Ireth
Myth Weaver
In revising my main WIP, I've come to the realization that two female characters among the supporting cast are a lesbian couple. These characters are very minor, appearing in only a handful of scenes each, and their life goals and such are only tangentially relevant to the MCs and their plot. This makes me worry that my readers might feel more like I added in some token lesbians at the last minute, rather than how I feel, that these characters' coming out (to me, the author) occurred as a natural evolution of me developing them as characters.
I think it should be said that, before I realized either of these characters were gay, I had one of them killed by the villain to demonstrate how evil and depraved he becomes at the end of the story (because seriously, who in their right mind would kill a healer who was trying to help them?). When I had the aforesaid realization and the "bury your gays" trope occurred to me, I changed the ending so the woman in question is unharmed (as is her lover), and another supporting character is killed instead. The lesbian couple get to live happily ever after (even though their final scene in the book shows them alongside the protagonist mourning the death of their friend). Same plot impact, less awful implications.
To the point: where is the line between representation and tokenism? I have only so much room to develop these minor characters without bloating my novel past recognition (I'm probably already running high as far as my word count for a YA novel goes), and I am no more inclined to change the orientation of the major characters who are established as straight into LGBT than I am to genderswap half of the lesbian couple to make them straight. Such would be untrue to the characters and frankly irritating to me. Am I overthinking this, or is it something I am right to be concerned about? How should I handle this?
I think it should be said that, before I realized either of these characters were gay, I had one of them killed by the villain to demonstrate how evil and depraved he becomes at the end of the story (because seriously, who in their right mind would kill a healer who was trying to help them?). When I had the aforesaid realization and the "bury your gays" trope occurred to me, I changed the ending so the woman in question is unharmed (as is her lover), and another supporting character is killed instead. The lesbian couple get to live happily ever after (even though their final scene in the book shows them alongside the protagonist mourning the death of their friend). Same plot impact, less awful implications.
To the point: where is the line between representation and tokenism? I have only so much room to develop these minor characters without bloating my novel past recognition (I'm probably already running high as far as my word count for a YA novel goes), and I am no more inclined to change the orientation of the major characters who are established as straight into LGBT than I am to genderswap half of the lesbian couple to make them straight. Such would be untrue to the characters and frankly irritating to me. Am I overthinking this, or is it something I am right to be concerned about? How should I handle this?