Nationality & Ethnicity of the characters

[avatar_roku]

Dear fellow authors,

Does the nationality and ethnicity of the characters affect the readers' enjoyment of a story? What are your thoughts on this?

I am Indian and a fairly newbie writer on Literotica. As I am familiar with the social and cultural aspects of my country, I mostly write about Indian characters. I am fairly confident that my stories are grammatically correct with proper spelling and punctuation. I've received feedback from readers that the plot of my stories are enjoyable. In short, my stories are readable.

I am not sure of the demographics of the Literotica readers, but my doubt is, am I losing a majority of readers by writing about Indian characters in Indian setting?

Indian history and mythology has been intricately woven into most of my stories till date, so the characters and/or setting had to be Indian. But I'll definitely have stories to tell in the future where the characters and/or setting may not need to be Indian. In such cases, would it be more prudent to write about native-English-speaking characters in order to, may be, appeal to a broader audience?

Please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks!
Avatar Roku
______________
My stories
https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=5719913&page=submissions

 

[BiscuitHammer]

I love diversity in my stories, and the stories I read. My two most obvious examples are Freja, who is Danish, in the Alexaverse, and Nanu, who is a former slave from the Roman province of Egypt in my story Time Rider. There's also Tunde in the Alexaverse, who is from South Africa and mumbles in isi-Zulu a lot. Lisa complains in Yiddish constantly.

I find that dealing with people's ethnicity and identity is a great way to make characters come alive. I talk about cultural quirks, like Danes heaping pickles on their hotdogs, or French-Canadians flinging their arms about when they talk. The trick is to just keep it flowing, and to not sound like a dictionary description of said trait.

One of my new characters, Tanuja, is Punjabi, and newly arrived in Canada. I'm looking forward to seeing what she can add.

 

[yibala2]

Dear fellow authors,

I am not sure of the demographics of the Literotica readers, but my doubt is, am I losing a majority of readers by writing about Indian characters in Indian setting?

Indian history and mythology has been intricately woven into most of my stories till date, so the characters and/or setting had to be Indian. But I'll definitely have stories to tell in the future where the characters and/or setting may not need to be Indian. In such cases, would it be more prudent to write about native-English-speaking characters in order to, may be, appeal to a broader audience?

Hi!

Write who you want to write. You'll find the audience for it, and that audience will appreciate your inspired stories.

All my Literotica characters thus far exist in a fantasy central/southern African setting. I'm certain I don't reach the broadest audience. But even a small audience on Lit can be hundreds of readers.

If in the future, you want to write non-Indian characters and settings, do that too. But write who and what you feel. Your stories will be the better for it.

Yib

 

[KeithD]

Sorry, this is a meaningless poll. You will get single-reader opinions that tell you nothing useful. There's an army of readers here, each reader with his/her own opinion, nearly all of whom aren't going to respond to this poll. All you'll get is comments by a few, which doesn't answer your question in any meaningful way.

 

[AlexBailey]

I like reading stories from varied cultures, but I find cross-culture stories particularly interesting as characters navigate and discover the differences and similarities between them.

The author Rustyoznail is particularly good at these kind of stories.

 

[CyranoJ]

Naipaul, Rushdie, Roy, Seth, Ghosh, both mother and daughter Desai, and many more are household names far beyond India. The Kama Sutra and various books derived from it are consistent bestsellers around the world. I think it's been well proven by now that writing from Indian perspectives about Indian characters is not a barrier to Western audiences, I see no reason it should be different with erotica.

 

[TadOverdon]

As a rule I don't identify characters directly by race or ethnicity.

 

[SimonDoom]

According to DBPedia India has the second-highest share of Literotica Web traffic, at over 9%. So there's a very big audience of people who probably are very eager to read erotic stories about characters of Indian heritage. I wouldn't hesitate to write stories about such characters if I were you.

If you desire to maximize your reader base then you might want to be careful about having too many cultural references that non-Indian readers would not understand. Or, take some effort in the story to explain the references.

 

[Nouh_Bdee]

I feel like what you're talking about more than race or ethnicity, OP, is culture. I feel like outside of the racial tropes of the Interracial category, I can't see a character's race or ethnicity dampening a reader's enjoyment of a story. Culture is...more complicated. When I'm reading a story that is immersing me in a foreign culture, whether it's India or an alien planet or Florida, it can be disorienting and distracting from the narrative itself if it's done poorly. Most of the time, though, it's a hugely positive thing, enriching the story and my experience of reading it. I'm sure there are a lot of readers here who could give you much better advice than I could about how to do it well (how much to hold the reader's hand, etc.), and you should seek that out if you feel like you need it (although if your stories are successful, maybe you don't?). Take Yibala's advice, though. Write what you want to write. If it speaks to you, it'll speak to someone else, too.

 

[yowser]

I like reading stories from varied cultures, but I find cross-culture stories particularly interesting as characters navigate and discover the differences and similarities between them.

The author Rustyoznail is particularly good at these kind of stories.

I agree with this. Teasing out differences between characters can generate a lot of interest and movement and set up some intriguing and engaging situations. Jhumpa Lahiri's work is a marvelous example of this, and if not completely overdrawn (too many obscure reference points) I suspect you potentially could attract a lot of attention. Please continue!

 

[Rob_Howard]

Hey fellow Indian writer!

I too have been writing stories with Indian characters for the past one year. But ethnicity doesn't matter in my stories, most of the time, because the setting in my stories is urban and the characters are independent bachelors.

But I might wanna suggest you that you can provide some sort of quick explanation in the story text or glossary at the beginning or end of the story, if you're mentioning customs, rituals, jargons, holidays or festivals which are very much specific to India.

For eg: if you keep the setting of story in Shimla or Manali, I'm sure most of the Indian readers recognise them as tourist hill stations. But readers from other parts of the world might not know them, so you can specify about it in one line.

I did the mistake of using 'crores' and 'lakhs' in a story and explaining its meaning in a clumsy way. No one commented about it, but it got low ratings, and one of the authors in the forum guessed that the extensive usage of the Indian specific terms might have contributed to the low ratings.

Other than that, you can keep the ethnicity and setting as Indian, as it might give more variety and diversity in stories for the readers. As long as the erotic part in your story is arousing enough, there's no need to worry about viewership.

 

[HectorBidon]

But I'll definitely have stories to tell in the future where the characters and/or setting may not need to be Indian. In such cases, would it be more prudent to write about native-English-speaking characters in order to, may be, appeal to a broader audience?

Try it. I haven't read your stories yet, but your statistics and the story comments show that you have already acquired a nice following who find your writing and your cultural settings delightful. The more high quality stories you publish, the more readers will eventually find you, whether you stick with Indian characters or whether you branch out. Just remember, though, that if you try to skew your stories too much toward the lowest common denominator, your audience will skew that way too.

 

[CyranoJ]

When I'm reading a story that is immersing me in a foreign culture, whether it's India or an alien planet or Florida

The study of Florida Man is one of the more bizarre and confounding fields in anthropology, it has to be said.

 

[gordo12]

But I might wanna suggest you that you can provide some sort of quick explanation in the story text or glossary at the beginning or end of the story, if you're mentioning customs, rituals, jargons, holidays or festivals which are very much specific to India.

This! Good advice to expand your readership in other cultures.

I avoid Indian stories because the writers tend to write what is normal for them, foreign for me. I don't want to have to look up 100 terms while reading a story. I've read simple stories that I enjoyed where the author minimized that kind of content.

 

[avatar_roku]

But I might wanna suggest you that you can provide some sort of quick explanation in the story text or glossary at the beginning or end of the story, if you're mentioning customs, rituals, jargons, holidays or festivals which are very much specific to India.

Thanks! I'll keep this in mind. It's very easy to forget that what's familiar to me may not be so for others. The real craft would be to weave those explanations within the story itself, so readers don't feel like reading a Wikipedia page.

 

[MillieDynamite]

This! Good advice to expand your readership in other cultures.

I avoid Indian stories because the writers tend to write what is normal for them, foreign for me. I don't want to have to look up 100 terms while reading a story. I've read simple stories that I enjoyed where the author minimized that kind of content.

In cuckold stories I play into the racial stereotypes. My reasoning is this, readers that like cuckolding stories expect and like the stereotypes. In stories that aren't cuckolding I often write them as just people with no particular direct reference to race. If I write they have blonde hair and green eyes, you probably assume they are white, but it isn't necessarily so. While a naturally blonde Afro-American would probably be a barely black woman or man, I have known many very black women and men with all shades of eye color.

In many stories the race of the participants isn't relevant, at all, to the story. I'm an Afro-American adopted by a white family and have always believed, and was taught, what is important is on the inside and packaging isn't important.

Small or Large, short or tall, thin, plump, fit or fat, a person is what they do not what they look like.

Much of my writing has been violent and sexual. I like horror stories a lot. In all my writing, I give my characters the traits they need for whatever part they have been drafted into service for. I only know a few Indians, so don't write them in stories often. But I like reading about them.

 

[MeredithEighty8]

I come from a long line of interracial relationships, some reluctant, some consensual and some non consensual.

Quite a bit of what I’ve over the years discovered (uncovered) has been the seed for several of my stories. In some respites it’s a rich, lascivious and human history of male/female love relationships and sometimes primal male instincts being realized. It’s inevitable that my writing would reflect this.

 

[Emirus]

As a rule I don't identify characters directly by race or ethnicity.

Exactly. I write stories about people. About men and women. I would only bring ethnicity into it if it was a necessary part of the story.

 

[lovecraft68]

Exactly. I write stories about people. About men and women. I would only bring ethnicity into it if it was a necessary part of the story.

Same here and I find it sadly ironic that the yahoos in this country who scream the word racism every 10 seconds and talk about equality....are the ones that constantly have to refer to people by their color or ethnicity. Happy to tell you about their black friends and their Asian friends and that transgender person they know!

The reality is referring to people by their skin all the time is racist. They're the assholes perpetuating racism while calling themselves "woke" when we all just see people as people, we've evolved, but there is no progress in 'progressive'

 

[lovecraft68]

In cuckold stories I play into the racial stereotypes. My reasoning is this, readers that like cuckolding stories expect and like the stereotypes..

Translation, you're writing racist bullshit to appeal to racists.

I just replaced stereotype with the word racist to clarify things.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I'm a first-generation migrant (though not often seen as such) and nearly half of Australians are first- or second-generation migrants, so my stories tend to reflect that. Ethnicity often does affect how people fit into the world, e.g. one of my characters has family back in India and regularly visits them, another overcompensates trying to fit into Australian society. So I often will indicate their ethnicity, either by explicitly mentioning it, or implicitly through names etc.

The study of Florida Man is one of the more bizarre and confounding fields in anthropology, it has to be said.

Fun fact: it's not that Florida has an unusually high concentration of weirdos, but that Florida's court reporting regs make it easier for journalists to find those stories. Which implies that the other states have plenty of equally weird dudes who just don't get as much coverage.

 

[CyranoJ]

Fun fact: it's not that Florida has an unusually high concentration of weirdos, but that Florida's court reporting regs make it easier for journalists to find those stories. Which implies that the other states have plenty of equally weird dudes who just don't get as much coverage.

Very true... except that the weirdest Florida Man of them all is DeSantis.

(Tongue-in-cheek, of course. Uh, to an extent. Kidding-on-the-square, you might say. Unfortunately, he's not uniquely weird either. But he's a pretty extreme example.)

 

[MillieDynamite]

Translation, you're writing racist bullshit to appeal to racists.

I just replaced stereotype with the word racist to clarify things.

Most of the so called "cuckolds" or cuck wannabes are white men with fantasies of black men fucking their wives. I can't tell you if that makes them racist or not, they seem to think black men are better than they at fucking. Nearly all of the cuckolding stories I have written, have been written by request. Without exception they claimed to be white men and gave me the rough outline they wanted for the story.

In the end, the men with these fantasies get off on the thought of being humiliated. Interracial sex is still considered a taboo subject. Personally, I have no idea why that should be so. The black and white aspect seems to be the most taboo of interracial to most people. A white man, who gets off on humiliation, would find this the most humiliating experience.

It is almost as if they are the opposite of racist. As they are self-loathing and admitting that a black man is better than them.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

A lot of readers don't want to read anything more challenging than American eighth-grade level. But a lot of others are looking for something interesting to read that also happens to be erotic. Those people will happily try a story from another culture written in a foreign dialect - so the trick is to reward them with details and insights explained subtly to them, but not overload them with phrases they'll struggle to understand.

Which means a beta reader is invaluable. I get a lot of readers who enjoy my various UK-dialect characters (to be fair, I haven't let the Geordie say much), and a bunch of anons who tell me to write English properly - probably 3 or 4 to 1, but it really helps to have someone point out what phrases aren't clear.

Every time, I'll worry about one section, and the reader will say 'oh that made sense in context, but what on earth does xxxx mean? Is it (something totally wrong)?'

Personally I like new-to-me settings - it's like getting a travelogue as a bonus with my porn! Anything that isn't Anywhere High School USA is a reasonable start.

 

[CyranoJ]

It is almost as if they are the opposite of racist. As they are self-loathing and admitting that a black man is better than them.

The interface between cuck fantasy, IR porn, and racism is complicated. But what's not complicated is that Lovecraft wouldn't know the slightest thing about any of the underlying issues, or have anything at all interesting to say about them, if the issues walked up to him in broad daylight and kicked him in the nuts. He's the kind of motherfucker for whom the existence of Barack Obama and BLM is "racism." Don't waste your time.