So I’m planning out my first story, and i’m almost certain I will be making the main character black. I was thinking of giving full customization options, but it just will not work for the plot line if someone customizes their character to be white. However I’m thinking that many people will steer away from the story for this reason. Of course getting a ton of reads is not my main concern, if it was I’d just make a story about getting pregnant by your dad’s friend’s uncle’s brother or some shit but I guess what i’m asking is
Realistically would you read a story if it had limited skin tone customization?
Race and ethnicity shouldn’t even be a criteria when someone is looking at a story/reading it. If anything stories with more diversity should be welcomed in the community. As for the CC, I tend to keep the characters as they are, so yes I would still read a story with limited/ no CC.
I definitely would. If you don’t want to steer away readers, perhaps you can say something like “although I’m allowing full CC, her race will always be black”?? But there are plenty of successful stories with non-customisable white MCs so you shouldn’t feel like you have to offer customisation
I definitely would, but I can understand why you’d be worried because there are unfortunately some people who will complain about it. You’ll just need to prepare a good comeback for those people when they ask to change the skin tone in your fanmail. I’d recommend something sarcastic
Yes, I would and we do need more stories with non-customizable Black Mc’s. There will be people that will complain but why care? They would rather concentrate on a race that is barely represented in Episode and get mad over it instead of concentrate on the actual story.
I recall a vampire story where the love interest was specifically Cuban and people complained they couldn’t alter his caramel skin tone. The author had the wittiest comebacks
The reality is you won’t get as many reads, but there are authors who could tell you they regret allowing customization on characters that are canonically black. Stick to your guns. You’ll have support from a good group of people regardless of the amount of reads.
That’s very true, but I’m not too concerned about reads. Writing is a passion of mine, and if I get the opportunity to showcase it on a platform that’s all that matters