Writing LGBTQ+ Characters

[Ireth]

I have problems with a similar issue: asexual representation. I can't remember the last time I read a story where the MC, or any character really, was stated outright to be ace. I've seen characters who are probably ace, given that they show no sexual interest in anyone, but that's all conjecture. And I really don't appreciate seeing very-likely-ace characters shoehorned into ridiculously out-of-place relationships in adaptations of their stories. (Yes, Peter Jackson, I'm looking at you and your Bagginshield ship!)

*deep breath*

I honestly have no idea how to handle it in my own stories, either, despite identifying as ace myself. I don't tend toward romantic subplots in my stories (save for one that popped up unexpectedly and I just kind of ran with it), so showing that a character is ace by showing them to not be with or interested in anyone doesn't seem effective. I don't particularly want to have someone aim to get into my ace MCs' pants just to have them say "Sorry, I'm asexual."

 

[Heliotrope]

In that case, Ireth, I wonder why you wouldn't?

I mean, why not?

"I'm sorry, I just, I don't… please don't take this the wrong way, but I just don't feel that way, about anybody."

"You mean, never? You never want to…."

"No."

I mean, she doesn't have to use the term asexual, but why not use that as part of the tension? Make it a way that the two people have to forge their relationship in a different sort of way that isn't sexual? Show that it can be done? Bring it to the forefront a bit?

It this case, I think I would use it as part of her characterization.

I mean, we have all seen the Tyrion Lannisters or the Cercie Lannisters of the world a thousand times. Why not let the reader have a different sort of hero, and be explicit about it?

 

[Heliotrope]

There was a series on a while back called Schitt's Creek that I loved. The son in the show was 'gay', but had a romantic interlude with a woman. One day they are at the liquor store buying wine for a party and things are really awkward and confusing. I thought this was genius.

Again, if you are going to have a LGTB character, why not?

 

[Ireth]

In that case, Ireth, I wonder why you wouldn't?

I mean, why not?

"I'm sorry, I just, I don't… please don't take this the wrong way, but I just don't feel that way, about anybody."

I mean, she doesn't have to use the term asexual, but why not use that as part of the tension? Make it a way that the two people have to forge their relationship in a different sort of way that isn't sexual? Show that it can be done? Bring it to the forefront a bit?

It this case, I think I would use it as part of her characterization.

I see what you mean, but it wouldn't work with every story. One of my ace MCs is a teen with the power to hop from realm to realm; during the first instance she ends up befriending a dragon, only to be "rescued" by a misguided knight who sees himself as entitled to have her. So yes, in that instance I would definitely have her say "Dude, no. Just no."

On the other hand, in a fanfic with a self-insert protagonist, I don't think making other characters attracted to me would be fitting. To me, wish fulfillment is staying single and NOT having people expressing romantic or sexual interest in me. At all.

Or, in a story where the MC's problems stem from having his dead sister's soul stuck inside his head, and he spends the entire book away from anyone who could conceivably take such an interest in him... yeah, hard to say what happens there. Literally the only other important characters in the book are the MC's sister, two male mentor characters (who are already in a committed relationship with each other) and the villain. Shoving any sort of MC-centered romance in there would be wildly inappropriate even if he wasn't asexual.

 

[FifthView]

First, I want to apologize in advance if anything I write here is unclear or seems to take statements out of context or to read statements incorrectly. I woke today with a headache, my head is still full of achy fuzz, and I might be coming down with something. In short, I'm finding it hard to think clearly. But there were a few things that stood out to me that I wanted to address.

@Caged Maiden: Your two long comments are so full of various issues, I'm not sure I can unpack them all! There's also the danger (for me) of not having all the context, both for the conversation you had with your friend and with your stories. As with pretty much everything to do with writing, execution makes a HUGE difference. And the problem is that I, not seeing the execution, can only make broad statements about an issue like this, which may or may not apply to your current situation.

I can't speak to the issue of POC characters very well, because I have no experience being a POC. But I am a gay man, so I feel I can address the issue of portrayal of LGBT characters. Even there, LGBT people come from such a wide variety of backgrounds and have a wide variety of personalities and expectations, I don't feel I can speak for ALL LGBT people. (Even each of those designations–L., G., B., & T.–will have differences, among them!)

One point that I want to address is this:

And same goes for sexuality. I liked your example, because it's the exact way I see it. Mention a past love he regrets leaving, but don't go into the details of why he's attracted to men (or gods forbid) try to justify his current attitude in some way, linking his sexuality to former abuse or psychological torment in his youth, or some other suggestion that would negatively impact readers who feel perfectly comfortable with their own sexuality. My goal is not to write a gay character who is made uncomfortable or identified for his sexuality, but to celebrate a freeness that maybe some folks don't experience in our real world?

The danger is in believing that this is ALL that it means to be gay. I mean: experiencing persecution, discrimination, bigotry, being made to feel inferior, and so forth. This, incidentally, is a danger for both, people who are LGBT and people who are on the outside looking in. I am tempted to say that this experience of persecution, social doubts, and so forth is not even a trait of LGBT people so much as it is a trait of the society in which they live. In LGBT people, it's not a "trait" so much as a reaction to the exterior environment. When imagining a fantasy world that has had a different history than our own, all these features might entirely (or mostly) disappear or be non-issues.

As a gay man, I put on my socks every morning just like other people. I go throughout the day never (or rarely) even thinking about my socks. But being gay is not like that. Being gay is pretty much a 24/7 thing, and there are a hundred or thousands of little experiences every day that tie into it or are informed by it. This can be anything from happening to catch a glimpse of another man passing on the street and feeling an unusual physical attraction to seeing a heterosexual married couple playing with their three kids on the beach. Here's a test. Go to Google Images and type in "married couple" and see what pops up.

For me personally...and I really hate knowing this, there have been times when, without realizing it, I've treated an employee in a slightly more forgiving manner simply because I found him attractive. This isn't a conscious, "Oh he's cute. I'll give him a break." sort of thing, and it's only thinking back on it, months after he's quit without notice, etc., where I realize that maybe that's what I had done, and how stupid of me. The typical cliché hetero example would be the attractive woman not given a traffic ticket by a male cop.

In short, there are way too many examples I could give where "being gay" is experienced in a way that doesn't involve persecution, bigotry, feeling sorry for myself or sad about "being gay." Otherness just is, and it isn't always experienced as being other.

So the idea of having a single line somewhere in which a POV character briefly thinks about a past same-sex relationship, but then spending the next 400 pages without so much as another single thought informed by his being gay, strikes me as wrong. That's tokenism, of a sort. This could especially be a problem when the character is a POV character, since his voice will be informed by everything that he is. Another example. Tyrion Lannister. In his world, he is overtly discriminated against and this shapes our experience of that world but also his own POV voice. But even if he lived in a different world entirely, where being a dwarf is a non-issue, he'd still experience life as a dwarf. There would be situations where he had difficulty mounting a horse, reaching something from a high shelf, etc. EVEN IF in this world all those exigencies have simple solutions–like, he has the magic to levitate–the very use of those solutions would draw attention to his dwarfism and his experiences of employing those solutions and would shape his POV voice.

Final note: There's a difference between consciously ruminating on an issue and experiencing a reality subconsciously or without putting it into abstractions. A person can experience being gay without having to think 24/7 about the issue of being gay.

 

[Caged Maiden]

Thanks, JC. I think what you're saying is what I expected, that some people will say I had a great story (or not), and some people will pick out the fact that one of the MCs was gay, and couldn't he have been a little "more" gay, so it didn't feel like I was trying to make him a straight man but put a different sexuality in as a token trait that isn't part of the story, and that's disrespectful to the people in our real world who are openly proud of their fight to bring equality and rights to people who sometimes struggle for acceptance. And then the other side will be people who read it and think I should have just made him straight from the beginning because "it wasn't necessary" and dumb to make that decision because it has the potential for alienating readers with strong views on preserving traditional family values, and so on and so forth.

I fully expect to have some small polarizing effect on some readers, but honestly, I'm not writing to cater to the people who frequent message boards and forums to express their embittered, hateful words of "you shouldn't write this because you're not living it, and you can't truly understand." No, I can't truly understand the struggles of a gay, POC man in our modern society, any more than I can understand the responsibility a captain feels when his past caught up to him and now it's putting his loyal crew in harm's way. But I think I can sympathize, and I feel like I can write a gripping tale about these characters in a world of my creation. And I think I can do it with respect and humbleness, and in honor of the people I love who do face these personal struggles and cannot ever "forget" that they are different from what society tells them they should be, or however you might tactfully say that.

I understand both sides of all those things, and honestly, it's a can of worms I'm willing to open, just a little. My ultimate goal is to write a world where people aren't shunned at work (like my lesbian friend, who felt she couldn't reveal that she WAS in fact married, but to a woman, when her coworkers asked). I want there to be no shame in being what you are, and there is no stigma attached to either race or sexuality, because for me, I wish people experienced that in our world. I'm not setting out to change people's mind about anything, though, just to portray human characters as diverse and not limited by a society that forces its ideal on everyone, whether it be religious, racial, regarding sexuality, or any other "hot button topic" we currently face as real people.

I appreciate where this woman was coming from, but I don't think she was listening to me, instead assuming I was making decisions to write token characters, and the portrayals of the characters would be somehow the focus of the story, and that it would create a negative impression of people for which she sympathizes, as a member of those communities. I can fully relate to her desire to not see another representation done for no reason other than to "throw an issue in there" and make it a point of conflict, because honestly, if someone took one of my issues, say, bipolar, and made a character that was a negative representation of what it means to be bipolar, I might be offended that they didn't research the condition better. It's something I've lived with for 20 years, and it's made life really hard at times, and I feel sensitive to the issue, and would want to see it done justice, not become a character flaw that served no purpose other than existing.

She mentioned autism in writing, too, because she works with autistic children, and said that it's misunderstood and represented poorly in literature, and I can fully understand that subject, too. I have friends with autistic kids, I know a few autistic adults, and I know a number of our members fall within the autism spectrum, and honestly, if I were going to write a story about a character with autism or an autistic child, I'd come here and do my research just as I'm doing for this particular story, to get the full scope and the honesty of the issue before writing it. I'm just unclear why people automatically assume your writing will portray characters with hot button traits as negative, and I certainly saw she was getting frustrated with me, but I don't know what I could have done to assure her I'm well aware of how people feel, but I want to be true to myself, too, and portray characters as diverse, though I may not be categorized as particularly diverse myself?

Just one more question, folks, while this subject is still open. (I probably should have taken this to PMs, but I really hope our discussion benefits other writers here, not just me)What qualifies a story as LGBTQ? I don't understand whether a story is considered fitting simply on the merit of having characters who are LGBTQ, or whether the story is expected to explore the social ramifications of being so? Like, am I writing a LGBTQ story as I've described it, or am I simply writing a fantasy story that happens to have LGBTQ characters? I'm unclear. Like I said, agents are hungry for books that fall into the category, but I'm not sure whether they expect the stories to be more skewed toward romance then, or whether a fantasy adventure that has no real romantic elements would qualify? Is it a matter of portraying characters as diverse, or exploring the effect of sexuality on the overall persons in the story?

Okay, just one more question. Since we have this awesome, diverse community, would people here be open to a crit group focusing on LGBTQ works? I'd seriously like to begin such a crit group, where we could discuss these issues in less of a public forum, and take it to private emails and the sharing of work regardless of whether it's going to be ultimately published. I'd really like to learn more about how I can improve my own writing and incorporate diverse characters, without posting to a public forum like Scribophile.

 

[Heliotrope]

On my phone so can't thanks. But thanks fifth view!

 

[Ireth]

Just one more question, folks, while this subject is still open. (I probably should have taken this to PMs, but I really hope our discussion benefits other writers here, not just me)What qualifies a story as LGBTQ? I don't understand whether a story is considered fitting simply on the merit of having characters who are LGBTQ, or whether the story is expected to explore the social ramifications of being so? Like, am I writing a LGBTQ story as I've described it, or am I simply writing a fantasy story that happens to have LGBTQ characters? I'm unclear. Like I said, agents are hungry for books that fall into the category, but I'm not sure whether they expect the stories to be more skewed toward romance then, or whether a fantasy adventure that has no real romantic elements would qualify? Is it a matter of portraying characters as diverse, or exploring the effect of sexuality on the overall persons in the story?

That's a good question. I think it qualifies when the main characters are LGBT and that impacts the storyline in some significant way. Largely this seems to be in a romantic sense, from what I've seen, but I'm sure that isn't the only way to do it.

Okay, just one more question. Since we have this awesome, diverse community, would people here be open to a crit group focusing on LGBTQ works? I'd seriously like to begin such a crit group, where we could discuss these issues in less of a public forum, and take it to private emails and the sharing of work regardless of whether it's going to be ultimately published. I'd really like to learn more about how I can improve my own writing and incorporate diverse characters, without posting to a public forum like Scribophile.

I'd be all for that. ^^

 

[Caged Maiden]

I realized that an hour has gone by from when I began my last post and actually posted it. i wanted to thank Fifth and Nimue personally for their responses, because I wholeheartedly feel like you hit the core of what my understanding is, and the limitations it has, too.

I can't be gay, or understand the struggle of a gay person in our modern society, but I feel sympathy for my friends who live these struggles every day. My aim is to approach any character with as impartial an attitude as I can muster, with respect to their race, gender, and sexuality. I sincerely hope that I can do justice to the people who deal with societal attitudes I do not share.

Thank you for taking the time to respond so thoroughly. I really want to write characters as I see them, and I'm trying to open my mind fully to the things I cannot personally relate to, hearing experiences from people I know and love, and those of strangers who talk with me here, giving me their personal feelings on issues I can't probably ever fully understand, though it's my desire to do as much as I can, without cheapening their personal experiences by saying, "yeah, I get it, now can I write it?"

This community continues to astound me for its collective compassion and openness, and I just want you all to know how much it means to me that you take your time to help me.

Helio, thank you so much for sharing the writing journey with me personally, and with this community. I'm not glad you're struggling with the same issue as I am, but I'm glad that we can share our passion for writing characters who don't fit into our default demographic.

Guys, I know some of the words I'm using may not be the politically correct ones, like "trait", but I hope you can forgive my attempts to explain my thoughts without being particularly knowledgeable about what the correct words are. I'm really trying, and I feel very strongly about the message i'm trying to send in my writing--that I want to celebrate a unique character, not for how he's different from me, but because he can shine on his own, without my drawing unnecessary attention to his personal identity in regards to race or sexuality. I'm absolutely going to give my execution a fair amount of scrutiny, and ask people to read this work that can relate more closely to the character's race and sexuality. We've all seen poorly portrayed characters, and I'm going to be very careful with what I present, but it's certainly causing me a bit of aggravation in feeling I have the right to begin the story.

Thank you all so much for your continued support. You make me smile, and your compassion and patience with me is greatly appreciated.

 

[Ireth]

I realized that an hour has gone by from when I began my last post and actually posted it. i wanted to thank Fifth and Nimue personally for their responses, because I wholeheartedly feel like you hit the core of what my understanding is, and the limitations it has, too.

I can't be gay, or understand the struggle of a gay person in our modern society, but I feel sympathy for my friends who live these struggles every day. My aim is to approach any character with as impartial an attitude as I can muster, with respect to their race, gender, and sexuality. I sincerely hope that I can do justice to the people who deal with societal attitudes I do not share.

Thank you for taking the time to respond so thoroughly. I really want to write characters as I see them, and I'm trying to open my mind fully to the things I cannot personally relate to, hearing experiences from people I know and love, and those of strangers who talk with me here, giving me their personal feelings on issues I can't probably ever fully understand, though it's my desire to do as much as I can, without cheapening their personal experiences by saying, "yeah, I get it, now can I write it?"

This community continues to astound me for its collective compassion and openness, and I just want you all to know how much it means to me that you take your time to help me.

Helio, thank you so much for sharing the writing journey with me personally, and with this community. I'm not glad you're struggling with the same issue as I am, but I'm glad that we can share our passion for writing characters who don't fit into our default demographic.

Guys, I know some of the words I'm using may not be the politically correct ones, like "trait", but I hope you can forgive my attempts to explain my thoughts without being particularly knowledgeable about what the correct words are. I'm really trying, and I feel very strongly about the message i'm trying to send in my writing--that I want to celebrate a unique character, not for how he's different from me, but because he can shine on his own, without my drawing unnecessary attention to his personal identity in regards to race or sexuality. I'm absolutely going to give my execution a fair amount of scrutiny, and ask people to read this work that can relate more closely to the character's race and sexuality. We've all seen poorly portrayed characters, and I'm going to be very careful with what I present, but it's certainly causing me a bit of aggravation in feeling I have the right to begin the story.

Thank you all so much for your continued support. You make me smile, and your compassion and patience with me is greatly appreciated.

I'm out of thanks for a while, but the sentiment is there. And you're very welcome, too. ^^

 

[JCFarnham]

As far as I'm aware LGBTQ literature is a genre in which being LGBTQ, as Ireth says, impacts the story in some way. Kind of like how having a romantic subplot doesn't necessarily qualify a book as a romance. I'd go as far to say your story wouldn't be considered "pure" LGBTQ for that reason, but then again it's no doubt an incredibly grey area and I'm not an agent nor a publisher (obviously). I'd also guess that if you have a wide enough variety of LGBTQ outweighing the hetero element then it might be considered part of the genre?

Incidentally I'd love to see a group like that CM. We need more safe places for topic like this. I fear these discussions often hit a trigger at some point making education difficult if not impossible...

So yeah! Go for it.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I set up a thread in Writing Groups, so I'd love it if you guys signed up. I think open discussions apart from this forum would be ideal, because I feel terribly guilty of taking up too much digital real estate with my posts already!

I'm really concerned with privacy and feelings of safety and trust, so I put some suggestions in the thread, but I'm open to any better suggestions. I know a lot of people still don't use other social media like Facebook or google+ groups, so I think emails is the best way to share material for critique, but please weigh in if you have something better: http://mythicscribes.com/forums/writing-groups/15720-diversity-writing-group.html#post225684

Let's get this rolling!

 

[Caged Maiden]

Also, to Fifth, I really listened to what you said earlier, and it was floating around in my head as I was driving to the doctor's this afternoon, and I think I really absorbed what you were saying. When i listened to the radio, there was a generous amount of love mentioned, but all of it was heterosexual mentions, a man singing to a woman, or a woman singing about a man. And I think I'm grasping in a small way what you mean about constant reminders of a concept that doesn't resonate with a person who is of a sexuality different than the subject matter. You know, I wouldn't balk at a song about a homosexual relationship, but I can see how just the absence of such songs automatically has an effect on a person. I'll let this concept continue to bounce around in my skull, but than you for bringing it up. I'm listening. I'm trying to get it. And I think there's at least some hope for me

 

[imagine123]

Just read through the backlog and I've got a few thoughts.

As a black woman, there are a few sensitivities to having "other" people write characters that are supposed to represent me. And maybe that's just because a lot of the time, the minority character is the only minority character, so they become a monolith, an plug-in that comes to represent everyone of that race/creed/sexual orientation/etc. You read a story or watch a movie where everyone is white or straight or cis or what-have-you, except for one character...whatever that one character does, whoever they are, becomes incredibly important. For example, I like watching old movies. Most of the time, in these movies, you don't see black people, or if you do, they are relegated to servants, or comedic relief, or something vaguely racist. I'm watching Christmas in Connecticut right now, and there are two (count'em!) black people who perform short roles. One is a woman, a delivery person of some sort, and the other is a male waiter. What I really like about them is they are both articulate (and in the waiter's case, smart) characters, which is above and beyond what I would expect from a movie from the 40s (kind of the exception to the rule). You could swap them in for white actors, and there'd be no problems.

Compare this to Gone with the Wind, which has a larger black cast, but all of them are slaves and act very insultingly. Swap them in with white actors, and you'd wonder why the hell they are acting so weird. So while I like watching Gone with the Wind, I'm frequently uncomfortable with how black people are portrayed. And if I'm reading a book or watching a movie where there's only one black person, I'm going to be very focused on how they act or are portrayed, and if they act in an insulting or a supposedly stereotypical manner, I'm going to be very uncomfortable, if not out-right irritated.

However, it would seem that racism is something brought about by our world's history. If you take characters out of this world and into a fantasy world, I don't see any problem with not focusing on race or sexual orientation or any of those distinguishing characteristics. That's why, @Caged Maiden, I think the way you were planning/writing your story makes perfect sense. If there's no history to lead to the development of racism, why in the hell would you focus on race other than in regards to character description? And if it's obvious that the characters are not based in our world, then I see no point in justifying why characters aren't focusing on their differences. It'd be like someone writing a story based in our world where a character focuses on the fact that their ears flare out while another person's ears are flat against their skull (I'm assuming that there's no movement for or against how close people's ears are to their heads). It makes no sense.

I would like more fantasy stories that are actually about LGBT characters instead of characters who, by the way, are LGBT.

Funnily enough, I would rather read more stories about characters that are "by the way" LGBT/black/whatever, because I think that would make help with the "normalization" of those characteristics, as someone put it in prior posts. If you focus on the distinguishing characteristic, you are making it something worth focusing on, and unless you are writing the story in a world where that would be focused on, it would be obvious you are making it an issue. Someone was talking about having an asexual character, and how they would show definitively that they are asexual. My initial thought was, unless asexuality has something to do with the story, why do you need to show definitively that they are asexual? Then I realized that sexual orientations would need to be shown definitively if you wanted it to be "canon" for that character. Because, otherwise, people would assume that they are straight. Which kind of sucks...

Even when you spell it out, you're gonna have people who are going to assume otherwise. You guys remember that whole mess with Rue in the Hunger Games? How, even though the author made it very clear that Rue was black or the equivalent, people still expected her to be played by a white girl? Smh.

I know for my part, I've got a rather diverse cast. Most of the people who live in my world are brown-skinned, varying in shades. People focus on nationality and religion rather than skin color. My leading heroine is dark-skinned (as in, black, not brown) and straight. Another protagonist is light-skinned and straight. There are two characters that are gay, and they come from a culture where the idea is that you can love anyone regardless of gender. Another character is asexual, and I was planning on showing this by comparing him to his sister, who is all about having sex. Another I'm still playing with, and I call him a 'he' because he identifies more on the masculine-side of androgyny, but he might be stuck in a woman's body (that's the part I'm playing with). I was just going to have certain characters who know him well call him a 'he', and others who just see him call him a 'she', but...

In one case, one of the protagonists was left with his grandparents to be raised. Originally, I had it that his father left his mother and him, but I decided to switch it to his mother left his father and him. I wanted the mother to be connected with another character in a romantic way, but I had already decided that that character was a woman. I decided to make that character bisexual to fit the change (bi because she might end up falling in love with a man later on). I think the only characteristics that I intended on having from the outset was differences in skin color. All the differences in sexual orientation/identity came around because it would increase the tension in inter-character relationships or (in the case of the androgynous character) because it made sense regarding the characteristics of the people/race...not because I wanted to check off boxes or talk about diversity issues.