to ask anyone who knows about books or publishing if this will be a dealbreaker

[myavatareatsveganpasta]

I've written a book. It took me about a year of drafting, revisions and research and I'm quite proud of it. I know how hard it is to get an agent and accept that the odds are against me though I've started to send out a few queries.

A couple of friends have well meaningly said the same thing to me though and it's got me wondering whether this could be an issue.

I am a middle class middle aged straight married woman and my main character is a gay man. He is portrayed sympathetically as a character who lives in a time and place where he cannot be out about his sexuality and ends up having to marry a woman with whom he finds a kind of happiness though obviously lots more happens in the story than that, and that's only one of the plot lines.

Friends said that they thought that in today's climate a straight woman writing about the LGBTQ community would be poorly received by agents and readers - are they right? Will agents discard my book without reading it because I'm writing about a community I'm not a part of?

Also, there is a character in the book who is very homophobic though she is clearly portrayed as a villain and comes to a bad end. Would that also not be ok?

Any advice welcome.

Can you send further queries out under a non gender-specific pen name, eliminate any issues that way? It ought not to be an ‘problem’ but it might be. Best of luck!

If its a good story its a good story. If you’re happy with what you written, don’t let nonsense get in the way. Everyone and their mother will have an opinion. Thats natural as all works of art invite opinions/criticism.

Depends if certain groups get wind of it and say you shouldn't be writing it. If they don't you're fine, if they do.... you're fucked.

Good luck!

Ps personal belief, event though it wasn't asked for: write whatever you want. I have a closet lesbian in mine and have been told I ought to remove it. No chance.

It would all depend on the writing of the character. You may not feel you've said something unintentionally offensive in your book, but others in the communuty may have a different view.

I would be inclined to get some sort of unbiased opinion from 3 or 4 different sources before sending it out tbh.

Use a pen name. It worked for Robert Galbraith

Thanks everyone. The non gender specific name is a good idea. maybe just initials.

I agree britneyisfree - it just takes one person on Twitter to denounce a book as problematic and you are completely fucked as you say. It would have been easier to write a story without LGBTQ characters, but then it wouldn't be the story I wanted to write.

Also good idea to run it by someone in the community - I have a friend who is desperate to read it so I might let him and ask for his views.

A little life was written by a woman.

Good point Gemstone. Although that was five years ago and unfortunately I don't think the climate has got any more tolerant since then. I wonder if it would be published now.

My opinion is that fiction is fiction, and you have written a fictional character. So go for it!

Whether publishers will agree I really am not sure. Fiction currently (in my view) places too much emphasis on authors writing from life experience.

Personally I think that writers should be free to write about whatever they wish to write about, and readers should be free to read about whatever they wish to read about.

I saw the news today about Elizabeth Gilbert though, pulling her book set in Russia a week before publication because of people online objecting to her writing a book set in Russia - even though it was set in mid century Russia and not as far as I'm aware remotely sympathetic to Putin's regime. It is worrying that authors can have their books cancelled just on the word of a few people who decide for whatever reason it's a problem.

I am not in the business but I would be concerned.
I totally think write what you want, but there was a huge backlash against Jeanine Cummins for not having the lived experience for American Dirt (i.e. being white, not Mexican, etc.) that I would be slightly worried if it was successful that you might be roasted.
As people said above though, sending it out with initials or pen name is a good idea, and if there is interest from a publisher or agent, they would be well-placed to advise you on any potential problems.

Hmm. Have you heard of the “own voices” movement? Unfortunately because you’re not part of the same group as your main character, without the lived experience as a gay man, you may accidentally write microaggressions and agents and publishers will be wary that these will get missed in the editing process and the book will become one of those shitstorms – Twitter LOVES a book drama. And sensitivity reading to iron it all out costs money.

There’s also the fact publishing is a bit backward still and editors and marketing departments can tend towards saying “oh, we’ve got our LGBQT book this season, we won’t buy another” – which means if they buy your book, they won’t buy a book by a queer writer. So you with your straight privilege will be seen to have blocked a queer writer from succeeding.

Finally, agents may wonder why readers would buy your book rather than a queer-authored book.

If the story and the writing are brilliant they’ll overlook all this. But there’ll be a lot of questions about why you didn’t “write what you know”. And the queer community may also ask why you’re co-opting their struggle to profit from it (in as much as any writer profits from their book, they don’t generally!).

Surely the problem with 'only write what you've lived', though, is that each of us has just the one life, and books tend to have more than one character?

To be fair my book is historic, so I have no experience of what any of the characters go through!

Self publishing is looking more attractive by the minute.....

Thanks everyone, some great advice here.

And yet it sold 3 million copies worldwide and is being made into a movie.

The whiny weenie heads can cry but they have fuck all purchasing power and are a small and annoying minority, like mosquitoes.

The idea that you can only write books you have direct experience of is utterly idiotic.

Lord of the flies? Never happened to Golding
Lord of the rings? Fantasy
Handmaid's tale? Fantasy
Rebecca? DdM was never a young wife to a rich older man

Etc
Etc

Sensitivity readers should get in the bloody bin.

That said, you should definitely ask your gay friend to read it before you send it off OP

Are you planning to out yourself as 'straight' in your cover letter? (use of that word may indeed offend the people you are trying not to offend, depending on which word is in that day)

Even if you say your name is Girly Nonman it doesn't mean you are not a lesbian, or non binary, or a transperson.

If it's any good, it shouldn't matter.

If it reads as if you have zero idea what life in that community is like it won't be any good.
You could always spend the money to run it by a sensitivity reader if you are that concerned.
Gay friends might be more concerned with not hurting your feelings if it's rubbish, so friends are generally not to be relied on for honest feedback.

You can't win with this though.
If you write a book with only straight characters in, you can be accused of being homophobic etc.. by excluding them from your story.

If you write them in you can be accused of not having 'lived experience'.

How this is supposed to work in genres like Zompoc etc... I'll never know, because nobody has 'lived experience' of being a Zombie (or a global apocalypse.)

It's fine. Look up In Memoriam by Alice Winn, one of the most raved about books of the moment, about two gay men, written by a straight woman. Yes you may get the occasional person criticising, but I would say race is far more important when it comes to own voices.

The main thing is that the character is believable, genuine and sensitively portrayed. Sensitivity readers may come into play here, but in most cases they are blown up into something they're not.

Ps the backlash about American Dirt was not purely the lack of lived experience, it was about the quality of the portrayal, and the authenticity of certain aspects. And the horrifically insensitive marketing.

I am a middle class middle aged straight married woman

There's no need to mention any of this. If the book is good, that will speak for itself.

"You can't win with this though.
If you write a book with only straight characters in, you can be accused of being homophobic etc.. by excluding them from your story."

God that is so true!

I'd heard of In Memoriam but didn't realise what it was about, thanks ClaireandTed.

Without outing myself too much, there is so much in the book that I'm writing blind (with the benefit of research obviously) and every character in it has a life that is way beyond anything I have experienced in my own. But I just know that the gay character is the one that will get zeroed in on if someone is looking to find offence which is why I worry it'll never get past an agent.

Queen Camilla told authors: “Please remain true to your calling, unimpeded by those who may wish to curb the freedom of your expression or impose limits on your imagination.”
In videos posted on social media, Queen Camilla then looked up with a smile and said: “Enough said”

Imagine the likes of Stephen King only writing what he knows.

If you follow “social media rules” the only books allowed would be autobiographies - and there would even be someone on Twitter arguing about that.

If you give in to their “logic” works like Game of Thrones shouldn’t exist because G R R Martin based a lot of that on War of the Roses - and he’s an American novelist who wasn’t alive circa 1455–1487

Harry Potter shouldn’t exist because J K Rowling isn’t a teenage boy at wizard school.

No publisher has ever said, 'Only write what you have lived'.

Writing about cultures you have not experienced can certainly be problematic, but the key thing for any publisher will be the quality of the writing. If your writing is good but the subject matter or setting dodgy, the latter can be improved. But if the writing isn't up to scratch, your work will be rejected.

I thoroughly recommend this book for anyone embarking on writing a novel. It tackles most of the issues. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1529052386/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

My book has a flamboyant straight man, a straight woman, a married gay couple, an asexual side character (only alluded to, not explicit), a disabled woman...

If I were to obey their rules, I'd have to make all of them straight women. In which case the gay marriage would take an interesting turn.

Ignore. And good luck!