One Reason Fanfic Is A Lovely Thing (Because Otherwise This Subject Line Would Be Very Grumpy)
So, I picked this blog post up from _profiterole_'s LJ, and... Well, it doesn't surprise me, really. Now, I'm not going to say that every agent will reject a YA book for having a gay character or a poly character in it - the writers themselves acknowledge that.
But the fact that it could be one of the reasons and in some cases is? Yeah, that gets to me. YA books, in my view, should not have, say, explicit sex scenes or really much romance beyond kissing, but that's for any sort of pairing. And the teens who read these books? Some of them are going to be gay. Simple statistics. Don't they deserve protagonists they can identify with just as much as the straight teens?
You'd think so, wouldn't you?
It's one nice thing about fanfic, I'll have to say that. We might not always be right about how we interpret canon, and some of our pairings are quite frankly ridiculous and would never happen outside of our heads, but we can do it. We can write any kind of relationship that we want, and while I know the rep for slash fans is that we all just like writing porn of pretty boys, I don't believe that. It's in there, sure, but that's not the only thing we like - I think I can say that, having written slash and poly fics that get a fair bit of good feedback despite the total lack of smutty content.
I'm getting off my soapbox now.
But the fact that it could be one of the reasons and in some cases is? Yeah, that gets to me. YA books, in my view, should not have, say, explicit sex scenes or really much romance beyond kissing, but that's for any sort of pairing. And the teens who read these books? Some of them are going to be gay. Simple statistics. Don't they deserve protagonists they can identify with just as much as the straight teens?
You'd think so, wouldn't you?
It's one nice thing about fanfic, I'll have to say that. We might not always be right about how we interpret canon, and some of our pairings are quite frankly ridiculous and would never happen outside of our heads, but we can do it. We can write any kind of relationship that we want, and while I know the rep for slash fans is that we all just like writing porn of pretty boys, I don't believe that. It's in there, sure, but that's not the only thing we like - I think I can say that, having written slash and poly fics that get a fair bit of good feedback despite the total lack of smutty content.
I'm getting off my soapbox now.