: Re: Writing a character that does not share your ethnic background? When you make a character that isn't your own race or ethnic background, you have to research things, in order to avoid misrepresentation.

@BetL639

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Depends on what you want to do with their character? Is it modern day? Post modern? something from the past? Does this character eat at all in your story? What type of things would this character do that would need to have cultural influence? Are they Asian doing a kung fu tournament with family and cultural influence/pressure to do so?

What is the setting? Location? Is this inner city New York where an Afican-American teenager will mostly be playing basketball? Or is this in the streets of Brazil where that same teenager is now playing soccer?

Ultimately, you need to think about what culture specific topics may be needed. If your character is going to have implied meals (whereas you specifically write about the character eating), looking up something like what do African tribal people eat for breakfast won't help the story.

The "How" much will be enough is up to you on how much does the culture of the character play in the story. They may just be a hispanic male from Mexico but otherwise do everything a Caucasian does and doesn't eat Mexican food but instead enjoys a good burger. Heck, I have Italian ancestry and I don't like Italian food!

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