Homosexuality in a novel

infinitus_kaze · Apr 18, 2007

I believe that one of the most difficult challenges for an author in a society where homosexuality is taboo is to write a novel using a homosexual theme that transcends the human mind. In other words, a novel that can make the readers who would otherwise shy away from homosexual themes actually read the novel without focusing on the homosexuality. Instead, all the readers see is two lovers in a pure and loving relationship without caring what about the sexual orientation of the lovers.

I'm bringing this up because I'm in the planning stages of a fantasy novel with a female homosexual theme to it. I'm hoping to use this novel to challenge myself; to stretch my writing skills and see if I can truly make people forget that the lovers in my story are homosexual and just accept it as a pure love. The reason I've chosen to use female homosexuality is because I want the novel to feel like a real romance and I know that if I were to try to write with male homosexuality the story would be too bland (since men have trouble expressing emotion) or too comical (seeming like two women in men's bodies instead of two men).

What do you all think? Is it naive to believe such things possible from a reader? Can a reader really forget their prejudice if a novel is written well enough? I'd like to know your thoughts on the matter.

scarletpeaches · Apr 18, 2007

You think people will have a problem reading about two women together? Will it be a picture book? :e2brows:

Sorry. Just joking; it's late and I should try to get some sleep. I'll come back to this when I'm feeling vaguely human again.

The_Grand_Duchess · Apr 18, 2007

Hmm, I think you're going to have trouble with this becuase you're already assigning stereotypes to your chars which is something you said you didn't want to do. I'm saying this becuase of your reasoning for not using men. It seems you assume that women would have an easier and more socially accepted go of it becuase they're women but in actuality it would probably be just as hard.

To me, gay or straight you have to approuch the relationship between the chars the same way you would approrch any other. Does that make sense?

As for your orginal question, if someone is opposed to homosexual lit then there's really nothing that can be written to bring them into the light so to speak. The only thing you can really do is write a compelling story.

Deleted member 42 · Apr 18, 2007

infinitus_kaze said:
I believe that one of the most difficult challenges for an author in a society where homosexuality is taboo is to write a novel using a homosexual theme that transcends the human mind.

I'm not sure what you mean by a "homosexual theme" or "transcends the human mind," to begin with.

I'd suggest you worry less about your characters' sexuality, and more about them as characters, as people, and that encompasses a lot more than sexual orientation. It's difficult to write a novel that readers will read for character and story when you begin with what sounds like a didactic intention.

infinitus_kaze said:
The reason I've chosen to use female homosexuality is because I want the novel to feel like a real romance and I know that if I were to try to write with male homosexuality the story would be too bland (since men have trouble expressing emotion) or too comical (seeming like two women in men's bodies instead of two men).

You seem to be making some assumptions here that are a little discomfiting. For instance, the sexist assumption that all men have difficulty expressing emotion, or that two men who love each other are inherently effeminate. That's, well, wrong and potentially hurtful, and it's not going to accomplish what you want to accomplish.

veinglory · Apr 18, 2007

IMHO there is a long history of lesbian fantasy that has been fully overt for the last 3 decades or so. In fact it is one genre where all kinds of sexuality cause almost no interest or surprise. e.g. Lythande by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Northern Girl by Elizabeth Lynn, Gossamer Axe by Gael Baudino and many, many, many others. I also suggest you look into your market more to work out where the real fronteers are as fantasy genre with lesbian protags is common enough in this post-Xena world that there are whole small press publishers devoted to it.

Male homosexual fantasy is even more common and sells like hot cakes (Flewelling, Huff, Patton, Lackey etc etc etc). I think you are making a lot of interesting assumptions there about emotion, gender and your audience.

Now, a lesbian heroine in a political thriller or historical saga--that is less common. It exists, but not as a whole sub-genre.

maestrowork · Apr 18, 2007

Plenty of gay novels or novels with major gay characters and relationships to go around. Don't worry. Just write.

scarletpeaches · Apr 18, 2007

The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst did quite well as I recall...

Just Me · Apr 18, 2007

The_Grand_Duchess said:
To me, gay or straight you have to approuch the relationship between the chars the same way you would approrch any other. Does that make sense?

Co-signing on this.

I've written my share of stories with *GASP!* gay and bisexual male characters in them. I never try to write "a gay man"; I just write them as the people they are, whatever that may be. I'm pretty sure that most of us are greater than the sum of our sexual orientation and gender.

As for the original question:

What do you all think? Is it naive to believe such things possible from a reader? Can a reader really forget their prejudice if a novel is written well enough?

I'd like to think so, to a certain degree. Back when I was writing lots and lots of slash, I actually had a few straight men tell me how much they liked my stories. Sure, they usually prefaced it with, "I'm not gay, but..." or "I don't normally like gay stuff, but..." or "I think that's sick, but..." but the point is, they liked my work. *g*

~JM.

Shady Lane · Apr 18, 2007

There's not really much shocking about gay/lesbian fiction anymore. Just write the book.

veinglory · Apr 18, 2007

A lot of straight people do read fantasy and sci fi with gay characters. There is a good post on this topic here:
http://www.aleuromancy.net/article_series/demyst/free_articles/article_GLBT.html

Devil Ledbetter · Apr 18, 2007

Don't forget Marlys!

veinglory · Apr 18, 2007

You can't go far in this forums without tripping over people who write gay characters (cough* points to sig line listing a gay fantasy ebook and a bisexual/menage fantasy paper back due out in October *cough)

MightyScribbler · Apr 18, 2007

The Vampire Chronicles seemed to have homosexual themes and implications. Those were popular. Brokeback Mountain was critically acclaimed. Didn't Zena: Warrior Princess and her female sidekick have a physical relationship?

I think there are always certain themes that people shy away from. I like violent, gory movies for example, and I know others who won't go near them. I think just about anything you write will be unappealing to someone. But I'm not sure you can ever predict who will read it and what they will think upon reading it. Is your intention to make a social statement within a novel that's impossible to put down? I don't think you can expect to change the minds of those who read your work, though I think you can certainly try to make them think differently, and you may very well succeed. I think the hope of every writer, even fiction writers, is that some will see the world a little differently after reading their work, that and massive book sales.

Sean D. Schaffer · Apr 18, 2007

infinitus_kaze said:
Snipped...

I'm hoping to use this novel to challenge myself; to stretch my writing skills and see if I can truly make people forget that the lovers in my story are homosexual and just accept it as a pure love.

...Snipped...

What do you all think? Is it naive to believe such things possible from a reader? Can a reader really forget their prejudice if a novel is written well enough? I'd like to know your thoughts on the matter.

If it's possible from the writer, I'm certain it'll be possible from the reader. I would tend to agree with others who have stated that 1) you should just treat the characters like any other character, like ordinary people, and 2) you should not worry about challenging yourself and just write the story. What matters is what you, the writer, want to put down in tangible form. That's basically all that matters here. If the reader likes it, great. If the reader doesn't like it, well, there are lots of readers out there with lots of differing opinions. Don't let that get you down.

So don't be afraid to write the book. Get it done, treat the characters like you would any other human being, and then let the chips fall where they may.

Most importantly, enjoy the process.

I hope this helps, and good luck to you.

infinitus_kaze · Apr 18, 2007

The_Grand_Duchess said:
Hmm, I think you're going to have trouble with this becuase you're already assigning stereotypes to your chars which is something you said you didn't want to do. I'm saying this becuase of your reasoning for not using men. It seems you assume that women would have an easier and more socially accepted go of it becuase they're women but in actuality it would probably be just as hard.

To me, gay or straight you have to approuch the relationship between the chars the same way you would approrch any other. Does that make sense?

As for your orginal question, if someone is opposed to homosexual lit then there's really nothing that can be written to bring them into the light so to speak. The only thing you can really do is write a compelling story.

You're misunderstanding what I've said. I am not making my characters stereotypical and I don't feel that women would be more socially acceptable. What I meant when I said I wouldn't be able to write a male homosexual novel is that I'm possitive my writing skills wouldn't permit it. I want to make my characters as real as possible and I'm afraid that if I wrote a male homosexuality novel with my current abilities it would come out dry or stereotypical. I believe that I can write a female homosexuality novel without making it stereotypical because most of the people I'm around on a daily basis are women and I understand the female mind more clearly than I understand the male mind. I don't get along with many of the males in my extended family very well and due to some traumatizing experiences as a child with my male friends I don't get along with males very easily in general. That being the case, I know more than enough of female psychology to write a lesbian novel, but not enough about male psychology to write a convincing, real love story between two men.

Medievalist said:
You seem to be making some assumptions here that are a little discomfiting. For instance, the sexist assumption that all men have difficulty expressing emotion, or that two men who love each other are inherently effeminate. That's, well, wrong and potentially hurtful, and it's not going to accomplish what you want to accomplish.

I'm not making any assumptions about male homosexuality. I'm refering to my own writing techniques. I'm saying that I don't have the necessary skills to write a story that would not make the males seem too effeminate or too closed emotionally. I don't want to write on male homosexuality because of that very reason - I don't want to make my story insulting because that isn't the focus for it. Some of my good friends are homosexuals and I want to write this novel as an advocate of homosexual rights, not to insult.

Shady Lane said:
There's not really much shocking about gay/lesbian fiction anymore. Just write the book.

Where I come from is a pretty backwater place in which homosexuality is really looked down upon (Look at the Matthew Shepard case which took place at my University) and that is one of the reasons why I was so worried when I asked this question. Everyone around me has told me that they would never read my book if I used homosexuality in it. I wanted to write a homosexual novel that showed the characters as real people who shouldn't be feared or shunned and wanted to know if it were possible to change peoples prejudices with a novel.

maestrowork · Apr 18, 2007

infinitus_kaze said:
Where I come from is a pretty backwater place in which homosexuality is really looked down upon (Look at the Matthew Shepard case which took place at my University) and that is one of the reasons why I was so worried when I asked this question. Everyone around me has told me that they would never read my book if I used homosexuality in it.

Your potential market is way bigger than your backwater place. For everyone there who will not read anything homosexual, you have a huge group of people out there (gay or straight) who would read anything homosexual. The Hours by Michael Cunningham, for example, won critical acclaims, a Pulitzer, and became a best-seller adapted to a major motion picture with Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore. So don't worry about it. Make sure you treat the story as true as possible and do your research if you don't know any gay people.

I just read an article about this straight, married British author who wrote a gay novel with explicit sex in it. Didn't hurt his career. And you may ask: What does a straight married guy know about homosexuality and gay sex? Well, what do I know about murderers and werewolves? I write about them.

Write a good book, then worry about the marketing.

Deleted member 42 · Apr 18, 2007

infinitus_kaze said:
I'm not making any assumptions about male homosexuality. I'm refering to my own writing techniques. I'm saying that I don't have the necessary skills to write a story that would not make the males seem too effeminate or too closed emotionally. I don't want to write on male homosexuality because of that very reason - I don't want to make my story insulting because that isn't the focus for it. Some of my good friends are homosexuals and I want to write this novel as an advocate of homosexual rights, not to insult.

Err. . . . right. Some of my best . . . whatever.

You're going about this the wrong way; you've got it hind-end to. Write a good story, with interesting believable characters. That's the main goal of a writer; don't focus on your didactic, socio-political agenda. Treat sexual orientation like you'd do anything else; eye color, or a talent for cooking or the ability to speak Swahili like a native. Figure out your plot and story and characters.

Why not do some reading first? You've got some good suggestions here.

maestrowork · Apr 18, 2007

I second Medievalist's suggestion. Plenty of good books out there. Time to do some reading.

czjaba · Apr 18, 2007

In my opinion, there has to be more to the story than just the relationship between gay/lesbian people. So, write the story, let the characters have their own personalities, preferences, etc, and see what you come up with.
If you don't like what you end up with, you can always change something in edit stage.
I won't go to a bookstore specifically to look for a gay/lesbian book, however, I'm sure that if I picked up a book and something caught my attention, I would buy it and read it. If I make it through the first 2 chapters, I usually won't put it down because of a particular revelation about one or all of the characters that I now care about. And the something that usually catches my attention is within the first 10 pages, that I read while standing in the bookstore. So, IMHO, if the MC is gay, so what?

Toothpaste · Apr 18, 2007

I'm sorry to hear you have had such bad experiences with men in your past, and I understand your reasonings to write what you want to so this is not to contradict you what I am going to say next. This is simply a general suggestion.

Try writing a male character as you would a female character. I bet you could do it. Men and women are different, and we often see the stereotypes, but really they are more similar than I think they would admit. My father likes sports and cars, but also musicals. He is very logical and at the same time very open with his feelings. And I know other guys like this as well. Try just writing a person, as you would see it, but make the person happen to be male. So that okay he doesn't wear heels or makeup or anything, but other than that . . . I bet you could write a guy character just fine.

veinglory · Apr 18, 2007

If you check your local bookstore and look at regional sales figures for your area on amazon.com I bet you'll find a few of your locals are reading gay stuff and just not talking about it.

But these days the world is your market.

johnrobison · Apr 18, 2007

infinitus_kaze said:
I believe that one of the most difficult challenges for an author in a society where homosexuality is taboo is to write a novel using a homosexual theme that transcends the human mind. In other words, a novel that can make the readers who would otherwise shy away from homosexual themes actually read the novel without focusing on the homosexuality. Instead, all the readers see is two lovers in a pure and loving relationship without caring what about the sexual orientation of the lovers.
.

I think my brother did that, especially in DRY. Running With Scissors isn't very loving, but the gay sex still doesn't scare away many straight readers.

Claudia Gray · Apr 18, 2007

I honestly think that, if you're approaching this as an author who's trying to get in touch with the characters as people, there's no difference in developing a homosexual relationship and a heterosexual relationship. There's one individual falling in love with another -- no more and no less.

Now, how those characters fit into the rest of the world, and the opinions of those around them: There, you run into differences. But at its heart, I think it ought to be the same.

maestrowork · Apr 18, 2007

johnrobison said:
I think my brother did that, especially in DRY. Running With Scissors isn't very loving, but the gay sex still doesn't scare away many straight readers.

I like both books. The gay sex stuff didn't scare me at all. Please tell your brother I say hi.

infinitus_kaze · Apr 18, 2007

Medievalist said:
You're going about this the wrong way; you've got it hind-end to. Write a good story, with interesting believable characters. That's the main goal of a writer; don't focus on your didactic, socio-political agenda. Treat sexual orientation like you'd do anything else; eye color, or a talent for cooking or the ability to speak Swahili like a native. Figure out your plot and story and characters.

Why not do some reading first? You've got some good suggestions here.

I'm not going about this backwards. The first thing I developed was the plot and characters. The reason I'm bringing up sexuality on this forum is because of the responses I got when I told people I knew about the novel. Here's a brief synopsis of the story:

The story takes place in a world where men are practically non-existent because they destroyed themselves in an enormous magical war over 500 years prior. Since men are so rare in the story, females had long ago begun to form relationships with one another. The main character is a heterosexual woman from Earth who is transported into this world where homosexuality is the norm and births are done by combining the genes of two women's eggs and implanting the zygote into one of their wombs. The story evolves around her development as she starts out rather homophobic and then comes to not only accept the homosexuality around her, but actually falls in love with another woman. At first, she tries to find a way back home, but as she falls in love she begins to care less and less about returning to Earth. There are also other aspects to the story, such as a girl who lost her love three years prior and can't get over it, the development of magical powers, the election of the new Novas (the student presidents who reside over all four of the magic schools: earth, fire, wind, water), and the sub-plots of many of the other lead characters.

The actual sexuality doesn't play a very important part in the story. There is the occasional kissing scene and I plan to place one or two pan-away sex scenes in which you only see the kissing and a little foreplay before the scene cuts away to something else, but the story is really a fantasy/coming-of-age story with very little sexuality in it.

As for doing research by reading, I would love to. The problem is that I don't know any homosexual novels that aren't erotic in nature. Since I'm not writing an erotic romance novel I don't want to read erotic novels for reference. Could you please give me some non-erotic reference materials if you know of any? I will also head to my city library to see if I can find anything helpful there.

Homosexuality in a novel

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