race

Way With World: Race – The Trap Of Positive Stereotypes

by

despair depression sad man

(Way With Worlds is a weekly column on the art of worldbuilding published at Seventh Sanctum, Muse Hack, and Ongoing Worlds)

So last column I talked about stereotypes in creating races. Mostly it was:

  • Don’t do it.
  • Be sure not to mix up culture versus racial/species traits.
  • Really, don’t do it.
  • Did I mention conflating culture and biological traits really is bad?

However there’s a specific kind of stereotyping of races I want to call out in worldbuilding. One that’s insidiuous in real life and in fictional world creation. One that often goes unexplored.

The Positive Stereotype.

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Way With Worlds: Race – Race And Culture

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People Wall Shadow Humanity

And welcome to the column with Most Controversial Sounding Title yet. Which, much like my columns on sex, is probably going to be far more pedestrian than expected. Which is good in this case.

What we’re going to talk about here is our races (in this case species) and races (the distinct groups within species) and culture.

Yeah, I’m gonna keep it clinical if I can.

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Way With Worlds: Race – Getting The Setting

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people identity

(Way With Worlds is a weekly column on the art of worldbuilding published at Seventh Sanctum, Muse Hack, and Ongoing Worlds)

And now, with the issue of race and species cleared up by largely just giving up (and using race for everything, including species), let’s talk designing races. Please note that in this case I will discuss race as an inclusively interbreeding, defined group – essentially species, as noted earlier.

Now I’ve covered some of this under previous columns on writing intelligent life – which I assume is largely what we’re covering here. In this case, we’re going to get into the nitty gritty about race creation.

Races start with the setting. Before you “run the race” you need to know the landscape.

OK, not the best joke, stick with me here.

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