Only some writers get asked to ‘prove’ their heritage

Is your story enough? The pressure on minority writers to be cultural educators.

During a recent chat with fellow authors, one of them expressed concern over an editor asking them to connect an element in their story to their heritage. 

Clutches pearls

While I want to believe that was a good-intentioned request, it is a fraught one for those of us who aren’t part of the majority or grew up in the U.S. 

Stephen King is (likely) not asked for elements of his book to tie back to his Maine roots. Most of Liane Moriarty’s bestsellers are analogous to the setting—she’s not shackled to Australia. So, why do we need to say a couple of “holas” or explain immigration or depict the hardship of learning English? 

Explaining what makes the author or the story different from the norm detracts from the narrative. 

Believe it or not, writers from underrepresented groups don’t spend all day thinking about their identity. 

And, honestly, we shouldn’t be expected to. Our stories should stand on their own, not be reduced to a cultural lesson. Sure, heritage can play a role in a story, but it shouldn’t be required, nor should it be a box we feel obligated to check. The expectation that our writing must somehow tie back to our identity, while writers from more dominant cultures are free to write about anything, is frustrating.

It’s exhausting to feel like we need to educate readers on our background or remind them of our “otherness” to justify the authenticity of our work. We should be able to write horror, romance, sci-fi—whatever genre we’re passionate about—without it needing to be a statement on who we are culturally.

If there’s something I’ve learned in my 14 years of doing words for a living is that readers really want are good stories. If heritage organically influences the plot or characters, that’s great. If it doesn’t, that’s fine too. At the end of the day, we’re here to tell a compelling story, and our backgrounds don’t need to be front and center for it to be valid or worthwhile. So, let’s stop putting pressure on writers to over-explain themselves and let them just be creators.