During this last three days, I've been sporadically attending events at WorldShift Summit 2025, and one of the bits that I attended and found interesting was a talk titled "Writing Identities Not Your Own: Speculative Fiction", hosted by author Alex Temblador. During the course of the talk, there were points raised regarding sensitivity readers, research, and making the choice just not to write something (a choice that more authors should follow). I remember commenting in the chat about some areas that I had decided not to touch in my speculative writing, but the thought persisted. It also came to mind with other things I'd encountered, including a discussion within the PBS Storied YouTube posts, and this video from Overly Sarcastic Productions on urban fantasy.
So, I'll freely admit that in my early writing, I didn't have the full sense to not use certain pieces of belief systems or history. I used them, and thank all the deities that writing will never see the light of day. It's not just that it's subpar in quality, but it also ignores.some very basic rules of etiquette regarding cultural representation. There are some things which are relatively open for the usage, such as belief systems or pieces of history that are so far removed from the present day they might as well have happened in another realm. Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, the pre-Roman Celts, the pre-Christian Norse, and Japan.
But there are some pretty large areas where I don't feel comfortable treading. Many of these are places not only with active and living participants in a belief system, but also countries which have been victims of 19th and 20th Century colonialism, and places where there is already a literary tradition which is finally breaking through to a worldwide audience. You may call foul for having mentioned Japan, but I've noticed that unless an adapter is wholly disrespectful or malicious, Japanese people don't seem to mind as much when their Shinto beliefs are used for fiction. I may be wrong about this, please correct with examples if so, but their attitude seems a lot more--to mix metaphors--laissez faire.
So here are a few big examples of stuff I won't touch for some reason. Extant believers
*Native America: This is a very solid line that I've drawn for myself. The Native American belief systems are a much-denigrated, much-misrepresented, and much-persecuted way of seeing the world. Some of its symbols, such as dreamcatcher charms or what in English is called the "wendigo", have bled into popular culture while losing most of their significance to those who first spoke of them. They're frequently used in a context which is more than a little racist, and while I'd want to avoid those if I chose to use them, I'd rather not use them at all out of respect for the Native American populations whose living believe systems it is. As an example in this article, I won't focus on the Navajo yee naaldlooshii beyond this mention, since it's already misused and abused enough. Unlike a...certain culturally deaf author who shall not be named.
*Africa: A broad one with another very solid line. The rich and varied cultures of Africa have been one of the greatest victims of colonial attitudes during the 19th Century, which saw them as brutish and uncivilised because they were different in how their societies worked, how their knowledge was preserved, and what they chose to believe in. But just a brief look at the history of one country, take Ghana as an example, shows multiple cultural groups, rich history and artistic legacies, and deep folklore and mythology. Many will know of Anansi, a spider trickster from Akan folklore, but this figure is so much more fascinating than just his stories. And I wouldn't want to use Anansi because there are hundreds of thousands from within the Akan people who could write about him far better than I.
*The Indian Subcontinent: Now I must make the line a bit fuzzy here not because I feel I can't write about the culture, at least from the perspective of an outsider, but because its folklore, mythology and religion is dense and far more intricate than someone not versed in that tradition could understand. And on top of that, unlike what might seem like parallel belief systems such as Ancient Greece and Rome, the Hindu sampradaya, plus others such as Jain Dharma or the Sikh or the teachings of Buddha, are a still-practiced and active religion. According to some surveys, the Hindu faiths collectively are the third-largest practiced religion in the world. And while some pieces of fiction have butchered this religion for entertainment (looking at you, Temple of Doom), I prefer not to.
*Abrahamic tradition: I'd initially labelled this section "Jewish traditions", then realised this easily extends across multiple belief systems which fall under the Abrahamic umbrella Today more than ever, there are a lot of hair-triggers surrounding use of perceived misuse of this belief system in a speculative medium. I don't want to use the Golem as it's deeply embedded in aspects of Jewish history and folklore. I'm steering well clear of Islamic belief systems as there is a lot of nuance and strong opinions that I don't want to tread on. There are some aspects of Judeo-Christian beliefs that people have become less tetchy about, but even then I'm not comfortable using them in a big way. As a reference or a template, sure. But unless I really do have a lot of confidence that I'm writing it correctly or in a suitably tongue-in-cheek style, I'd rather not
*South American pre-colonial: This is a more fuzzy example, as the belief systems native to that area, while still practiced to a degree, aren't the mainstream anymore. But there is a ton of aspects that either isn't readily accessible, or just can't be accessed at all. The belief systems of pre-colonial South America are rich and intriguing, filled with nuance and depth. But due to a combination of time's unfriendly march, and systematic destruction by the Spanish of that culture in a brutal wave of oppression and conversion, little primary evidence survives. We have clues, a few surviving documents, and a mountain of deeply-biased accounts from Spanish colonials with a vested interest in painting the peoples of South America as brutal savages. So while I might use a reference to them, I wouldn't want to portray the deities in fiction any more than the people who worshiped them. It feels disrespectful.
*Mainland China: This is a tricky one in a different way, as there are some aspects of Chinese tradition which have become very much internationalized through the popularity of fiction such as Journey to the West and Water Margin. I also admit that I created a story on this very blog which was a tongue-in-cheek homage to Journey to the West. But there are still some parts of its culture and belief systems I don't want to handle. It's even more important as aspects of that old culture seem to be under attack from its present government, meaning it may become increasingly up to diaspora populations to preserve them. There is a prominent example of a Western take on "Chinese" folklore, BioWare's Jade Empire, which I used to like but now just find deeply uncomfortable. It does have a slight escape clause in that it's not specifically using Ancient China, but still too close for comfort. Might have been more tolerable if they had Chinese creatives on the writing staff.
So, there we are. Some bits I don't want to touch, and some of my reasoning for it. These cultures are beautiful and rich, and they should be shown to the world where possible. And as a White British man, that isn't a task I should take on. It should be done by writers who can take those traditions and weave stories of their own devising, stepped in their own cultural background which will lend it a depth impossible otherwise.
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