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.

[apiphile]

Now to be entirely fair, that was a long time after everyone sane had gone to bed in my time zone...

YOU NEED TO BE WRITING MY FIC, YOU WENCH.

[tsuki_no_bara]

i thought that blog post was going to be a lot shorter than it actually was, because you pretty much answer the question right at the beginning. and it's a very good (and i think fairly obvious) answer to a kind of stupid question.

"hacienda de los huevos" would be a good name for a restaurant, especially one with a really eggy menu.

i need a calendar too. where does one find a calendar for 2012 after 2012 has already started?

[apiphile]

Hah, that would have felt like a cheat - and there really was more to address from the actual argument I had.

YES. Yes. La Hacienda de los Huevos, omelette restaurant!

... Remainder sales?

[angelofsith]

Interesting blog post, and I agree with it completely. I'm reading (sort of) a vampire series where one of the characters if gay and very little is made of the fact, which is quite nice. It's House of Night and it'll be in the children's section.

Also, I'll be in London at some point in February (definitely the 27th but possibly the 8th too), we must meet for tea and cake!

[apiphile]

Well that sounds good! As does hanging out for cake. I should hopefully be a wage slave again by that point, but evening is perfectly fine and I'm sure we'll find somewhere open for tea and cake-having. :D

[angelofsith]

I hope not to be in London come evening. The last bus home is at 6pm and I'm not going to make that, so it'll be a lift from my mum, and she won't want to play taxi too late. :/ I will be free from 11am until 2pm though, so maybe lunch?

[apiphile]

Depending on whether I'm working from home or from the office that should be possible!

[coniferous_you]

That's good advice. I've been working on revising a manuscript where the secondary main character turned out to be gay. She is introverted, and I was hoping to convey her relatively stable, supportive home life through the eyes of the main character, who doesn't have that (she "runs away" at the beginning to work on the island where she meets this other girl). My secondary main character comes out by default during the story, but mostly she is admitting that she is in love with her best friend since forever, and who troublingly happens to not be that nice of a person. It's the love for the best friend that is the admission, not really the fact that she is gay. I don't want to write the coming-out story, but I feel like as an introvert she wouldn't have thought to say it to anyone until she's faced with a larger admission. She's never loved anyone else, so there was no reason to say anything before.

But I keep feeling like I'm doing it wrong. I'll keep your words in mind.

[apiphile]

As long as you're writing about PEOPLE doing things that PEOPLE do, you're not doing it wrong, for god's sake.

[coniferous_you]

Wise words. Why couldn't I have had you in my writing classes?

[apiphile]

I don't know, I had furniture lobbed at me in one of my classes so I rather suspect I am a little abrasive and somewhat difficult to get on with under those circumstances. TBQH I don't think I've ever been in a class/workshop where 80% of the people attending haven't seriously hated me.