Guest Post by Chrystalla Thoma: Writing LGBT characters in YA fiction!

  


Let me start by saying I didn't set out to write gay characters in my novels. But some of them informed me in no uncertain terms that they were and I'd better take note. Just like in real life.


When I wrote the first draft of my dystopian YA sci-fi novel "Rex Rising" some years back, it wrote it from my protagonist's point of view. The protagonist is Elei, a boy, and he told me from the start he like girls. End of story.

However, when I revised the novel a year ago and decided to add another point of view, something else happened: that character (Hera, a girl who was already in the first draft) insisted she also liked girls that way.

I was surprised. I thought I knew my characters, but I hadn't known this detail. Hera is strong, beautiful, clever, dynamic, and attracted to girls. Period.

The focus in this first book is not on romance. We only get hints of her sexual orientation – like here, in the second chapter of Rex Rising:

"As Hera crossed to the helicopters, she nodded a greeting to the hangar officer, a tall, lithe woman with ash blond hair in a braid. While climbing into the first helicopter in the row and powering up the system, she gazed at the woman.

Curvier than most, filling out her gray uniform well, the young officer turned to stare back at Hera, fine features locked in a scowl.


Hera winked, blew a kiss and raised her forefinger and thumb, flashing the woman an "all well" sign."

Hera's orientation comes more into play in the second book of the series, "Rex Cresting" which was released this month. I don't want to say more in case you want to read it and see for yourselves.

Of course, having gay characters in YA fiction is nothing new or unusual, well, not anymore. There are plenty of YA novels out there with gay protagonists and main characters. For instance, "Outtakes of a Living Mistake" by Anthony Paull is told from the point of view of a teenage gay boy, and Cassandra Clare, in her Mortal Instruments series, has a gay couple who are very cool, Alec and Magnus Bane.

I seem to think there are more stories about gay boys than girls – but that could be biased due to my personal preference for boys. :D

As I was saying, gay characters in YA literature are not something new (although there has been some bruhaha about agents and editors trying to remove gay characters from YA fiction. I don't think they can, thank all the gods and goddesses). But it was new to me, new to my stories.

YA stories with gay characters often focus on the problems gay teens face because of the rigidity of society and people's prejudices, having to hide who they really are to avoid bullying and shunning. Which is so sad.

I am glad novels talk openly about such things. It helps sensitize and educate people.

But I immediately realized that Hera's case was very different. Hera belongs to a race of all-women who reproduce asexually (by cloning themselves) – a condition brought on by a very special parasite, called Regina. The only thing needed for reproduction is sexual stimulation. Not needing men, the women of this race are attracted to women only.

What this means is that, in Hera's world, being gay is the norm. She doesn't have to hide her sexual preference, doesn't suffer from it. On the contrary, she finds the idea of attraction to another gender sort of odd.

Now, I could have made her life hard by having her new friends – who don't belong to her race and who happen to be heterosexual – make fun of her, tease her, even bully her about her preference.

Yet they don't. Partly because Hera is a respected character, accepted from the start, and let us not forget her temper is fearsome. Nobody would like to cross her.

But I also wanted a world where sexual orientation isn't so important. Where there are bigger concerns in life and more important things – like trustworthiness and self-sacrifice and real friendship – than whether you like boys or girls or both or neither.

A good world, a world as it should be.

Yeah. :)

A little bit about our guest poster! Chrystalla lives in Cyprus with her husband and her hoards of wild books. She writes fantasy and science fiction and is now starting a non-fiction book about the dragons of the world. She is interested in parasites, ecology, Indian recipes, love in all forms and medieval music, not necessarily in that order. She is currently writing Book 3 of the dystopian sci-fi YA series "Elei's Chronicles" and a gay sci-fi novel with androids and lots of mayhem.

Mayhem, in fact, is her middle name. You've been warned.

Find Chrystalla! She's around her somewhere!

Check her BLOG out! Go to her Facebook page! Visit her Amazon profile! Send her a tweet on TWITTER! Or even go see her on Smashwords! ♥

Also, to keep updated on the sequels and other satellite books, make sure to check this page on her blog:  http://chrystallathoma.wordpress.com/rex-rising Or ask to join the Rex Rising group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/282489681801529/ ♥

If you want to buy her eBooks the pictures above are clickable, or you can use these: Rex Rising, Rex Cresting, Hera ♥

I really liked the post! It fit in with last months LGBT and the continuance of LGBT themed posts that I said we'd be getting! I hope you agreed with what Chrystalla was talking about, I know I sure did! And it's true, I never realised that one of my characters was gay until  I'd finished it---but I'm saying who because I don't want him to be defined by that.





-Joseph





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