Kaatiba
  • Home
  • Books
    • The Storyteller, The Djinn, and The Prince
    • Oracle
    • Rivener
    • Concepts
  • Short Stories
    • The Queen, the Lion, and the Rings
    • A Net of Stars, Woven
    • The Peacock, The Crown, & The River
    • October Odds
  • Poetry
  • Blog
    • Good Men Out There
  • Services
  • Contact

On Writing Muslim Characters - A Discussion

4/1/2023

0 Comments

 
I received an email inquiry from a reader and fellow author about how to best to go about incorporating Muslim characters into a fantasy world (specifically, Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V), and the sender gave me permission to post his message and my response to it, since I thought it would be a neat discussion to share.

Found your online essay about Samirah al-Abbas--it was very incisive and I am grateful for having found it, especially since you're another Muslim Canadian who's a bit into the deep end of nerdiness. It gets a bit lonely when my sister is the only other Muslim I know who orbits any of the same interests as me.

I've read the Magnus Chase books, and while I was just happy to see a female Muslim character like Samirah at the time, I've gradually grown a bit more concerned about her juxtaposition with all the...stuff. Your essay helped clarify a lot for me.

I have only just learned of your fiction writings, and I am very interested in reading them--I am quite sick of religion being denigrated, absent, or restricted to fictional ones in sci-fi and fantasy, especially stories that are supposed to be in the future.

To be honest, though, my main impetus for reaching out is that I would like to know if you consider the context of Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V problematic to include Muslim characters in. I'm trying to write a fanfiction for it, and while I was already rewriting the fantastical aspects so that they didn't infringe upon any tenet of Islam, your remark about context got me worrying again about whether the context of Yugioh would send the wrong message. I'd write fanfiction for something that wouldn't even involve these questions, but I specifically want to put Muslim characters where there's a lack of them.

I wouldn't bother you with this, but none of the scholars/imams whom I know are familiar enough with this to really be able to answer, and you know this kind of thing, even if not Yugioh in particular. I already ditched the idea of doing fanfiction for the earlier series in the Yugioh franchise because occultist/pagan stuff is pretty heavily enmeshed in the plot, and Arc-V is mostly sci-fi, but the materialistic aspect of the card game does still concern me a bit. There isn't any "god" problem to be had with Arc-V, the only issue is maybe some soul-related things, but we've explicitly not been told much about that, so I figure I have a bit of room there.

P.S. I am going to have two original Muslim characters as my main characters, who will be 14 years old for reasons involving the plot of the show. Do you think that's too young for an arranged marriage to be in the works for them? It wouldn't necessarily have been formally arranged yet, and they're already going to be somewhat close regardless. I just thought you would know better than me whether that might go over too much the wrong way--I was planning on it depicting it as being so that my characters can have a halal relationship.

P.P.S. I'm only just 21, and haven't published anything online let alone otherwise. I genuinely admire you even though I only just found out about you.

P.P.P.S. Please keep up this good work!

Read More
0 Comments

Writer Q&A

29/9/2020

0 Comments

 
I was asked a series of questions on my tumblr, and I decided to crosspost them here for easy reference to any new readers (hi!). 
Why did you start writing?

Honestly, I was always daydreaming as a kid and I was so amped about them that if I didn’t get them out I’d feel this big pressure in my chest, and the more I tried to restrain it, the more wired I’d feel.  If I wasn’t daydreaming, I would be acting out those daydreams! I’d climb trees and build little fairy castles in my backyard and make up languages and speak them, or sing songs without an ounce of shame while at the park. In public. By myself. At like, thirteen. 

…Anyway yes, if I didn’t channel all that into writing it would have come out in other, probably less socially acceptable ways. Writing feels like a usually invigorating, sometimes painful compulsion, tbh. 

Give some fun tidbits on the oc(s) of your choice!

Ooh! Ok! So Raoul of CofM has two younger sisters. I haven’t decided on their names yet, but one of them will be the protagonist of my genderbent Aladdin retelling! Due to circumstances (spoilers!), the story will open with her living as a boy on the streets, where she bumps into a very sheltered prince, and adventure ensues!

What are some of your favourite authors?

Oof, many. Off the top of my head — Patricia A. McKillip, Ursula K Le Guin, Guy Gavriel Kay, Georgette Heyer, Gail Carson Levine, Jeff Smith (of the Bone series), and Catherynne M. Valente! My goodreads is here 😁

If you could, what advice would you give yourself as a young writer?

Save all your writing, even the crappy, cringey stuff, in multiple places, both online and in hard copy. You’ll want to look back on them, see how far you’ve come, what’s changed and what hasn’t, and have a record of it all. 

Also! Lean harder into writing the stuff that makes you happy! Somewhere along the way people’s opinions get into your head and hold you back, and it takes you a long time to get your mojo back. 

Also also! Watch what you read, it influences you in ways that are often negative! Yeah, your parents actually were right about that one, and you’re gonna beat yourself up about it for a while. 

Read More
0 Comments

    Musings from a Muslim Writer

    This blog features prompt fills, excerpts from my wips, posts about my writing process, and more!


    Good Men Out There - A Collection

    Categories

    All
    A To Z Aesthetics
    Book Response
    Book Review
    Cofm
    Excerpts
    Fairytale Retellings
    Fictober 2021
    Fictober 2022
    Glitch Wip
    Headspace
    Islam
    Lofm
    Minotaur Wip
    Oracle Wip
    Prompt Fills
    Q & A
    Reaper
    Relationships
    Research
    Revamped Vignettes
    Rivener
    Updates
    Wip Intro
    Worldbuilding
    Writing
    Writing Process

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • Books
    • The Storyteller, The Djinn, and The Prince
    • Oracle
    • Rivener
    • Concepts
  • Short Stories
    • The Queen, the Lion, and the Rings
    • A Net of Stars, Woven
    • The Peacock, The Crown, & The River
    • October Odds
  • Poetry
  • Blog
    • Good Men Out There
  • Services
  • Contact