Thoughts on the way LGBT+ romances/characters are portrayed

Definitely. That’s a horrible stereotype.

But I do wanna include some LGBT+ characters in my story, however I’m a straight person so it’s hard for me to actually understand how lesbian/gay people relationships work, may some of you give me advice on what to include/to avoi when it coems to LGBT+ relationships?

That’s great! How do you want to include it? Are they minor characters who are already in a relationship? Is your main character LGBT+? Or are you asking in general? I think a bit more Information would help us give you advice.

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No they’re actually 2 important characters (girls) and I’m trying to set them up like I have the idea but idk how to continue their romance. Like both of them already had a secret attraction toward each other (but of them didn’t know), and at one party they accidentally make out when they were drunk, however one of them confess lately and the other accept her love and they become a couple, but idkkkkk what to do after like how do I make it more interesting between them? If I wrote the same femalexmale interaction it may offethat’s where I need help, idk how to develop the romance

So you’re not sure how to write the actual relationship after they get together? I can try giving you some advice.

Generally, I wouldn’t write them totally different from how you’d write a straight couple.
But since it sounds like both of them are new to discovering their sexuality, you could dive into that deeper and have them come out to people/go to pride/try to find other LGBT+ people to be friends with/maybe still deal with internalized homophobia a bit/make coming out or gay jokes/do whatever else comes to your mind.
Also, you don’t have to shy away from showing them dealing with homophobic reactions from others, but in that case, I’d advise you to show that those homophobic views are wrong. I often have the homophobes change their mind and give the whole plot point a happy ending.
And you don’t have to shy away from showing their sexual attraction too, you can write about flirting and kissing and whatever the same way you’d write about a straight couple. But please do keep in mind that there are people out there who fetishize relationships between girls. It doesn’t sound like you’re at risk of doing that. But if you’re afraid of doing that, you can prevent that by making sure they’re well developed characters and they show genuine love for one another as well as genuine attraction.
And I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but there’s not actually a lot of happy WLW (women loving women) stories and characters out there. Most are tragic. We as an audience crave happy characters. By that I mean “characters who don’t hate their sexuality/die/become depressed and lonely/are horribly oppressed”. If you write a happy story, you’ll have a lot of thankful readers.

You can do a lot of things, basically. I don’t think there’s a firm set of rules that I can give you. Writing’s a really creative process anyway, so firm rules don’t work. And there are people out there who hate it when minorities try to give them tips on how to ensure good representation, so I’m hesitant to do so. It’s great that you’re willing to listen and learn!

This got suprisingly long and I’m not sure if I’ve really answered your question. Do tell me if you find this helpful. It’s midnight here and I can’t think any more :joy:

Thank you! This was really helpful, they aren’t (like you said) many happy LGBT stories so I was really confused, but then again it’s hard to write about minorities unless you really get a good glimpse of what they’re going through because I’ve seen so many people got offended by things I didn’t even think they can be offensive. I really appreciate your reply and thank you for your time!

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Oh yeah, it’s hard if there aren’t that many examples of good representation out there. But when you’re in doubt, you can always ask actual LGBT+ people for advice. I’m here :slight_smile:
The thing I posted about here on the thread is very minor anyway. I’m happy if there’s positive representation, even with minor flaws. And other people actually prefer it the way I talked about here. There’s lots of different opinions in the community, so I’m not surprised it’s confusing to outsiders. At the end of the day, I’m afraid there’s no way to make everybody happy anyway.

i’d really love some realistic representation…

my girlfriend and i were bored in a starbucks one day and i decided to redownload episode and play some stories with her

we searched up ‘gay’ and im not joking when i say the first story we clicked on had a character yell out “i’m gay!!” and made advances on any other male he saw in the first chapter!!!

we were confused throughout the whole thing, watching the MC cheat on his boyfriend with any random guy… the story had no plot or actual story line whatsoever! eventually we ended up deleting episode. we just felt weird after that…

i’d really like it if episode writers didn’t make gay characters only for comedic purposes, to ridicule them, or just only as the minor “gay best friend” character

this is also an unpopular opinion but i’d also like to see lgbt characters that don’t announce that they’re lgbt every 5 seconds. we get it!!! you’re gay!!! please show me that you actually have some kind of personality and depth as a character!!!

i know writing about lgbt characters and their struggles is hard, especially if you’re not in the community, but i’m just hoping people will put some effort into their lgbt characters and actually make them realistic.

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I would argue that a lot of stories, LGBT+ or not, lack a coherent plot, but IDK if we’re ready for tea like that. I definitely agree with you, I’ve seen other gay stories that read like that one too. It really feels like a lot of them lack heart.
As for the announcing every few seconds, well, yeah, but for a lot of us (or maybe just a few of us), our sexuality or rather our experiences with it are pretty important to who we are. But I see your point. They’re often not well developed characters.

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that’s true, but there are more to lgbt+ people than just their sexualities and orientations.

i haven’t seen any straight characters that explicitly say “hey!!! i’m heterosexual!!!” or shove their heterosexuality in every single sentence

as proud as any lgbt+ person that is proud of their sexuality & orientation (like i am), lgbt+ people can have a conversation without bringing up their sexuality, and they don’t insert it into everything they talk about, whether its about puppies or math quizzes

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I know what you mean. There’s a difference between a character being out and proud vs. a character’s entire existence being whittled down to nothing but the fact that they’re LGBT.
Episode’s gay characters are all like:
Name: Gaylord McGayson
Hometown: Gaytown, Gay County
Hobbies: Being gay
Favorite food: Gay
Favorite color: Gay color
Aspirations: Contributing nothing to the plot other than reminding the reader I’m gay in every single sentence.

Like, come on… when you represent us, give us some depth. I have no problem mentioning that I’m bi and that I’ve had more girlfriends than boyfriends in my life in casual conversation, but I’m also a cat lover, a writer, a runner and my favorite food is curry.

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Of course, I know that.
And I agree with you. Authors often don’t develop the characters well.

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I’ll just put my two cents in. Usually stories are entered around the fact that the person is gay or trans or whatever. Yes, it is a part of their identity, but it doesn’t define them. Lgbtq+ peoples’ lives are not just centred around their sexual orientation and gender identity. If you want to write a diverse story, include us, we are just normal people who live everyday lives. Have a bisexual girl who has a passion for playing the clarinet (woooooo) or a genderfluid doctor. Have your hetero couples and your gay ones. But just please don’t make it seem like that is the only thing we talk about.

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Also cause the creator of this thread said that they can’t speak for trans folks, here’s a trans guy himself to do that for them. I’ve never read any stories with a trans person as the main character (im pretty sure the ones on there are just about transitioning) and I think they should be included more into stories. I haven’t transitioned yet and when I will, there will still be other aspects of me. once I tell someone that im transgender, they always ask how far I am in my transition and if if gotten surgery. (first of all, bitch you can see me can’t you? like hello I look like the stereotypical lesbian hELP) I’ve personally stopped reading Episode stories and writing them due to certain reasons but like can someone tell me if there is a trans person in any story???

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Are you referring to the conversation with Anime?
Well,wait, I like stories that center around our experiences specifically with sexuality. You can’t say we shouldnt have those anymore. But yeah, those shouldnt be the only stories we get. And we deserve to see well developed LGBT+ characters that talk about a variety of things.
But I don’t think the topic should be completely ignored. Think of the Demi stories. Are you telling me MC’s experiences are at all close to the experiences an actual WLW and her girlfriend would make? That’s what I’m talking about, not underdeveloped token characters that talk about nothing else. On the other hand, some people like it when they can escape reality for a little while and they like stories where everything is possible. So I don’t know. We need a wide range of stories to make everybody happy.

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I know I replied to this thread like a week ago, but I’ve been thinking about it again because I’ve just started reading Adrenaline, which, to clarify, is an amazingly written and directed story with LGBT options and characters and I absolutely don’t mean to trash it on any way, but basically it’s set in a dystopian society where being gay is super illegal and frowned upon (all of which is stated in the story), and the mc has grown up with this ideology and just met her first gay person like yesterday, but if you choose the female love interest she doesn’t express any confusion/overcoming internalized homophobia, which felt really weird to me? Again, not to trash the story at all, but in this specific scenario it feels weird that the mc doesn’t express any shock/trepidation/etc. about her gay feelings if you choose to have them. I guess my take away is that while I’m fine with a homophobia-less utopia sometimes, if you’re going to show homophobia directed towards other characters, it’s weird to not have the same prejudice directed toward the mc if you choose gay options. And also, while I’m all for confident LGBT+ Characters who are super comfrtoable with the sexuality, if a caharacter has never had feelings for someone of the same sex before it feels weird for them to not struggle with it somewhat.

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I’ve never read the story, but what you’re saying sounds very reasonable to me. And it doesn’t sound like you’re trashing the story at all. None of us are trashing anything, really, we’re just considering how LGBT+ representation could be improved or not.
I think a lot of straight authors are entirely unfamiliar with internalized homophobia or the process of discovering your sexuality, but they can see the external homophobia in the world, so that’s what they write about. It’s not that they’re not trying, but they often don’t know entirely what our experiences can be like. But of course now I’m assuming the author is straight and I don’t want to do that. And it’s not like I can speak for the entire community anyway.
I don’t know, but it’s 4 AM now and I need to Sleep.

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While I enjoy LGBT+ romances there are so little of these stories. This may be selfish of me but while in many stories one doesn’t get a choice of who they fall in love with and is automatically paired with the opposite gender, the ones that are LGBT+ usually give you a choice of either, meaning that the plot (usually) isn’t focused on the fact that the story is LGBT+. Again while I greatly appreciate the fact that they let you choose you love interest and how (bizarrely) accepting EVERYONE is of the MC if they are gay, I would love it if for once the author would give the reader no choice on who the MC is attracted to. This way the story could be more focused around the real life struggles as a member of the LGBT+ community.

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Is anyone else kinda over stories that revolve around coming out? There aren’t a lot of gay narratives on Episode in the first place and like 90% of them are about coming out. Personally my own coming out wasn’t really that big a deal, I was in the car with my mama going to a show, we were bonding, it felt right, and I just turned to her and said “You know I’m into pussy, right?” and she nodded causally and was like “I figured.” I get that not everyone is lucky enough to have that experience and I love reading about and learning about people from different backgrounds but it gets a little tiresome when every story about a gay person revolves around struggling with your sexuality. We have other problems and things going on in our lives, most of the time they are the same problems as everyone else regardless of sexuality, yuh know, because we’re people too.

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I agree! Also, on the Episode version of Pretty Little Liars they added some details if the reader choses a female love interest; which really surprised me! :heart: More featured stories should be like this.
This is what I noticed:

  • The MC, when she talks about her friend Blair (female love interest), mentions that she realized she liked Blair a year or two years (I don’t remember) before the story starts. However, if the MC is heterosexual she’ll say that Bryan (male love interest) was her crush since she was a child. It was small, but significant detail, and I thought it was very realistic.
  • If you chose a female love interest, there’s a scenes where the MC talks with Emily about their relationships and how they accepted that they liked girls, and the MC (who was bisexual in my story) mentions that she is also attracted to boys. That means, that if the MC was lesbian/heterosexual she would have had another different dialogue. And that’s awesome! I wish more featured stories had those little details. (^_^)
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