The other day, I was thinking about worldbuilding. Obviously
it’s incredibly important part of planning a book. All sorts of things go into
great worldbuilding; planning the layout of towns, the transport, the
facilities, and the climate to name just a few. Whether a book is set in the
real world or in a fantasy one, worldbuilding is of great importance. But it occurred
me that there is one area people don’t tend to address much when they’re
planning their worlds. And that is the racial composition of the population.
Don’t run away on me just yet. I’m not here to rant about
how there isn’t enough racial diversity in books and we should all be adding
characters from different ethnic groups into our stories because they’re
underrepresented in fiction. Other people have done that far more effectively
than I could. What I want to draw attention to is the fact that most towns in
books, at least in the books I’ve read, are mostly composed from a single
ethnic group. Many towns in the real world don’t work this way. In fact, many
places are surprisingly racially diverse.
For example, take the city of Birmingham in England. It’s
English, so you might automatically think that it would be populated by stereotypical
Englishmen called William or John. But in actual fact, it has quite a high
population of Indian and Pakistani people. If you were to set a story there, it
would be very realistic have an Indian family running the corner shop. Here in
Australia, my dad works in a poorer neighbourhood with a lot of immigrants and
indigenous people. So there are a lot of Pacific Islanders and families from
the Middle East in that area. Not what you would automatically think of when
considering an Australian town.
When worldbuilding for a story set in the real world, even
if the location is fake, it can be helpful to think about the sort of place it
is and what sort of people would live there. Is it a rich neighbourhood? If so,
it’s likely to be predominantly made up of people from the native culture. Is
it a poorer area, with a housing estate maybe? Then it’s likely you’re going to
have a lot of immigrants looking for a cheap place to live. Considering what
the population is like when worldbuilding can give your story world a boost in
realism. It can be such a small thing, but it makes all the difference to how
real your world feels.
In fantasy books too, it’s helpful to consider the different
races or nationalities while worldbuilding. Border towns are likely to have
more people from neighbour countries living there. And the density of fantasy
races in an area will vary too. If you have dwarves in your book, towns near
mountains or quarries might have a greater population of them than those near
the coasts for example. But it’s not likely that the towns will have an even
distribution of the different fantasy races. It’s a small detail that is often
overlooked but it can make for a much richer, more realistic story world. And
isn’t that what every writer wants?
This is not to say that you should force a lot of characters
of different nationalities into your books just for the sake of diversity. Some
characters are naturally going to live in places composed mainly of people from
a single culture. But thinking about who would actually live in a town like
theirs can have a big effect on the realism of your story world. It’s a little
detail, but it can make all the difference.
What do you think
about racially diverse populations in books? Do you think that this is
something that gets overlooked in worldbuilding? Do you think it’s important to
consider this when planning your world? Why or why not?
