September 2024

Should a white author write from the perspective of another race?

CC Robinson

This author insists it’s possible to write a story from the perspective of another race, but cautions that it involves a fair amount of prep work.

by CC Robinson

“Write what you know.” That’s what I heard over and over at author conventions, meetups, and training workshops. But it’s bad author advice, and here’s why: if we only ever wrote what we knew, the world would only have books featuring the tortured writer as the main character.

Horror upon horror.

Not everyone can write a Misery and do it well like Stephen King. Plus, authors being our only choice for a main character is “cringe,” as the kids nowadays say.

For my Divided series, I never write from my own point of view—a middle-aged, white, female author. Instead, I write from the perspective of four ethnically diverse teenagers, none of whom are me. Getting inside their heads in an authentic way—and not stealing their words or misappropriating their cultures—took me six long years of interviews, research, practice, and feedback.


Books & Buzz Magazine is where writing pros spill their secrets! Subscribe now for free

The world needs more books featuring marginalized characters in starring roles—books written by authors in those communities, but also books written by authors outside those communities who want to create dynamic protagonists readers will love.

But I personally know the anxiety involved in creating believable, dynamic protagonists who are also members of marginalized communities. No one wants to misstep or offend in this area, least of all me.

Here’s how I researched and then wrote from another perspective:

1. Identify your biases and preconceptions about the people group of your character. This is probably the toughest step, as we all have biases, even members of marginalized communities. If we start by assuming we have biases, then we are more open to acknowledging and moving past those biases. And the only way I found to identify those biases is to have friends from within that people group lovingly point them out to me. I’m not talking tokenism, but authentic, ongoing relationships, where you share meals and life and walk through the highs and lows together. This takes time. As pastor of a multiethnic church for the last twenty-plus years, I’ve walked through this and watched others on their journeys. This requires trust, openness, and a willingness to not be offended. It’s difficult but rewarding work.


The last thing I wanted was for my writing to alienate a reader from a marginalized people group.


2. Conduct extensive research to learn the history, culture, and leaders (current and past) of the people group. For me, this involved hours-long interviews with friends from each of my main characters’ people groups. I asked questions about cultural practices, family dynamics, and how they had experienced oppression or discrimination personally. I also read first-hand accounts of black American slaves and civil rights leaders, of Asian-American oppression and discrimination during World War II and beyond, and of the struggles of modern-day Hispanic immigrants. I read books by authors from these communities—both fiction and non-fiction. I immersed myself in an education, and I hadn’t even written a word yet.

3. Develop detailed character templates including family dynamics, cultural practices in the world of the novel, and the usual character personality traits and physical characteristics. My character templates have a short version and a longer version. The short version gets shared with graphic designers, editors, and others I’ve hired. The longer version is mine and includes the rich depth of the character’s world inside the novel. For instance, Divided is set forty-five years in the future, after ethnic groups have lived separated from each other. This provided an opportunity for our current-day culture to evolve and change based on the needs and practices of each isolated ethnic area instead of on any one dominant culture.

4. Write backstory scenes to get to know your characters and to check your characterization with your friends. I wrote four backstory scenes for each protagonist, set eight to two years prior to the start of Divided. These scenes helped me discover my characters’ unique voices and check my work. Friends—of those characters’ ethnicities—helped hone my portrayal of both the characters and the overall cultures. This was a time of difficult feedback, as I thought I had nailed these. I confronted more unconscious biases and drafted again. When I finally started writing Divided, my characters had become beloved friends.

5. After finishing the first draft, have those same friends read the manuscript—or as much as they are willing or able to. I didn’t do this right after my first draft, and that cost me both time and money. I fell short in how the characters interacted with one another and in the richness of their world. After my developmental editor ripped my draft to shreds and I redrafted, my friends then read the new and improved first act. I asked questions, like “In what ways does or doesn’t this character seem like an authentic [fill-in-the-blank ethnicity]?” or “What about the culture doesn’t ring true to you?,” always leaving room for commentary with open-ended questions. I then incorporated their feedback into my final draft.

This is an exhaustive and thorough process, but the last thing I wanted was for my writing to alienate a reader from a marginalized people group. There’s always room for improvement, but my hope is that in utilizing a rigorous preparation and research process, we authors can offer dynamic characters who inspire and entertain the reader and avoid stereotypes and further damage.


CC Robinson is the author or the forthcoming Divided, Book 1 of the Divided dystopian series. Divided, a multi–point of view young adult dystopian novel set forty-five years after a devastating civil war fought over racial issues, stars a Hispanic teenager longing for escape from Queenstown’s walls. Instead, Marcos ends up in a fight for his life in a secret, illegal labor camp. Divided is available September 7th, 2024, wherever books are sold.

Share this: