What’s The Story?

And we come to day 3 of JJ-Blogs-About-Race-And-Then-Ducks-The-Rotten-Tomatoes! To recap:

Race in Fiction Week

• I’m Korean and I’m Okay: Some background information on me.
• Representing Race in Fiction: What it says on the tin.
• Coffee, Chocolate, and Cream: How to describe characters of a different race.

Before we continue, I would just like to say that I don’t want to come across as though I am against explorations of racial tension in fiction. I’m not, especially with regards to historical and even some fantasy and science fiction. In fact, my preferred mode of seeing these issues discussed is through the medium of more figurative genres. To bring up HARRY POTTER again, the pureblood vs. Muggleborn prejudice that runs through the series is a wonderful metaphor for racism and class conflict.

I will explain why: because racism, prejudice, and classist issues still exist in today’s society and most likely always will. If it’s not race, then it’s money, or it’s ability, or it’s where your native planet is located, or it’s so on and so forth. I think it’s in human nature to be drawn to those “like you” and mistrust those who are “different”. The feelings are consistent, even if the values in the equation change over time.

As I said, if we lived in a perfect utopian society where everyone was equal and the same, we’d probably have no more stories left to tell.

What’s the Story?

It’s hard to articulate my feelings on this matter without seeming contradictory, but I will try my best. When I read a book, I want to know what the story is, not its plot or what it’s about. This distinction is slight but crucial. If I ask someone What’s the story? and the only answer they’re able to give is Well, it’s about [fill in the blank], then it’s what I call an “issues” or a “problem” novel.

Here are two completely fabricated examples.

Question: What’s the story?
Answer #1: A young woman must save her little sister from sinister forces that would harm her.

Race can certainly be an aspect of the conflict that forms a book like this. Let’s say the sisters are of a different class/race/what-have-you than the majority of the society in which they live. The younger sister happens to look more like an “outsider” and is abducted/abused/sold into slavery/think of your own plot point here. The protagonist must then find a way to save her sister. She gets into the criminal underbelly of society where she’s treated differently because she looks like she’s of “a different class”: the crooks are more likely to fleece her because they think she’s easily tricked like “everyone else who looks like her”, etc. Racial/cultural differences inform a book like this, but that’s not where the story lies.

Question: What’s the story?
Answer #2: Well, it’s about this girl who falls in love with this guy, but her family doesn’t like him because he’s different, so she sticks up for him and everyone comes to an understanding that we’re all human.

In short, a book like basically says, “Oh this is an issues book”. It doesn’t have to deal with race–it came be anything from he’s from a lower class, or perhaps the guy isn’t a guy but a girl and it’s a coming out story–anything. The story is “girl falls in love with wrong person”. A classic story and not one I have inherent problems with (if I’m personally bored by them) except it’s the sort of storyline that turns into an “issues” story. Now, if the story were about a girl trying come to terms with her mother’s murder and happens to fall in love with a “wrong person”, that’s something different again.

I hope I’m making myself clear because it’s hard to illustrate what I’m talking about without specific examples, but I don’t want to single out books and cry This author got it wrong! Because everyone has the right to write the book they want and they certainly don’t need me to love it. But those of us how have felt either marginalized or “on the outside” on the account of our class or ethnicity sometimes develop facial tics when we come across “problem novels”. Because problem novels often reduce the marginalized into simple tropes because they don’t functionally need to be well-rounded (they don’t–I mean, neither Romeo nor Juliet were especially three-dimensional aside from the fact they were really horny teenagers). The “other” in books like these also tend to get exoticized/romanticized/fetishized and it makes me manifestly uncomfortable.

Now, I don’t believe all books with minority characters are “problem novels” and I’m seeing more and more books where characters are incidentally ethnic AND whole persons. But I think (and this is my own personal opinion) that a lot of writers are frightened of being accused of exoticizing/romanticizing/fetishizing the “other” and therefore stick to what they know. I’m not trying to make generalizations, but the majority of the manuscripts that come across my desk are written by white people. I think it’s just because there are more white people than non-white people in the United States. We’re called “minorities” for a reason.

So that’s my take on the “problem” novel. What are your thoughts?