how to write lgbt characters for straight people? help!

I think you can imply bisexuality here without having the character specifically label themselves or whatever. Have you considered a round-aboutism? The character may not have a notion of bisexuality or know they are that but they might think to themselves "hmm, I seem to be attracted to more than one gender" or something like that. They are ways of getting at a thing with varying degrees of implicitness. You can sort of vague your readers until they get the idea.

 

Great. A diverse cast is indeed an interesting cast. But that doesn't mean you're in the clear.
You really should think about it. I mean, at least a little. C'mon.

 

There’s an episode of 100 Humans on Netflix where they take 3 men and 3 women and have the study participants arrange them into three couples. All the participants but one arranged them into heterosexual pairings. One participant got it right - two of the couples were homosexual. She even got the exact pairings right. It was pretty cute to watch her arrange the people, trying different combinations until it felt right to her.

 

I'm not sure what exactly your position is here.

 

I think this thread is getting out of hand, so naturally I want to do my best to... add more controversy.

With respect to whomever mentioned diversity in TV series, we aren’t head writers with a team to manage. We don’t have a network with brand standards. We don’t have producers to please. We don’t have advertisers to consider. And most importantly we don’t have an existing platform that can reach out to hundreds of millions of people.

We are solo artists on solo journeys. I think it’s bad to ask artists to stay in their lane. Equally, I think it’s bad to ask artists to express what they do not naturally empathize with.

I don’t think homosexuals or trans or people of color need bullshit tokenism from a straight white male like me. I certainly don’t shy away from anything touching on those areas, but it simply does not come naturally to me.

I also welcome the diversity within the artist ranks. The more people from more backgrounds and creeds and cultures, the better the olartistic output of our society.

- MC

 

If someone claimed to be speaking for all cis white, I would be pretty annoyed at him. I don't know how sane 'diverse' people tolerate being filed into groups then perpetually labelled wholly as victims in order to serve someone's agenda (filled with veiled cancel threats these days), or a certain narrative speak for all of them. Frankly I see it as abusive.

 

Amen! That's why I hate it when other writers bust down the door and sic their twitter turds on writers for "not having enough representation" or "not doing it right." Even worse is when they accuse someone of being one of the seven deadly -isms of social justice. The poor OP doesn't even know what to write anymore because of this shit!

But I think it's a symptom of a much bigger problem in literature as a whole: People have lost track of what characters are made for. Characters are made to help people engage with an idea. This is why black characters dealing with prejudice is such a good trope. Prejudice has existed since the dawn of man, but an African American character dealing with it in modern society is a wake up call of "Hey, we're not past this."

What people think characters are for these days is an ego trip. Think about it. How much sense does it make to dismiss the film The Imitation Game because the main character is gay. For starters, he was gay in real life. Second, the theme of the film was not to reduce people to one superficial characteristic and ignore their whole being. Hell, that was the whole point of the LGBTQ rights movement!

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I do not need every writer writing about a bisexual character for me to feel happy and content with life. I don't need constant acknowledgement of my existence. My voice is my own. If you choose to include a gay character? Cool. If you choose to make them a bad guy, okay. If you choose not to include them at all, no worries, we're still cool. If you want to do what the OP is worried about, go for it! If you want to call it a sin and discuss the hell abyss that awaits us all, you can do that too!

 

Well, this actually brings us to what I think are three very important points.

1) It is not about meeting a quota
There are many kinds of diversity out there, not just race, gender and sexuality. You don't necessarily need to include all of them, and don't need to include them all at the same proportion to each other or at the same proportion to real world demographics.
But
You should aim to have a decent mix. There is much more than one way to do an inclusive story, there's no one correct amount of diversity you need, and that does also change with the context of your story. Just put some thought into it. Take some opportunities to be inclusive where it works for your story, and it shouldn't be hard to find them. Don't simply default to excluding marginalised people, no matter how much of a statistical minority they might be. Consider your options.

2) To avoid tokenism, work on the quality of your representation
If you're willing to research medieval France to write an epic fantasy, you should be willing to do a little research on what LGBT and people of colour and such think about how to do representation of their group properly and the details of cultures and subcultures. Depending on how much it comes upon in your story, you may have to do more or less research, and depending on what you've already read or already know from experience. Never be afraid to check anything. There will be differences in opinion. So put some thought into it yourself. Don't just go with whoever agrees with what you already wanted to do.

3) Your story doesn't have to be 12 Years a Slave to care about representation
You don't have to write a story about black experience and black issues in America to write a story set in America with black characters in it. And the same goes for gay, trans, Chinese people, people with disabilities, etc. If you are not a member of certain groups, it may indeed be best not to make your story all about those group's experiences. But the alternative to that is not to only write about white people or whatever. Just have them be characters. Be sensitive to those groups' experiences. You will likely want to portray some elements of that experience, but it doesn't need to be a big part of the story by any means.
e.g. If you have a gay character, you will likely need to portray to some extent what gay relationships are like, but that might only be in a scene or two. That happens all the time with straight characters.

 

The problem, Kallisto, I think, is who are you responding to?
Because you talk about people complaining about representation and how to do it right, but then you like my post talking about the importance of representation and how to do it right and acknowledge in your own post about how real-world issues with marginalised groups are relevant and good to consider.
So who are these bad people you are talking about? What exactly are they doing wrong?

 

This has turned in a very interesting conversation of what is wrong with diversity in literature and what's right about it.

 

I think this is where reasonable people disagree.
I almost never mention a character's race. The last time I did, it was because the POV character was racist. The time before that, it felt unnatural and I edited it out. Let people see their own race in the characters.

I almost never mention a character's sexuality. My work in progress has a married couple, but the whole story revolves around the pregnancy, so it's kind of inextricable. I suppose I could write about a lesbian couple with a donor, but as a man married to a woman, I'm choosing to stick with what I feel natural writing about. It will be more authentic. This isn't to say I will always stay in my lane, but I certainly do need to bring enough of myself in the story for authenticity.

Otherwise, I don't even care what sexuality my characters are. Not one bit. Not relevant to the story. Let the reader see their own sexuality in the characters.

In fact (uh oh, I feel a rant coming on), I have a dislike for romantic subplots in stories where it adds no freaking value. Oh, you're trying to save the world from the anti-Christ, but you're busy trying to get laid? Annoying. So many examples of good stories - film, TV, and books - where some stupid relationship is a sideshow that simply delays the main story. To me, the only good subplot is one that the main plot literally falls apart without. Great example, the film Interstellar. You think the father/daughter relationship between Murphy and Cooper is a subplot to add life to the story, but, psyche! it's actually the main plot all along. All other subplots can be shot and left for dead.

- MC

 

Ambiguity is not a bad approach, in fact I think it's good to do for many of your minor characters, but I think this is generally not ideal for your major characters, for three different reasons.
1) a lot of people will assume they're white/straight/cis, this including BIPOC and LGBT people who are simply used to white cishet being the default
2) race and sexuality are not irrelevant to experience, certain cultural experiences and some things like hairstylings and childcare, as you mention, are related
3) you're excluding specifically depicting nonwhite, non-cishet people, which can be more important than overall balance, and this is relevant to 2)

I agree to some degree. I like this kind of plot if integrated well where it adds to the depth of the characters. I don't find it needs to be directly relevant to the mainplot. It's definitely annoying however how often it's included in an almost obligatory sense. Of course the male MC has a wife/girlfriend, everybody does of course and it's important you know this character is one of them. Of course the male MC and the female MC have a romantic subplot, because one is male and one is female so they must want to f***.
If you are avoiding romantic subplots, that does give you more room to play down inclusion of LGBT people. But you can always have throwaway lines though about exes and SOs and just what people are attracted to.

 

But you know what happens when you have romance for the sake of romance? You get The Expanse. Naomi was a great character. A complete bad ass, tough but fair, with a real knack for leadership. Then what happened? She and Holden had sex. They fell in love. Now she's just a plug-and-play character, who's only value is to be the damsel in distress when Holden is supposed to be focused on more important things.

Okay, I'm exaggerating, she's still a badass, but the show is diminished for the relationship. (I only read the first book, so I'm referring to the TV series).

- MC

 

I take your point, but at some stage a writer has to cast fear aside and just write. At some point it's just the writer and the story. Of course a writer can learn about how others see the world—and in my opinion a writer certainly should—but in my view, nobody is ever going to stand directly in someone else's shoes.

One way to learn how to present LGBT characters, if you're not LGBT yourself, is to read books written by authors who ARE writing from that perspective. Read enough of these authors to get an overview of how LGBT see their lives, and how they present their side of things—to where your understanding of a different perspective has enlarged to where it's become part of your own. And then have the confidence to write your story, YOUR way.

How not to offend somebody is not really a writing issue is it? It's a perspective issue. If a writer feels their perspective is narrow or lacking in some way, then I'd advise them to widen that perspective. Looking for some writer's trick to cover the gap is probably not the best way forward. Nor is creating token characters so nobody feels left out or displeased. That can backfire badly.

Just write naturally, include whatever your story naturally contains, and you should be fine. There is a difference between not offending a reader, and simply not appealing to them. No story is going to have universal appeal. That's a Writing 101 principle, really.

 

I don't think this has anything to do with social justice or whatever. It's simply about unintentionally misleading readers and therefore creating a bad customer experience. It's a plot concern where you begin to present something that intrigues the reader, only to take that thing away and offer something else. Take away the whole sexual orientation thing... if I wrote a romance (I know OP isn't writing romance) and I initially offer a relationship that readers root for and are interested in...then get rid of that relationship and introduce a new character/relationship, readers would be unsettled a little. Add in that it isn't only about the romance but about identity, representation, and other aspects that play into being in same sex relationships.

I know it's subplot but I still feel it's relevant. I could be wrong though, since I haven't read the OP's story.

 

And to that extent, you should 'cast fear aside' when you have enhanced your understanding of different perspectives and listened to other people tell you what they want. Whether or not you can ever have a flawless grasp on the issues is no reason to ever limit your efforts to gain a *good* understanding of them. There is room for disagreement and mistakes, but our first response to these issues shouldn't be 'don't be afraid', but rather 'let's talk about it'. There's no need to worry about perfectionism when you've only just begun the conservation. Frankly, it's not a good place to start from with this proposition ready for use whenever people just want to drop things. People will use this as an excuse to do things poorly.

I don't find 'offence' to usually be a helpful framing and it's not one I would use here. What I would use is 'harmful' and 'positive'. What we want to do is avoid harmful messaging and include positive messaging. Now, these things aren't exactly objective, different people will take things in different ways, but we can definitely work with what prevailing perceptions are and will be.
The problem with 'widening one's perspective' is that no one actually has to commit to any meaningful action with their writing. You can't just research different perspectives, you have to listen to them. As much as there is room for disagreement, there are still some clearly right and wrong ways to do certain things. Blatant racial caricatures, for instance, is something people should learn specifically not to do. Doing things your way is always good with writing but there are acceptable bounds that we can set that still allow plenty of room for individuality. And this is no different to other elements of writing, there may be room for personal taste, but we can ultimately agree that some things are just badly done. And once you've established yourself within those bounds, you're in a much better place to work out what your individual take will be that's both interesting and meaningful.

 

I think it's about several things, including what you describe here.
An important element of representation related issues, after all, is not just about doing representation in a way that's equitable and doesn't perpetuate harmful narratives, but simply in a way that people enjoy seeing, both the people being represented and others who like to see a more diverse world in their media. And that is definitely important here.

Going back more to the OP, in the OP's position I would myself ask why not simply have the character realize in some way that they are bi at some point in the story? I understand they're young, and they're busy and all that, but that doesn't mean you can't do it, especially if you wait till later on in the story. The character could even still be somewhat uncertain and open to further exploration while still developing a sense of identity for how they feel right now.
If you're not sure exactly how to portray it, then consider why exactly you are including it in the story in the first place and tailor your depiction to those goals. If you do want this to be strong bi representation, I would err toward making it more explicit. If it's more about the characters and their relationships, perhaps leaving it more implicit is fine.
Ask a bunch of other bi people also. Look around for bi people online talking about bi representation and how they think it should be done, and consider those perspectives.

 

Absolutely. This is something you can absolutely find plenty of LGBT people talking about how to handle. And this is a perfect illustration of why just having diverse casts and avoiding explicitly bigoted depictions is not quite enough. Not all stereotypes are negative, and these can be much harder for some people to catch.
To bring back the harmful/positive terminology I introduced earlier, avoiding being harmful here by depicting characters in a way that isn't negative can still be neglectful by not being positive representation that depicts diverse people as diverse. Just as I would say the ambiguity approach discussed earlier is lacking on positive representation.