Writing Gay Characters

 

There are lots of reasons to write gay characters into your stories.

1: Challenge yourself. It's very easy to write about people who are a lot like you. But "easy" and "good" are not always one and the same when it comes to writing. Get yourself out of your comfort zone, stretch those writing muscles in new ways.

2: It means a lot to us. One thing that fiction can do for people is give them an escape, a place they can go to feel less alone. For a lot of gay people, being able to see themselves reflected in their media is a big boost to the self esteem, especially for those who are in the closet.

3: The world needs more gay characters. I am constantly trying to find fiction that is both interesting to me, and includes gay people. You'd be surprised how hard this is. I find books that include gay characters, but often they are boring to me. There isn't a lot of variety in the current selection of gay fiction. The more people who write it, the more different stories get told.

4: Profit. The result of #2 and #3, gay people are desperate for stories they can relate to, and they don't have a lot to chose from. Often, we are so desperate for depictions of ourselves that we pounce on anything remotely gay. Writing for the sake of money is rarely good. But I understand that people do write for money, and some of them still manage to be good at it. If this is your goal, consider writing some gay characters.

5: Art reflects life. The world is not a place without gay people, so why should your stories be? Add them in because it's realistic for them to be there.

Consider the following paragraphs of fiction:

Scenario 1: Bert stood outside his commanding officer's door, hand hovering over it, unclear as to whether he should knock or not. He loved military life, up until his platoon mates had found the picture in his pack. The picture of Bert and Mike, and their daughter on vacation. Now he woke up every day to constant teasing, the words "fudgepacker" written on his forehead in permanent marker. Gays were allowed in Star Fleet, but very few wanted to be in it, and Bert was starting to see why...

Scenario 2: Bert stood on the cliff face, his breath stuck in his throat. Stepping out into a blitz of raygun fire he could do. Heights, not so much. He remembered going to the gym with his boyfriend and their daughter, and Mike had wanted to go on the rock climbing wall. Even fifty feet up, Bert had started to feel dizzy. Now, almost a mile up a cliff face with some prototype safety gear, there were no words to describe his fear...

So, can you see the difference? In scenario 1, Bert is a Gay Character. The conflict of the story revolves around him being gay. If Bert wasn't gay, there would be no story, or a much different one. In scenario 2, Bert is still gay, but he has a few other things on his mind. The plot doesn't revolve around Bert's gayness any more than a straight sci-fi militaryman's story would revolve around his straightness.

There's nothing wrong with either one. They both have their place, and different people enjoy different types of stories. But scenario 2 shows that you don't have to hollow out a gay little hole in your story to make room for gay characters. Characters can be gay without getting in the way of the story you want to write, and unless a character's straightness is pivotal to the plot, you can actually make any character gay.

You don't have to make a big deal out of it, either. In scenario 2, Bert didn't have a big coming out to get us to know he was gay. In fact, the word "gay" wasn't even used. It was just an offhand detail about Bert's life back at home, that gave relevance to his current situation. And that little offhand detail is going to mean a lot to any gay readers.

So, now you know that you can have gay characters in your story. But how to actually write them? What makes a gay character gay?

At it's most basic level, the only difference is that gay characters are interested in the same sex. There is no universal gay experience. For some, it's a nonissue, and for others, it's a major part of their identities.

In this day and age, Gay is a culture. Not every gay person is part of it, the same way not every black person likes R&B, and not every woman likes makeup. But some black people do like R&B, and some women do like makeup, and yes, some gays really do love techno music and interior design.

It's always good to be aware of stereotypes, cliches, and overused tropes, no matter what you're writing, and that goes double for writing minorities. Straight people have a huge pool of stories about straight people to choose from. If they find a story they don't like, they toss it and find a new one. But when you're in a minority, with not a lot of people writing about you, you don't have a lot to choose from if you want to read about people like you. And seeing the same old tired storylines is frustrating.

While thousands of years of human storytelling has made it pretty hard not to fall into at least a couple cliches in any story, you can avoid the big ones. Killer bisexuals, pregnant lesbians, predatory gay men. These, among other tropes, have been done to death. Doing them again frustrates readers, and makes you look like a lazy writer.

How do you avoid falling into these tired storylines? Some basic research. You don't have to put in gel in your hair and go incognito to the local gay club, living amongst the gays for weeks, taking notes all Jane-Goodall-style. Talk to gay people!

Don't know any? The internet is full of them.

Be respectful when you ask your questions, even if the person you ask gets snippy. For a lot of gay people, they get asked the same questions over and over and over again. Even though this is the first time you are asking these questions, it's most likely not the first time this gay person has heard them. If they don't want to talk about it, find someone else.

Can't find any gays, even on the internet?
There is a place to ask me questions below. I will endeavor to help you write better gays.

Pregnant Lesbians. For some reason, people who write lesbians think they're being incredibly original by having a story about a lesbian couple trying to get pregnant. This has been done exactly 2,405,305 times before. It creates a scenario where, despite not having relationships with men, the lesbians still need men desperately.

Evil gays. Somehow, people find it very easy to write gay villains (or more often, bisexual villains). "But... but... villains are more fun to write, and I wanted my gay character to be fun." Well, if they aren't balanced by some good gay characters, then all you have are a bunch of evil gays.

Slutty gay men / slutty bisexuals. Gay men, and bisexuals of both genders, are often portrayed as unable to commit, promiscuous, and cold-hearted. Particularly with bisexual people, there is a mistaken idea that they cannot make up their minds, and constantly switch back and forth between men and women, and will try to sleep with anything that moves.

The U-Haul. Lesbians have the opposite problem. We're shown as so commitment hungry, that we're lifelong partners after one date. This is crazy behavior.

Group 'em together. I have one character who is a lesbian. I have another character who is a lesbian. They're, like, made for each other, right? Wrong. You can have gay people who know each other and have zero romantic interest in each other.

Closeted homophobe. "I'm mean because deep down, I'm just like you." Yes, this happens, and it is sad and dramatic. But this story has been told too many times. Find another way to create drama in your characters' lives.

"I wasn't really gay!" Also known as "oh, is it sweeps again already?" this mostly applies to things like television and serial stories. A character who showed no same-sex inclinations previously will experiment with someone of the same sex, but either has no intentions of actually pursuing a gay relationship, or ultimately decides to stick with the opposite sex. That isn't to say you can't have characters who are questioning their sexuality, but try not to make it glaringly obvious that Lisa only slept with Mary because you were afraid of losing readers' interest.

Appealing to the opposite sex. Using lesbians to get straight male readers, or gay men to get straight female readers, is really annoying, and perhaps the most overused gay cliche of them all. Many straight women love stories about lesbians, and straight men are perfectly fine reading about gay men.

Dead gays. I spoke too soon. This is the most annoying and overused gay cliche of them all. Gays end up being redshirts, created to die for the sake of the straight characters. Don't create a gay character just to die.

Some writers are afraid that if they only have one gay character, that character will feel like a token character, made gay just to say "Hey! Look at me! I wrote a gay person!" So if you have one, do you have to go full-blown L-Word on your story?

No. Write as many gay characters as you like.

The trick to avoiding characters coming off like tokens is how you handle them. Do they get their own storylines? Do they seem like they belong in the story? Do they have characteristics outside of stereotypes? Hopefully you can answer "yes" to these questions.

I receive a lot of feedback on my own work, and I read reviews of other works with gay characters. There are two big and conflicting complaints:

"Too much sex. Gay people have lives outside the bedroom, you know."

"Not enough sex. Gay people have sex lives, too."

While it's easy to write this off as "Gay people have no idea what they really want," there is a bit of legitimacy to both arguments. There needs to be a balance between promiscuous player and celibate, and a lot of writers have a hard time finding this balance.

A good rule of thumb: Let the gay characters do it exactly the same amount as the straight characters. Split it along character significance. If a straight main character has X amount of romance, then so should a gay main character. If a secondary straight character has Y amount of romance, then a secondary gay character should have Y amount of sex.

So if your story has no one having any romance of any kind, then don't feel you have to give your gay characters love scenes. If your story is just one big orgy, then your gay characters should be getting just as much as their straight cohorts.

Do I have to give my gay characters a girlfriend/boyfriend?

Not if you don't want to, and again, refer to the "as often as straight characters" rule of thumb. Having a story with all the straight people in happy couples, and the gay person alone, is a bit unfair, and readers will get frustrated.

I want to include gay romance. So how do I write it anyway?

Honestly, depending on how erotic you make it, it's more or less the same as heterosexual romance. The gender dynamics are a bit different. Who holds the door open? Who buys who flowers? There are fewer rules when it comes to gay relationships. Consider this an opportunity for literary freedom.

I don't want to get into sex with this, because I'm hoping to keep this a G-rated lens, so as far as how gay people actually do it, well, you're on the internet. I'm sure you will figure it out. The internet is full of really kinky stuff. Some gay people are kinky, while others are very vanilla. Keep that in mind.

What about butch/femme dynamics? Someone is always "the man" and the other is "the woman", right?

Wrong. Very wrong. While many gay couples do enjoy a butch/femme setup in their relationship, and follow a lot of the same gender guidelines that straight couples do, many other couples are femme/femme, butch/butch, or I-hate-gender-roles/I-hate-gender-roles. Have a lesbian couple with two femmes? They both buy each other flowers. Have a lesbian couple with two butches? They hate flowers and buy each other a nice shirt.

So, you can't make them evil, promiscuous, etc. Does that mean they have to have no flaws whatsoever?

 

Of course not. You don't want them to be completely evil, but completely good isn't good writing, either.

 

Good and evil lie on a spectrum. It's not black and white. Characters can have flaws without being evil.

 

The gay man could be really cheap and stingy. The lesbian could be quick to carry an irrational grudge. The bisexual could like Linkin Park. All of these are flaws, but not "You're going to the special Hell" flaws.

"There's nothing wrong with gay people, but kids shouldn't know about it."

You can have gay characters in stories for younger children. There is nothing inherently "adult" about gay people. They are no more about sex than straight people are. A gay person simply existing in a story is no cause for alarm.

If you feel you must explain gay people to your younger readers, focus on the love aspect of it, rather than the sex aspect. Mike fell in love with John. Alice fell in love with Christy. Kids are obviously aware that love exists in the world. They see men and women together, and nobody has to go over the birds and the bees with them. So you don't have to go over the "bees and the bees".

So, you've written a story about a slutty bisexual pregnant serial killer? Well, let's go over some ways to turn that around.

Bring back the balance. So you have a gay character with a bunch of negative characteristics. You can make things better by having a bunch of straight people with the same negative characteristics, showing that it's not just gay people who act that way. Or you can have a bunch of gay people who don't have those negative characteristics. The second choice is the better one.

Mend their ways. Who says characters can't change their minds? If characters don't change at all, then you're writing poorly, gay or straight. So who's to say one of those changes can't be towards a positive, less cliche direction?

Write them out. Try again later. So maybe you've come to realize that there's nothing you can do to make the character better. It might be time for that character to make their grand exit. (Please, don't kill them off, if you haven't already.) Then you can either introduce a new gay character in this story, or write a new story.

The gay community is notoriously picky about how people write about them. And because the people within the gay community are so diverse, you will always have some people who think you're doing an awful job writing about them.

I cannot speak for the entire gay community when I say this, but as far as I am concerned, as long as you write with the best intentions, and truly seek to educate yourself and try writing gay characters well, then you're doing alright. Take constructive criticism into account, but ultimately know that you will never be able to please everyone (in any genre).

Yoda says "Do or do not. There is no try." That doesn't apply here. You should always try.

More will be added as time goes on/ you write questions that compell me.

 

Why don't you include trans people in this lens?

Because trans is not a sexuality. You can be trans and gay, trans and straight, trans and bi. Trans people have some similar issues, but enough differences to warrant Writing Trans Characters be its own lens.

There is also the fact that since I can't even speak for the whole community I am part of, it's even harder to speak for a community I am not part of.

When I do a similar lens for Writing Trans Characters, I will have some guest writers helping me along. But it's not something I can put together myself.

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How important is it to showcase someone's sexuality (make a big deal out of it)?

Remember the scenarios above, with the "gay character" vs the "character who just happened to be gay"? What it's there to show is, either way works. Some characters make constant mention of their alternate sexuality, while for others, it's a non-issue.

Some gay readers will like that you address the character's sexuality, and think that not talking about it would be an attempt to cover it up. Other gay readers will like that you don't address it, giving a sense of "this person is normal, and there's more to them than sexuality".

It's up to your taste to write it, and your readers' tastes to read it. There is no set quota for how often you need to mention your character is OMGgay.

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You have a whole bunch of things in the "Avoid at all costs" section. I should avoid all of those things? All of them?

If you want to write something original, yes. There are a hundred gay character cliches, but I listed the ones that I did because they are either the most over used, the most harmful, or both.

You might look at one of these and think, "Oh, but I bet I can use one of those in a different way that's never been done before!" Believe me, it's been done before.

I only listed nine cliches. There are more than nine things you can do with a gay person's character. If the only things you associate gay people with are pregnant, slutty, evil, dead, etc., then you might find your "Friend of the Gays" card getting revoked.