How to Write Gay Characters Well In Your Stories

Originally published at: https://shanniiwrites.com/2020/06/11/how-to-write-gay-characters-well-in-your-stories/

Writing gay characters well is easier than you’d think! All you need is an open mind and willingness to learn. Check out our tops for success!

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This is eye-opening and sooo long, I love it. Thank you. I’m going to read this again in the morning, well, when I wake, just so I can make sure I took everything in. (wink)

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Loved this :clap::purple_heart:

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I read this and I really loved it! Very informative as always.

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Really loved reading this, going to be using the advice some time in the futureee

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Gosh, this got me motivated :smile:

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This is perfect to help me with my writing.

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It’s so important for characters who are gay to not be defined by being gay. Characters sound silly and are much more prone to stereotypes when the author only focuses on them being gay. They need to be characters first. It can also help if the author knows gay people, since it can help to show people that gay people act exactly the same as other people. I’m sick of seeing gay characters that always act in the same ways, although recent popular media has gotten much better about showing a variety of love stories and characters. If your characters are something you’re concerned about, you should always try and find beta readers for a story to make sure it isn’t unintentionally offensive.

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I was never really scared of adding gay characters because I didn’t know what I should be scared of. You can do stuff wrong with other characters as well, so this is the same for me. But being open to criticism is really important, it’s meant to help you!
I don’t really understand why writers make gay characters be defined by that because that makes no sense to me. Not everything is about that in life :joy:

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Can we stop writing gay characters with their only personality trait is being gay? Lol gay people go through other struggles, they have normal lives

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Added tags :eyes::sparkles::green_heart::pleading_face:

Hey @Bloggers and @Writers, it’s much easier to write gay characters than you may think. Take a read of this and tell me what you think!


Remember that if you really enjoyed this blog, feel free to recommend it (it’s similar to liking it). This will help with it being higher in the results of search engines too.

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I can help with Pansexual characters.

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oh well
i haven’t been commenting on blogs lately because there’s a lot of things going on in my life but… i’m gonna be blunt: i have a lot of issues with this blog, so i can’t not write about this

the first two subtitles are okay, thought they do seem written with a cishet audience in mind
but i have no issue with that, i know most of Shannii’s audience is cishet so i guess it makes sense

my issues start from the third point on:

what are they going to do in your story other than be gay? Sounds kinda bad to me.


i’m a very big fan of the slice of life genre and plotless stuff, i think i’ve made that clear in a couple of my other posts.
and there’s nothing wrong with plotless stuff! heck, Chekhov wrote a lot of plotless stuff and he’s an AMAZING writer.
so why would be a plotless story where gay characters are being gay… bad?
i’m taking my own writing as an example: if i want to write a story about how two guys propose to each other at the same time and nothing else happens, is that bad? they’re just being gay so according to Shannii, there’s an issue.
and yet, it’s one of my most popular fics this far.
allowing gay characters to just exist and be gay isn’t inherently wrong.
if anything, i think there’s something extremely healing about reading about a gay couple simply existing and being gay.

now

That is all that being gay is. Being is just about what gender a person is attracted to.

that’s… not quite right.
at least not according to Foucault’s History of Sexuality.
gayness has become much more than just who we are attracted with, it’s gone from being an attribute to an identity.
there’s a lot of things nowadays that are tied to being gay.
and talking from my experience? well being queer has shaped me into who i am today, so no, it’s not just about who i like, but about who i am and how i exist in this world.

that said, i do agree with this:

If you are serious about writing gay characters well, you need to make sure that they have other things that make them who they are


Why do you want to have a gay character in your story? Is it because you wanted to do some good for gay representation? Did you create an important character and just happen to make them gay? Did you just make two characters of the same gender who had great chemistry? Or maybe you thought long and hard about a romance in your story and realised that writing a gay love story just made sense? Those are all great reasons to include a gay character in your writing. Plus, they’re not the only ones!

i’m writing just from my experience, and seeing how i pride myself in not having written a single straight character since i was 16 or 17.
there doesn’t have to be a reason for one to write a gay character

i understand the intent behind Shannii’s words here but… honestly it’s not that deep? just write gay characters because you feel like it?

we don’t need to have a reason to write a straight character so why should we have a reason for gay ones?


How many stories have you read that have the gay character who struggles with coming out? Maybe they have a dad who can’t bring himself to accept his child’s sexuality? Or they might have to deal with some homophobic people throwing around abuse? I’m sure we’ve all seen a story like that before!

While stories about coming out and overcoming stigma can be very helpful and empowering, they’re not the only kind of story out there! So, they aren’t the only kind of story that you can have gay characters in!

as a literature major, my professors have drilled in my head, ever since my intro class, that everything’s been written already.
that doesn’t mean we can’t write about it, put it our own spin, make it our own story.
because every person will always put something of themselves into a story, and since no two people are the same, that means no two stories will ever be exactly the same.

that said, i do agree that’s it’s very good to branch out in terms of story and plot.


Treat Their Sexuality Like it’s Normal

while i do love seeing gay people being treated as normal people by their peers, i wouldn’t say this HAS to be the case at all times.
i’m gonna get personal here: i identify as queer because back when it was a slur, it implied we were not normal; because i have not felt normal a lot of times and i’m PROUD of of being who i am.

gay people (or characters) don’t have to feel “normal” to exist.

a book i love, which recently came out, is Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
and its entire plot is fueled (not around) by the fact that the main character is not seen as normal and he wants to prove his value.

so while i do agree that it’s good to treat gay characters “as normal”, i’d say it’s not a necessity.
also, the option of highlighting and celebrating a character’s gayness is always there and it’s an option i love.


Then there’s the issue of what are often known as Fujoshis.

okay… sigh…
first of all, the plural is also fujoshi, please don’t make japanese words adhere to english grammar rules, it’s kind of disrespectful.
second… no, that’s not what fujoshi means.
i’ve talked about it before, but i’ll talk about this again, because it’s very important to me that people understand, because we should fight the misinformation and demonisation that westerners (and yes, i’m including myself here, hi) have spread about this term.

fujoshi means “woman / girl” who enjoys m/m content. that’s it, there’s no bigger meaning to it.
it’s westerners who have fought against the term, claiming that simply enjoying bl is fetishising it, or whatever.

let’s go over the term’s history, shall we?
“fujoshi” (腐女子) was a play on words created by japanese dudebros to imply that women who liked m/m content were “rotten” as in… not fit for marriage
later on, japanese women reclaimed it, and it came to mean “woman who likes bl”, that’s it, that’s all there is
the kanji for “fu” in fujoshi (腐), then became synonymous to liking bl, which is why terms like “fudanshi” (男子) and “fujin” (人)exist now
and guess what, technically speaking? i’m a fujin, a person who enjoys bl.
the reason i don’t label myself as such is bc i find it weird to label myself with a word from a language i do not speak, but that’s all. if i were japanese, i’d be a fujin.

equating people who identify with these terms with fetishisers is… not it. it shows a lack of understanding of japanese culture (because afaik these terms are important to japanese lgbt+ communities) and disrespect for a language, transforming a japanese word into something it’s not and demonising it for it.

there are people who fetishise gay people? of course, but, as i said in my other post about it, that’s a sh*tty person thing, not a fujoshi/fudanshi/fujin thing.

it has become a huge thing in fanfiction too!

once again

as i just said, i enjoy m/m content
and if you go to my profile on AO3 (haha shameless self promo), you’ll see most things i’ve written are m/m!
so i hope you can see why i have an issue with this.

there’s a tumblr post that statistically explains why there’s so much m/m fanfic on ao3, i can link it if anyone wants to read about it.
but well my point is: a lot of people who write gay fanfic aren’t fetishising, most of us, i think.
i won’t talk about the s*xual implications that the term “fetishise” has or how fanfic can be important to a person’s sexuality bc that’s… for another day, but please know it’s not right or accurate to say m/m fetishisation a “huge” thing in fanfic.


Take Gay Relationships Seriously

once again, i wouldn’t say this should be there all the time.
there’s flings? and gay people are allowed to have flings.
different types of relationships can allow us to explore different parts of a character, so i wouldn’t suggest to completely shy away from this.

that said, if ALL the gay relationships one writes are not serious… then you may wanna check yourself bc there may be an issue with that.


It’s up to you to present the characters’ views in ways that steer your readers to who’s in the right and who’s wrong.

i don’t like this advice, it feel like it’s infantilising the readers.
readers are allowed to draw their own conclusions, a writer can just present them something and neither praise nor condemn it, then the reader will be able to choose how they see it.


Normalisation Matters

i get this?
but well… again, it feels very aimed at cishet writers AND readers.
this is just me being picky, i know i’m not Shannii’s intended audience for most of her blogs.
but well, just wanted to put that into perspective.


Actually Show That They’re Gay

agreed
BUT
it doesn’t have to be blatantly obvious that they’re gay, in my opinion

i’ll be taking Good Omens as an example
this is another case in which the main characters are never confirmed to be in a relationship in canon, but word of god did confirm it: they’re in love, and honestly? you can see it in the show and in the book, even if it’s not explicit.
image
also Aziraphale and Crowley are both queer coded intentionally, both when it comes to their relationship and their own relationship with gender (and personally i hc them as ace and nb (no i’m not projecting wdym /s)). you don’t have to say it outright to show it, and i find that that’s beautiful.

we can explore so many things about relationships and identity in fiction, we don’t always have to put a strict label to it, we don’t always have to explicitly say “this is gay” or something like that.
if anything, to me, fiction’s a place to explore the grayer and confusing areas of sexuality and relationships.


Or what about the male villain who is coded to be gay to make him seem “creepy” like Moriarity from Sherlock.

ngl, i have never found that a character being coded as gay is creepy, at least not to me.
i talked about BBC Sherlock’s Moriarty (and its issue with queerbaiting) already but i’m gonna repeat myself:
1 - Moriarty is explicitly gay, not “coded”.
2 - i never associated his flair, his personality or anything like that with him being gay? i don’t know the writers’ intentions with him, so i can’t say they intended to go for “he’s like this because he’s gay”, but personally? as a theatre kid? i vibe with his flair so much.
3 - him being gay and effeminate were just an added bonus, since i, as a queer who grew up watching queer coded villains, resonate more with them than with heroes, and it makes queer-coded villains have a special place in my heart.
4 - Moriarty was creepy, but not because of him being queer coded, no. he was creepy because he had power, because he was smart, because he saw humans as inferior beings. he was creepy because he did all he did because he could with no other reason. none of these things have to do with him being gay.
5 - i have come to see a lot of queer people loving queer coded villains! they’re not necessarily bad! if anything, it makes villains more “sexy” in my opinion. or, as Moriarty would say:
Screen Shot 2021-05-02 at 11.14.23 PM

also, as i’ve said a couple times: don’t be afraid of using stereotypes, just make sure you make your characters more than the stereotype.


Their Backstory Doesn’t Always Need to be Tragic

hard agree, i wanna see more gay characters having happy backstories


But Also Be Aware of the Dangers and Struggles Gay People May Face

yes but… please, when writing about their struggles, make sure that you are not showcasing their pain and trauma in excessive amounts for the sake of entertainment, it could very easily become “trauma p*rn” that way.


Think About the “Bury Your Gays” Trope

aside from what Shannii wrote, i wanna mention: killing off your characters just for shock value or to hurt your audience, with no deeper reason or impact?
yeah that’s not good writing.

so think really well before killing a character in general.


Your Characters Don’t Need to Know Their Sexuality Straight Away

adding to this: they don’t have to be sure of their sexuality at any point
labels are so blurry and some people choose to be unlabeled, so why wouldn’t characters?


lastly, as i’ve mentioned before:
the best advice i can give is to talk to people, to a lot of people and learn from them
one person cannot (and should not) talk for an entire community.

also, unrelated to the topic but still bothered me in the blog

However, not all gay people experience worlds like that. Some have amazing support networks from the very start! Others find escapism in online communities that accept them for who they are (the ShanniiWrites Forums being one of those places)

i know that this is what the forums are meant to be, but personally, i’ve seen and been subjected to a couple transphobic and homophobic remarks here on the forums, so i’d really suggest to check what’s going on before making a statement like that.

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Definetly going to check this out! :grin:

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I feel like you’ve answered this question within the question :thinking: if anything I’d find it pretty strange to read a story where there is literally no plot and it’s just about gay characters. Kinda feels like a literary zoo like “look at these guys”. If anything a plotless story of any kind is just boring, can it even be considered a story if it doesn’t have a plot?

I agree, it can be great if the plot is good. I genuinely don’t understand why reading a story simply for the purpose of gay characters and not for plot or any kind of actual story is “healing” though, at that point you might aswell be playing sims.

Okay yeah disagree, I think every character should have a reason to be there. Every trait or aspect of them should make sense or they’ll just stick out like a sore thumb. This doesn’t mean “don’t write gay characters because you need to justify their existence” it means “don’t just write gay characters so that you can say you have them in your story”

And I’m not saying “makes sense” as if I’m implying making them gay doesn’t make sense. I’m saying it in relation to the characters that exist to be gay and they don’t have any kind of function to the plot, they may aswell not be there. It’s not good representation which is why the fact the character is gay is highlighted.

It’s not because we’re making it harder for gay characters to be added in stories I mean, we literally can’t do that anyway and wouldn’t want to, this blog post is written to make it easier. It’s because I feel like they should be given the same attention and thought as straight characters. Since it’s easy to name gay characters who are irrelevant than it is to name straight ones.

Even with straight characters they have to be relavent to the plot btw like in FF12 nobody likes Vaan because he literally doesn’t need to be there.

I think Shannii was more saying that those plots are starting to become repetitive. You can write about what you want, in whatever way you want. But you’ll still open yourself up to critisism if your story has faults. Yes, things have been written and recycled many times. But if you don’t add anything to it, it’s just gonna become monotonous. I think it was just saying making a gay character doesn’t mean you need to do a coming out plot because many many stories do this and it seems like people are doing it because they feel like it comes with adding a gay character.

Almost like they think it’s: Add gay chatacter = coming out plot + struggles

And while those things are valid to add, also add a story.

Plus if the story is purely about coming out, again that’s fine but there also needs to be a story in there, or you’re gonna go from A-Z and skip all the other letters.

Yeah there’s nothing wrong with celebration until it becomes fetishisation of gay people which is a problem

:thinking: I mean, maybe not in your specific community but… These are two blog posts where people talk about it…I’d say it’s a problem.

Yes! And flings should be taken seriously to the plot or characters. Does the fling mean that character is cheating? Does it reflect any aspect of their personality or fear of commitment? Does the fling make sense to the plot?

I’m a litrature student and we learned about reading, about how different people will read and imagine things in different ways. However, it can make the very concept of stories seem pointless if we just say that readers need very little to just imagine the whole story themselves. The author does need to give their imaginations something to work with and it’s usually very telling what the author is trying to say in their story, even if you don’t pick up on it. I mean, not everyone will. Humans are not neutral by nature though, even textbooks can have a bias and if you were to only read one specific textbook on each subject it would completely alter the way you view the subject and how you see the facts.

I do get what you’re saying but it also feels like gay is a dirty word or you can’t say your character is gay because homophobes won’t like it or you wanna get around making a bad gay character by making them queer-coded and never saying they’re gay so if anyone complains you can just be like “I never said they were gay”

I can’t respond to all of this, it’d take too long. But here’s video that explains this and everything wrong with the BBC Sherlock in general.


To conclude, I think Shannii’s blog post is a good one and I definitely understand what she means with her points.

This is a well-written article even though I may not write a novel with LGBT protagonists in the future as I would have no knowledge of this. But on the other hand, my future stories will have LGBT characters but of course, I’d use this article for guidance. But in the current novel I’m working on, the protagonist’s alter is asexual but I’d keep it subtle as I’d like the reader to figure that out.