I've gotta disagree, the solution to not stereotyping shouldn't be, "eh, just throw four or five in there, they'll get that people are different." Then you just get a spice girls trope (You get sporty gay, normal trans, etc) If you avoid all the normal pitfalls of writing, there shouldn't be a problem. Worrying about portraying one type of character correctly is like just worrying about your car catching on fire and ignoring any other type of accident. PS. I got a like on my 'anti debate room' thread while writing this. Still not sure how i'm supposed to take that.
@Rick n Morty I have a number of friends who are lesbians. Some are traditionally feminine, some are butch. Are you telling me the former are suitable as characters in fiction but the latter are not? Because that seems problematic to me.
I think the problematic implication is that ALL lesbians are butch. If you want to include a mixture of feminine and butch lesbians, go ahead. I think I'm just gonna unsubscribe to this thread. It's probably the most controversial one I've ever posted.
To answer my own question, the key is to create complex, real characters. If you have a lesbian who is butch, and that's all there is to her, then she's a caricature and that's a problem. If she's butch, but that's only one aspect of her and she's also all of the various other things that a real person can be, then she's fine even if she's the only lesbian in your story.
How do we know she's lesbian if she isn't getting it on with another female character, and why would we care otherwise? In other words, if there's no sex, how would you introduce her orientation without it seeming forced, and why would you want to anyway? I've always thought that the more you leave to the reader's imagination, the better. If a LGBT reader wants to think of the hero of the story (or the villain, for that matter) as LGBT, even if you, the author, don't, who's hurt? (Four commas in eight words. A personal best.)
@Earp really? Everything significant about a lesbian revolves around her sexual activity? That's way too limiting. Maybe the story revolves around her political activism. Maybe she's a mother and the story deals with issues around raising her children as a lesbian mother. Maybe it's about her relationship with a child who is being teased because his classmates know she's a lesbian. Maybe she's in a traditional marriage and the story revolves around her internal conflict regarding her own feelings of sexuality that are at odds with the life she's living. And so on. If you think the only way a gay or lesbian character's sexuality can be relevant to a story is when sex takes place you really haven't thought this through through.
If it comes up it comes up. Write what you feel good about writing, when you find a place to confront that issue you'll confront it. And sometimes it takes practices confronting issues you think are easier before you can do issues that are harder. This is why a lot of the diversity in my stories is often either religious diversity or characters who are from smaller ethnic groups that I can research from the ground up due to lack of personal experience. I know the biggest challenge for myself as a white American writer would be successfully writing a major African American character, which is why I've personally saved that challenge for later. It's not that I don't want to, it's that I don't think I'm skilled enough yet. I don't particularly like writing about the current debate about sexuality at all, and frankly I think so much ink gets spilled on it that I just am not interested in adding to something that's already at it's saturation point. My stuff probably could be labeled "heteronormative" in that I'm straight and get turned on by straight romances and therefore when I write romantic plotlines at all, I write straight ones (because what's the point of writing two people getting hot and bothered if it doesn't turn the writer on just a little) - but that said, LGBT characters exist in my world just like that exist into the real world, so when I run into one who intersects with my plot - I have to write them - and I've generally tended to like those characters a lot, because they surface organically. When I stumble across and LGBT character in my world - usually by accident - I try to just write about them as a person and the individual problems that they run into that makes them interesting as a character rather than as spokespeople or archetypes for the entire community. The one gay side character I have written in right now is less a commentary on LGBT issues than he is a walking question mark about the role of gay men in women's fashion journalism (one of my main female characters is a fashion journalist and "Tony" is her boss) - he didn't intrigue me because he was gay, he intrigued me because he was in one of the few places where his gender potentially created a glass ceiling - so I got to play the glass ceiling storyline in reverse while my female leads are confronting various incarnations of it themselves. And yes I know that his character creates plenty of his own issues in terms of how he's portrayed and I'll have to work through those, but the point stands in that he's interesting because of his individual predicament rather than as a representative of his sexuality. Coincidentally - he's also fun because most of my main characters are single workaholics with messed up relationship histories - so it's funny to me that Tony is not only married with children but one of the only characters in the entire book with a stable family life (he's arguably the most "normal" character I have). That and the fact that he's older and an authority figure makes it easier to normalize - all the other characters owe him a level of respect by virtue of his position. But that's just one experience and it has plenty of it's own issues. I have another character who I haven't started writing yet who I just recently realized had to be bisexual, not because I needed diversity, just because that's who she is.
Nope. Notice that I have been saying (or meaning to say) that if the story revolves around the character's sexual orientation, fine, mention away. I may have lost track, but I think the OP was about including such information willy-nilly, and I think that's always a mistake. To take the politics out of the discussion, let's talk about the characters' hair color. Unless it's germane to the story, why tell me that the MC has honey-blond hair to the middle of her back? The story may work better in my mind if she has curly black hair cut short (like Tina Gonzales from eight grade - oh, man ...).
Ah...ok, well I think we're in agreement on this. If it has no relevance to the story, I generally don't get into it. There are some exceptions. I have a character in a short story who is black, and it has nothing to do with the story, the character just came to my mind that way. I mention the fact at the outset, then that's about it. Typically, I'll leave character description up to the reader's imagination unless there is some salient aspect of appearance they need to know.
Yeah, there's both. I've always been really feminine, but I've known other lesbians that were pretty butch. Not my type personally.
So, in summary: Write your characters well, and fuck the naysayers who think you should've done different.
As Bayview mentioned, where the hell are you getting this idea from? No-one's really arguing with each other much, it's mostly separate posts and there is a good amount of agreement. Honestly you sound whingy.
This comment reminds me of the debate over the movie version of "The Martian", when Mindy Park was cast as a very white woman, when a number of readers (myself included) had assumed that she was Korean-American. Andy Weir weighed in, reminding people that he'd never described any of his characters physically, and that Mark Watney might be black... IIRC, Mark Watney might also be gay or asexual, there's nothing in the story to indicate otherwise.
This is at least the third time in a few months that this idea has come up. And I ask questions similar to the ones that I usually ask: - What's the message behind including a straight white male character? - Why do we need more of a message to justify a different kind of character?
It really depends on the story and the setting. Depending on the attitude of the society to sexuality, "dropping in" an LGBTQ character could be a good way to show a high level of tolerance. I can't cite at the moment, but I know I've seen an SF movies where a man's husband drops him off at work, hands him his lunch, and gives him a kiss. I don't think there was more "sex" in the story, but it worked for background setting. The book "The Martian" had a couple of the astronauts (mixed sex couple) hooking up on the way back, but all that showed was how hard it was to keep secrets in a small ship, and it was (mostly) removed from the movie. I don't think I'm making much sense, even to myself, right now, so I'm going to bow out for a bit and get ready for work. Sorry.
This. I mean the way I see it, just make characters to mirror real life. There are different kinds of people straight gay black white etc. The token XXXX character is because that old political correctness model that we just can't seem to shake off.
Very, very true. This is always the approach I take. If you line up a hundred people, there's going to be men, women, blacks, whites, Asians, straights and homosexuals. The Earth is basically one big bowl of mixed vegetables. Hey guys, can we take one moment to applaud Andy Weir? I never even realized that he actually never described his characters other than indicators in their names. Hell, I only thought Mark Watney white because I pictured Matt Damon everytime I saw the name. But he never labels them as black or white. He never gives us that mental picture. Instead of a portrait, he gives us them. The way he handled the dialogue- I felt like I really knew the characters by book's end. They felt real. There's something beautiful about that.
I agree with this advice as far as avoiding creating useless caricatures, queer characters who's only function is to have that one thing about them be an exaggerated punchline while everyone else is layered and has actual story/character arcs. (Unless every kind of person is being made into a caricature for some kind of purpose because it's that kind of story, then yaass go for it. ) I only add not to fall into such fear of writing a caricature that you feel like the only way your queer characters can be taken seriously is if they're a lady-like lady or a manly man. I feel like it's okay for a lesbian character to be butch--even plaid and jeans wearing lumberjack level butch--and a gay dude character to be effeminate--like Jack McFarland crossdresser level effeminate--just like I think it's okay for a black character to like hiphop/use slang and Hispanic-American characters to speak in Spanglish because those are real people, too. For me, avoiding making them into a no-purpose having caricature is not a matter of steering clear of any and all traits that are most associated with their group (especially ones deemed by others as 'negative' for this social hoopla reason or that), but a matter of showing that there's more to them than just what's the most obvious thing about them, just like you do with any character in the development stage. You know? That's my approach, at least. But of course, end of the day if particular traits seriously bug you, you don't have to write them in if you don't want. I feel like everyone's advice has been spot on, so I'm basically just repeating. Write queers however you'd like them to be that doesn't feel forced to you or just don't go out of your way to include them, no biggie.
I think one could say that I have a thing for leaning towards LGBT themes (or, not. LGBT characters in whatever theme to book has, I'd say), but then it's what feels right when I write that character. I don't know if it has to do with me not being all that straight, or because most friends I have are very flexible when it comes to sex (and in some case gender) - but I never really feel like forcing anything because of who my character wants to bone. I have thought about if I'm adding too many LGBT characters to my stories, but then again - why should I force a character to be straight if I have no reason for it? Should I start with token-straights? Maybe that's my problem. I'm heading back to my writing now, it's time for me to add some straighties!
There's no need. If you want to be more realistic, then in most circumstances at least a tiny bit of variation is good. But if you don't want to go that, or in certain circumstances where it makes sense, then you don't need to.
