Part 3: Green-Eyed Asian Love Interest

Sorry for the long wait between Parts 2 and 3, but here it is! Part 3 of my series on thoughts I had about YA Asian fantasies and green eyes that kept me awake and made me waste my rare opportunity to sleep in on a weekday. Here are Part 1 and Part 2 if you haven't read them already.


So as I thought about how I wanted to go about writing Asian characters in fantasy, I decided I didn't want to write about a fantasy version of Ancient China. And I also didn't want to go the route of Ash and have the characters be Asian in my head but not apparent to anyone who's only read the story and not any notes by me. And since the characters in Ash are supposedly Asian but the love interest has green eyes, that made me think of an upcoming (or is it out already?) YA Asian fantasy that actually has a green-eyed Asian love interest, and that was the main thing that made me so mad I couldn't fall asleep.

This book has been getting a lot of buzz, and you may have recognized it as Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff, in which case you'd be right (points for you!). Ok, so I have to admit I have not read this book either (I know, I'm doing an awful lot of commenting on books I haven't read, haha), and only thought of it in my half-asleep stupor because, a few days before, I'd read Nafiza's awesome review of it on GoodReads.

Here's the relevant excerpt from Nafiza's review.

So, here’s the thing, as far as I know, Japanese people (you’ll have to forgive me for the assumption that the setting is a mythical Japan, all evidence points to that) do not have green eyes. Yet the samurai who features so prominently in Yukiko’s dream has green eyes. (She met him for half a minute and that was it, insta-lust, she didn’t even see his face, just his eyes and she was gone!) I initially got excited because hey, gaijin slave promenading as a samurai! Interesting stuff! Right? Wrong. No explanation given there but maybe it’s just me being extra picky on the details. 

Oh hey look, a green-eyed Japanese love interest! In an Asian fantasy! Finally, I'm talking more about the green-eyed part of my initial tweet.

So, I understand that there actually ARE some East Asians with green or blue eyes (hazel/green would be a lot more common than grass-green or sky-blue). But the vast, vast majority of East Asians have brown eyes. So what's the message behind giving the Asian love interest green eyes? Our culture already tells green-eyed people that their eyes are beautiful, but we rarely see media telling us that Asian features are beautiful, and Asian males especially don't get enough love. And there are so many slurs and jokes about Asian eyes already. Why is it ok to take away this awesome opportunity to present Asian features as desirable and beautiful and turn it into an ode to green or light-colored eyes that we already see all the time?

But maybe it's not really about how green-eyed people are better than brown-eyed people. Maybe it's about that struggle when you look different from everyone else. Maybe it's about internalizing what society tells you is the norm and hating the non-voluntary non-conformity that shows up in the mirror. Maybe it's about how it feels to be called a freak by your family and outcast for something you have no control over, and being seen as a dirty foreigner despite your loyalty to your people. Maybe it's about having someone else look past your appearances and loving you for who you are. Maybe it's about struggling to come with grips with identity when you're neither accepted by your people nor by those for whom green eyes are not so rare. Maybe it's about fighting the conventional standards of beauty and believing you are attractive when everyone who matters in the narratives you see is praised for features you don't have.

But from what I can tell from the review, the Asian protagonist takes one look at his gorgeous green eyes (half a minute, according to Nafiza) and falls desperately in love with him. WTF??? Insta-lust is terrible enough as a trope in YA fantasy (see my list of pet peeves), even worse when based pnly on a single physical trait. Don't people notice this problematic message that green eyes are inherently soooo attractive that, even someone who hasn't been conditioned by the media to think of them as gorgeous, and have never seen anything like it, will of course fall over herself for this trait? (Not saying that green eyes aren't attractive, because they can be very pretty, but people who'd never seen them before would probably freak out or be taken aback at first rather than rhapsodizing about their beauty.) And if an Asian girl in an Asian fantasy is going to fall for one physical trait, of COURSE it's going to be one that's more commonly found among non-Asian people. Heave forbid she finds a brown-eyed Asian man attractive! WTF.

I remember how it felt to think that I could never be like a fantasy heroine because I wasn't white and my eye color wasn't special enough. Whenever my sister, friend, and I played princess, we always made our alter egos white — blonde, brunette, redhead. Green, blue, gray eyes. Because only white girls get to have magical adventures and be princesses, and of course they only marry other white people. Even our pretend maids were white. I don't think there was a single PoC in our entire make-believe kingdom, which sounded right to us because, hey, that's just how fantasy magic kingdoms are, right?

But having only white people in fantasy is pretty messed up. Let's write an Asian fantasy! Let's have a kick-ass girl protagonist! Let's have a hot love interest! But here's a problem  —  black hair, brown eyes are just so unattractive and boring, and you know how Asians all look the same, how would any reader ever be able to figure out who I want them to see as "special"? Oh, I know! Everyone knows that in a fantasy kingdom, if you have light, special eye colors (mega points for violet!) that means the author is pointing you out as a special snowflake. So... I'll just give my Asian love interest green eyes! Now they don't all look the same, and anyway it's much easier for readers to relate to being attracted to brilliant sea-green eyes than to boring, dull, squinty, dung-colored brown eyes. Ugh.

Look, I think it's great that people find green eyes attractive; I think green eyes are nice, too. But the media is already white-centric enough with their standards of beauty and I'm disappointed that the author chose to go this route and, rather than making most of the chance to present something other than typically white characteristics as attractive and desirable, instead chose to add another voice to "aren't people with light-colored skin/eyes/hair just SO BEAUTIFUL AND SPECIAL??" That particular camp is already loud enough, thank you very much. In fact, it's kind of drowning out the other voices.

I mean, if you're going to write an Asian fantasy, is it too much to ask that you let go of your white-centric ideas of beauty while you write about Asian characters in an Asian culture? There are few enough Asians in YA fantasy, please don't force your white-centric aesthetics on one  — especially if it's only for omg-special-snowflake-insta-lust.

So yeah, now you know why green eyes made me so mad I couldn't fall back asleep. :P

P.S. And for those people who want to point to Japanese anime and manga (aka the author's primary source of research) and say, "How come you're not calling them out for being full of Japanese people with weirdly-colored hair/eyes/crazy features?", the context is totally different. I assure you that Japanese people are in no danger of being whitewashed or underrepresented in Japanese media.

P.P.S. For those of you interested, here's a great review by Cyna pointing out other problematic cultural/linguistic/gender issues in Stormdancer. Definitely worth a read!

If All Else Fails, There's Always IdeaMart

Sorry I haven't been as good with posting lately. I meant to get this posted over the weekend, but that didn't really work out. Oh well, better late than never, right? ;)

"Where do you get your ideas?" It's a question I come across in a lot of author FAQs and interviews. Popular answers include "my brain," "life," "everywhere," or, with a dash of irony, "that grocery store around the corner." I know it's a vague question, one especially difficult to answer for people who are constantly inspired, and yet I can relate to that sense of curiosity regarding writers' creative processes. I love reading posts about how people write. Sometimes I try to steal one or two of their tricks, and other times I just marvel at how personal and idiosyncratic the writing process can be. So here's my take on how I get story ideas, for those of you also fascinated by the writing process. I'm hoping this post will come in handy when I'm a rich and famous author and get asked that question all the time! ;)

When I was younger, my story ideas centered around characters I wished to be. I've mentioned before that I loved pretending to be a magical princess with my friend and sister, and we spun stories about our adventures that I tried (unsuccessfully, I'm afraid) to knit into a novel. Later stories I wrote featured wish-fulfillment protagonists, such as a recent graduate from the mages' university, a shape-shifter with golden eyes, or the new girl in town who wins the heart of the hottest guy in school (so yes, I can understand the appeal of Twilight).

I didn't stop daydreaming when I got older, but I did stop trying to turn them into stories for a while. By the time I began to consider writing again, my story ideas were no longer inspired by fantasies wherein I was a special snowflake. Instead, real life intruded, and traumatic emotional experiences became my muse.

Of course, "traumatic" is subjective. I'm fortunate enough to live a life that has been, for the most part, happy and trouble-free. I have not experienced the death or severe illness of a close friend or family; I have not been abused or assaulted; I have never been in want of food, or shelter, or love and support.  I am beyond grateful for the blessed life I live. Any difficulties I've encountered seem trivial in light of all the good I enjoy, but they nevertheless evoked emotional struggles that were real and significant to me. They marked me and forced me to grow. They inspire me to write.

There was the time I lost a close friend due to my own flaws. Maybe I deserved it, but it hurt, so much, to feel that I wasn't worth a second chance despite my apologies. It pained me that someone whose opinion I highly valued had deemed me irredeemable and found my worth as less than the obstacle of my imperfections.

There was that crisis of faith in my sophomore year of college, when I grappled with guilt and doubt and fought surrender. I tried to ignore the internal battle because I couldn't see how I could ever force myself to choose. It seemed impossible.

Or the time my family was on the verge of falling apart, and I hated myself for not being powerful or brilliant or strong enough to fix everything that was wrong. I cursed my helplessness and drowned myself in despair, unable to bear the burden I'd placed upon myself.

Small, perhaps, in the grad scheme of things, but these and other experiences mattered to me and shaped who I am. I saved up those feelings of hurt and anguish and anger, and amplified them by imagining greater stakes and harsher consequences. What if someone's crisis of faith could cause a war? How does someone face a responsibility, too great to bear, that could mean the life or death of hundreds? What would force someone to fight through feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness to save the world? Those heightened emotions become the heart of my stories, the dark moment my protagonists must face and conquer.

Some things flow easily from that kernel. Theme, for one, is closely tied to the greatest struggle the protagonist must face. I also consider what traits, values, personality, and experiences would make the decision the most difficult for someone, and thus flesh out my main character and her arc. These elements can influence certain worldbuilding decisions, and a few plot points come to mind, too, as the dark moment must be triggered by a crisis and bring about a climax and resolution.

Other aspects of developing story ideas are difficult for me, though. High-concept premises would be one; I try to come up with a cool-sounding idea separately and see if it can fit with any of the stories I want to tell. Settings have never been my strong suit, either, and beginnings tend to be nebulous since I essentially start with the ending.

I wonder what it says about me, that most of my story ideas come from inflicting an intensified version of my personal struggles on a figment of my imagination. Maybe I write as a form of therapy, as Biljana at LTWF does with her fiction. It's my way of writing what I know, and I hope that I can become skilled enough to take my readers on an emotional journey with my words.

So, enough about me. I want to hear how other writers come up with story ideas. Are you consistently inspired by certain observations, experiences, or media, or is it different for every project? What usually comes first when you get a story idea? How does that influence the way you develop the story? Feel free to leave me a link if you have a blog post on the topic!

Villains

I'm a little bit (ok fine, a LOT) behind on Camp NaNoWriMo, but since I'm dying from my self-imposed Google Reader ban, I thought writing a post would help take the edge off blogosphere-withdrawal. At least I'm producing words, right? Can't wait until the weekend when I'll let myself catch up on blog posts (all several hundred of them — yes, I peeked a few times) regardless of word count!

I'm always on the lookout for great articles about villains and antagonists since I have such a hard time with them. I really liked the amazing Jodi Meadows' post about Villains You Like because it resonated with me and got me thinking more about the different types of villains out there. Here are some of my thoughts:

Generic Villainous Overlords
When I was in elementary/middle school, this was the kind of villain I thought up with my friend and sister. We'd play pretend and spin stories where we were magical princesses rebelling against an evil stepmother (so original, I know). I think she also had an evil sorcerer ally.

I've since discovered that evil villains out to take over the world for no good reason tend to fall flat and be utterly boring, so I'm glad I know better now. Imagine my surprise when I came across one in a recent debut! The one-dimensional villain actually claimed "I'm evil" as sole motivation for world domination, dashing all my hopes for an interesting and nuanced antagonist. It was hard not to groan or roll my eyes. (Oh well, the book pretty much nosedived into terribleness halfway through, anyway.) So yeah. No cliché, boring evil villains, please!

Sympathetic Villains
I guess it was so shocking to encounter such a lackluster villain because it seems that sympathetic antagonists are all the rage these days. And for good reason — characters that the reader can relate to are so much more engaging than cardboard cut-outs, no matter where they fall on the good/evil spectrum.

One way to add complexity to a villain is to give him or her a redeeming quality, vulnerability, or troubled past. A villain with motives that are understandable, or even almost noble, would make the protagonist's inner struggle that much more difficult (and who can say no to more conflict?). And who knows, maybe the villain actually thinks he or she is doing the right thing, even if the protagonist strongly disagrees. Jodi's example was Magneto from X-men: First Class; he's a likable character with an understandable motivation, but he's a villain because he wants to exterminate normal people (something I imagine most people would frown upon).

We (as in magical princesses) did later try to do this for our evil stepmother character. We decided she was our late mother's adopted sibling (heaven forbid we're related to her by blood!), jealous of our mother all her life, in love with our father, and basically out to take for herself everything her gorgeous, saintly sister ever had. Oh fine, I guess our attempts to bump her up to "sympathetic" wasn't all that successful, but we did try to give her some personality and motivation. (I think evil sorcerer remained irredeemably evil, though.)

Villains You Love to Hate
I think this might be where our poor evil stepmother ended up. These sorts of villains are dastardly, selfish characters who, through some twist of fortune, ended up with more power than is good for them to have, and then proceeded to annoy the heck out of everyone else. And you can't wait until this villain is defeated because he or she is just so despicable and pathetic. Not to mention rather useless once stripped of power. (I think they tend to be pretty wormy. You know, like Wormtongue from Lord of the Rings and Wormtail from Harry Potter. What is it about worms?)

These villains are probably best as irritants in the path of the hero and not as the Big Bad. I think I'd get pretty frustrated if the protagonist is fighting someone like that for an entire book. But maybe it's all in the execution?

Villains with Flair
These characters are not-very-nice people who become fascinating on the strength of their personality. Not a literary example, but I adored Regina George in Mean Girls. She's a lying, cheating, manipulative b— ah, witch who insulted and played everyone around her. But her confidence, charm, and determination to get what she wanted made her a lot more fascinating than Cady, the actual protagonist. (Plus, Rachel McAdams is gorgeous!)

Or take Artemis Fowl. He's a kidnapper who exploits the fairies for money and amusement. But because he's so brilliant, we can't wait to see what he has up his sleeves, even kind of hoping he'll succeed despite the fact that what he's doing is so wrong. It also helps that he's the main protagonist.

[*EDIT: Thanks to lovely comments from Mike and CanaryTheFirst, I think I'd put Artemis and their examples in a new category: Villains as Protagonist. What do you think?]

Villains can become attractive despite their moral flaws if they have personality traits the reader can admire. The danger with these villains is that they may steal the spotlight and become more interesting than the protagonist, so you'd have to make sure your protagonist is up to the challenge! I think it'd be a lot of fun to write such a character. :)

Villains that Give You Nightmares
These are the sadistic, genius serial killers of pure unadulterated evil. The crazed monster from the underworld who delights in bloodlust. The creepy clown, or alien predator, or that girl with the long hair crawling out of the TV... ok, I seriously need to stop before I scare myself witless.

Why? Because I am a total wimp. (I assure you, it pains me to admit it.) I avoid horror flicks and books as much as possible; even thrillers might be too much for me. I have an overactive imagination and do not appreciate having images of menacing evilness roaming my mind at night. So while others might love reading or writing about this sort of villain and enjoy the thrill of being thoroughly scared, I'm afraid (har, har) they're not for me.

Not-a-Villain
Of course, not every book has to have a villain. Some stories have antagonists that are made of sunshine and loveliness, and so sweet you want to gag — except their goals happen to conflict with that of the protagonist. Or maybe the antagonist isn't quite that innocent, but more morally ambiguous than outright evil. A lot of antagonists fall into this category, but it's fun to think about evil characters once in a while and consider how to make them interesting to the reader.

What other types of villains can you think of, and which ones are your favorite?

For My Fifteen-Year-Old Self

This is the first post in a series about creating a vision of what I want to write, as mentioned in my novel-writing game plan.

I've loved reading for as long as I can remember. My favorites as a teen were YA fantasies, and I still adore them now. I always dreamed of escaping to a magical world, having swashbuckling adventures, and living happily-ever-after with a swoon-worthy guy as the heroine of my own story. I figure the next best thing is penning (or typing, I guess) a YA fantasy novel myself, and write the story I've always wanted to read.

Thus when it comes to envisioning the kind of books I want to write, I already have my target audience in mind: my fifteen-year-old self. I was (and remain) a picky reader, and much of what I want to write is shaped by my reading preferences.

First, the protagonist. I idolized those strong, brilliant heroines I read about; I wished so much to be more like them, or to be part of their world. And yet a part of me felt it was impossible. As often as I fantasized about magically falling into their stories, I knew could never belong — I would be grossly out of place with my East Asian features.

I felt this even as a kid, when I played make-believe with my sister and childhood friend. We pretended to be magical princesses fighting to save our beloved kingdom from our wicked stepmother. Our alter-egos never looked like us, not even when we wanted a break from being princesses and pretended to be their maids (and best friends, of course). They were all blondes or brunettes or redheads with eyes the color of emerald, or sapphire, or steel. Because really, it would be ridiculous to have brown-eyed, black-haired Asian girls living in a medieval fantasy world... wouldn't it?

Almost all of the heroines I admired as a teen lived in worlds composed solely of people who looked nothing like me. I hated feeling I could never be a part of the worlds I loved so much, that I could only aspire to be like the characters in Asian historical fiction or Chinese mythology — who, at times, felt foreign and exotic to me, with values and worldviews that had but little in common with my Asian-American ones.

There were a lot of pseudo-European fantasylands; where were all the pseudo-Asian ones? Or, even better, where were the books where the protagonist happens to have Asian features, set in a fantasyland that's not based entirely on ancient China or Japan?

I know these books exist now, thanks to the increasing diversity of YA. And I am so, so grateful for the authors writing those novels. I admire them to pieces.

But to be completely honest, so far I haven't been able to find a book with an Asian protagonist that I can connect with deeply, despite how much I want to adore those books. It is completely unfair to the authors, because I think that, after so many years of longing, I've built up a specific ideal of the book I wish I could have read as a teen — and the books I read are the authors' visions, not mine. The only way to fix this is to start writing my own, so I can stop comparing the books I read to what I wish they were, and enjoy them for what they are.

That is why I'm going to write — for myself, because there are stories I want to tell; because, after all those years of reading, I want a story that belongs to me: a story that my fifteen-year-old self will embrace and adore, one that tells her that she, too, can be the heroine for once.

So I will write, and the protagonist will live in a world where she isn't out of place for looking Asian, and she will be capable and brave and clever and interesting and selfless (or try to be). She will fight for what she cares about and seek to do the right thing, and she will be the protagonist because of the strength of her character and not because of her birth — she will not be special due to a rare magical power or unique eye color or ancient prophecy, unless I am subverting those tropes (and I will). I will gift her with my own flaws, as well as with virtues I'm still striving to develop, and she will persevere despite all the difficult decisions and heartbreak I throw at her. And I will have succeeded with her when I know my teenaged self would read that book over and over just to watch her in action, laugh and cry and gush over her, and wish desperately to be half as amazing as she is.

It will be a challenge, to be sure; despite reading widely, there are few protagonists I can say I truly adore. Still, I am excited. After all, these are books I'm dying to read — ones that no one can write but me. :)

Thank you for reading! Next week I'll continue the series with my personal preferences for plot, setting, romance, and all that good stuff. Do you have protagonist pet-peeves? Are you also motivated to write by the need to read the book of your heart?