Infinite Rainbows

In a lot of my writing groups, you can't go a day without someone asking a stupid question about diversity in fiction.

• "Will I fail to sell any books if I include LGBTQ+ characters?" (My current best-selling book has a Token Straight; nearly all the main characters are somewhere on the rainbow spectrum, and sales soared as a result)
• "Will women refuse to read my book if I am a man writing a woman main character?" (I recommend getting a female editor or beta reader for authenticity, but as long as you aren't taking inspiration from the Cringe List, you're good.)
• "Can a thirteen-year-old become a best-selling writer if they write about an interesting main character?" (Not without a relative or parent in the industry who can game the system in your favor. Stick to fanfiction for a couple of years first.)
• "Is it OK to have an explicit sex scene in a YA Fantasy novel if the characters are of legal age?" (Not in YA, but ok in General or Adult fiction. Your characters might be legal, but your intended audience is not)
• "How do I make my main characters diverse?"
• "Can I make my Asian female lead a mail-order bride?" (Unless this is historical fiction set when mail-order brides were actually a big thing, hard NO. Go away and do a lot more research on harmful stereotypes.)

Some of them are clearly spending too much time listening to Conservative Shock-Jocks, or need to do way more research into culture vs stereotypes, or are trying to get people to buy their book out of some sense of false outrage. Very occasionally, a genuine question pops up that actually makes me stop and think before I answer.

It's a common complaint that fiction, and fantasy in particular, are overwhelmingly white, male, able-bodied neurotypicals. YA fiction has seen a surge of female protagonists, mostly teenagers, but still with a distinct lack of diversity beyond gender.

Co-relation may not equal causation, but the fact that my two best-selling books are a Gaslamp Fantasy featuring an Autistic-coded main character (Autism wasn't discovered until 1905, with the first formal diagnosis and studies a few years later, so the diagnosis literally didn't exist yet in the time the book is set.)

and a Fantasy Duology set in pseudo-Mediterranean Antiquity, whose main cast is predominantly women in their 20s, can be described as 'Rainbow Spectrum... with a Token Straight'.

My most popular series is the Time Travel Logistics and Support, featuring characters of colour, a variety of religious and cultural backgrounds, Autism as a Receptionist Superpower, a Asexual romance subplot, a Non-Binary Main Character, and lots more.

The fact that I regularly sell out of those books should tell you something about how much diversity is NOT an insta-fail.

My personal successes aside, it isn't hard to add diversity to any setting.

Fantasy set in pseudo-Medieval/Renaissance Europe? Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire saw commerce from all over the world, and the Vangarian Guard thrived, many of them retiring back home with wives and families from North Africa or the Mediterranean. The Silk Road linked Trade Caravans from Asia and the Middle East with European powers. Pan-Asian migration to the South Americas and Mexico was huge.

Regency period? The purchase of African Slaves was outlawed in Great Britian and its colonies in 1807 (this left a number of loopholes), and finally the practice was banned completely in August of 1833 with the Slavery Abolishion Act. It still existed in the newly-formed USA, though, so a number of freed or escaped African-American slaves found their way back across the Atlantic. In addition, the Napoleonic Wars saw people fleeing the Continent in droves. High-ranking British Officers stationed in Colonies might bring back Native servants when they returned to Britain.

If you want a Greek farmer, a South American merchant, an heiress of mixed Indian and British heritage... well, they'll still be facing a certain amount of discrimination, but you won't even need five minutes on Google to come up with a plausible background.

Homosexuality has existed at least as long as humans have, and was well documented in Antiquity. Women who temporarily dressed or disguised themselves as men for practical reasons resound throughout History, but so do women who lived as Men, and men who lived as Women, by choice, for most of their lives. Transgender people are not a new concept, even in Western Society. In non-Western cultures, gender-fluid, non-binary, and non-cisgender people were common until Colonialism.

"Confirmed Bachelors", who lived alone with their "trusted lifelong Valet/Butler/high-ranked male servant or companion", or "Spinster Best Friends" was an entire trope in 17th and 18th century fiction.

I'm sure there's an appropriate Golden Girls GIF or Confused Anthropologist joke to insert here, but Vocal doesn't seem to like me trying to embed it, for some reason.

Finally... it's your story.

If you want to include a non-mainstream character... do it. Black, Brown, Mixed, Neurodiverse, Asian... do an appropriate amount of research, avoid stereotypes, and go for gold. If you want to see more 'characters like me' represented... write it yourself.

That's how I got started.