The Responsibility of Writing Gay Heroes

I'm listening to Lady Gaga right now, because she's tremendous!

So I've been thinking about things. About how unfair things are for gay teens. About how almost all billboards, all movies, all TV shows, commercials, magazines, et cetera display some sort of heterosexual entanglement, and where gay characters are used, they are used as side-kicks, comedy relief. I know there are series and films out there that have the gay community front and center and that do a good job, for the most part, of showing gay life. I just see a need for gay characters to have a larger role in mainstream media. Respectable gay characters, not just funny, camp-tastic side-kicks.

The fact is, the only books and films that have gay characters "center stage" are marketed as a genre, "gay fiction," "gay television," "gay cinema." I remember when Michael Craft fazed out his gay detective series several years back, and his next book was marketed as a story "for everybody." Translation: the protagonist was heterosexual. Why does that make the story "for everybody?" Why wasn't the Mark Manning series for everybody? Just because the protagonist was gay? That meant heterosexuals couldn't read it? It just seems unfair, considering that if the tables were turned, if gay people couldn't read anything with heterosexual characters front and center, gay people would never read most of the best-sellers out there, nor would they watch much TV, or ever go to movies outside of Sundance. So to me, the claim that gay characters are exclusively for gay readers and heterosexual characters are for "everybody" is absurd.

If you haven't come to this conclusion through reading my work, let me say it now: the driving point of all my work is the equality of all people. As an idealistic pro-social activist, I see it as a responsibility to try and break through this narrow-minded, bigoted standard. When it comes to race, gender,age, and sexual orientation, I strive to offer a mixed cast in all of my fiction.

Granted, I have used gay characters more often in supporting roles, but never because of marketing. Tom Don in Cry, Wolf was gay, but the main character was heterosexual. This was simply because Daniel was born that way in my imagination. No thought went into it at all. He just was. Tom, however, later got his own short story, and there wasn't a heterosexual to be seen in that one, except, maybe, the dog. The jury is still out on Sampson.

In the Metrognomes series, the gay characters are once again seen in supporting roles. The warriors Fraternus and Jono are a same-sex, married couple, and they are going to shine throughout the series for their heroics. An'sep No'tall is gay, but misguided. Jared is 50/50 bi-sexual, and I made a point to illustrate the differences and how accepted they are in gnome society with the conversation between the teenage apprentices about their "favorites."

The two central characters, Ak'ten and Pete, are heterosexual, not because it makes the story more marketable, but because the story is more about friendship than sexual romance. If either one of the two male protagonists were gay or bi-sexual, there would be an element of sexual tension between them, and it would get in the way of the purity of their friendship. Like with An'sep and his crush on his heterosexual cousin Kazkal. The story of Ak'ten and Pete is as purely about platonic friendship as the story of Fraternus and Jono is a tale of eros between two heroes. While it was tempting at one point to make Ak'ten bi-sexual, I realized in the writing that the balance of the story really required him to be heterosexual.

So, yes, the gay characters in Metrognomes are supporting characters, but just wait until you see how incredibly well they support the plot as it develops. These characters will shine almost as brightly as the protagonists when all is said and done.

In The Chronicles of Nightfire, Texas, I have recently revealed the sexual orientation of Valen Alexas to be sort of a 90/10 bi-sexuality, with emphasis on his love of men. He's one of four central characters in the series, and the other three are heterosexual, which places Valen in the minority.

I struggle with this, because I think gay people deserve to have heroes, like themselves, in the spotlight. Sometimes I try to force a character's orientation, only to find the story really needs them to be something else. Recently, this problem has at long last given me my first solo gay hero.

In the story "The Dragons of Nod," I initially wanted the protagonist, Prince Joryn, to be perfectly bi-sexual. I'm interested in bi-sexuality. I'm envious of it. I think it would be wonderful to be attracted to both genders, to be able to see the beauty in them that God sees, to see what it is that makes their paramours' hearts skip a beat when they look into their eyes. Alas, I am only able to truly see this in one gender, but I'm tremendously happy that way. I just think it would be marvelous to explore bi-sexuality through a protagonist's eyes, to allow that character the perfect freedom to fall in love with any of the supporting cast. I am still trying to find a character that can do this, but it was not to be Prince Joryn.

As I worked on the story for "The Dragons of Nod," I realized that the character needed to be 100% gay. His quest to save his lover from the dragons was more intense for me, when it became clear that Galen represented the absolute epitome of what Joryn valued in a significant other. In other words, there could be no other love in his heart, neither male nor female. It was only Galen. I realized how tremendous this revelation was pretty quickly. I had a gay hero, the protagonist of the story, going off to rescue his male lover from dragons. The heterosexual characters fell into the supporting role, and like my gay supporting characters, you'll see that they shine as well as the series progresses. The significance here is that it's the gay hero who carries the story and the series of stories to follow, and this isn't a "gay" story, rather, it is a fantasy story in which the protagonist is gay. It's a story for everyone, and Prince Joryn is the sort of hero I think we all would like to be.

I think readers were puzzled by this. "The Dragons of Nod," is the only story I've ever published for which I received absolutely no feedback. I think people weren't expecting the hero to go off to rescue another young man, they weren't expecting him to be in love with that man. I think perhaps some readers wondered if it was "okay" to enjoy the daring adventures of such a hero.

I'm going to keep writing about Prince Joryn. He has many adventures ahead of him. I assure you, this young gay hero's story is a story for "everyone." I hope my readers will come to admire him as much as I do, as he leads us all into boundless adventure, all the while showing gay readers that they do not need to be the side-kicks in life, that they are far greater than mere comic relief in the grand adventure of life, in the never ending saga of our world, that they too can be heroes, bold and unyielding. These are noble qualities that should be desired by everyone. Wouldn't you agree?

Peace,

Glenn