Um... all of my characters are QUILTBAG?

Do I need some straight people?

  • Yes, it's not believable for so many people to be not-straight.

    Votes: 4 28.6%
  • No, straight people can deal with having the tables turned for once.

    Votes: 10 71.4%

  • Total voters
    14
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sickmuse

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I know that it tends to happen this way in real life, just by virtue of us needing the support a lot of times, but I don't think I have a single straight AND cisgender character in my current novel. The main character is a lesbian who's married to a man (who seems to be a very closeted/nervous bisexual) and in a relationship with a bisexual or possibly queer woman. I have a lesbian marine with a best friend who's a gay man and another close friend who's a trans* man, a girl who starts out "straight" and ends up falling for a girl, a bi or lesbian woman, and a small child who currently seems to be growing up to be asexual.

Should I add some straight people? I feel like the situation is plausible in real life (based on my experiences), but we all know fiction has to be less strange than truth in order to be believable.
 

Anne Lyle

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Write what you love. Also, birds of a feather and all that - I've written a book set in the seamy underbelly of Elizabethan London, and then as now, the world of the theatre probably tended to attract more than its fair share of gay men. Hence most of my central cast are gay or bisexual. Readers and reviewers seem to be dealing with it so far :)
 

sickmuse

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Awesome! I guess if it catches the eye of a publisher, they'll let me know if it needs to be changed. :)
 

kuwisdelu

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Kunihiko Ikuhara of Revolutionary Girl Utena fame once said that the only thing hetero relationships are good for is eclipsing the plot.
 

BenPanced

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I don't have many straight people in my novels. They're mostly background characters that appear for one or two scenes and that's that. I wouldn't worry about it. If you put straight folk into the story just for the sake of having them, the readers will know and might get turned off.
 

Caitlin Black

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I don't think there's a problem with having an all-QUILTBAG cast.

One of the novels I'm working on has a bisexual woman, a lesbian, 2 gay men and an asexual woman (possibly asexual - she's a minor character who probably won't get any lovin', so it's entirely possible that she's asexual - for the purposes of the story, her sexuality doesn't matter, especially as she doesn't have any POV scenes).

And yes, I think the heteronormative world could stand to have the tables turned.

Honestly though, write what sounds true for your characters. I mean, if you originally come up with a lesbian character, but in the writing of it, you realise she'd probably be really into a guy character, then she could well be bi-curious... That sort of thing.
 

sickmuse

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Well the lesbian has a really complicated life... I don't think she would identify as anything else because of things she's done for money or immigration or whatnot. ;) But yeah, I like this idea. It really does happen in real life, and it's not like they live in a world where no one is straight... they just happen to gravitate towards each other during the zombie apocalypse.
 

kuwisdelu

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Well the lesbian has a really complicated life... I don't think she would identify as anything else because of things she's done for money or immigration or whatnot.

...huh?

I understand everything else that's been said except this.
 

sickmuse

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Oh, I thought your comment about her being bi-curious was because I mentioned she's married to a guy. She didn't get married for the usual reasons. ;)
 

crunchyblanket

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Looking over my WIP, I realised there's only one non-QUILTBAG character in the book. I've got two bisexual men, an asexual woman, a bisexual woman and a man who really isn't sure what his sexuality is. And, of course, a bunch of people whose sexuality isn't specified.

It works for me, and for the story, so I'm keeping it in :)
 

Unimportant

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I think it really depends on the story. If the main character is a gay man, then it's believable for his partner to be a gay man (duh), and for his best friend to be a gay man, and for his favourite cousin who he goes to for help to be a lesbian. On the other hand, if the main character is a gay man, and the person who stops to help him with his flat tire just happens to be a gay man, and then the driver of the AA roadside services truck who shows up just happens to be gay, and then the garage the car gets towed to just happens to be staffed by two lesbians, three gay guys, and a bisexual guy, and the other person there with a flat tire happens to be a gay guy who suggests that they all go have coffee next door, and then the wait staff at the coffee house next door to the garage is owned by a gay man and staffed by two lesbian waitresses and all the patrons are gay, and then.....Yeah, that's not so believable.

Main characters Q because Q tend to hang out with Q? Sure. Entire world full of nothing but Q people? Not so much.
 
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