How to Write 3-Dimensional Gay Characters
Today’s blog post comes to us from Author Accelerator certified fiction book coach Stuart Wakefield. Stuart is a book coach and author in Hertfordshire, UK, with 26 combined years of experience in theatre, broadcast media, and coaching. His debut novel, Body of Water, was one of 10 books long-listed for the Polari First Book Prize, and his latest novel, Behind the Seams, was a 2021 BookLife Fiction Prize Contest semi-finalist.
Stuart Wakefield
Certified Book Coach
If you were to ask the internet how to write a contemporary, gay male character, a well-intentioned person might respond with something like: “Just like every other character, just that they prefer having sex with men.”
In an ideal world, that might be true, but we’re not living in a perfect world, and that affects gay characters in a way many non-gay writers (and other, non-gay characters) can’t appreciate—the world they live in shapes them. They’re not defined by their sexual orientation, but they are, like all people, shaped by their experiences in the world.
As a gay man, I know these experiences are different for all gay men.
Growing up gay in a village is different than growing up gay in a city, just as growing up gay in Africa is different than growing up gay in Europe—and that’s the same for growing up gay in an educated or uneducated family, in a religious or atheist family, and whether there were other gay people around during their formative years.
Hiding his sexuality takes a toll on a gay man. Imagine growing up and being told by society that there’s something fundamentally wrong with you. Imagine hiding your true self. Imagine lying to yourself about who you really are.
Coming out takes its toll, too. Coming out doesn’t happen just the once. I mean, it would be great just to tell the one person and they tell everyone else, but it doesn’t happen like that. Coming out happens hundreds, possibly thousands, of times. And the outcomes will be different. And it will be different if a man comes out when he’s in his teens compared to if he comes out in our forties. What happens if he married and had children to cover up his true sexuality? How does the fallout affect him? What happens if your gay character grew up during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s? Different again.
A gay man’s coming out experience is different depending on what type of industry he’s working in. I used to be chair of Ford GLOBE, Ford Motor Company’s employee resource group for LGBT+ staff, and the experience of coming out in the office was very different to coming out on the factory floor. In my experience, other office staff, even if they were homophobic, had the smarts to keep quiet, but on the factory floor, where the vehicles were built? Totally different story. Things got so bad for one guy that he had to be taken off the factory floor and put into an office role. Things at Ford are much better now—we saw to that. Coming out was different again when I worked in Turner Broadcasting System—now a part of WarnerMedia. No one blinked an eye.
Growing up gay shapes how we relate to women and men, and it changes how men and women relate to us.
Once, when I started in a new job, I had an introductory meeting with a straight, female business customer. We were alone in a meeting room, and I tried breaking the ice by asking about her life both in and out of the office. As soon as I mentioned being gay, she visibly relaxed. I asked her about it a few months later, and she had taken my interest in her personal life as a signal I might be attracted to her, and the last thing she wanted was a guy coming onto her at work.
On joining another team, an enthusiastic female colleague was excited to go shopping with me and buy a pink tree for the office’s Christmas decorations. Why? She wanted a GBFF. Sadly for her, there was no pink Christmas tree, but we did once spend an entire day looking for just the right winter coat. (We didn’t find one.)
Let’s talk about effeminate gay characters, shall we? Some gay men are naturally effeminate, and some are naturally masculine. Some assert masculinity as a survival technique, whereas some ‘camp it up’ as a defence mechanism. Straight people don’t mind the funny gays, right? A gay man might use one or more of these ‘personalities’ just to get by in life.
Which brings us to tokenism, the superficial practice of including a gay character to prove you’re an inclusive writer. Do your gay characters lend something significant to the plot? Do you have just the one gay character? Why? Think through the decisions you’ve made to include that character, and I’m hoping they’re not there to simply ‘gay things up.’ Ask yourself where you’ve seen stereotypes (I’m looking at you, Modern Family) and where you’ve seen stereotypes subverted and teased out into something beautiful (I’m looking at you, Schitt’s Creek).
While we’re on the subject, think about everyone who’s represented—or underrepresented—in your story. How did you arrive at the decisions to include or exclude those characters? How else might you approach things?
And as tempting as it might be, please don’t stick a penis on a female character then pass her off as a gay man. A woman’s experience in the world has its own set of deep, complex challenges that a gay man doesn’t face and vice versa. Gender flipping a pre-written character is lazy, and you don’t want to be a lazy writer, do you? Besides, attributing female behaviour to a gay character’s sexuality smacks of confirmation bias which then perpetuates cultural stereotypes.
There isn’t a single gay identity, and, like all characters, you should think about those differences.
Does your character identify as a bear, twink, otter, daddy, or something else? Does he eschew any kind of label and strike out on his own, choosing not to mix with other gay men at all?
Don’t forget that even within the community there are different attitudes to the very idea of living as a gay man. I once got chatting to another gay guy at a mutual friend’s party. He lived with his boyfriend in London. When he found out that I lived in the suburbs with my husband, he went on a tirade about how we’d succumbed to the evils of heteronormativity. I got a lecture when all I’d wanted was a canapé and a glass of bubbly.
Think—really think—about your gay characters. If they aren’t realistic and relatable, you've lost an opportunity to make your story resonate with readers in a meaningful way, so make those characters come to life.
