I have a flip ton of things to ask about my story

(Warning: most of these are sex or romance related so please read with caution and at least understand what's been typed here.)

• Is it ok if I have a few a sex scenes( well a majority happen off screen, so there's that and only a small few are actually plot relevant)? I'm kinda scare that a few of you might not like it.

• Is the idea of writing a gray romantic sexual (who's comes off as ace because he's trying to keep it in his pants) seem intriguing? Or even the idea of a queerplatonic love story (quasiplatonic or whatever) between a boy and a androgyne seem interesting to you?

• Is fine for there to be some near occurrences of sex scenes that end in death? ( Well of course it's not really fine but hey it at least screws with those suckers who wanna fap to it.)

• I have a gay romantic subplot between a seductive assassin and a cyborg mechanic (well typically his arm is cybernetic but still) and I keep feeling that the relationship feels heteronormative or something, I don't know.

note: if you never heard of a queerplatonic relationship before then basically it takes elements of a romantic and platonic relationship and mixes it together and voila you get a queerplatonic. if that doesn't work, here's the definition: A queerplatonic (or quasiplatonic) relationship is a relationship that is not romantic but involves a close emotional connection (platonic) beyond what most people consider friendship. The commitment level in a queerplatonic relationship is often considered to be similar to that of a romantic relationship.

edited 6th Aug '16 9:07:16 AM by ewolf2015

All three ideas are going to depend, most of all, on how well you write them. But I can't help but feel that you're focusing a bit too much on what the characters are, rather than who they are. Most people in healthy relationships fall in love with each other because they like each other's personalities, not simply because they're of a gender, sexuality, or other demographic compatible with their own.

The second in particular is going to depend on what's adding that component of mortal danger to those sex scenes. Risk of catching an STD? Are they trying to have sex while being pursued by some entity that wants to capture, or kill them? Are they engaging in dangerous/risky sexual acts? Depending on why they're risking death for sex, they might just come across to readers as stupid. And there's also the whole question of what these deadly sex scenes are contributing to your plot, both as sex scenes, and the danger component.

As for the third, are the details you've given the only things that are giving you heteronormativity vibes? If I described the two men involved in the romantic subplot I'm writing as a very buff, stoic businessman and the other as a gentle, friendly opera singer, then yeah, you might also think that's enforcing heteronormativity and the whole idea that all romantic relationships need a 'man' and a 'woman'. But they're way more than that. Don't think about what makes your characters 'masculine', or 'feminine', or stereotypically 'gay', think about what makes them individuals, and what, other than their gender and compatible sexual orientations, makes them want to stay together. Or not, depending on what you want to happen over the course of their relationship.

This. A well-written character is far more than a list of attributes. And when one of those attributes (such as their sexuality) takes center stage, you're writing types, not characters.

edited 6th Aug '16 10:57:08 AM by pwiegle

i'm trying my best not to make deal about it but i guess i am. i need mental help

... okay.

It's not really that strange to feel that way. I used to feel really ouchy about writing LGBT+ characters until about a year or two ago. I got over it by just telling myself to treat them as people. It followed from me overcoming my fear of writing female characters- I was afraid to do that because I didn't want backlash from Social Justice Warriors. (I mean the really bad ones who aren't satisfied unless your female characters are castrating all the men, or something like that.) When I identified that as the source of my fear and that I shouldn't aim to satisfy those people anyways, it became much easier for me to start writing female characters as people. My two gay men in my post above followed shortly afterward. When I was developing the businessman, I thought, 'hey, what if he was gay?', and then went on developing him.

One thing you could try is identifying what's making you so worried about writing a romance between two men in the first place, and then determining if keeping the source of these worries in mind as you work on the story is actually helping your story or not. If you're ouchy about writing this because you're afraid you won't get all the nuances of the effects of homophobia and discrimination on their lives, maybe that's not so important if the story is really about a fast-paced, action-packed criminal heist your mechanic and assassin are trying to pull off. But if you're trying to write a piece of 'LGBT Fiction' about two men trying to overcome feelings of self-loathing caused by a lifetime of discrimination, then maybe you do need to worry about it.

edited 6th Aug '16 1:00:26 PM by CrystalGlacia

well my series idea takes place 120 years in the future

I suppose knowing that, you could get away with making LGBT+ discrimination more unacceptable than it is now. But it's up to you to decide if that's what you want for your story.

I wasn't trying to psychoanalyze your apprehension about your characters' sexuality or insinuate that I know, for a fact, as an internet stranger, that the sole source of your problems is fear of handling discrimination in a sensitive way, I was giving an example of how one might or might not take external pressures into account. I don't know, that might not actually be the problem here.

Saying it takes place in the future doesnt change the dynamics of healthy relationships. Saying one character is an assassin and one is a cyborg mechanic adds nothing to the equation. Some may say any scene that doesnt add to characterization or plot or both is wasted space and i would agree; it doesnt matter that the scene in question is erotic.

It is not (necessarily) your job to make your work of fiction appeal to every person on the planet. It isnt even your job to force yourself to write characters u feel u dont have the knowledge or experience to depict respectfully.

All u need to focus on is figuring out how your characters relate to themselves, to other characters, and to the setting itself, what they want and why they want it, how they change (for better or worse) as a result of their struggles.

*you . Oh I kinda get it now. I shouldn't please everyone in order for the story to be good. And with lgbt discrimination being non-existent (sort of), other discriminations still kinda exists like bios( humans, bioroids and bio augs), cybers (cyborgs, androids, cy-augs) and citizens who have relations with others of a different augmentation type ( An aug having a relationship with a baseline human or a cyber being with a bio aug). These kinds of things slip through the cracks of the law.