I can hear a fucking peacock outside somewhere

[apiphile]

Of course they are so bloody loud that there's no way of knowing where the bastard thing is.

Blog post

How To write Gay Characters In Your Mainstream Fiction: A Guide For A Friend. Slightly tongue-in-cheek in places, as the title should hopefully imply

Comments

[wolfy_writing]

That's a good post. I reminds me of a thing I read once where a (disabled) woman in a creative writing class made one of her characters disabled, and everyone was all "What does it mean? What does it signify? What is her disability a symbol of?" And the woman was all "It's just a thing people have that it is good to write about something", and no one could wrap their heads around that.

[apiphile]

Again, why English Lit occasionally makes me want to poke people in the eye. SOMETIMES, A PIPE IS JUST A PIPE, AND A WOMAN'S LEGS DON'T MOVE BECAUSE HER SPINAL COLUMN'S GOT A NICK IN IT, AND FOR NO OTHER FUCKING REASON. Tch.

And the woman was all "It's just a thing people have that it is good to write about something", and no one could wrap their heads around that.

WHY DOES THE WOMAN HAVE FRECKLES. WHY DOES THE WOMAN LIKE BLONDES. WHY DOES THE WOMAN NOT EAT APPLES. Because, you tosspots. BECAUSE THAT'S WHO SHE IS.

[wolfy_writing]

And, of course, if you start going "Why is this character straight? Why is this character white? Why doesn't this character have a disability?", a bunch of people will completely miss the point and think you're advocating that straight white people without disabilities be added to the list of "This is a symbol, not a character" types.

[apiphile]

And then in the end everything becomes a symbol and nobody knows what the fuck it's symbolising.

[wolfy_writing]

And stuff where everyone is constantly behaving like a symbol instead of a character quickly becomes tedious to read.