Young Writers Society

So. I figure out my main characters and their friends are actually not straight (warning: the next information contains spoilers).

Ilami - bisexual upon exploration
Gael - homosexual since birth
Haka - homosexual upon exploration
Veris - homosexual since birth
Seya - lesbian since birth
Felaris - asexual since birth

The only straight character is Aleveri. Is the lack of heterosexual characters a bad thing, considering they are the majority? Does this not come across as realistic?

My other worry is race. Among all the characters, Ilami is the only one who is half-Estagrian (Greek equivalent) and is also half-Lin-Zhese, which is loosely based from Chinese people. Despite his darker skin colour (Mexican tan), Haka is still an Estagrian and the reason he has different culture than mainstream Estagrian is because of the geography of his place (suitable for farming and whatnot that requires much exposure to the sun).

Is the diversity of races lacking? Granted, I have a minor character that is based from Arab culture, but his appearance is rare and far in-between. Is this something I should worry abour?

You deserve a reward for accomplishing the impossible. Unfortunately, I haven't slept in two days, so I can't think of a clever gif to post.

Either way, you win.

Honestly, I don't think a lack of hetero characters is really a negative thing. It happens in real life, too -- queer people tend to be friends with queer people, especially in societies where it's looked down upon and they have to defend themselves from social criticism.

So the question becomes, is heterosexuality the norm in your society? If yes, what consequences are there to being queer? If no, then it's totally normal for more people to have the freedom to be queer, as well.

Not to mention a lot of bisexual and asexual people "pass" for gay or straight because of their orientations, which can also lead to major erasure and other social consequences for bi and ace people.

Also, racial diversity is something you can iron out as you go, edit, and figure out more about the characters. I wouldn't worry about it too much because you seem dedicated to building this world in a way that its similarities to our own make clear what diversity is.

Are Estagrian people the core race of the story? If so, there's a lot of ethnic variations between Mediterranean peoples, especially the Greek -- what we know as modern Greece was, historically, a group of culturally and ethnically distinct city-states. Ancient Greeks that lived on the sea were different from those who lived inland, or in the mountains, and so forth.

Not to mention that Mediterranean cultures had a lot of cultural and ethnic trade, so you have potential to make people mixed-race and give it weight to their character without it feeling forced.

90% of my friends are some sort of queer. Groups of like-oriented individuals clustering together is fairly common, and if straight people can have whole books with straight characters, queer people can have the same.

Diversity in race is harder to determine, but nobody is forcing you to write a diverse cast. If you feel like you want more diversity, starting with side characters and developing other-country trade routes (very often forgotten in fantasy!) is a good place to start.

Both Rose and Lare make valid points in terms of queer characters. In particular, I want to support Rose's point--people who are alike tend to drift together and I think that especially applies to queer people in real life and online, at least in my experiences. While there's a majority of queer people in my friend group in real life, there's a majority of heterosexual people overall.

Lare, though, also makes fair arguments as well. How does the world and society that your characters live in treat queer people? If queer people are treated ordinary in Dancer of the Fire Blade, then this makes a lot more sense. Are your characters comfortable with being out in public? Or, to be more specific, have your characters ever felt in danger because of their sexuality due to prejudice? Is the whole world accepting of sexualities other than heterosexual?

Ask yourself questions to figure out how the environment treats your characters is what I'm saying, because this will largely affect how those characters act if you're wanting your novel to be on the more realistic side.

Take into account that Dancer of the Fire Blade is a fantasy as well. This means that the world can essentially be started from scratch, the social norms in our own world can be ditched and you can write the world to your liking. All up to you in the end how you want to go about this.

Thanks for the feedback, @Lareine @Rosendorn @Kaylaa! I truly appreciate it and am going to reply to it.

The way Estagrian society sees sexual preferences such as homosexuality is that it's forbidden because it hinders humankind to expand (the procreation issue). This is the teaching of Lio, one of the deities (called Naturals) they worship (and no, they're not interpreting his words wrongly - he really forbids homosexual people, but there's a reason for it that I can't say here). This discrimination applies to Gael, Haka, Veris, and Sensa. Gael knows he's gay since he was young and was closeted to avoid being discriminated by the public, demonstrated in an extreme manner when one leader that supported all kinds of love was assassinated. Haka doesn't realize he's gay until he thinks about the feeling he has on Gael.

Veris and Sensa are both closeted too but since they're friend with Felaris who doesn't mind such thing and thinks it's a trivial manner, they're open with her. That being said, Veris wouldn't out himself no matter what to preserve his family's name while Sensa is lucky because her sexual preference is common in her family (despite still being kept in secret).

Felaris is a unique case because she isn't attracted to either sex, therefore doesn't need to express anything to make that clear. Granted, her family doesn't care about her love life either and wants her to focus on continuing its legacy, but once her asexuality is made clear to public, they will treat her differently - maybe in a pitying manner or chastising manner that is a lot better than what homosexual characters get.

Ilami knows she likes guys, but she doesn't know she likes girls too until Sensa flirts with her (and basically introduces her to the world of girls' loves). Ilami doesn't care much about her love life so it doesn't really matter (although once she does fall on someone, it would be a different matter entirely). If she does end up with a girl, then coming out as a bisexual person would be an issue but if she ends up with a boy, then there's no need to come out (although being surrounded by queer friends will change that).

I will reply about race in the future post.

Even though everyone is closeted, it's a really common experience that queer people end up gravitating towards each other just because they're all a similar type of weird. Friend groups ending up 95% queer is common even in the conservative areas— it just means there are often developed underground codes for who is queer (like "friend of Dorothy" in the post WWII to Stonewall era).

I recently made a list of every person I looked up to in my teens and the vast majority were gay. Even though I didn't know they were gay, something about them made me realize they were like me in ways I couldn't articulate (I didn't know I was bi at the time). And I was in a very, very conservative household.

I see no reason why a lack of heterosexual characters would be a huge issue, just be aware that your novel might likely end up catagorised as gay fiction because of the current line up of characters that you have.

In terms of race, diversity for the sake of diversity can be just as bland as a lack of diversity. Personally I think what matters more is the exploration of the world it's based in. If that world has a lot of racial diversity then it might be fun to touch on what kind of cultural climate led to that diversity. If it doesn't have much then exploring the way society treats people of other races would be just as interesting.

If you're considering diversity for ethical implications, there was a study (which I could try and dig through my archives for the original source if you're particularly interested) which showed that the biggest factor in promoting or reducing prejudice in response to literature lay in the moral integration of different races. When characters of different races unite for the same moral cause then it promotes diversity, where any kind of moral conflict- even if its aim is to highlight the injustice of racism- actually further promotes segregation.

It was mostly about racism in Science Fiction and Fantasy, but it also dabbled in the disproportionately high number of gay tragedies that seek to highlight the woes of the LGBT+ community, but actually have the effect of promoting fear and rejection within the community because of the associations it created.