Right. So a little background before I get into what this thread is going to be about. Now I've always liked creating stories, writing TV and film scripts with the hope of one person going "Ooo that would make an excellent TV/film" but alas it hasn't happened yet. So at the moment I writing a pilot episode for TV show about the supernatural (demons/hunters etc etc) My dilemma is do I make my main character a gay guy or not. I knows its sort of been done before with the likes of Xena, Willow in Buffy and few others. I ask this because, having recently settled with "I'm gay" I am now wondering if I'm just making my character gay for the sake of it. I mean it would make it interesting and a nice twist on things but... Do any of you think it would be a good idea? What would you think if you were watching this sort of show and suddenly found out the main character is gay? The first episode sort of deals with the characters past AKA a past lover so in a sense I could either play it straight/gay or like Xena which was sort of Bi-ish. Let me know your thoughts (Not that this show will ever get produced but I like to make sure my characters are the best they can be)
I just started writing stories with gay leads and honestly there's hardly a difference from if the character is straight. The way I write the stories is like "this is what the story is about and the character that is going through these things just so happens to be gay." My first story is an ebook called Thorn in a Mother's Rose. It's about a girl whose Mom is a drug addict and it focuses on how she deals with that. The only reason we know she's a lesbian is because she wakes up with her girlfriend, but as far as when the character came out, how her Mom feels about it, when she knew, none of that is ever mentioned. It is just an established lesbian relationship. The kind of gay stories I find myself getting tired of are the ones where the whole story is centered around them being gay, i.e. coming out to people, struggling to come to terms with their sexuality, how they feel just being gay, AIDS/HIV, etc. All that is boring to me, it gets old. There are rarely ever stories with gay main characters that is about something else that's going on in their life that has nothing to do with their sexual orientation. For example: If you write a story about an assassin, half way through the episode this dude has been all badass, killing people, dropping off ominous brief cases to sleazy fat guys in million dollar suits, all that jazz. Then he goes to bar and meets a guy and flirts with him before his next job or something. Or after all the killing and shady assassin work, he just goes home to a nice place and a guy greets him with a kiss. That's awesome. Right away I know this story isn't about this guy just being gay. It's about an assassin who happens to be gay and I know (or at least am hoping) that it continues to be about him juggling a home life with his partner and being a killer in the night. I would absolutely love to watch a show like that. (Not saying that your show has to be about assassins, I'm just saying the general premise of this is just a person going through whatever and then when whoever they are with or whoever they like is introduced to audience as their love interest, that person is someone of the same sex.) No big two episode thing needs to be made about how they came to terms with their sexuality, their coming out, what it's like for them being gay. The last one especially always gets me. I never understood stories that tried to focus on that. What it's like to be gay? What does that even mean, how can you show that? To me it can't be shown because gay people are just people with a whole lot of other shit going on than "gay life" whatever that means. Sorry to go off on this whole tangent, I'm not ranting, I'm just passionate about this topic. I've had this discussion with my Aunt many times. She is straight and also writes gay fiction (she's written 3 books all malexmale (yaoi) fiction.) What's good about her books is that there's none of that cliche stuff that happens in most yoais where most of the story is the characters going "oh I love him, but he's a man, what does this mean? I can't be...dun, dun, DUN, gaayy!" Like, no. That's just annoying. Even if they're not gay from the start, they come to terms not with being homosexual, but with the fact that they love whoever their love interest is and then pursue. And that's not even the focus of the story, it's the subplot, her characters are dealing with poverty, prostitution, sick grandparents, theft, gangs, evil step Dads, shit like that which I feel supersedes them thinking about their sexual orientation all day. Anyway, sorry I'm still rambling. (Once I get started on a topic that interest me, I can't stop. :lol To answer your question, I would love it if I was watching a show and then suddenly found out that the character was gay. To be honest, the only way I would stay interested in the show is if with the character's past there is other issues he has to deal with on top of whatever Ex problems he has to face, i.e. if he's going back to his old hometown to find the "truth" (whatever that is, :lol and while he's there he bumps into an old boyfriend and then we have some flashbacks about that, but he's still mainly in town for the "truth," then that's a good balance and I would love to keep watching that. I've seen that happen on plenty of hetero-centric shows and movies. I say go for it. Doing a show like that would show audiences that gay people have other shit going on besides just being homosexual. There's really no difference in writing gay characters and straight characters if the gay character's story line isn't focused on his sexuality alone. If hetero shows aren't about the characters just being hetero then why should gay characters, you know? It's just that unfortunately for some reason when it comes to gay characters some think their only storylines can be the cliche storylines I listed before that center around their sexual orientation instead of just centering around them as people. No one's whole life is their sexual orientation. Okay, now I'm really done. Thank you for making this forum. I love talking about this stuff mainly because I'm such a writer geek. :lol:
I think WillowMaiden hit it pretty square on for me too I like characters where they are real, rounded, dynamic people, and if they happen to be gay as well? Bonus points. However, the presence of gay/etc characters is not enough on its own to make me watch or read something. I might give it a once-over, but I need the story On a side note, I'm currently working on a novel where one of the two main characters is an alien cat with four ears and apparently is pansexual... including across the species (and whole evolutionary line) barrier NaNo, why dost thou make the weird emerge? XD
I agree with all the above posters. As long as it is a new idea, and not just another LGBT story, it should still be really good!
Wow. Quite depth and yeah... I tend to get sick of the same old same old "Oh my god I'm gay, now what do I do" story lines. I mean the script I'm writing, the main character just so happens to be gay, but there is a whole lot of other stuff going on in his life. He just happpens to be gay and thats that. Thanks for your input. It was really insightful and I;m sure a few other people will find it interesting and useful :icon_bigg
