Question for the #WritingCommunity and also for readers. Would be especially grateful to hear from non-white folk.
My current WIP is an industrial fantasy and set in a city where “white” people are a minority. The vast majority of the characters have brown skin. None of the cultural and ethnic tensions in the novel — of which there are many — have anything to do with skin colour. None of the “races” or cultures can be mapped onto Earth versions.
I did this because I hate “white-as-default” in fantasy and in general, because it makes sense with the history of this world, and because while I am writing about cultural and religious conflict, I’m doing it from the perspective of someone from Northern Ireland, where skin colour has nothing to do with the traditional sectarian tensions. However, I myself am pretty obviously white.
Obviously nobody can tell if I’m being problematic from one post, but I worry anyway. So: if anyone has any thoughts they think I should hear I would be beyond grateful.