How Butterfly Soup creates believable characters

Representation matters but the inclusion of more diverse casts of characters is the starting point, not the goal. Too often, characters with identities other than straight, white male are written as caricatures. They no longer represent an individual but instead represent the sum total of their gender, their sexuality, their race. They become tokenistic stand-ins for the complexities of real people.

Inclusion and representation alone can be ineffective or actively unhelpful if not backed up with strong writing and a level of care about characters that goes beyond the basic facts of their identity. It can be a tricky line to walk but Butterfly Soup, by Brianna Lei, is here to show how to do it right.

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