: Re: Will my book have a better chance at being successful if I include more gender diversity in it? My novel so far only contains female main characters. There are some male characters, but they

@Welton431

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Maybe. Or it could make it even worse.

As writers we need to focus on the point and goal of the writing. - Why are we writing a piece, what is that piece's purpose, and how do the elements of that writing come together to achieve those goals?

Be wary of falling into a trap of "Write by Checkbox", as it has become one of the fastest ways for a piece of media to feel flat and lifeless. A character added just for the sake of having said character with a given trait or attribute is likely to drag a piece down more than improve it. It can feel exceedingly fake and forced because the Write by Checkbox method has the bad habit of accidentally 'demanding' that the checkbox be overplayed to ensure it stands out so that no one misses that you've checked the box...

Does a character or element exist in your story for the purpose of ticking a checkbox off a list of mainstream media inclusive brownie points? Then think long and hard about how you're writing and interacting with that character, and whether or not your should actually tick that box.

Shallow and lifeless characters don't actually improve media inclusiveness if we as writers insist on making a mockery out of including them. Do not do the disservice to your characters by painting them as something for no other reason than to have painted them as such.

In life there are groups of people where no one will have some given trait - Not all stories need to include people representative of every single human on earth. There are billions of us, and there is no human lifespan long enough to read a story with a character set diverse enough to have not 'excluded' at least someone.

Write what you know, write what you dream, and write what holds truth to yourself as a writer.

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