Showing posts with label Graham Salisbury. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Graham Salisbury. Show all posts
Monday, September 23, 2013
Monday, September 9, 2013
Parallel Heartbeats
An It's Complicated! — Authentic Voices guest post by author, Graham Salisbury.
My second novel, Under the Blood-Red Sun (1994), is about the power of friendship as seen through the eyes of two young boys in Honolulu when Pearl Harbor is bombed. One is Billy, a white boy, who’d moved to Hawaii from California, and the other is his best friend, Tomi , a Japanese boy born and raised in the islands. I wrote the first draft of this novel from Billy’s point of view, figuring, well gee, I’m a white guy … I had to write it from Billy’s point of view.
But that first draft wasn’t working; the editorial letter said, in effect, “This novel has no heartbeat. Try again.”
So … should I start over, or chuck the three hundred pages and move on to something else? That may sound like a tough decision, but it wasn’t, because I realized that my problem was really quite simple: I’d written the book from the wrong point of view. This was Tomi’s story, not Billy’s.
But could I, a Caucasian, write a novel in first person from the point of view of a young Japanese-American boy? I had an audience of young readers that would very likely believe that I actually was Tomi, and must be Japanese. If they were to ever actually see me they might feel betrayed! And what about reviewers and other adults? “The nerve!”
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| Original Cover |
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| New Cover |
But that first draft wasn’t working; the editorial letter said, in effect, “This novel has no heartbeat. Try again.”
Wow.
So … should I start over, or chuck the three hundred pages and move on to something else? That may sound like a tough decision, but it wasn’t, because I realized that my problem was really quite simple: I’d written the book from the wrong point of view. This was Tomi’s story, not Billy’s.
But could I, a Caucasian, write a novel in first person from the point of view of a young Japanese-American boy? I had an audience of young readers that would very likely believe that I actually was Tomi, and must be Japanese. If they were to ever actually see me they might feel betrayed! And what about reviewers and other adults? “The nerve!”
Friday, September 6, 2013
Take Four! A New, Two-part "It's Complicated" Conversation
As part of CBC Diversity's ongoing effort, we're pleased to present the fourth dialogue in the "It's Complicated!" blog series starting next week, and for the first time, it will run over two consecutive weeks, starting on Monday. This time we've invited five authors to share their thoughts about writing inside their cultural perspective, and five authors to discuss writing outside their cultural perspective.
I think most would agree that in an ideal world, the diversity depicted in books and of their creators would match the diversity of our world. But I know some might disagree on the best way to get there--what if that's not immediately possible? Is it better to have white/straight/able-bodied, etc. authors write books about non-white/LGBT/disabled, etc. characters? Can those characters truly be authentic? What if the only way authors of color can achieve commercial success is by writing books with non-diverse characters? And can those books be authentic, too? Are there any topics that should be "off-limits" to outsider writers? Do you trust an author you perceive to be an insider more than you would an outsider?
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