Subject: Honestly, just... try?
Author:
Posted on: 2019-04-06 15:50:00 UTC
We're not exactly heavy on the pitchforks around here. And seeing as I don't know what's up, I don't know how to help too much.
Speaking for myself, I think most of that advice is pretty sound, honestly. Although I have a bit of my own.
1) Accept that you cannot please everyone: there are a lot of different opinions about how to write LGBT characters. Especially from LGBT people. You won't make all of them happy and it frankly shouldn't be your goal to, because the inherently conflicting nature of all the different opinions means that you'll wind up with a character with no personality. Some LGBT people believe that straight people shouldn't write gay characters, or shouldn't write about certain aspects of their experience, like coming or what ever. Do your research, try and get the tricky stuff right, but don't listen to those people and subsequently avoid writing key scenes in the life of your characters because strangers on the internet said you shouldn't write them.
2) Personality: different people approach things differently. Personality, not sexuality, is the primary discriminator here. If you know that a character is gay or lesbian or bisexual or trans, look at who they are and how they got to where they are. That's going to inform a lot about how they act. It will also do a lot to tell you how they handle their own sexuality: not everyone is flamboyant and all out there. Some of us (*cough cough* me *cough cough*) would rather go sit imn a corner and read or whatever.
...Honestly, the article pretty much covered all that. Huh.