#stereotypes.

 Writing from the point of view of someone who isn't like oneself. This is an issue faced by most fiction writers, of course. Most of us don't want to write stories with different versions of ourselves over and over and over. But writers of historical and speculative fiction have a special problem: they're writing in settings where the characters are likely to have very different sensibilities from modern readers.

Writers of historical fiction have a more restrictive situation, since they're constrained by what we actually know about a period of history. If your novel is set in ancient Rome, or the antebellum South, you have to have slavery. And attitudes about everything from the role and status of women, treatment of children, treatment of animals, pluralism, class/castes etc. varied greatly with time and place, but they were usually quite different from our modern sensibilities. Fantasy writers have more leeway, as they can construct worlds and societies that are different from history. But it's still unlikely that the attitudes held by characters in a different society are going to mirror ours in all, or even most respects.

This leads to some questions about both world building and characterization. How do you portray your world and character in a way that's plausible, internally consistent and different without alienating modern readers?

The answer is complex.

First of all, one should do meticulous homework. This is vital when writing in a real-world setting, but it's important for writers who creates fictional worlds too. One shouldn't rely on what "everyone" knows about a given time and place. Some conventional wisdom is wrong, and even carefully researched history often ignores the perspectives or contributions of marginalized people unless you really dig for them.

On a lighter note, many modern readers assume that Hoffmann's Struwwelpeter represents an accurate view of 19th century German morality regarding child rearing, but in fact, the stories were very tongue in cheek, and cutting children's thumbs off was no more acceptable then than it is now. Hoffmann was an interesting mix of qualities, in fact, with some attitudes that were very ahead of his time, and some that weren't.

Secondly, people living in a given place and time aren't monolithic. History tends to focus on averages and blur distinctions between groups and individuals. I've often wondered how historians (let alone pop culture) of the future might portray the attitudes and norms of Americans during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. I can think of several social issues that are currently very much in contention. Presenting an "average" way everyone thinks about them is impossible, even for modern pollsters. Anyone who has been in a conversation with friends and family (let alone online) about the divisive, or even not-so-divisive, issues of the day knows this.

Results from 2010 Gallup Poll shows how divided modern people are on many issues. The gap between what people say they believe and how they actually behave may be even wider on some of these issues, at least.

 People hold a wide variety of views and these views are even sometimes inconsistent or self-contradictory. Societal baselines change over time, but that doesn't mean no one in the past overlapped with modern views. Imagine a hypothetical future where nearly everyone (except an occasional depraved weirdo) is vegetarian and it's illegal to spank one's kids. Will writers of historical fiction insist that it's unrealistic to portray anyearly 21st century Americans as being anti-spanking or as vegetarians simply because the average person living in our times eats meat and hits their kids? And even more tellingly, would they insist on presenting everyone who eats meat and practices corporal punishment as having the exact same approach to or attitude about their own behavior?

Thirdly, one must consider who you are writing your story for, or to put it another way, what the purpose of your story is.

--Is it simply to entertain the reader by transporting them to an "exotic," yet still relatable time and place, a setting that's foreign yet fun? This is often referred to as "escapist" fiction. Some readers of historical romance, or fantasy want to enter a fairy tale (and not one that resembles the original darker versions of fairy tales either). Writers of grittier or more "realistic" fiction may poo poo this, but I don't think it's necessarily wrong.

--Is it to indulge a power fantasy that one might have about living in a world where their kind of person has a level of autonomy, acceptance, and control they probably lacked in real history, or might even lack in the world today? Another kind of escapism, I suppose.

--Is it to subtly explore a different perspective or world view in a critical way (or in a way that shines a light on our own)?

--Is it to create a "what if" scenario, an alternative world where history unfolded differently because of the speculative story elements?

--Is it to give the reader a chance to see what it would have been like, possibly, to be an outlier in a historical setting (for instance, to be an abolitionist in the antebellum South or a pioneering feminist during the Early Modern Era)?

--Is it simply there to show the reader how things really were once upon a time (maybe so that they're damned glad they don't live in the story world)?

--Is it to immerse the reader in a different world view or set of sensibilities and do it so seamlessly that they internalize them for the duration of the story?

--Is it to create characters that the reader can like and relate to on a visceral level?

None of these reasons is necessarily wrong, and not all are mutually exclusive, but goals and target audience will determine how a writer approaches a story with characters who have sensibilities that might be repellent to most characters. The thing to keep in mind is that no approach is likely to appeal to all readers. Their own experiences in life, and who they are, will determine what they're comfortable reading.

First and foremost, I want to emphasize that most of the fantasy novels out there are not, strictly speaking, taking place in the middle ages. Lord of the Rings, for instance, incorporated elements of "Merry England" into the shire, Anglo-Saxon culture into the Rohirrim, Norse mythology into his dwarves, and classical society into Gondor. Joe Abercrombie's First Law Trilogy, for all that it lacks firearms, takes place in a world that bears more resemblance to the Renaissance, with its emerging class struggles and its brutal inquisition. And his Empire's military rank structure and the description of its officer's uniforms definitely conjure up images of the 18th century.

Part of the fun of fantasy is the ability to mix and match elements from different settings and cultures. And of course, the presence of the fantasy elements themselves (magic, active gods and so on) will cause even an alternative history to differ from the real one.

But inevitably, readers of fantasy will assume that the setting is medieval European, and sometimes writers will get comments about what is and isn't realistic about their world building based on misconceptions people have about the middle ages. I've got a long list of these notions, and it would take far too much space to cover them all this week, but I'll cover a few of them today.

1. Forty was a ripe old age.

I think this notion stems from the fact that average life expectancies were much lower in the middle ages than in modern times. Of course, life expectancies in general were much lower before the middle part of the 20th century, and in the middle ages, actual life expectancies varied somewhat by period (they certainly plummeted during the Black Death), location, social class, gender and so on. But the average life expectancy for a baby born in Medieval Europe was probably somewhere around thirty. This makes sense when you consider the high rates of infant mortality. Between 30%-50% ofchildren did not survive to their fifth birthdays.

But if you calculate the life expectancies of people who survived their childhood, the odds of making it to middle age and beyond improved considerably, even in ancient times. Of course, infectious disease, war, childbirth complications, accidents, and famine, claimed far more lives than they do in modern times. But this is not the same thing as saying someone in their forties was the equivalent of someone in their seventies or eighties today.

Or to put it another way, a high percentage of the people who perished before they were in their sixties or seventies did not die of the kinds of diseases we associate with old age today (heart disease, strokes, cancer, diabetes and so on).

There are many difficulties with obtaining accurate morbidity and mortality statistics for pre-industrial societies, but it's unlikely that people older than fifty were rarities throughout most of the middle ages.

2. No one ever bathed, washed their clothes, or cleaned their teeth.

When I was in school, my history teacher told me that medieval Europeans had only three baths in their entire lifetimes: when they were born, when they were baptized, and when they died. It's also stated sometimes that people only bathed once a year. This is simply untrue.

Obviously, medieval Europeans (along with pretty much everyone else prior to the 19th century) lacked access to hot running water and a microbial theory of disease. But they did understand the basics of hygiene. They knew it was important to wash their hands and faces before eating, and health manuals extolled people to get rid of dirt and grime on their persons.

There were public baths and bathing sites in many European towns. Interestingly, bath houses were often mixed gender, and the Medieval Church condemned their use for social purposes but didn't condemn their use for cleanliness. People in the middle ages may have bathed more than any of their descendents did until the 19th century at least.

 As for clothes washing, people tended to brush their woolen outer garments instead of washing them, but they did wash their linen shifts, shirts, smocks and aprons. This site has a wealth of information about clothes washing in the middle ages.

People in the middle ages also spent time caring for their teeth and trying to combat bad breath. People often used tooth cleaning sticks or rubbed their teeth with cloths and mild abrasives, and used a variety of herbs and rinses to try and freshen their breath.

3. Girls were nearly always married and having babies by their early teens.

This is an assertion that has puzzled me for a long time, since it makes little sense to marry before one is likely to conceive or survive childbirth.

I read in Sarah Blaffer Hrdy's book Mother Nature: A History of Mothers, Infants and Natural Selection that women reach menarche (first menses) much later, on average, in pre-industrial societies, and that there is a three year sub fertile period following menarche. If medieval girls didn't tend to start menstruating until their mid teens, and they weren't fully fertile until their later teens, or even early twenties, what would be the point of marrying 12-14 year old girls?

However, the legal age of marriage was as young as 12 in many places (and girls are sometimes married this young in modern times too), and there are certainly records of girls (and more rarely boys) becoming parents at very young ages, at least in noble families. This suggests that 12 has been at the lower end, at least, of menarche for girls throughout history.

Obviously, age of menarche has always varied around a mean, and factors like available energy, body fat composition, and socioeconomic status influence, and maybe even childhood experiences, will influence it. So there were certainly some girls who reached puberty earlier than average for their era, and earlier puberty may have been more common in the upper classes (where most of the recorded examples of early marriage come from). It's also important to note that legal marriages weren't always consummated right away. But there were many nobles and royals who did not marry for the first time until they were in their later teens or twenties. And the average age of first marriage was likely later for commoners (who were not marrying for political reasons).

This blog by Silvia Moreno-Garcia "The Trouble with Juliet," examines some of the available data about marriage ages at different times and places in the middle ages and provides evidence that refutes the notion that it was commonplace for pre and young teen girls to be married and bedded in the middle ages.

4. There were no people of color in medieval Europe.

This is often given as an excuse for omitting characters, or even any mention, of people with ancestry outside of Europe in either historic fiction or fantasy set in medieval-Europe like settings. In fact, Europe was far less isolated from the rest of the world than we like to think. Moreover, modern notions about race and racial segregation (including intermarriage) are much more modern than most people suppose.

One of the black gondoliers who worked in Venice during the 1300s-1600s

Malisha Dewalt's tumblr blog is dedicated to artwork that features people of color in medieval Europe. In addition to the influence of the Moors on the Iberian Peninsula, and the presence of people from the Middle East in Southern Europe, there is evidence that there were at least a few people of African descent in medieval Britain.

What does this mean? For one thing, writers of historical fiction should take this into account when they depict medieval societies as being 100% white. And fantasy writers shouldn't assume that a society at a similar level of technology as the European middle ages would be lacking in racial or cultural diversity either.

5. Armor and weapons were so cumbersome and heavy that only the brawniest of men could wear/use them.

Actually, a full suit of plate armor only weighed around 45-55 pounds, which is in the same neighborhood as a soldier's kit today. This is hardly light, but since the armor was distributed evenly across the knight's body, it was actually easier to carry than a backpack. A treadmill study that placed volunteers in plate armor did discover

Full Plate Armor 1548-1569, Wikipedia

some interesting issues. Obviously, plate armor was hot, and it limited breathing. But it is a myth that plate armor was so heavy that knights couldn't walk in it and had to be winched onto their horses.

Plate armor was also elaborately jointed to allow full mobility.

They actually had plate armor for children (probably ceremonial, rather than utilitarian), and Joan of Arc reportedly had a suit of armor commissioned for her.

There are also many misconceptions surrounding medieval swords. One is that they were crude weapons that only allowed their wielders to hack at their opponents. Another was that they were extremely heavy (some people say in excess of 15 pounds) so that only the strongest warriors could lift them. Actually, medieval sword fighting was complex and involved cutting, thrusting and parrying. And medieval arming swords typically weighed between 2-4 pounds, not that much more than a modern fencing epee. Even William Wallace's claymore (a large, two-handed weapon) only weighs around 6 pounds 

Imagine that you're writing a story and your protagonist is a young soldier who has blond hair and a female sweetheart back home. The lady love never makes an appearance as a character, but your protagonist thinks about her on cold, rainy nights when he's hunkered down in his bedroll. All he really wants is for the war to be over so he can get back home to marry his girl and start a family. His blondness isn't central to the story either, but it's an unusual hair color in his setting. No one discriminates against him because of it, but other characters sometimes comment on it, and he's proud of his golden locks.

Now imagine that one of your readers offers the following feedback about your story: "The character's hair color and implied whiteness were irrelevant to the plot. I don't see why you had to mention them at all, unless you were trying to make a political point. You should just let the reader imagine the character as he or she chooses to." And then another reader chimes in with: "I don't see how the protagonist's heterosexuality was relevant to the plot. I'm no bigot, but I don't care what a character does with his junk. It really bugs me when writers make characters heterosexual for no good reason."

Conan--little doubt he was meant to be white, cis, able and straight

Ridiculous, of course. No one would say this. But this is precisely the sort of comment writers of characters who are not white, straight (and for that matter, cis-gender, able bodied or male) often receive from readers, critting partners and people commenting on the issue in forums and such.

So there's a double standard in fiction. If a character is white, straight, able bodied, neurotypical and cis-male, he's considered an everyman--the type of character any reader can relate to. Departures from this everyman model are acceptable for "issue" stores where the departure from "normal" itself is central to the plot. But such stories are supposed to be focused on a niche market, so for stories where identity is not the major focus? Make the protagonist a normal, generic, default human being.

I find this attitude troubling for a myriad of reasons. People come in many varieties, and while one's identity does not drive all, or even most, of a person's personality traits, it is nonetheless an important aspect of who he or she is. Even if a fantasy culture isn't racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist etc., a character's  race, gender, orientation, and ability status are not going to be invisible to that person or to the people with whom he or she interacts closely in the story.

So why in the hell should it be invisible to the reader?

Some reasons given include:

--But you'll turn off readers who aren't like that character. And most readers of fantasy are white, straight, male, able bodied, etc.

Even if this assumption about "typical" fantasy readers is true, there are plenty of readers who are not any or all of these things, and many of these readers are hungry for books that feature characters who just so happen to be like them in some ways. With isolation, depression and suicide among LGBT kids and teens still an issue, a story that lets someone know that he or she is not alone can have an immensely positive effect.

--So you're saying readers can and should only relate to people from the same demographic group as themselves? How narrow.

I'm not saying that at all. As a white, straight woman, for instance, I've read and enjoyed plenty of books with male (and non white and non straight) leads and will continue to do so. Getting inside another character's skin is part of the reason many of us read. But this begs the issue of almost never seeing characters like oneself in stories unless it's presented as a big deal. And anyway white, straight, able-bodied cismales should also have the opportunity to identify with characters who are different from themselves.

--Well, aside from this, some people really do believe homosexuality is a sin. QUILTBAG characters are very offensive to some people.

The same people who believe it's a sin to be gay often believe that premarital sex and worshipping other gods are sinful. But fantasy is not exactly devoid of characters who fool around on and off camera and it's certainly not short on the sympathetic or neutral portrayal of non-Christian religions (whether real-world or made up).

--I don't care what characters do with their junk, and I really don't care for sex in stories or for romantic subplots or for characters who think about these things.

Then you're probably pretty strapped for reading material. I can't think of many works of fiction for adults where the orientation of at least some of the characters is not apparent. And in any case, orientation is not just, or even primarily, about what one does in the sack. Even The Lord of the Rings, where no ever had sex or got horny on camera, made the orientation of many of its characters pretty clear. Aragorn and Arwen, Faramir and Eowyn, Sam and Rosie, Gimili's "courtly love" for Galadriel (and Merry and Pippin both married off camera, as detailed in the appendices). None of these relationships were central to the plot, but they were still an important part of the story. The only characters we're unsure about, really, are Bilbo and Frodo, since they never married or had a romantic attraction to any other character. I'm thinking they were actually asexual and aromantic, which are orientations also.

--I prefer to imagine characters the way I want, without having the details of their appearance and ethnicity crammed down my throat.

Fine, we all have our preferences. But it's a rare story indeed that makes no reference at all to the appearance of any character. While mirror scenes and detailed description of a person's nose shape often make readers want to toss a book across the room, the way a character looks can be important. And even in a fantasy world with a different history from ours, people will likely notice physical traits that relate to ancestry. The fact is, our media has overwhelmingly presented whiteness as the default norm. Most readers will imagine characters as white unless it's made clear that they are not. Whitewashing of characters in cover art is also commonplace and another issue that can sway readers' perceptions.

In any case, I can't help thinking that this argument (and the previous one) is because the person in question really wants to imagine characters as straight and white because he or she is uncomfortable with departures from that.

--Forcing diversity in novels is just PC posturing. I hate it when writers try to cram their sociopolitical views down readers' throats.

The concept of political correctness is a straw man that is commonly invoked as a silencing or derailing tactic. I'm not sure why the concepts of inclusiveness and equality have been so mocked and derided, to be honest, or why they've become so politicized. Speculation about the nature of liberalism and conservatism in modern society is beyond the scope of this essay, but it saddens me that some people are so attached to their political identity that they must categorically deride and reject anything that they associate with the party they don't usually vote for in elections.

I'll also add that I don't think it's possible to write a story where one's values, even one's political values, don't bleed through at least a little. The standard fantasy plot--intrepid outsiders prevailing against overwhelming odds--is hardly neutral from a sociopolitical standpoint. Nor is the decision to only portray straight, white, male, able-bodied characters as default norms in a story.

--so you're saying I need to dwell on the race and orientation of every person in every scene in the book? Bob ran past a guard, who was both black and gay, on his way through the gates. That's stupid.

Of course I'm not saying that. I'm talking primarily about protagonists or secondary characters with whom the pov characters have extensive interactions. Like anything else in writing, the perspective of the pov character should determine what is revealed. With an omniscient pov, the writer has more latitude, but revealing unapparent details about minor characters is not usually the best approach. However, if your fantasy society is diverse, I think it's important to find ways to show this to the reader as an aspect of your world building.

Whitewashing of characters in cover art is commonplace in fantasy.

--Fine, we need more stories with characters who aren't white, straight, able-bodied cis-males, but I personally am white, straight etc. What if I try to write a character who isn't like me and I do a bad job of it?

This is a legitimate worry. Stereotyped or unsympathetic portrayals of under-represented people can do more harm than good, and as a white, straight woman who has enjoyed many of life's privileges, I make no claim to any special wisdom here. But one of the reasons that readers are so critical of less than perfect portrayals of characters who aren't the default everyman is because they're so rare. The desire to create an archetypal female, gay, black etc. character can actually lead to very unrealistic portrayals. The best way to write people who differ from yourself in various ways is to know a lot of people, read books written by and for different people, do research so you know which stereotypes are particularlyoffensive .

I am hoping that this concern might become less of an issue if equality becomes more uniform across society and if diversity becomes more common in storytelling. No one really worries about portraying a straight, white male in a stereotyped way (or worries much the appropriation of various European cultural tropes) precisely because there have been so many portrayals of people and cultures from these demographic in fiction. There are, however, centuries of inequality and injustice sitting on our shoulders as writers. We should never allow ourselves to be blind to that.