So I’m going to touch here on what is probably going to be called a ‘controversial’ issue. Mostly because I find it very confusing and as a writer I sense it informing my internal debate around certain choices I need to make about my books.
I feel like at some point, possibly, particularly during the era when I was in high school slightly less than ten years ago, you could write a book with a homosexual character in it without receiving a backlash of gargantuan proportions. Sure, you might get messages from the same extremists who message anyone who’s ever said anything about how homosexual people probably shouldn’t be murdered or bullied, but (speaking as a fantasy author) they’re the same kind of people who would automatically say your book leads to worship of the devil and witchcraft anyway, so, you know – why not.
Recently, particularly in regards to video games, the large numbers of people crying out for diversity in the forms of media they consume have begun to be seen as something of an angry mob, and in response one can now find an attitude that decries any diversity as either being forced onto creators (who could never possibly have wanted it in the first place) or pushing some kind of social justice agenda (for those who state that it was their own decision to include the characters that are described as diverse). We saw this just recently with the release of Mad Max: Fury Road, the movie being labelled “feminist propaganda” by varyingly extreme degrees of people who subscribe to this idea of diversity as an oppressor.
Now, the fantasy book that I am nearly one hundred thousand words through right now has four main characters, one of whom is female, and one of whom is a homosexual male… and as someone who isn’t pushing any kind of agenda it’s sad to me that I feel like the book may be doomed already before even seeing the light of day, because of this backlash. It’s a rather intimidating thing to have looming so large in the public eye and causing such a stir in the already-turbulent waters of trying to become an author.
I thought, for a very long time, about either doing what J. K. Rowling did with Dumbledore’s sexuality (which is to say, never mentioning it at all in the books, and making it known outside of the canon), and also about trying to find a way in which the female character dying would make a good plot point for the story so that she wouldn’t be so far to the forefront, gathering so much attention that could have people labelling my book as feminist propaganda, too.
That may sound cowardly, to say that I considered those things. In essence, you are correct, but I am a very shy person, who doesn’t stand up well to being shouted down, which is why this blog is such a huge step for me.
And I decided against both of those things, in the end, because not only did both options lessen the story, but I didn’t write my characters with those traits for any other reason than because that’s how the characters seemed right to me. I wasn’t going to hide something I had done that was in no way wrong even by particularly judgemental standards in a manner akin to drawing dots on your skin that look like measles but really aren’t, and then quarantining yourself anyway.
And I wanted to talk about why that is, why it is that me writing characters who are female or homosexual has nothing to do with an agenda. For me, it comes down to the difference between how I use plot devices, and how I use character devices.
A plot device, as the name implies, is an aspect of a character or thing that informs the plot of the entire story. A character’s skills might cause them to be called for to undertake a certain task that is integral to the plot, or their family and ancestry could involve them inextricably in parts of the plot if they are heirs to thrones or involved in some kind of Montague-and-Capulet-esque blood feud.
A character device (at least to me; please note that in no way am I saying this is the only way to write or even particularly better/worse/comparable to anyone else’s) on the other hand is something that informs the emotional arc of a particular character. Like a traumatic event in their past, which causes them painful memories, or devotion to a particular deity that colours how they see the world.
While even under these definitions it would be entirely possible to use race or gender or sexuality as a plot device, especially if you were going to make it about some kind of riot, in the case of my main characters, both Annimelda’s gender and Bactiar’s sexuality were chosen as character devices, not as something to specifically govern the plot.
It would be easy to make Annimelda male (Andrius? I don’t know what I would call him/her). All of the major plot points from the beginning of the book – the disappointment of a father in his heir not having the right kind of magic that has always been in their family; the loveless arranged marriage; a corrupt court assisting in the overthrow of the heir once the father is gone; the resolve to take back the throne – these can all effortlessly be applied to a male character.
But I liked the way having a female character complemented the other three main leads, and how her being a woman changed the dynamic of the arranged marriage slightly, and how it changed her relationship with her father slightly, and essentially just how the character interacted with the plot itself. I didn’t do it because I believe it would have been lesser if the book had featured Andrius instead of Annimelda because of Andrius being male, or because I wanted to push a feminist agenda.
Similarly, I didn’t write Bactiar as gay because I thought the story would be worse if he were straight, or because I felt like I needed a homosexual character to tick a box, I wrote him like that because it seemed right for him. Just as some people in real life are gay, so are some characters. The plot doesn’t hinge around it; a big deal isn’t made out of it; it’s simply how he is.
Do I find it likely that the people criticising Mad Max will accept that reasoning? Not really, no. But it is my reasoning, and I find it equal parts interesting and alarming that fear of not being able to get a book published nearly caused me to change parts of it. Ironically, this is exactly what these same people state must have been done to force diverse characters into certain things, the loud voice of public pressure cowing creators into submission.
In the end, I decided that I didn’t want to let total strangers make my decisions for me. Only time will tell if those same strangers will object to being left out of my writing process later.
Emiliana's Thoughts 