On national stereotypes

When writing a character of a certain nationality, where do we distinguish the line between stereotyping and incorporating the nationality's cultural values on the character's worldview?

A person's worldview and behavior are determined by the environment they grew up in and the experiences they had. (Obviously.) The thing is, no country is so homogeneous that you can just take a stereotype, apply it to a character and expect it to make sense. In the end, one's circumstances should be way more important that one's nationality. (Plus, even if we assume a stereotype is 100% true for everyone, it probably won't be after 20 years because generations differ greatly.)

Also, stereotypes are most often lazy shorthand used by people who didn't do their research. If I see a character and the first thing they do is act out a stereotype, I'm going to assume the author just didn't bother trying with this particular character. Make sure to study the nation you want to use.

Well, a crude but not too inaccurate line of distinction is this: if a reader, after reading a fragment with the character in question being present but their nationality not being given, can guess their nationality correctly, then you've probably done a good job; on the other hand, if after reading such a fragment they know, no guessing required, then you've probably gone into stereotypes.

That said, there are a lot of quite subtle things when it comes to nationalities and, even if you disregard someone's personality and their life story (so to say), doing proper research about the subject matter will give you enough knowledge about those things that for as long as you use it and aren't completely inept at it you should get something that is not a stereotype.

Well, I tried to add in some other factors apart from their nationalities to build their characterizations, but when I have two Germans who display Germanic Depressives, and a couple of Scots who manifest courageous qualities, albeit expressed in differing degrees, I do wonder if I've somehow (subconsciously?) created their backstories to justify the stereotypes.

That's probably exactly what happened.

Honestly, it is a bit hard for me to give you advice on how to proceed with that one without guessing now, as I don't really have much experience with that due to mostly writing fantasy stuff (and in the cases when I am not, I generally treat nationality as a superfluous thing) so nationalities as we know them aren't really a thing. That said, depending on how far into the story you are, you may want to consider simply putting it aside, writing a few scenes for each of the characters that put into spotlight their personality and any significant traits they have, then putting together an image of what kind of people they are based on those scenes, and deciding about what to do with what you already have once you are done with it; this is how I treat my characters when I want to make them last throughout the story without nonsense happening, although I generally do this before the characters appear in the story.

Yeah, it sounds like it's a case of "cart before the horse." Maybe re-write them so they fit with what you want them to do or be in the story and then figure out national origins later? If they're still Brave Scots or Germanic Depressives, then it should be fine despite the fact that it's still kind of appealing to stereotypes, but chances are they won't be the same.

edited 28th Sep '17 12:41:08 PM by WaterBlap