By 'gay audiences' I mean, for example, the audiences of gay interest novels, which are clearly labelled as such. So I'm talking about a wider general audience here.
This question is asked half for me, half for my friend (also an aspiring writer and always has been) but I don't actually know what he's writing so I'll use my own example.
Recently I made this thread about my MC for my upcoming WIP and got the advice, as you can see, to make him just an all-round deeper person.
So I figured if I'm writing this character and need to get in his head, I could put a little bit of me into him. Well, more than I have already. And fine-tune it a little.
Basically when it comes down to it, I'm toying around in my mind with potentially making my MC gay. Now I want to be clear, his potential sexuality won't be a big plot point so it's not going to be (and forgive the wording here) shoved down anyone's throats.
It's just that, in my mind right now, I needed a way of explaining the character's awkward, self-conscious and slightly paranoid behavioural tendencies.
And I remember a while back I knew a gay guy who's old-fashioned homophobic parents had messed him up so badly that he really was a socially maladjusted mess around most people he didn't know very well and I figure a character with deep personal demons and deep-seated issues is more interesting than one who's just a social mess for the sake of being a social mess.
The problem I'm thinking about here is...will the general audience (who are obviously predominantly heterosexual) be less willing to read and potentially buy a novel/novella that features a homosexual main character?
I mean, if my personal experience is anything to go by, British 'cozy' mystery investigation is read quite a lot by middle-aged(ish) women...since every one of my mum's vast pool of friends all love mystery fiction be it written or visual. But I do assume there are a large number of younger, male readers of such works and I'm worried about losing a significant portion of my potential audience (provided I ever actually finish and publish the thing) because of a simple bit of characterisation.
Does anyone have any knowledge of the general straight consensus about reading non-gay-interest books that have gay MCs. I'm not exactly an expert on straight people's mindsets...I still can't even figure out why they're so fascinated with boobs.
Oh, and another thing. Is there any significant change in opinion about homosexual MCs when the character in question is a lesbian, as opposed to a gay man?
This question is asked half for me, half for my friend (also an aspiring writer and always has been) but I don't actually know what he's writing so I'll use my own example.
Recently I made this thread about my MC for my upcoming WIP and got the advice, as you can see, to make him just an all-round deeper person.
So I figured if I'm writing this character and need to get in his head, I could put a little bit of me into him. Well, more than I have already. And fine-tune it a little.
Basically when it comes down to it, I'm toying around in my mind with potentially making my MC gay. Now I want to be clear, his potential sexuality won't be a big plot point so it's not going to be (and forgive the wording here) shoved down anyone's throats.
It's just that, in my mind right now, I needed a way of explaining the character's awkward, self-conscious and slightly paranoid behavioural tendencies.
And I remember a while back I knew a gay guy who's old-fashioned homophobic parents had messed him up so badly that he really was a socially maladjusted mess around most people he didn't know very well and I figure a character with deep personal demons and deep-seated issues is more interesting than one who's just a social mess for the sake of being a social mess.
The problem I'm thinking about here is...will the general audience (who are obviously predominantly heterosexual) be less willing to read and potentially buy a novel/novella that features a homosexual main character?
I mean, if my personal experience is anything to go by, British 'cozy' mystery investigation is read quite a lot by middle-aged(ish) women...since every one of my mum's vast pool of friends all love mystery fiction be it written or visual. But I do assume there are a large number of younger, male readers of such works and I'm worried about losing a significant portion of my potential audience (provided I ever actually finish and publish the thing) because of a simple bit of characterisation.
Does anyone have any knowledge of the general straight consensus about reading non-gay-interest books that have gay MCs. I'm not exactly an expert on straight people's mindsets...I still can't even figure out why they're so fascinated with boobs.
Oh, and another thing. Is there any significant change in opinion about homosexual MCs when the character in question is a lesbian, as opposed to a gay man?