Sara Z. – I appreciate the suggestions! I have heard of most of the titles, especially the Magic/Madness trilogy, but as life would have it, hadn’t had the “duyen” (luck/faith/destiny) to read them – yet.

You might find Neesha Meminger’s essay at Justine Larbalestier’s blog interesting, too: “From Margin to Center: Writing Characters of Color.”

It was always a given to pick up a teen book and have it be about a white girl, whether the book is science fiction, fantasy or the girl was rich or poor. So when I began writing for my own amusement, I came to a halt when developing the main character – was she to be a white, middle-class teen (someone who, if read about, could be easily identified with), or an Asian girl going through similar trials, the only difference being that she was Asian? That got me wondering about the teen books that had minority leads, all of which concentrated on the fact of BEING a minority, whether it was about a middle eastern teenage girl growing up in America and being oppressed by her roots, or a Hispanic girl learning to cope as an immigrant. These subjects are immensely important, especially for the diverse audience of readers in today, but my problem was always the fact that if the lead was a minority, then the book was almost always about the character being a minority and the sufferings of which she has to go through simply because she is Hispanic or Asian – never is the book simply a fantasy adventure whose lead was simply African.

So my problem became the fact that I was afraid that if I made my own lead somewhat reflective of my natural self, it would be hard for readers (and if ever, publishers) to identify the the character as a part of the story and not as the race of the character being the story.

I don’t think reading it will immediately make you feel totally capable of writing characters from radically different backgrounds and ancestries, but it’s got some awfully useful exercises and insights.

Dylan — I’m glad!

Totally agree.
I do feel like this conversation and the ones going on at Mitali Perkins’ blog, too, have given me permission to try my hand at writing non-white characters, but I think one reason they end up as sidekicks or sassy friends is that writers feel like that would be allowed. When I think about making my narrator/protag a different race than me, I get way too scared that I’ll mess it up. So for me it’s not an intentional relegation to sidekickery, rather, more like dipping my toe in the waters?