“If you feel the need to add a (insert minority) character into your story for the sole reason that they are that minority, people can tell you are not being genuine.”
Robin Hobb
So an 80,000 word novel with 2 – 4 main characters, maybe 10 secondary characters, and dozens of tertiary characters, so nearly 40 characters in all, has them all white, and if you add any diversity in it’s not genuine.
So white people are genuine?
This blog post is about including gay people in your books, but you can pretty much substitute gay for any other minority and the arguments remain the same.
Characters Can Just Be Gay Without Some Deeper Reason Behind It
No one ever asks for a reason why a story has a straight or white character, but diversity needs explained or its tokenism, its diversity hires, and so on.
“Also I would like to know how being queer impacts the plot and if it doesn’t then I would prefer the words to be invested into progression instead of distraction.”
Some Forgotten Redditor
Being straight rarely impacts the plot either.
“Why is that character straight? But what’s the reason? He’s straight for no reason? But all your characters are straight. What’s the reason all your characters are… shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you hated gay people. My bad.”
There are a lot of stories where the romances aren’t great, where they are basically a subplot. Or even less. Stories like this have straight romances that don’t impact the plot. They could just as easily have gay romances.
Okay, glancing through my Kobo for an example, I came across the Martian. It’s a story about a trip to Mars that gets cancelled, one astronaut accidentally gets left behind on Mars. Great book, great movie.
Three of the 6 astronauts start with hetero relationships, two begin a hetero relationship during the story, and there is no mention of Watney’s (the MC) sexuality at all (story doesn’t need it). The only point in those relationships is a few comments “it’s my kids birthday,” “they flew my wife to Houston.” You can’t honestly tell me that changing it to “they flew my husband to Houston” would completely and totally change the entire plot of the story? Or if the two astronauts that got together were male? Them being straight or queer has absolutely zero impact on that story.
And if a relationship has zero impact on the story, you might say it should be taken out – but it raises the stakes, it gives them someone at home waiting for them. That someone doesn’t have to be a romantic partner of the opposite gender. Not being gay does not mean more relevant to the plot. In Watney’s case, it’s his parents. In Lewis’s case, it could have been her wife. In Beck’s case, he could have started dating Vogel (m) instead of Johanssen (f).
What if Kvothe had gotten with David instead of Demi? Well… the entire plot of that book would have remained exactly the same. Both books, in fact.
What if Thom Merrillin had been gay? The backstory would be slightly changed, the book would be the same.
What if Rand Al’Thor was bi and Min was a man? The plot would be the same.
What if Thomas in Dresden Files was dating Justin instead of Justine? No change to the plot, except it would be a bit less offensive when he was being a hairdresser because he wouldn’t be acting “gay” for laughs.
Now if one of the characters would have a relationship with an animal, for example an elephant, but they also had semi-naturally conceived kids and then it wouldn’t get mentioned anymore that might cause a lot of internal confusion, potentially hurting the immersion for no reason
Some Fucking Idiot on Reddit
We’re no longer talking about diversity. Are you seriously equating having a gay character in fiction to a human and an elephant having a baby? I don’t know how to answer that. Do you seriously think that’s a similar thing? What the fuck is wrong with you?
Sometimes when you’re discussing including gay people in stories, some utter moron will compare gay people to beastiality or paedophiles. At this point, it’s genuinely best to disengage from the conversation because there is no point continuing it.
I’ve never actually been able to do that, though, so I prefer to stick around and insult them for a bit first. It’s what they get for being fuds.
I’ve been told by other writers that I must be writing porn because it’s impossible to show a character is gay otherwise and I just… head desk
Porn Writer On Reddit
John took Glenn’s hand in his, and stared into his eyes. “I love you,” he said.
Uh oh, I’ll need to mark this blog as 18+ now that it includes porn.
Some stories don’t need to include gay characters.
Homophobic Middle Aged White Man on Twitter
I agree. Some stories don’t.
I think stories can definitely have no LGBT characters, have some LGBT characters, have mostly LGBT characters, or have all LGBT characters – and the same can be said for race and gender.
As long as you can find a way to justify it in the story.
For instance, a story set entirely in prison might have only one gender, and there are stories that only have a single character. Hemingway wrote a six word story about baby shoes that doesn’t have any characters. But in general, if you set your story in a city or something, there should be a mix of characters of all sexualities, genders, and ethnicities in it.
Including Stereotypical Super Feminine Gay Male Characters
The two campest men I have ever met were hetero. And it was extreme caricature style campness – you would have thought they were putting it on, but I knew them for years and it was the only way they ever were.
One was single, one had a wife and kids.
I think you can have a stereotypical gay man like that in a piece of fiction provided that he isn’t the only gay person in that piece. You can’t say “this is my gay person who represents all gay people,” but you can say “this is a gay person, and here are some more gay people, and this guy reads like a bad stereotype, but those other ones don’t.”
They Have To Actually Be Gay In The Book
I’m sure you know what this one is about.
Imagine we get contacted by aliens next week. They come to earth and live amongst us. There’s a push for diversity. J K Rowling announces “McGonagall is actually an alien.”
Sure, it’s never explicitly mentioned that she isn’t an alien, but it’s a bit ridiculous to jump from that to accepting she is one.
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