Shit . You ' re right . <| sep |> Not sure what your main question is here , but . your novel sounds great , keep doing you , and don ' t worry about people who say you don ' t need to fill a quota or that diversity for diversity ' s sake is dumbunnecessary . It ' s not if you want a diverse novel you want a diverse novel , and readers who want that will find you . As far as plot , just because you ' re making a point to include diverse characters doesn ' t mean you need to include their specific issues in your novel in fact , I think most people who want diverse characters would rather see them in a regular story , being cool humans , than in a story about coming outracismsexismwhatever their specific issue is . Those things should have effects , but they don ' t need to be the crux of the story . Don ' t worry about that , either To answer your various questions about my own novel I have a very diverse cast because I live in a diverse city , have diverse friends , and I want my novel to reflect that . I ' m writing fantasy , so race is less useful to me e . g . I can ' t say AsianAmerican , etc , but I do openly describe characters ' colours for all characters , including white people and culture , where possible . Sexuality is discussed between characters gender is a nonissue my main character is an amputee . None of that really has any effect on the story it ' s otherwise pretty typical orphantohero fantasy schlock . You ' ll probably find that discussions about diversity in writing range from people who champion it to people who think those champions are stupid . I generally take a lot of SJW comments after describing my cast , but honestly , these are the characters I want to write , because these are the kinds of people who are in my life . Write what you want and write it well no need to worry about whether it ' s okay or what other people think