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About 120K fanfictions emerge when you directly type Harry Potter in the search bar at Wattpad.
While some of them are amazing and well worth every reader's time, there are a great many fanfictions which are either too cliché...
Point to be noted: I am not against the whole concept of LGBTQ+. I strongly believe that people should get recognized for what they are and no sort of discrimination (neither racial nor sexual) should exist in the world. All that I write in this chapter and others is not intended to target someone or to cause offence.
I know this is quite a sensitive topic to talk on. And that is why I have included the important point at the start of the chapter. Nevertheless it is not something which I could ignore easily as the main point of this book is writing on what should be done in fanfics and what should not.
It's perfectly fine if you are depicting characters from LGBTQ+ and showing your support through your literary works, there is nothing whatsoever wrong with that.
But there rises a problem when it comes to representing the concept in fanfics. And that problem is exactly what we are going to talk about today.
Recently, there has been a giant influx of stories centered on the LGBTQ+ concept such that there has been formed a separate community for it on Wattpad too. Most of these stories are a breakthrough and nothing short of marvelous but as always, in this book we are discussing the don'ts of such fanfics so I will proceed as such.
What to do when writing LGBTQ+ Fanfics:
1. Say goodbye to poor representation.
This is one of the major conflict here with authors. They think they can represent people of different sexualities with ease but in reality they can't. I agree with the quote which says Write What You Know.
If you know a lot about this concept and if you have someone like a close friend or relative who is part of this community and is willing to help you write about your characters, then go ahead.
But if not, then you might have to strongly reconsider the options of you writing such a fic.
Of course, you may find blogs and online platforms for writers that may help. So if you are writing, make sure you have done extensive research on it as well.
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2. Stop treating this as a disorder.
It is not a f*cking disorder for people to be different, so deal with it.
I know and I understand that many of you support this concept while a lot others of you feel uncomfortable about LGBT and think it's just a phase in someone's life.
To be honest, this is not a phase. Accept people for what they are because they do want to get recognized in an affirmative way.
So if you are writing a fanfic as such and deciding to show a character who is, say, a lesbian but then ending the story with her coming out of her sexuality phase and getting straight again after meeting the right man and so on and so on, then please... Don't do that. You have no idea how many human feelings you might be damaging.
3. Stop categorizing everyone into stereotypes.
Fine, I admit, at times you will agree that stereotypes exist and are fairly common but that doesn't mean that you will have to portray said character as a certain stereotype always.
No.
So let's just suppose that you are writing about a character who is gay. Now it's not necessary whatsoever for him to be fond of clothes and shopping, have a feminine voice, be flamboyant, overly dramatic or listen to show tunes all the time. No. This is not what defines a gay person, okay? This is just a stereotype installment.
And you must know that stereotypes are generalizations which are not often correct.
Similarly, if you are writing a lesbian character, that doesn't mean that you will proceed on to portray her as someone who lives in an extremely dark and depressing lifestyle, has an obsession with male clothes and attire, has short cropped hair, wears baggy clothes and plays sports all the time.
Nope, don't do that.
4. Do not give your characters a tragic ending.
In fiction, there is a trope (means a significant or recurrent theme; a motif) known as Bury your Gays or Dead Lesbians according to which all such characters should die or go insane at the end of the story.
Tell you what, it's wrong. Don't ever do that. Until or unless your story has to be tragic and the character has no other means of survival.
This trope is much accepted in TV shows though because according to Autostraddle, which examined 1,779 scripted U.S. TV series from 1976 to 2016, 193 (11%) of them featured lesbian or bisexual female characters, and among these, 35% saw lesbian or bisexual characters dead, but only 16% provided a happy ending for them.
Similarly, among all lesbian or bisexual characters in no longer airing series, 31% ended up dead, and only 10% received a happy ending.
It's okay to have a tragic story but making it seem like it's tragic because of the character's sexuality and way of life is really wrong.
5. These people are human too. Accept this stark clear fact.
Gays are human, lesbians are human, trans and bisexuals are human, straight people are human. So obviously they also look like humans and behave like humans.
You can not tell apart people's sexual preferences just by taking one look at them.
They do not look an different from me, you and all of us.
Because THEY ARE HUMAN BEINGS.
You can not just look at a person who is dramatically explaining something and mentally decide that yeah, he's gay.
No.
You can not look at a tomboyish girl and just simply categorize her as a lesbian. For all you know, you might be wrong.
So please stop being judgmental and stop judging people on how they dress, talk or react.
Just stop.
6. The concept of having platonic relationships has not died out, trust me.
Why is is that if the character in a fanfic is gay, all his best friends are female because people from the male population nearly always shun him out? Or vice versa.
Why can't he have a platonic relationship with a male childhood friend? It's not abnormal, you know. They are not infectious creatures, okay? They are normal human beings who have normal relationships and normal lifestyles.
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***
So I guess that's pretty much all I have to say on this topic.
Make sure not to hurt anyone's feelings through your writing.
And if you can't be sure about that then just don't write stuff which is liable to set someone off.
