Castillo
Women Hollering Creek (1992), by S. Cisneros
Mexican WhiteBoy (2008), by M. de la Pena
Drown (1997), by J. Diaz
Woodcuts of Women (2000), by D. Gilb
At the Afro-Asian Conference in Algeria (1965), by E. Guevara
Color Lines: “Does Anti-War Have to Be Anti-Racist Too?” (2003), by E. Martinez
Culture Clash: Life, Death and Revolutionary Comedy (1998), by R. Montoya et al.
Let Their Spirits Dance (2003) by S. Pope Duarte
Two Badges: The Lives of Mona Ruiz (1997), by M. Ruiz
The Tempest (1994), by W. Shakespeare
A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (1993), by R. Takaki
The Devil’s Highway (2004), by L. A. Urrea
Puro Teatro: A Latino Anthology (1999), by A. Sandoval-Sanchez & N. Saporta Sternbach
Twelve Impossible Things before Breakfast: Stories (1997), by J. Yolen
Voices of a People’s History of the United States (2004), by H. Zinn
Course: English/Latino Literature 5, 6
Live from Death Row (1996), by J. Abu-Jamal
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven (1994), by S. Alexie
Zorro (2005), by I. Allende
Borderlands La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1999), by G. Anzaldua
A Place to Stand (2002), by J. S. Baca
C-Train and Thirteen Mexicans (2002), by J. S. Baca
Healing Earthquakes: Poems (2001), by J. S. Baca
Immigrants in Our Own Land and Selected Early Poems (1990), by J. S. Baca
Black Mesa Poems (1989), by J. S. Baca
Martin & Mediations on the South Valley (1987), by J. S. Baca
The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America’s Public Schools (19950, by D. C. Berliner and B. J. Biddle
Drink Cultura: Chicanismo (1992), by J. A Burciaga
Red Hot Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Being Young and Latino in the United States (2005), by L. Carlson & O. Hijuielos
Cool Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Growing up Latino in the United States (1995), by L. Carlson & O. Hijuielos
So Far From God (1993), by A. Castillo
Address to the Commonwealth Club of California (1985), by C. E. Chavez
Women Hollering Creek (1992), by S. Cisneros
House on Mango Street (1991), by S. Cisneros
Drown (1997), by J. Diaz
Suffer Smoke (2001), by E. Diaz Bjorkquist
Zapata’s Discipline: Essays (1998), by M. Espada
Like Water for Chocolate (1995), by L. Esquievel
When Living was a Labor Camp (2000), by D. Garcia
La Llorona: Our Lady of Deformities (2000), by R. Garcia
Cantos Al Sexto Sol: An Anthology of Aztlanahuac Writing (2003), by C. Garcia-Camarilo, et al.
The Magic of Blood (1994), by D. Gilb
Message to Aztlan: Selected Writings (2001), by Rudolfo “Corky” Gonzales
Saving Our Schools: The Case for Public Education, Saying No to “No Child Left Behind” (2004) by Goodman, et al.
Feminism if for Everybody (2000), by b hooks
The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child (1999), by F. Jimenez
Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools (1991), by J. Kozol
Zigzagger (2003), by M. Munoz
Infinite Divisions: An Anthology of Chicana Literature (1993), by T. D. Rebolledo & E. S. Rivero
…y no se lo trago la tierra/And the Earth Did Not Devour Him (1995), by T. Rivera
Always Running – La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. (2005), by L. Rodriguez
Justice: A Question of Race (1997), by R. Rodriguez
The X in La Raza II (1996), by R. Rodriguez
Crisis in American Institutions (2006), by S. H. Skolnick & E. Currie
Los Tucsonenses: The Mexican Community in Tucson, 1854-1941 (1986), by T. Sheridan
Curandera (1993), by Carmen Tafolla
Mexican American Literature (1990), by C. M. Tatum
New Chicana/Chicano Writing (1993), by C. M. Tatum
Civil Disobedience (1993), by H. D. Thoreau
By the Lake of Sleeping Children (1996), by L. A. Urrea
Nobody’s Son: Notes from an American Life (2002), by L. A. Urrea
Zoot Suit and Other Plays (1992), by L. Valdez
Ocean Power: Poems from the Desert (1995), by O. Zepeda
ETA: Also appropriate to this discussion, OTHER things that MLK once said besides the quotes you normally hear on this day:
In case you’ve missed the tweets/Facebook posts about these things, I thought I’d put them all here for you to refer to.
Last week’s #yalitchat on Twitternow has a full transcript. An abridged post, getting to the meat of the discussion and clarifying some of the conversations, will be posted soon.
ETA: Stephanie Kuehn over at YA Highway also interviewed me. Want to know how I became an editor? Read it all here!
And, best news of all, Tu’s spring books have gotten some really great blurbs.
On Kimberly Pauley’s Cat Girl’s Day Off:
“Cat Girl’s Day Off was such a fun, adventurous romp! I couldn’t stop reading it . . . with my cat.”—Alex Flinn, author of Beastly and Bewitching
“When I need to read something smart and funny and completely original, I turn to Kimberly Pauley. CAT GIRL’S DAY OFF is a manic, madcap adventure that satisfies from the first page to the last.”—Saundra Mitchell, author of Shadowed Summer and The Vespertine
And last but not least, on Bryce Moore’s Vodnik, #1 New York Times best-selling author Brandon Sanderson said:
“Vodnik is compelling, interesting, and darkly humorous. I think you’ll love it.”
Since it’s award nomination time for the Hugos in particular, and because other awards are either gearing up for nominations or are getting toward the voting side of things, I thought I’d follow the example of John Scalzi, Lou Anders, and the Writing Excuses crew and let you know that Tu’s first books are eligible to be nominated. Lou had a good idea in also letting readers know who’s responsible for art, as there’s a whole category for that. Note that I am NOT eligible in the editor category this year, as I only edited three books that came out in 2011 and the requirement is at least four (at least, unless my work on Jeff Sampson’s Vesper before it was canceled by Mirrorstone and published by HarperTeen counts, which I don’t think it does since I wasn’t the final editor at the house that published the book), but I’ll be eligible next year, and what matters more is that you know about the authors and artists. I’ll follow Lou’s format:
Tankborn
by Karen Sandler
art/design by Einav Aviram
Wolf Mark
by Joseph Bruchac
art/design by Kelly Eismann
If you attended last year’s WorldCon or become a member of this year’s Worldcon by Jan. 31, you are eligible to nominate for the Hugos. See here for more on eligibility and membership.
If you didn’t already know, I’m going to be speaking at the end of the month at the New York SCBWI National Conference at the end of January. I’m excited to be talking about multicultural books, particularly writing them—pitfalls to avoid, things to consider when you write cross-culturally, maybe highlight some of my favorites from the last few years for writers to look to as examples. If you’re going to be there—and even if you’re not—feel free to mention in the comments your favorites from the last two or so years, or to give me an example of a mistake that authors or movies make in the name of “diversity” that you wish they would do better.
Before I give you my schedule, though, let me remind you that tonight on Twitter is #yalitchat, where I and Tankborn author Karen Sandler will be talking about writing cross-culturally. Especially if you can’t make it to SCBWI nationals, drop by tonight at 9 pm EST. Even if you’re not on Twitter, you can follow the conversation at search.twitter.com (search for “#yalitchat”) or one of those sites that let you search hashtag conversations (sorry, I can’t think of a good one right now, but maybe someone in the comments might know what I’m talking about and give us a link?).
Here’s my SCBWI schedule:
VIP party and Art Show on Friday night (Jan. 27)
Presentation on Saturday, January 28th: 11:45 am-12:45 pm, 3:15-4:15 pm and 4:30 pm-5:30 pm
Gala Reception for attendees on Saturday from 5:30 pm-7:30 pm
If you’re attending, I hope to see you at one of those events, and if they end up doing a KidLit Drinks Night again this year, perhaps I’ll pop in there too. We’ll see how exhausted I am by the end of the day Saturday!
Hey, remember how I published three books this fall? If you’re looking for great reads for the science fiction or fantasy buff in your life, you should remember Tu’s go some great books! Here are some links for you in case you need them, or go down to your local bookseller. If they don’t have the books in stock (B&N has Tankborn and Wolf Mark, but sometimes an indie might not), ask them to order them in! The more a book gets bought in a local indie, for example, the more they take notice and think maybe it should be on their shelves.
Things are looking up for Tyler Sato (literally!) as he and his friends scan the night sky for a star named for him by his Tokyo cousins in honor of his eleventh birthday. Ordinary stars tend to stay in one place, but Ty’s seems to be streaking directly toward Earth at an alarming rate. Soon the whole world is talking about TY SATO, the doomsday asteroid, and life is turned upside down for Ty Sato, the boy, who would rather be playing hoops in his best friend’s driveway.
Meanwhile, aboard a silver spaceship heading for Earth, M’Frozza, a girl with three eyes and five nose holes, is on a secret mission. M’Frozza is the captain of planet Mrendaria’s Galaxy Games team, and she is desperate to save her world from a dishonorable performance in the biggest sporting event in the universe.
What will happen when Ty meets M’Frozza? Get ready for the most important event in human history—it’ll be off the backboard, around the rim, and out of this world!
Best friends Kayla and Mishalla know they will be separated when the time comes for their Assignments. They are GENs, Genetically Engineered Non-humans, and in their strict caste system, GENs are at the bottom rung of society. High-status trueborns and working-class lowborns, born naturally of a mother, are free to choose their own lives. But GENs are gestated in a tank, sequestered in slums, and sent to work as slaves as soon as they reach age fifteen.
When Kayla is Assigned to care for Zul Manel, the patriarch of a trueborn family, she finds a host of secrets and surprises—not least of which is her unexpected friendship with Zul’s great-grandson. Meanwhile, the children that Mishalla is Assigned to care for are being stolen in the middle of the night. With the help of an intriguing lowborn boy, Mishalla begins to suspect that something horrible is happening to them.
After weeks of toiling in their Assignments, mystifying circumstances enable Kayla and Mishalla to reunite. Together they hatch a plan with their new friends to save the children who are disappearing. Yet can GENs really trust humans? Both girls must put their lives and hearts at risk to crack open a sinister conspiracy, one that may reveal secrets no one is ready to face.
Luke King knows a lot of things. Like four different ways to disarm an enemy before the attacker can take a breath. Like every detail of every book he’s ever read. And Luke knows enough—just enough—about what his father does as a black ops infiltrator to know which questions not to ask. Like why does his family move around so much?
Luke just hopes that this time his family is settled for a while. He’ll finally be able to have a normal life. He’ll be able to ask the girl he likes to take a ride with him on his motorcycle. He’ll hang out with his friends. He’ll be invisible—just as he wants.
But when his dad goes missing, Luke realizes that life will always be different for him. Suddenly he must avoid the kidnappers looking to use him as leverage against his father, while at the same time evading the attention of the school’s mysterious elite clique of Russian hipsters, who seem much too interested in Luke’s own personal secret. Faced with multiple challenges and his emerging paranormal identity, Luke must decide who to trust as he creates his own destiny.
And just a reminder that in the spring we’ll have two more great books for you to check out!
Cat Girl’s Day Off by Kimberly Pauley
Never listen to a cat. That will only get you in trouble.
Actually, scratch that. Listening to cats is one thing, but really I should never listen to my best friend Oscar. It’s completely his fault (okay, and my aspiring actress friend Melly’s too) that I got caught up in this crazy celebrity-kidnapping mess.
If you had asked me, I would have thought it would be one of my super-Talented sisters who’d get caught up in crime fighting. I definitely never thought it would be me and my Talent trying to save the day. Usually, all you get out of conversations with cats is requests for tummy rubs and tuna.
Wait . . . I go back to what I said first: Never listen to a cat. Because when the trouble starts and the kitty litter hits the fan, trust me, you don’t want to be in the middle of it.
Vodnik by Bryce Moore
Teacups: great for tea. Really sucky as places-to-live-out-the-rest-of-your-eternal-existence. Very little elbow room, and the internet connection is notoriously slow. Plus, they’re a real pain in the butt to get out of, especially when you’ve gone non-corporeal.
When Tomas was six, someone—something—tried to drown him. And burn him to a crisp. Tomas survived, but whatever was trying to kill him freaked out his parents enough to convince them to move from Slovakia to the United States.
Now sixteen-year-old Tomas and his family are back in Slovakia, and that something still lurks somewhere. Nearby. Ready to drown him again and imprison his soul in a teacup.
Then there’s the fire víla, the water ghost, the pitchfork-happy city folk, and Death herself who are all after him.
All this sounds a bit comical, unless the one haunted by water ghosts and fire vílas or doing time in a cramped, internet-deprived teacup is you.
If Tomas wants to survive, he’ll have to embrace the meaning behind the Slovak proverb, So smrťou ešte nik zmluvu neurobil. With Death, nobody makes a pact.
I don’t know that we’ve ever discussed the concept of the Magical Negro here before, or its equivalent in American storytelling with Asian and Native American characters, and I think we need to. With Tu’s emphasis on protagonists being characters of color, I don’t get as many submissions nowadays using this old stereotype/trope, but it’s one that I’ve seen a lot of in past years because it’s so common, an easy way to add diversity that has a subtle racism in it because of the way it privileges the white main character over the person of color who is helping him (and it’s usually a him).
He or she is a person of color, typically black, often Native American, in a story about predominantly white characters.
He or she seems to have nothing better to do than help the white protagonist, who is often a stranger to the Magical Negro at first.
He or she disappears, dies, or sacrifices something of great value after or while helping the white protagonist.
He or she is uneducated, mentally handicapped, at a low position in life, or all of the above.
He or she is wise, patient, and spiritually in touch. Closer to the earth, one might say. He or she often literally has magical powers.
Think about even some recent movies and you’ll see this trope at work. (Movies are easy comparisons for me as shortcuts, because they tend to be easier touchstones for a larger audience.) Cowboys and Aliens, anyone? I was enjoying the complicated character interactions of C&A right up until the end when (SPOILER ALERT) a certain important character dies, which ruined the entire movie for me. Not quite a Magical Negro in that situation, but related to it. American martial arts movies from the 80s and 90s had plenty of Magical Asians teaching young white kids karate or kung fu (yes, Karate Kid, awesome as it is, falls into this).
Sometimes the trope is fairly benign. So let’s look at Karate Kid. After quite a bit of focus on Daniel, eventually there’s a bridging of the cultural gap between Mr. Miyagi and Daniel—eventually Daniel learns about Mr. Miyagi’s past and we come to understand Mr. Miyagi as a person, which deepens the character development and I think changes the dynamic from one in which his existence in the plot is only to help the main character. Daniel has at least a tiny bit to offer Mr. Miyagi as well, in the form of friendship to a lonely old man. The balance is still in Daniel’s favor, but not as severely as in other stories that use this trope.
In Okorafor’s post, she examines Stephen King’s use of this trope, and she also notes that
King is not a racist. The Talisman, The Stand, The Shining, and The Green Mile are superb novels and I do think that there was good intent behind the making of the characters I’ve mentioned. Nevertheless, these characters are what they are and King does benefit from that fact. Magical Negroes are always interesting, being magical and mysterious, and they make things happen. When a Magical Negro pops up, the story crackles and pops.
The trope is a trope because it can make a story work. Yet just because it’s something that works doesn’t mean it’s something we shouldn’t try to avoid when we can, especially because the trope can be pretty caustic, too—think about, especially, storytelling about Native Americans. Last of the Mohicans and Dances with Wolves are pretty good examples of When Tropes Go Bad: the Native Americans almost always die to leave the land to their white inheritors, and the power dynamic is always tipped in favor of the white protagonist as inheritor of the virtues of the Native Americans. “Native Americans don’t live here anymore” seems to an underlying message from stories like this. The controversial book Touching Spirit Bear comes closer to home for those of us in the YA community.
(Okorafor’s post over on Strange Horizons covers a lot of interesting and important territory on this subject, so go read the whole post.)
How to avoid the Magical Negro trope, or at least the worst version of it? As I think about it, the Magical Negro is kind of a subtype of the Guru character who comes to help the protagonist on his journey. In fantasy, Gandalf is the perfect example of the Guru character. Especially in The Hobbit, Gandalf exists to help, teach, and guide. We don’t know much about him—he’s just this mysterious magical being who helps Bilbo set off on his quest. Gandalf’s role in The Lord of the Rings is expanded a little, and his relationship with Sauron and their backstory more important, but Gandalf is still very much in the role of helper to the main characters, the one who dies so that others can live (getting away from the Balrog)—he just happens to be powerful enough to come back as Gandalf the White, and then AGAIN help the main characters win by bringing reinforcements to Helm’s Deep, among other feats.
But when the Wizard becomes the Magical Negro, we add a racial dynamic to a relatively tired old trope (after all, even if it works for Gandalf, it’s been done so many times) that, especially when the older POC is teaching a young white kid, implies a symbolic inheritance/transference of wisdom and power—especially, as we already talked about, when it comes to stories involving Native Americans in the 1800s.
Occasionally I hear white writers, especially, say things like, “How can I add diversity to my stories, then? It seems like you can’t win. When I do add diversity, I get accused of playing to stereotypes”—the Magical Negro being one, the Black Guy Dies First being another.
I think part of of the solution is seeing past the main character as the most important character to the exclusion of other characters. “Helper” characters need to be fleshed out as independent beings in their own right, with their own concerns that don’t always match up to the priorities of the main character, even if the fate of the world is at stake.
I’m currently catching up on Supernatural Season 6, and there was a really great episode about Bobby, the down-to-earth friend of the family who is always getting Sam and Dean out of scrapes both big and small. (SPOILERS AHEAD) At the end of Season 5, Bobby sold his soul to a demon to accomplish some goal that I’ve now forgotten, the end result of which was to ensure that Satan went back in his cage and didn’t destroy the world. Now in the 5th season, Bobby has to deal with the consequences of that deal. Meantime, Dean has some suspicions about Sam being not quite right and wants to air his worries/grievances to his normal confidant, Bobby. But Bobby now has bigger fish to fry. He has to worry about his OWN soul, literally. Yet Dean’s worries are justified and he really does need help, so Dean has to help Bobby so Bobby has the space to help Sam and Dean.
I think that kind of complication of character motivations makes all the difference. Bobby is sort of Sam and Dean’s Gandalf. He’s always sending them off on quests, or in Supernatural parlance, “jobs.” There isn’t a racial dynamic, but Bobby is a “helper” character most of the time. Yet Bobby is a fully-fleshed-out real person, too, who is just as important as anyone else. He’s not lower in social stature, he’s not obliged to help Sam and Dean out of any other motivation other than friendship/a sense of family. He doesn’t simply exist to serve Sam and Dean and then disappear.
ETA: I know this is already long, but Okorafor has a great point in that same post that sums up what I’m getting at quite nicely:
Part of my point was that Magical Negroes have power that, if harnessed for personal intent, would change the story greatly. What would The Green Mile be if Coffey had been more concerned with escaping than helping? What would The Talisman have been if Speedy hadn’t been there for Jack because he was trying to save the talisman himself, because he thought he himself was capable, too? What would have happened in The Stand if Mother Abigail had been more concerned with helping her own folks make it to a better place than the ragtag group that came along? What would all these stories have been if these characters’ destinies weren’t so tied to someone outside of themselves? If they hadn’t been written that way? The answer: the stories would have been more complex, the characters more human, less lapdog.
Making secondary characters more fleshed-out, real people with their own priorities and individual worth, and less a cardboard cutout, won’t automatically prevent them from still being representative of a trope, but I think it can help mitigate the dynamic. And, of course, more stories starring POC as heroes of their own tales is another solution to this problem. Let’s talk about it some more. What do you think?
Now that it’s been announced in Children’s Bookshelf, I can let you know that I have a new acquisition!
Stacy Whitman at Lee & Low Books has acquired world rights to Guadalupe Garcia McCall‘s second YA novel, Six Little Sisters, scheduled for publication in fall 2012 under the Tu Books imprint. In this retelling of The Odyssey, Odilia and her five sisters embark on a quest to return a dead man to his family and must overcome monsters from Mexican folklore as they journey home.
I’m very excited about this one! Guadalupe’s writing is gorgeous. Her first book, Under the Mesquite, a realistic novel in verse, was published this fall by Lee & Low. (Though there was some confusion early on because it was the only L&L title alongside the Tu fall books on NetGalley, it is not a Tu book—I didn’t edit that one; that honor was my coworker Emily’s.) It’s gotten great reviews, including a starred review from Kirkus, and was included in the Kirkus Best Teen Books of the Year 2011 list. Six Little Sisters is slated to come out next fall.
