Salt and Sage Books - How to Write Black Characters: An Incomplete Guide (Incomplete Guides Book 1)

Dear Reader,

Blackness is not a monolith.

The voices who have joined forces to make this body of work cannot speak to the entirety of the Black experience. We all have a myriad of life events that have shaped us, lived experience that we draw from. What you read here will reflect that.

This guide is intended to be a reference point so that you can be aware of various harmful stereotypes and negative tropes to avoid during your process of crafting Black characters. Even though things are completely fictional, certain aspects of your work will be rooted in real-world issues.

The written word is a form of escape. But for many of us... its more than just words. Some situations will highlight our realities, so handle them with care. We encourage you to be mindful in your approach to both characterization and world-building.

Thanks for reading & happy creating!

Undrea

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the first of Salt & Sage Books Incomplete Guide series. Were glad to have you here!

Do you remember the first time you read a book and thought, Ah! Thats me!? That ringing inside of being seen?

I do. As a child, I was obsessed with a Cinderella book. Cinderella was white, blond, and female, just like me. I was probably two.

As we interview for Salt & Sage, we ask, When have you felt seen? The answers weve heard from our incredible editors & readers have been inspiring and heartbreaking. Some of them have been avid readers their whole lives, but have yet to read about someone who looks like them, feels like them, talks like them.

In 2015 and again in 2019, the School Library Journal took a look at the childrens books that were published in each preceding year (2014 and 2018). You may have seen the illustrationGoogle diversity in childrens literature if you havent.

The first time I saw the 2015 analysis, I came back to it again and again, feeling more and more discouraged. Initially, I couldnt believe there were so few diverse books. I started listening harder. Then I felt embarrassed that Id been so unaware of the concerns (hello, white privilege & guilt!). I leaned in further. I tuned in to people who had been talking about this forever. I wanted to be part of the change with my own books, but I wasnt exactly sure how to do that. I felt nervous to try. What if I tried to write diversely, and I got it horribly wrong? What if I did more damage?

I confess, at first, I was motivated to learn more about diverse communities to keep myself safe. Thats a perfectly fine place to begin, but not a great place to end.

Fast forward to 2019. Salt & Sage Books was born basically overnight. It rapidly grew from there, and one of our most popular services is a sensitivity read. Im really proud of the sensitivity reading services we provide, and of the superlative people we have on staff.

Weve worked hard to create an inclusive, diverse, and safe place for our readers and editors to thrive. Salt & Sage is all about quality editing with kindnessand kindness isnt just an encouraging tone in an edit letter or complimentary in-line notes. Kindness is helping authors like you (like me!) who want to do better and be better, but arent sure where to start. That meant providing a level of sensitivity reading beyond a basic rubber stamp of yes/no.

As sensitivity reads flowed in and out, I noticed a pattern: the same concerns were appearing again and again in the letters from our Black readers. I saw the same pattern from our trans readers. Once I noticed it, the pattern showed up everywhere: our sensitivity readers were regularly rehashing the same concerns related to their identities.

That got me thinkingif our authors were consistently having the same issues, could we help in a more targeted way? And what about the authors for whom a sensitivity read is too expensive?

The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. Ive talked to lots of people in the writing world about writing diversely, and the same thing stops nearly all of them: fear. They dont know where to start. They arent sure that their Googled information is accurate. They dont know anyone who they can ask, or they are too nervous to ask.