Reading is a deeply personal and unique experience for most readers. Getting absorbed into the story, turning pages while oblivious to the time passing around you, and connecting the characters to your life truly makes reading so amazing. My reading style involves equating all of the characters to traits and feelings I have and/or want to have, which begs the question — how important is it that I feel represented by the characters in the books I’m reading?

I think it’s important to note that I physically feel well-represented in the current fantasy landscape. As a white male, it feels like most of the fantasy genre was made for me, and it’s something that I think about a lot and don’t take for granted. It’s rare when I read something that isn’t tailor-made for people like me, but that’s obviously not true for many others, who may feel left behind or even ignored by authors. To better break down the subject, I’m going to separate representation into three categories: appearance-based, personality-based and culture-based.

Appearance-based representation is finding a character that looks like you. Matching height, skin color, weight, dimples, etc. The discrepancies in this category are often easy to spot, but are the shortcomings significant? I think that in books, this sort of representation is almost completely unimportant (although as I noted earlier, most fantasy characters look like me). You may think differently based on your reading style, but I barely even consider appearances when I read. Appearance, in general, is a very superficial way to judge a person. I don’t judge people in my life based on their appearance (or do my best not to), so it stands to reason that I don’t in books either. After reading a book, I don’t think I could tell you even the skin color of the main character, but I could go on and on about the feelings and ideas espoused to them. 

Final verdict: Appearance-based representation could definitely use an improvement, but it’s really not that important to me.

Personality-based variance is what I notice most when reading. The fact that each character feels unique in their own way and the fact that they all have different traits and habits is part of why reading is such a perfect way to grow the mind in the first place. Seeing the world through the eyes of people who think differently than you do is invaluable and a source of that empathy comes from reading varied characters. This broadening of horizons is why I would peg this type of variety as extremely important. I’m also happy to report that I think fantasy books do this pretty well, though new books will always be a year or two behind culturally due to the length of the writing process. It would serve the industry well to introduce more stories that include more genders and generally less rigidity about gender and sexuality. They are out there and gaining in popularity, but we need a lot more of them to even the scales.

Final verdict: Personality-based representation is vital to the success of books, and while it’s usually covered pretty well, keeping with the times is an endless hill to climb.

Culture-based representation is its own can of worms. Different cultures tell stories in different ways, many of which are largely unknown to outsiders. Our storytelling style in general is heavily influenced by our upbringings, history and culture. As a result, almost the entirety of historically chart-topping fiction in the U.S. falls into the European style. It makes sense, as most U.S. written culture has roots in Europe, and a majority of our learning is about the history as well as the myths and legends of places in Europe specifically. It’s not inherently bad; it’s just having tunnel vision for the current mainstream media and not stepping outside the box. This applies to both authors and readers. One culture that can be often overlooked in fiction is Native American culture, which has myths and legends anchored in nature that would be a joy to read if the stories were more widely published and advertised. That’s just one culture that deserves more representation in fiction — every group of people has their own worthwhile stories to share.

Final Verdict: While few may think about it, culture-based representation is something extremely valuable that popular works of literature could better reflect. Everyone would be better served by incorporating more diversity culture-wise into our fantasy works.

In my opinion, the strongest way to take action towards increasing the representation of your self-identified groups or others is to be an advocate. It’s to make the jump into reading something different and supporting the authors that are willing to take the risk in writing about something without a proven history of success in the current market. As an individual, I implore you to start asking more questions and to think deeper about representation and how it matters to you. Our world is changing every moment — be a part of it.

Note: This is published here as well as theaggie.org with permission. Enjoy!