Hi all,
I'm still a relatively new poster on these forums, and I haven't ventured into this particular subforum before (didn't know it existed)!
My question is this: the MC in my YA/possibly MG urban fantasy story is gay. This gets brought up when one character accuses him of having a crush on another, but it's not really mentioned much before that. The reason is mostly because there are bigger fish to fry in his story. He isn't decided on who he is yet, and he's got other things to be thinking about, like whether his life is in danger.
A beta reader told me they felt it sort of came out of nowhere, and that made me stop and wonder whether there was merit to this. I'm resistant to changing how I've approached it because - well, if the shoe was on the other foot and he was accused of liking a girl, I doubt anyone would say "you never told me early on he liked girls".
Any thoughts? I recognize it's hard to say without reading the text but wanted some other opinions.
How early do any of you like to know that a character's gay? Do you think it matters?
Thanks in advance!
I'm still a relatively new poster on these forums, and I haven't ventured into this particular subforum before (didn't know it existed)!
My question is this: the MC in my YA/possibly MG urban fantasy story is gay. This gets brought up when one character accuses him of having a crush on another, but it's not really mentioned much before that. The reason is mostly because there are bigger fish to fry in his story. He isn't decided on who he is yet, and he's got other things to be thinking about, like whether his life is in danger.
A beta reader told me they felt it sort of came out of nowhere, and that made me stop and wonder whether there was merit to this. I'm resistant to changing how I've approached it because - well, if the shoe was on the other foot and he was accused of liking a girl, I doubt anyone would say "you never told me early on he liked girls".
Any thoughts? I recognize it's hard to say without reading the text but wanted some other opinions.
How early do any of you like to know that a character's gay? Do you think it matters?
Thanks in advance!