I loved #WeNeedDiverseBooks! Readers are smarter than people give them credit for, I doubt they'll shy away from a book because the main character comes from a different country or culture.

A bit of advice I'd give writers is don't make a big deal about it unless it's part of the plot.  I adore using a wide range of options with my characters.One book has the teenage MC in the care of his aunt and her wife. I never spell out that they're gay or make a big deal out of it, it's just there. Another character is of Indian decent, but I let the reader figure it out by her name and the names of her family, references to her hair/skin tone/eye color, that her mother wears a sari. The stories I tell aren't about the character's journey as a particular ethnic decent, it's about a character going through events who just happens to have parents who immigrated from India.

How is it I just now discovered this wonderful discussion? Thank you Lucy and Danielle for your comments. I love your natural approach to this idea, Danielle. You must have a strong sense of our common humanity and are able to create diverse characters as the real world does--seamlessly, naturally, unassumingly. I wish more people would do this. I'm always frustrated when a book with a lot of characters has no gay characters because EVERYONE in real life knows gay people, and every character should. And we are a diverse nation by every definition of diversity, so diverse characters should just happen, as I think you do it, Danielle. But if I don't quite have it right, please elaborate because your post intrigues me.

The challenge is writing about minority characters whose experiences aren't ours. Can I write about an African-American character? I did so in a novella, and I hope I did so faithfully. I'd like to think I did so as you describe--naturally, with common humanity underpinning the tale.

It's kind of like another issue I spend time thinking about--characters doing real things. It bugs me in books when characters never go to the bathroom. What is natural is what should be written about, including all our diverse ways of being. Thanks for the food for thought.

Oh Boy!

I delve deep into the characterizations of my diverse characters. They are, admittedly, your usual group of common folks, but I figure you just can't write about them enough. My cast includes Blacks, Whites and Hispanic - that's what I know, that's what the setting calls for. In my quest for embracing diversity, I see no need to add, say, an Eskimo to the mix, I don't think their lung capacity could handle the dry southwest.

I prefer to focus on what makes a person diverse, other than skin color, and that alone keeps me rather busy. 

I'm an aged middle class white guy living in the Upper Midwest. I have or have had friends and/or coworkers who are like me, and also people who are from elsewhere in our country, who practice different religions, are straight or gay or lesbian and two who are transgender, are African (from three different countries), African-American, Asian, Asian-American, from any of several different European or Scandinavian countries, American Indian, and from different social or economic strata and different generations. Some of these people are female. 

We're all are more alike than we are different. 

But we are different. My WIP details a conflict between my American Indian MC and her mixed race partner and love interest, against two wealthy white businessmen. It is a clash of value systems and cultures. Neither system is necessarily bad or good, but one has to win out, and one will win out when it better understands the other and adjusts to the shared environment.