tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1847902007209931042.post6856125226118982831..comments2024-01-05T05:46:30.140-08:00Comments on Angie's Desk: Made it to the Meet-Up, if Only JustAngiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11920578701763415331noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1847902007209931042.post-40436327022519551052013-09-27T06:04:33.524-07:002013-09-27T06:04:33.524-07:00Charles -- "neurotypical" came out of th...Charles -- "neurotypical" came out of the community of people with autism and their supporters. I'm sure they're not a hive mind any more than any other group, but what's coming out of the public discussions is that people with autism generally see themselves as different rather than broken. "Neurotypical" is a word to describe the majority population, as a way of avoiding the use of "normal," which implies that anyone else is "abnormal," which has negative connotations. It's like using "cisgendered" instead of "normal" when discussion transgender issues.<br /><br />AngieAngiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11920578701763415331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1847902007209931042.post-26908526194131150512013-09-27T06:02:03.533-07:002013-09-27T06:02:03.533-07:00Suzan -- mainly people were looking for more main ...Suzan -- mainly people were looking for more main characters who weren't basic white guys. [nod] Also, this conference was specifically about gay romance, so there was some discussion about the rest of the initials in the rainbow, particularly lesbian, bisexual and trans characters. On the one hand, I have to sympathize with publishers who need to keep the bills paid and the servers up going with what sells the best. Online, for whatever reason, gay romance sells better than lesbian (although some discussion in a publisher's mailing list a few years ago pointed out that with more traditional small presses, selling paper books through bookstores, lesbian romances sold better than gay). Bisexual characters are pigeonholed into poly relationships, reflecting the myth that being bi means you "get" one of each, which is crap. But if a bi character is in a monogamous relationship, they have to be with someone of the same sex or they're not seen as being "really" bisexual. I've even seen this in real life, where someone who's bisexual but currently with (perhaps married to) someone of the opposite sex gets crap for saying they're bi. Apparently you're only "really" bi if you're in a queer relationship, and even there you're "actually" just too chicken to say you're gay, or you're trying to keep your options open, or whatever negative interpretation the person speaking can come up with. So there are a lot of issues there for bisexual people, whether in realspace or in fiction. And of course trans folks get a whole different load of crap, from various directions, which again stems from ignorance. But romances about trans people haven't sold wonderfully well, although it's hard to tell whether it's because there are so few of them that nobody knows it's even a thing, and people who would like them have just never come across one to give them the idea of looking for more.<br /><br />Also mentioned were characters of different races, of course, and disabled characters.<br /><br />The question Rick asked the audience was about why there are so (relatively) few effeminate gay men in gay romance. I answered that effeminate gay men in romance, especially if the writer is a woman, pretty much draw a crowd of people waving torches and pitchforks and chanting "Chicks With Dicks!" [eyeroll] Yeah, there are times when it really does look like a writer wrote a het romance, couldn't sell it, and just did a search/replace to change the woman character to a man and sold it as a gay romance. But in my experience there's a difference between an effeminate <i>man</i> and a male character being written with a lot of female stereotypes, including in how the (other) guy treats him (her). Sometimes the criticism is valid but often it's not; it's like some readers have a checklist, and if your character hits more than a couple of items on it, you get buried in some really nasty criticism. And it's not just of the book -- I've seen writers who wrote an effeminate male character be accused of not knowing how to write real men, or of exploiting and perpetuating negative stereotypes of gay men just for the money. It's gotten very nasty.<br /><br />I get what Rick was saying, about including this chunk of the gay community in our fiction, but I've never written a particularly effeminate man myself and would have to think hard before I did so. Nobody needs that kind of backlash. I think if we want to move some of our books in this direction, it's going to have to happen slowly, educating the audience as well as getting some of the writers to change modes. For right now, though, male characterizations range from "ordinary Joe" type guys up to a truly ridiculous level of Alpha Male(TM), and not much at the other end of the spectrum. I honestly don't see that changing any time soon.<br /><br />AngieAngiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11920578701763415331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1847902007209931042.post-21981070543912543032013-09-19T19:01:39.210-07:002013-09-19T19:01:39.210-07:00Glad you had fun. "Neurotypical" is an i...Glad you had fun. "Neurotypical" is an interesting word.Charles Gramlichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02052592247572253641noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1847902007209931042.post-43579834966659852212013-09-19T15:10:01.093-07:002013-09-19T15:10:01.093-07:00Glad to hear you made to the Meet-Up! I was a litt...Glad to hear you made to the Meet-Up! I was a little worried about you making it.<br /><br />Talk more about the debate. What kind of things are readers looking for. Even I get bored when it's a perfect white guy discovering his true calling with another perfect white guy. *grin*Suzan Hardenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04600258874634909988noreply@blogger.com