Making a lesbian character for a novel

First, stop with the whole reasoning you've had for having a lesbian character. Have her (and more than one LGBT+ person if it's a large cast, please), exist because we exist. Not for tokenism, not for fan service. That is the most important part of creating a realistic queer character. And no, lesbians aren't universally adorable and sexy, so get that out of your head right away before writing her. She may be sexy and adorable, but not because of her sexuality.

And second, I'm rather distrustful of an analogy to Jews and Slavs that uses the imagery of non-humanness (a pretty common tactic used against Jews and Slavs), so please be very careful around that, and preferably make the non-human analogies have cultures mirroring the ones you're trying to reflect (or even better, make them actually human instead of implicitly going along with anti-Jewish and anti-Slav behaviours).

Good luck. The most important part of writing LGBT characters is that you need to think of them as any cis-het character. With realistic backstories, motives, and an incidental sexuality, not the defining part. She shouldn't be your stock lesbian character, and you mustn't think of her like that if you want to be realistic. And without the plot, we can't really help; our entire lives are living in a heteronormative society; we can't give you a quick answer without her situation being presented first.

 

I'd suggest reading some social history of women's lives in Islamic societies, for example the late Ottoman harem, as well as the history of sexuality in and outside the West. Because this is the thing of it: historically, there hasn't been a concept of the heterosexual personality as normal and any deviation a sign of psychological aberration or difference. It's true that heterosexual structures have been the basis for most social relations, but there wasn't an assumption that this was the only way and the only drive that people could have. Male same-sex activity is well documented from the ancient Greeks well into the nineteenth century, and in some parts of the world it was only through Western influence that this activity started to be seen as shameful and backwards. Before that, men could be described in terms of to what extent they enjoyed relationships with women or young men, but it was a description of their behavior, not their psyche. Likewise, when certain sex acts have been considered immoral historically, it's the specific behavior, it has no bearing on the person's inner being. It's an act that anyone would be capable of doing. There wasn't a notion of gay because there wasn't a notion of straight.

Female same-sex relationships are not so well documented, but could have happened in the intensively sex-segregated worlds. But a lot of it is left to speculation. What my point is, in the kind of world you describe, it's unlikely that your character would have considered herself a lesbian, or even essentially different from other women—she just has this amazing, kind of unlikely relationship with another woman, she has very strong feelings for her, and feels closer to her than she possibly could towards another man. She'd be more likely to get questioned for not being married to a man than for having this relationship with a woman, although she could be married and still have this relationship. Much like the Victorian notion of romantic friendships—romance between women was seen as innocent, and a good alternative for young women to having premarital relationships with men.

Sorry if this seems too complicated or just confuses you more. But I guess her best option would be to marry a man, have a family, do the responsible thing (and this is a time when marriage has more to do with social bargaining than with love anyway) and maintain her relationship with her mistress as her lover and closest confidant, which a lot of people would see and not regard as real, anyway.

 

I wasn't trying to be harsh, sorry that it came out that way.

I just was trying to make sure that you were being careful around the issue; so many aren't, and analogies to Jewishness have gone horribly wrong before. But that should be all fine, I think.

But what exactly do you need help with for her sexuality? Is there a scene where she'll have to come out, or faces being treated badly for her sexuality?

 

Hmph, that'll require a bit of a build-up. Maybe if you were to start with first a meeting and an unexplicit feeling of attachment, followed by a friendship which gets closer, but she doesn't realise it. It all depends on whether you have a story line set for their circumstances or not.

 

I don't know that she realistically would "come out" in this situation. I think it would be similar to middle and upper class white women in the U.S. (and elsewhere) in the 18th and 19th centuries. They would often spend time together, write the equivalent of love letters to one another, etc. There was definitely a close romantic relationship there for sure. On top of that for your character, if there was also a sexual element then I could see there being an arranged heterosexual marriage for her while she has this sexual & love affair with another woman.

I think an important detail for making any character complete is that no single attribute defines them. So she can't be exclusively a lesbian with no other elements to her. Although, if the focus of your story is on her lesbian relationship(s) then understandably there would be more emphasis on her sexual orientation than other aspects of her self.

 

Not to be harsh but honestly if you gotta ask for that kinda help on how to write a certain character, you aren't ready to write that character.

 

1.

Hmm, generally when speaking to an LGBT audience you don't want to use "gay" as a negative term.

2. I agree that if you need help writing a character to this extent you might not be ready to write the character. Read some posts on here; that might help you get an accurate depiction of what it's like to come out to oneself and what many of our journeys have been like, and then try writing it.

3. Above all this character has to be three-dimensional. Avoid tropes, and she'll come off as a more relatable/realistic character.

 

I'm currently writing about a lesbian character she's the main of the story , what I did with this character is I didn't focus so much on her sexuality but her as a person and what type of person she is and her personality type my character is also an anti hero like yours and can confuse the readers with is she bad or good ? , Now this character although she's someone's creation and not mine she's found my favorite anime but she is selfish , cold and sometimes just sometimes she can be sweet and caring she's confusing and hard to read I guess you can say . Her being lesbian is a small part of the story it's like just an extra if you will . Now when your making this character you must think of who she is as a person and not center who she is around her sexuality , think to yourself what does this girl like , what does she hate what type of person is she . what's her hobbies and want are her dreams . Also show stories of how she met her first love and how they found each other which I think you have it down . Basically just write about her like you would write about a heterosexual person .