Gay/Lesbian POV

[G.L. Lathian]

Oh, you see, I didn't want to do that to you. I'm not here to call out anybody on their personal feelings regarding gay people. I'm sorry if you thought I did.

What I meant was specifically about authors and publishers believing their reading audience to not be accepting of gay characters as part of the fabric of a tale. I think readers buy books, especially SF and Fantasy, wanting a good story first and not particularly offended by the presence of gay characters.

I think it's something that people still aren't comfortable with. Opinion polls will tell you that, although, it's slowly changing. As an author, I feel it's something you have to think about.

A character being gay (or two, if you like) doesn't in any way have to mean romance writing. Their being gay just adds another dimension to them, perhaps it shows their determination, or something.

Even gay readers don't want to constantly have to read gay romance to get any gay content.

I was referring to main protags (my bad), so romance is definitely part of the equation - I'd have to write it in. Romance for me is very important.

 

[chinookpilot77]

I missed this.

It's quite obvious in the books.

I remember (vaguely) a line from Jamie Lanister in book four, something along the lines of: "Sheathe your sword or I'll shove it up someplace not even Renly can find."

Cersie also thinks about it a few times.

I'm not referring to how other characters may view them, but the inner workings of their minds, and how it affects their very perceptions. 3rd person reflection can give a lot of backdrop to a story, but I feel its a characters thoughts that add the detail.

No where do I remember reading anything specific regarding Renly or Loras when it comes down to inner thoughts...

Thats what I'm getting at. From a POV character perspective, and actually addressing sexuality within that POV. GRRM didn't do that to my knowledge. Of course it was obvious to the reader, and may have even been part of a literary ploy to NOT come right out and be up front about it, and address it within a POV, but that is what I hope to do.

This is just one of many subplots, but one of the more difficult ones for me to give authenticity to. I'll come up with something and then maybe some of my new gay friends can tell me if I've hit the mark or not.

 

[G.L. Lathian]

I'm not referring to how other characters may view them, but the inner workings of their minds, and how it affects their very perceptions. 3rd person reflection can give a lot of backdrop to a story, but I feel its a characters thoughts that add the detail.

No where do I remember reading anything specific regarding Renly or Loras when it comes down to inner thoughts...

Thats what I'm getting at. From a POV character perspective, and actually addressing sexuality within that POV. GRRM didn't do that to my knowledge. Of course it was obvious to the reader, and may have even been part of a literary ploy to NOT come right out and be up front about it, and address it within a POV, but that is what I hope to do.

This is just one of many subplots, but one of the more difficult ones for me to give authenticity to. I'll come up with something and then maybe some of my new gay friends can tell me if I've hit the mark or not.

Oh, I get you. True.

He did incest, which is obviously far more whacked out for readers to grasp, but I think I'd still find that easier to write about.

I'd love to have a read as well. Although, I'm not gay, so I probably can't add a whole lot .

 

[KatG]

I think that it might be easier for you to check out some books with major gay characters in them. There are a lot of them in contemporary fantasy, but one which might be of some use to you, though it is dealing mostly with gay women, is, as mentioned, J.A. Pitts' Blacksmith series. He's a guy writing about a lesbian from a conservative background, so some of the dynamics may be useful. Another one that might be helpful to you is very famous and that is Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint, which was written back in the 1980's, and its sequels, which are more recent. That's a secondary world high fantasy with male gay main characters, so that might help. Another one that might help you with dynamics is Sarah Monette's Melusine series, which features a pair of male main characters, one who is gay and one who is straight in a secondary world universe. Another possibly helpful, China Mieville's Iron Council, in which one of the main characters and principal narrators is gay. You can also check out lists like this:

http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/3948.Best_Fantasy_Books_with_Gay_Main_Characters

When you find one you like, break it down. What did they do with dialogue, inner monologue, interactions, character details. How different was the perspective from the hetero characters, if there are hetero main characters.

My assumption would be that your gay characters are going to be openly gay. But either way, another source is the source -- there are quite a lot of vets and now soldiers who are openly gay in the service, who may have also been closeted before. And you'd be surprised, if you talked to them, how willing many of them are to talk to you if you tell them that you're trying to write a fantasy novel with gay main characters and have something that they wouldn't feel is off, with the understanding that gay or hetero, we're not that different in our variation.

 

[chinookpilot77]

Thanks KatG. I'll look into the books you suggested.

 

[Jennifer P]

Who says 'gay protag' has to mean 'romance'? Richard K. Morgan has a gay protagonist and no romance in it, pretty much at all.

Saying that a story with a gay protagonist has to be a romance is just as illogical as saying a straight protagonist has to mean romance.

 

[Jon Sprunk]

First, Jennifer makes a great point.

Second, the subject raised by the OP is a matter of empathy. Your duty as a writer is to understand every human emotion and capture them on the page. You need to be sensitive to things going on around you. If you identify a weakness in your own perception (such as, in this case, a lack of understanding of LGBT relationships), you need to seek out people and situations that will broaden your experience.

Reading about gay characters is fine and dandy, but how many gay bars have you been to? How many LGBT events? How many conversations have you had with gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender people? If the answer is "few to none," you need to get out there and immerse yourself if you want to understand.

 

[G.L. Lathian]

Who says 'gay protag' has to mean 'romance'? Richard K. Morgan has a gay protagonist and no romance in it, pretty much at all.

Saying that a story with a gay protagonist has to be a romance is just as illogical as saying a straight protagonist has to mean romance.

I didn't say that. Read my quote. I said for ME it's important.

I was referring to main protags (my bad), so romance is definitely part of the equation - I'd have to write it in. Romance for me is very important.

Obviously you can write a story without romance, but I like to write about it - hence my quote.

 

[KatG]

Let's all not jump the gun on interpreting each other's posts on this subject. If you think someone said something that you disagree with, first ask them if you are understanding them correctly rather than accuse them of malfeasance, then state your own views.

I don't know if it's any help, but here's a quote from author and essayist Gore Vidal who just recently passed away that reminded me of this thread:

“Actually, there is no such thing as a homosexual person, any more than there is such a thing as a heterosexual person. The words are adjectives describing sexual acts, not people. The sexual acts are entirely normal; if they were not, no one would perform them.”

 

[Tristis]

I don't know, KatG, there's a lot of prejudice out there against romance writing.


I have to admit, I don't know a lot about it, except some experimenting I did when I was a young writer.

I have nothing against it, but every time I try to write it, I go right off the tracks—all those words for bosom! How many thesauruses do those writers go through? The only real writing relationship is one Roget's, one writer.

Part of me thinks that if romance were less…romantic, then people would tolerate it—we just don't want it jammed down our throat, you know? So what if it has a dependable market and garners a writer a throng of devoted fans always hungry for the next book.

Just so you know, some of my best friends are romance writers. I guess my circle mate Chris Owen is a writer of gay male romance, which might bring us back around to the topic at hand.

 

[Loerwyn]

I don't know, KatG, there's a lot of prejudice out there against romance writing.

Largely because people have been exposed to so many authors doing it wrong

 

[KatG]

I don't know, KatG, there's a lot of prejudice out there against romance writing.

It's the same sort of prejudice that is leveled towards SFF writers, coupled with a lot of dislike at something that is supposed to be very feminine, and therefore, not very interesting or good thereby.

Just so you know, some of my best friends are romance writers.

Then you should be well aware that bosoms play a very small role in romance fiction. The idea that all romance novels are full of lots and lots of sex is, factually, wrong. Romance novels are character studies, very focused ones and very psychological. I've long asserted that romance writers are the ones to read to study character specifically because they spend more time inside the characters' heads, male and female, than almost anyone else and because they are focused on emotional trauma and relationship obstacles. Whether a comic or tragic romance, romance writers set up situations in which two people are dealing with difficult circumstances and in the process of that, move towards each other (and sometimes away again, sometimes permanently.) Since this is also the case with other types of stories with character relationships, romance stories serve as useful mirrors.

Category romance stories for specific imprints (the short ones,) have more set structures because they are like short stories for magazines -- within a range, they are writing for the theme of the imprint and they have a length limit. They are a different sort of fiction than most types of novels. But the point of the story remains the same -- a character study of two people facing difficult circumstances who move towards each other. Nearly every conversation I've had editing romance writers from historical to comic to category contemporary has been about psychological issues such as neglectful parents who left a person scarred, not swooning. It's not really a different kind of editing.

So what if it has a dependable market and garners a writer a throng of devoted fans always hungry for the next book.

It doesn't. Romance writers have been suffering in the same way that other writers have, especially since the Great Paperback Depression of the wholesale market in the 1990's which was critical for romance writers. Category romance has greatly decreased, with fewer sales per title. E-books has helped, but established mid-list romance authors are under the same pressures as SFF mid-list authors. Romance writers in general fiction and women's fiction, which includes some romance and comic romance, also have no guarantee of a dependable market or a throng of fans. They have the same pyramid structure on sales as the rest of fiction. Paranormal romance became a very nice opportunity for a lot of writers, but it also has a pyramid structure for authors and sales. "Gay romance" remains a niche market, same as it was in the 1980's. (So does soft porn, which is different from the romance market and mostly involves publishers who don't do other sorts of fiction, although the big publishers all do some small amount of erotica.)

Part of me thinks that if romance were less…romantic, then people would tolerate it—we just don't want it jammed down our throat, you know?

Romance stories vary a great deal in the amount of romance. A category romance has more romance because it's a shorter length and must be more concentrated. A historical romance actually has less because it's usually longer, even if it's a Regency, and into showing the historical period in which the story is set with sub-plots. A coming of age romance story will be split about equally between romantic issues and friendship/family/coming of age into adult identity issues. It's just assumed that romance novels are all the same, just as it is assumed that all SF or fantasy novels are all the same (and about sex.)

If you talk to people about romance plots in romance or other stories written by men versus women written non-romance stories, there is definitely an attempt to minimize the idea that romance and men are involved. The continual attempts to insist that the romance is not critical, important, paid much attention to in the male books, the male character is not gushy, etc., whereas that romance is a central thing for female writers doing say a mystery, is part of the social concept we have that romance is a female interest and goal, an expression of female id, that a sex scene is always more important to a woman writer and reader then a male one, and that therefore it is discomforting and of less value and definitely not to be attached to a male (unless the male is doing a category romance with an imprint in which case you can't get out of it.) So there's a social viewpoint of romance fiction that doesn't really match actual romance fiction, in my view, and means that authors often don't end up studying romantic sub-plots in other books effectively.

I do think if you don't want to read a story that is focused on a love relationship, then no one should certainly have to read romance. But as writers looking at character psychology and character pov, romance writing can be quite useful for us, even if the characters we're writing about are not going to be involved in any romance. The dynamics of a romantic interaction between two people beyond the sex part are not particularly different from the dynamics of two people in a work situation, a family situation, a threat situation, etc. The emotions will be different, obviously, but the set-up of analysis of body cues, dialogue, conflict, etc., is often pretty much the same.

None of the books I've suggested so far have been romance ones, though.

Some others:

Ash by Melinda Lo, which is a YA retelling of Cinderella with Asian aspects and lesbianism. (So sort of a romance, coming of age style but more focused on playing with the fairy tale itself.)

China Mountain Zhang by Maureen McHugh -- this would be a really good one for you to read, because Maureen is brilliant at character. It's a SF novel and the main character is a gay male.

The YA series Dangerous Angels by Francesca Lia Block has a mix of straight and gay main characters.

Steven Harper's SF Silent Empire series has a gay male protagonist.

Dryland's End by Felice Picano -- an older one.

SF NARC series by Mel Keegan features a gay male couple as leads who captain a cop starship, also the novel Aquamarine by the author.

Jim Grimsley has written a number of acclaimed SFF novels featuring gay leads and characters, and Kirith Kirin is a famous one of his.

Diane Duane's Tale of the Five series (I believe that one's YA.) She's a good writer.

Lynn Flewelling's Nightrunner series is one of the more famous ones.

Jarius Raphel's Legend of a Ninja series has a gay male lead.

Lois McMaster Bujold focused on a gay male lead in one of the novels set in her SF universe, Ethan of Athos.

Walter Jon Williams' SF novel Aristoi has gay male leads and features people able to split their identities for thought purposes and biological make-up, so that one might be very useful for looking at different ways to do characters re thinking process.

And then of course there is Ursula LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness, which is just worth reading in any case, and is not involving homosexuality specifically but does look at the different ways you can do gender. James Alan Gardner's SF novel Commitment Hour, which takes place in his League of Peoples universe, might also be helpful in that way.

 

[NicoleDreadful]

Get by the "gay" thing and write them out as characters first - their sexual orientation should follow naturally. This is no different in many respects than an author writing from an opposite sex POV.

Kerry

This is pretty much exactly what I was going to say.

I'd also second what others said about finding ways to interact with gay culture, but since being non-heternormative is very political right now, not everything you see may apply to the situation for your characters. I don't want to discourage you from making contemporary gay friends but here's my out of left field suggestion. If your characters are battle buddies who develop deeper feelings for each other, you might find some good food for thought in ancient Greek texts. It's not something I've ever studied, but I know that they a) went to war quite often and b) were not shy about men loving men. Well, men loving boys, I guess, but still, a different cultural approach than we've got going on these days.

For my own WIP, I am coming from what is almost the complete opposite direction as you. Although I am straight, I have been training for almost five years in an all women's martial arts school, which somehow attracts a lot of lesbians and I recently realized, two thirds of the way through my novel, that my three main female characters were bi, bi, and lesbian. My men are all straight, or unspecified, and provide current romantic partners for bi1 & bi2, who are suggested to have had a relationship in the past. Although I didn't intend to have all my main ladies be non-hetero, I did consciously try to make sexuality Not A Big Deal in my world.

I would also be so bold as to suggest that you probably already know gays in your life, although you may not know that they are gay. As others have pointed out, gay people are well, you know, people, and they come in as great a variety as the rest of the human population. Women at my martial arts school come from all walks of life, which has taught me a lot about making assumptions about people. That bespectacled botany instructor at the community college? The nurse in the ER? The hair stylist across the street? Your barista? Grad student in comparative literature? All could very well be able to knock you flat and grind your face in the pavement. And some of them may also be gay, but both topics are easy to skip over in day to day conversation.

Oh, and one last thing - if you don't have enough to read and think about, and there isn't a gay scene in your community that you're comfortable interacting with, try looking at the youtubes for people's stories in the It Gets Better project. Here's one from a friend of mine - who happens to be a Navy vet and a firefighter. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy1J9Ew4Pts I'm sure there are more out there.

 

[gainespost]

Methinks, you are over-thinking it.

Think: two characters in love.

There are as many different types of gay relationships in the world as there are straight. I agree with the above quote; simply, think: two people in love. Don't worry about what their gender is; gender is not what causes love. Importantly, love is love, whether it's heterosexual or homosexual.

Avoid stereotypes and prejudices; they can cause your characters to be flat, two-dimensional. Get inside their heads and understand why they love each other; think about their individual personalities, past experiences, upbringing, current situations, needs, plans for the future, etc. If you find you are making up reasons for their loving each other that vastly differ from reasons a heterosexual couple might fall in love / be in love, then yes, you are over-thinking it.

If you have sex scenes in your novel and don't know how to go about writing them, then my advice is, do some research But honestly, that might not be necessary, because unless your plan is to get extremely graphic in your descriptions, then homosexual sex scenes won't be any different from heterosexual sex scenes.

Good luck!

 

[Loerwyn]

Ash by Melinda Lo, which is a YA retelling of Cinderella with Asian aspects and lesbianism. (So sort of a romance, coming of age style but more focused on playing with the fairy tale itself.)

This is easily one of the best books I read last year, and it goes hand-in-hand with Huntress which is set in the same world, but has very little to do with Ash. It's also notable for being a fantasy book with two women of colour falling in love, something fairly rare in genre fiction (AFAIK).

 

[gainespost]

I haven't read any YA fantasy in a while. Might check that one out. (I suppose from a progressive point of view, it's interesting that it involves homosexuality AND has Asian tones... anyone familiar with East Asian literature will understand what I mean... but mainly I'd like to read it because I'm just looking for a good story. Always ^^ )

 

[gainespost]

As for the side-discussion about romance / romantic fiction, I don't see how that relates to the OP's question. A pair of the supporting characters in the OP's story are gay; this does not make the story a romance. Maybe we should start a separate thread discussing romantic sff? Just a thought

(I realize my last comment, the one about YA fantasy, was completely off-topic, too... sorry)

 

[KatG]

As for the side-discussion about romance / romantic fiction, I don't see how that relates to the OP's question. A pair of the supporting characters in the OP's story are gay; this does not make the story a romance. Maybe we should start a separate thread discussing romantic sff? Just a thought

(I realize my last comment, the one about YA fantasy, was completely off-topic, too... sorry)

It relates to the discussion because the OP is looking at how to portray gay characters, including the dynamic of their sexuality and of a love relationship. The two gay characters he's trying to write are in love or fall in love during the story, and so stories of both gay and straight romance are looking at that dynamic which he wants to portray. YA stories are perfectly relevant as well as they have gay characters who are dealing with things and who may fall in love.

A lot of the issue of how to portray gay characters who may be or become a couple in a secondary world fantasy is of course how the world itself responds to homosexuality. Writers have had worlds or Earth futures where homosexual relationships are not an issue. Others have had it where the response varies from place to place, or where it is frowned upon in general. So that definitely will effect gay characters, even if they are not in love. In contemporary or historical fantasy, then you're looking at how that issue would be regarded in the time period and locale, and then by the individual characters.