[Please join me in welcoming author P.J. Dean (THE FELIG CHRONICLES) aboard The Galaxy Express! I've been on the hunt for more interracial/multicultural SFR and so was delighted to learn about her books (this was one of those times where leaving a comment on a blog paid off). Given her experience, I asked if she could provide a guest post on the topic. As you'll see, she responded with many informative and entertaining insights. Take it away, Ms. Dean!]
Let me introduce myself. I write
interracial/multicultural PNR, and occasional interracial historical, under the
pen name P. J. DEAN. My current PNR/SFR entry is THE FELIG CHRONICLES series of which there are three books so far.
I purposely chose a post-apocalyptic time with a multicultural cast because
that’s the type of world in which I reside. No, not the apocalyptic stuff. The
multicultural stuff. I know and interact with lots of different kinds of
people. And those are the kinds of people who would be harmed by an
end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenario.
After reading the work of a few of the
biggies in PNR, I knew that I could pen a story, heck, a series just as sharp,
witty, funny and disturbing as any of them. And I could bring something
different to the table. The difference being my heroine does not do corsets and
black leather tights as outerwear nor does she do studded anything. Cross-bows
are not her thing. She totes a .357 magnum and that’s for the annoying humans.
She is not twenty-one and does not sport scads of flaxen tresses.
My heroine, Faustina Cain, Tina for
short, is in her thirties as the book opens. She is living as a sort of
mercenary with her ailing mom and their cat. It is five years after the Felig
invaded and began scooping up humankind as lunch. They are very tidy, efficient
and thorough at doing that. And their stealthy neatness has surviving humankind
paranoid. Permanently. Anyone could be lunch at any minute. This mother and
daughter reside in a post-apocalyptic world in which the landscape of the mind
has been destroyed, not the flora and fauna.
Tina is African-American and single.
She dons racer-back bras and boy-leg undies under sensible workout wear. She
wears twists-outs and/or twists and head wraps. Running shoes complete her look
not stilettoes and she practices Qui Gong and Krav Maga. Her character called
out to me because the storylines and covers offered by mainstream publishers
omitted this type of heroine from its PNR lines. Yes, there had been Damali
from the Vampire Huntress series of the late L. A. Banks. But she had been the
sole one. Lord knows, there cannot be only one! This is not Highlander.
Am I complaining? No. Publishers of
mainstream books only see their bottom lines. Certain books by certain people
about many kinds of people do not sell well. Mainstream readers pick their next
book by what the previous one was. People are gonna do as they please
because…hey, they will. I am forging my own road and writing what I want, how I
want. Thank goodness for medium-sized and small presses. They take chances.
They step out of the comfort zone. They push boundaries. In my case, my
boundary pusher is Extasy Books. Thank you, EB!
My own blog, “Diverse Views: Isn’t
romance for everyone?” embodies how I feel about how the niche for which I
write is received. Be a POC writer and write Multicultural/Interracial romance
of any kind and the love is limited. Plain and simple. Your audience is small.
Be a POC writer and write PNR/SFR and one hears crickets. Except at sites like
Heather’s. I was like a kid in a sugar haze by the time I logged off.
All that said, onto the meat of the
blog entry that Heather graciously invited me to write. After seeing her
request for writers to come forward and be included in her database of
multicultural PNR/SFR, I emailed her. She added my stuff to her list and I got
a chance to guest-blog.
Here are some essential things to know
when writing multicultural/interracial PNR/SFR:
1) Have an interesting tale to tell.
Before pondering over whether or not to add any multicultural characters or
interracial relationships to your book, evaluate if you have a meaningful,
coherent story first. In the PNR field, apocalypses, vampires, werewolves and
shifters abound. Many follow a formula. I, for the life of me, cannot do
formulaic. The afore-mentioned characters have been, and are being, done.
Writing more of the same, on my part, is repetitious. If I can’t conjure up a brand,
spankin’ new tale, what do I do? I skip it or conjure up a brand, spankin’ new variation on the tale. Example: the
alien Felig in my series are not vampires per se but they do drain the life out of anyone they meet
and they have their own set of myths by which they live.
2) Ask why the story needs MC/IR
characters or relationships. I created Tina Cain and her Caucasian
partner/lover, Nate Lowe, because they depicted how people, no matter what
their differences, can and will pull together in times of crisis. Plus, they
looked good together and had baggage only they knew how to sort out. Secondly,
once joined together, they had a common cause (saving the world) not just
screwing incessantly for a high titillation factor. So give your multicultural
characters something to do besides standing there being multicultural and
scenery.
3) Please make the multicultural
characters human (if that’s the species from whence they come). That means make
them humorous or nasty or noble or ignoble or nerdy or contrary or opinionated
or serious. You get my drift. I have one which I caught flack about. The folks
who did respond, disliked that Tina had sex with Nate “too soon.” And how it
was stereotypical of Black females. Excuse me! How? Tina is a FICTIONAL
character not a role model. They got together with a quickness because since
the Felig landed, no one is guaranteed to be around the next minute, let alone
the next month. So for some people, it’s almost obligatory to act on feelings
right away. Not saying they were in love. It was lust most definitely. Authors
be prepared to not dodge that bullet. You cannot cater to anyone but you. Write
real, many-layered, full-on, flawed characters. That’s the respectful thing to
do.
4) Vernacular. Slang. Use it. If there
are turns of phrase you know that your character would say, write it. Please
don’t have whole passages of it to show how “down” you are but don’t shy away
either. Just don’t toss in a whole can. A few shakes will do. Readers will pick
up on the meaning as the story progresses. I swear they will. Or they’ll ask
somebody.
5) In PNR/SFR, I’ve noticed a lot of
gadgets. Employ or invent them as the story dictates. There are items in my
series that the Felig use that are crucial to their existence. On the other
side, the humans have developed a device to fend off Felig attacks. If you are
open to dreaming up gadgets, go for it.
6) This last point is not a point at
all. It is a comment. As a romance writer and as an African-American female, I
have always read mainstream romance which to this day is still largely a
one-shade-fits-all world. I began writing because I desired to see more POC
depicted in various roles and relationships in all genres of romance. And I
wanted to see more POC who are romance writers get a chance to have their work
discovered. That is where I applaud the small publishing houses. It’s time.
With profits for the Big Five publishers shrinking maybe it’s time for their
R&D departments to rethink their strategies and follow what smaller presses
do. Also, the romance readership’s mentality, tastes and demographic are
changing because isn’t romance for everyone?
About
the author
I, P. J. DEAN, am the product of an only child
upbringing by a single mom when it just was not done! I was raised in the
embrace of her colorful family. A jazz drummer. A trucker. Two WWII vets. A
numbers’ runner. An aspiring opera singer. A few gay uncles. All mixed in with
staunchly independent women and men who took no stuff from anyone. We had
neighbors who people nowadays would label as people of “questionable repute.” I
loved every minute of it. My eyes and ears soaked it up. They all forged me in
the fire of their many-faceted hearts. Watch the HBO film Lackawanna Blues.
It’s the closest you’ll come to my life. I hope I’m doing them
proud.
To read more about my post-apocalyptic
series, check out http://www.pjdeanwriter.weebly.com,
http://wwwdiverseviews.blogspot.com
or http://www.extasybooks.com
Blurb for THE FELIG CHRONICLES #1
An alien race (The Felig) has invaded
Earth. To live, they must absorb a human completely or siphon off the human's
life energy. They can shape shift too. When the story opens, the Felig have
been here for several years. The world population lives in a state of total
paranoia. No one can trust anyone because no one knows who anyone really is. My
African-American heroine and Caucasian hero, Tina and Nate, meet at a time of mutual
need. Both have secrets that they want to remain hidden otherwise these secrets
might break apart the fledgling union.