Because they're about to charge into certain death on their way to kill a dragon, and the scene explains why they do it.
I'm not trying to catch you in a double standard, I'm trying to figure out why every time a romantic relationship is referenced it counts as "mentioning orientation" to you. To me, it's mentioning a relationship - the orientation is secondary, at best.
Why is it essential to the story that the reader read this scene about people charging to their certain deaths? Why should I care about these characters and how they die?
So we're not going to be seeing any examples from you. I think I'm just going to settle on: "Justin does not write the way I write or think the way I think" and leave it at that.
Not unless you provide me what I told you I need to give an answer. I wish you the very best success as a storyteller even though you don't write the way I write or think the way I think.
Okay let me put it this way Justin, if your character was going to a bar with friends, wouldn't you be exploring their taste in alchohol? I mean, if two guys order a beer, one a cider and one water, that's the exact same expression as if three of them have girlfriends, and one a boyfriend. And I don't know why so few people seem this get this. Words: they are used. I have a list of guys at my school who I know are gay, for nooo reason, and all of them have used the word talking to people and vice versa The point is, it is common and it is functional. So it would come up. Or at least a phrase like "into guys" or something.
If I'm going to mention what they are going to be drinking, then it has to be meaningful to the story. Maybe the guy who chooses water is a recovering alcoholic who chose to go to the bar because he was tired of missing time just hanging out with his friends and having fun, even though he knows the dangers of entering a bar. Maybe the guy who orders cider gets harassed by one of the two beer drinkers and the other beer drinker follows the alpha beer drinker's lead - foreshadowing a relationship dynamic which will be important later. There's all kinds of ways that what they drink can be meaningful to the actual story. Their choice in drinks doesn't have to be just a slapped-on label. The real world and the dramatic world are not the same.
A lack of diversity would be boring and unrealistic. We give characters diversity of hair colour all the time, why not sexuality? I literally have no ideas, in real progress or conceptual, where there is just straight.
I agree. That's why I think, even more important than not adding a trait unless it is meaningful, is finding meaningful reasons to add traits. Just slapping labels on characters doesn't add diversity.
You made a big mistake there, their choices reflect their personality because they're choices. Sexuality is not a choice taste. It's fluid but only enough to form a slightly altered shape from before. So let's go with the comparison of hair colour. Do you allow readers to know hair colour when introduced or do just describe then when you feel the "need"? I fail to see the importance of making the reader wait to find out details on the characters. Isn't it better to describe then before they form a mental image? Do you need a reason to give an image of what your talking about?
Again, we're not talking about the real world. We're talking about a dramatic world with fictional everything. *I*, as the author, decide whether my characters will have sexual orientation and, if they do, what orientation that will be. They will have an orientation only if it is meaningful. I'm not going to slap-on labels and pretend that adds diversity.
Also you ignored my point about labels being expected. If a character is gay they will be called gay. And I don't your being fair on the straight side. You said yoy'd need a justification but I think you just mean a justification for including a love interest. Do you really ask yourself "why should this character be straight?" If you truly do this with every biological trait then I feel sorry for your sad waste of time.
The character isn't gay unless I make him that way. I sure as hell am not going to make a character stereotypically gay without a damned good, meaningful reason (and, even then, they may be straight, but fit the gay stereotype). So, I don't know what you mean by the above quote. Yes I do this with every trait, not just the biological ones. It adds depth, vibrancy, and verisimilitude to the story. Without it, the story would be dull, flat, lazy, and unrealistic.
Also you ignored my point about labels being expected. If a character is gay they will be called gay. And I don't your being fair on the straight side. You said yoy'd need a justification but I think you just mean a justification for including a love interest. Do you really ask yourself "why should this character be straight?" If you truly do this with every biological trait then I feel sorry for your sad waste of time.
So what is a good enough reason for a character to have, say, blond hair? Is it enough for there to be another character who likes bond hair, and the plot's need for a romance? But then why "slap on the label" of blond? What's the excuse for making the liked hair color blond? Wouldn't the plot work just as well with any other hair color, as long as he likes it and she has it? Would you then say that he liked her hair color, but refuse to say what the hair color is? But then why "slap a label" on the character specifying that the liked attribute is their hair color? Wouldn't the plot work just as well with any other physical attribute, as long as he likes it and she has it? Would you then just say that he was attracted to her, but refuse to way why? But then why "slap on labels" by saying he and she? Wouldn't the plot work just as well with any other set of genders and orientations? Would you then refrain from "he" and "she" and use the characters' names (making them gender-ambiguous names) whenever the characters are referred to? But don't names provide a lot of interest, serve to "slap on labels" about things like culture and family history? Would you then refrain from using names and say "the first person" and "the second person" whenever the characters are referred to? How often is a detail truly and totally irreplaceable in the plot?
I think possibly we're looking at the zeal of the recently converted. I was curious about @Justin Rocket 's writing so I went to look at one of his workshop entries (from about a year ago) and it's chock full of unnecessary details - to the point that @ChickenFreak mentioned it in her critique and suggested that he only include those details that are important to the story! So I'm wondering if Justin has taken that advice to heart, and is maybe taking it a bit (or a lot) further than the rest of us would?
I just wrote a scene where the three characters drink iced lattes together. There is no reason for them to choose lattes beyond "it's a hot day and they like coffee". My scene would be flatter and duller without that little irrelevant detail though. I can't imagine your writing benefits from only including details if they impact the plot, but it'd be interesting to see how a recent sample compares to the one Chicken Freak critiqued.
I wanted to return to this IMO false idea that you can write a character without even knowing their skin color, without essentially writing about a white character. I was just told a story about a black architect of the 1930s. Apparently he couldn't enter the homes that he created (magnificent, mansion-like homes for important people; he was an extraordinarily good architect). And he taught himself to write upside down because his clients wouldn't sit next to him. If you were to write a story about a professional in the 1930s, and his race doesn't come up, then that pretty much guarantees he IS white. And, really, "professional" and "1930s" narrow that too much. If you write a story of any substantial length, with any interaction with society at large, about a black character in the United States at any time earlier than...I'd say 1960 (and I lean toward 1980), and race doesn't come up, then that character is very likely white. Color-blind writing may intend to be writing that doesn't care about skin color, but it's very often effectively writing about exclusively white people. This is less of an issue when writing about attributes that aren't easily visible, but I would say that if you as the author don't know your character's sexual orientation, you're generally going to be writing about exclusively straight people. It may or may not come up in the work, but I think that you should know.
My understanding is that unless you're writing about the future, any time you're writing about a character of colour in the US, race is going to come up. Again, unless it's a totally minor character, or a short story with lots of action, or whatever.
Yes; if you're going with actual likelihoods, it should come up in a story presented in the present day. My 1960/1980/whatever date is intended to cross past the point where it's un-ignorably impossible for race to not be an issue. That 1930s black architect would deal with race every day, and it would affect every element of the job. If he were working in 1965 he might have some days when it doesn't come up. If he were working in 1985 he might have some weeks when it doesn't come up.
If you were to write about a professional in the 1930s whose race wasn't meaningful, then you aren't writing about any race regardless of the label you slapped on him. The only reasonable thing to do in your example would be to write about that black character but make his race meaningful to the story.
