Building Inclusive Worlds

     I just finished reviewing my notes from Building Inclusive Worlds, a four-week worldbuilding intensive offered by Writing the Other that I took last fall.  Favorite gems:

     Monocosmology (an entire world with one worldview or one religion) is both unrealistic and a lost opportunity for complexity and conflict. Three-dimensional humans are complicated, as are our relationships and societies. ​
​     Geography is similarly varied and creates a multiplicity of ecosystems (even in Star Wars, the desert planet Tatooine or the Forest Moon of Endor should have microclimates within the larger monoclimate).

     Fantasy novels (particularly those based on stereotypes of Medieval European cultures) often reinforce rigid, heteronormative patriarchies or monarchies--which is one reason I choose to extrapolate my fantasy stories from inclusive, queernormative, egalitarian cultures. More interesting and more fun! 

     Presuming “Whiteness” as the cultural default is a bias based on colonialism, and another missed opportunity for cultural complexity.  Solution: describe every character’s physical appearance.
​     Even “white” people have a wide range of skin tone, hair color and textures.

     Including underrepresented identities such as asexual (no sexual attraction to others), bisexual 
(attracted to both binary genders), and pansexual (attracted to all genders) adds depth to characterization and breadth to created worlds.
​     It can also be interesting to think of sexuality as a continuum, rather than a discreet label.

     “Marginalized people often have a culture invisible to the dominant one.”
​     History is easiest to reconstruct from written sources, which leaves out a vast swathe of oral cultures. For example,  “Greek” history is often based entirely on the literate aristocracy of ancient Athens, which was only one of many city-states on the Greek mainland and abroad. The Athenian written record also provides little to no insight into the lives of women, slaves, or foreigners who comprised the majority of the population. 

     The most powerful gift of this WtO intensive was exploring cultural appropriation (the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of other cultures by someone from a typically more dominant society).
​    I don’t live as a racial minority, and therefore am not comfortable writing (appropriating) that experience.

​     However, I can write about what it feels like to be ostracized and bullied as a member of an ethnic minority from personal experience.  And I can draw on my experience in creating worlds where characters might be oppressed because of their ethnicity or social status.

The take-away: our stories are stronger when we reflect the varied and complex nature of our world.

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