Help me write a less-masculine gay male character without cliches.
June 29, 2019 10:13 AM Subscribe
I’m working on a story with a cis gay male main character, but I’m having trouble choosing the right words to describe him.
It’s relevant to the plot that he’s not “masculine enough” to get the approval of his partner’s family. I want to display that without outright saying “queeny” or “campy” or “effeminate” or any of the ways I was shamed about it when I was younger, and I was surprised to find that I don’t know how to describe that energy in a neutral or positive way. A comparable real person would be Tan France.
I’ve tried googling for help writing gay characters but what I find is help for straight writers, which is way more basic than what I need. If you have any examples of this type of character written well I’d like to hear about it OR just your own suggestions of good phrasing or things to avoid.
It’s relevant to the plot that he’s not “masculine enough” to get the approval of his partner’s family. I want to display that without outright saying “queeny” or “campy” or “effeminate” or any of the ways I was shamed about it when I was younger, and I was surprised to find that I don’t know how to describe that energy in a neutral or positive way. A comparable real person would be Tan France.
I’ve tried googling for help writing gay characters but what I find is help for straight writers, which is way more basic than what I need. If you have any examples of this type of character written well I’d like to hear about it OR just your own suggestions of good phrasing or things to avoid.
Best answer: This is a case where you might want to show and not tell. Instead of trying to describe this character with words -- words you're having trouble finding -- show his character through action. Let the readers draw their own conclusions.
posted by jdroth at 10:42 AM on June 29, 2019 [11 favorites]
posted by jdroth at 10:42 AM on June 29, 2019 [11 favorites]
You can put the words into the mouths of characters rather than describe him in the narrative text. A scene where the partner's family flails around trying to explain what is wrong with him and struggles to describe it would do this. If they are awkward about it and can't put a finger on what it is, so much the better.
Aim towards immature rather than feminine in your description.
Use not modifiers. He's not assertive enough, he's not tall enough, he's not good enough, he's not strong enough - (couldn't even move that dresser) - he's not gotten a promotion yet, he's doesn't hold his own in a discussion, etc.
make a list of stereotypical masculine traits: Broad shoulders, big moustache, square jaw, bass voice, good driver, quick to anger, good with his fists, strong silent type etc. and then describe him in terms that are not those: mobile shoulders, didn't need to shave again this week, narrow jaw, tenor voice, careful driver, easy-going, clumsy and tends to flinch, speaks up readily... etc.
posted by Jane the Brown at 10:49 AM on June 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Aim towards immature rather than feminine in your description.
Use not modifiers. He's not assertive enough, he's not tall enough, he's not good enough, he's not strong enough - (couldn't even move that dresser) - he's not gotten a promotion yet, he's doesn't hold his own in a discussion, etc.
make a list of stereotypical masculine traits: Broad shoulders, big moustache, square jaw, bass voice, good driver, quick to anger, good with his fists, strong silent type etc. and then describe him in terms that are not those: mobile shoulders, didn't need to shave again this week, narrow jaw, tenor voice, careful driver, easy-going, clumsy and tends to flinch, speaks up readily... etc.
posted by Jane the Brown at 10:49 AM on June 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Is quiet and gentle the energy you're looking for, or is it more like theatrical and demonstrative?
Colorful clothes or car or backpack or whatever other things he gets to choose - if we see his house/apartment, his decor might include colorful things or things like eg optional textiles [curtains, throw cushions], where it's located might be a street with bright colors, etc. Fun music playing, or classical music, or really any music except whatever the family thinks is "masculine" eg country or metal. Demonstrative body language like crying at something sad, or laughing too loud or too easily or with sparkling eyes at a [non-assholish] joke, or any noticeable facial expression changes in response to things people say; unashamedly enthusiastic actions being impressed or surprised or eager/rushing to see something, or gushing/talking excitedly about something, or god forbid singing? Think of "stoic" and whatever a stoic person is forbidden to do.
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:00 AM on June 29, 2019 [13 favorites]
Colorful clothes or car or backpack or whatever other things he gets to choose - if we see his house/apartment, his decor might include colorful things or things like eg optional textiles [curtains, throw cushions], where it's located might be a street with bright colors, etc. Fun music playing, or classical music, or really any music except whatever the family thinks is "masculine" eg country or metal. Demonstrative body language like crying at something sad, or laughing too loud or too easily or with sparkling eyes at a [non-assholish] joke, or any noticeable facial expression changes in response to things people say; unashamedly enthusiastic actions being impressed or surprised or eager/rushing to see something, or gushing/talking excitedly about something, or god forbid singing? Think of "stoic" and whatever a stoic person is forbidden to do.
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:00 AM on June 29, 2019 [13 favorites]
Response by poster: LobsterMitten is on the right track of the kind of thing I’m looking for. ‘Theatrical’ is on the money, and I’m explicitly writing this character as a positive reflection of a type of neither-here-nor-there male-identifying person who just is perky and excitable and flamboyant and isn’t conflicted about it.
I actually already know what the character’s home looks like and I can picture the future brother in law walking in and saying something stupid like “I expected more leopard print”. So LobsterMitten, that helps! Showing the way people EXPECT him to be might illuminate too, even if it’s wrong.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 11:26 AM on June 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
I actually already know what the character’s home looks like and I can picture the future brother in law walking in and saying something stupid like “I expected more leopard print”. So LobsterMitten, that helps! Showing the way people EXPECT him to be might illuminate too, even if it’s wrong.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 11:26 AM on June 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
Response by poster: (I’m trying to write a beach-read-type rom-com story with heart, if that helps with the kind of suggestions I need)
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 11:29 AM on June 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 11:29 AM on June 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
Best answer: I think "animated" (as opposed to "stoic") is another word that comes to mind when I think of Tan France. Perhaps "expressive" as well.
I personally would not try to characterize him in this way by giving him a "less masculine" body, except for things that are his choice like grooming or exercise. I guess it comes across as ... heteronormative? To assume that these "less masculine" character traits would co-occur with "less masculine" physical traits like a narrow jaw and higher-pitched voice.
It's hard to describe exactly what I mean. Obviously there are gay men that this accurately describes, and you might decide he has some of these traits anyway, and I do not think that is a problem by itself. But emphasizing it to signal that he's not a "masculine" gay man invokes a lot of stereotypical representations of less masculine gay men, for me.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 12:01 PM on June 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
I personally would not try to characterize him in this way by giving him a "less masculine" body, except for things that are his choice like grooming or exercise. I guess it comes across as ... heteronormative? To assume that these "less masculine" character traits would co-occur with "less masculine" physical traits like a narrow jaw and higher-pitched voice.
It's hard to describe exactly what I mean. Obviously there are gay men that this accurately describes, and you might decide he has some of these traits anyway, and I do not think that is a problem by itself. But emphasizing it to signal that he's not a "masculine" gay man invokes a lot of stereotypical representations of less masculine gay men, for me.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 12:01 PM on June 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
Best answer: Very simple detail: but what about being a good listener, who is genuinely interested in the experiences of others? Could your character converse well on topics that include relationships, community-engagement, etc. Who is willing to consider or is interested the experiences of other minorities/groups that are not his own group, without trying to center his experiences. This could be considered 'not-masculine' but could also be the start of a thawing with at-least one member of the in-laws.
Good luck! I love a rom-com with heart.
posted by Sauter Vaguely at 12:02 PM on June 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Good luck! I love a rom-com with heart.
posted by Sauter Vaguely at 12:02 PM on June 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Best answer: being a good listener
This is another thing that immediately came to mind for me. I wonder if this would be true of almost all the cues someone can do to indicate "I'm listening, go on": a lively face that's responsive to things the speaker says, (sympathetic face, questioning face, indignant-on-your-behalf face, surprised face, delighted face, etc), small interjections showing emotional response that tracks what the speaker says ("oh wow" etc)... Anything that mirrors emotions back to the speaker?
The more I think about it, the more clear it becomes how very, very narrow the range of acceptable masculine behaviors is (in the mainstream media in the present-day US), and how much of normal human behavior is outside that range.
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:17 PM on June 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
This is another thing that immediately came to mind for me. I wonder if this would be true of almost all the cues someone can do to indicate "I'm listening, go on": a lively face that's responsive to things the speaker says, (sympathetic face, questioning face, indignant-on-your-behalf face, surprised face, delighted face, etc), small interjections showing emotional response that tracks what the speaker says ("oh wow" etc)... Anything that mirrors emotions back to the speaker?
The more I think about it, the more clear it becomes how very, very narrow the range of acceptable masculine behaviors is (in the mainstream media in the present-day US), and how much of normal human behavior is outside that range.
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:17 PM on June 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
Best answer: Oh also, as a way to show-not-tell: how he interacts with animals.
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:18 PM on June 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:18 PM on June 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Put him in a family group situation where some men are having a lively discussion with stereotypically male conversation patterns e.g. interrupting, jokey put-downs, one-upping each other, ignoring the women who are present. Make your guy uncomfortable in this situation. Then get him one on one with various family members (including the women!) and show that he's able to bring them out of their shell, empathise, maybe those people uncharacteristically get a bit vulnerable, then next time the guys are together as a group they are weirdly obnoxious to him and start criticising his lack of knowledge of local sport.
posted by quacks like a duck at 12:29 PM on June 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by quacks like a duck at 12:29 PM on June 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Something I've found worth considering in my attempts to characterize my, um, characters, is the narrative point of view the story I'm writing the story in, particularly with respect to the generally wise but not end-all-be-all advice of show-don't-tell. Depending on your narrative point of view, how much you want to show and how much you want to tell and exactly what words you use to do both might change significantly.
So what is your point of view? Is it first person? If so, whose POV is it? Is it the character you're trying to describe? If so, the important word to choose are the ones he would choose for himself, whether or not those are necessarily stereotypical, negative, or positive. You say he's not conflicted about who he is; I guess the problem here is figuring out how an unconflicted not-typically masculine cis-gay man might think about himself, which I'm certainly not the person to figure that out. In this situation, you can also characterize him by the way he thinks about the exterior world, though, rather than how he thinks about himself. If it's from the point of view of the partner, then figuring out how he might think about his partner--how he might tell others, how he might put into words his perceptions of his partner--is what's important.
Probably though, that'd be easier for you if you were writing in first person, so is it third person limited? If so, how limited? Do you show any character interiority at all? If not, that's when you want to get totally Palahniukey with things, which is to say, that's how that lunatic advises you write. He's probably right, if you can pull it off, if you want your style to be that, but I'd find trying to write like that impossible and exhausting.
Is it third person omniscient? If so, that's (in my experience) easy to make a mess of. It allows you to tell what's going on in any given character's mind, but it's really hard to show a character's interior in this POV, in my experience. It's maybe best to be judicious in doing so, and otherwise approach it a lot like third person limited, and to be explicit in talking about a character's interior thoughts and feelings (which is to say, using "thought" and "felt" and such like Chuck says not to do in that link).
I like to use a third person limited POV that sticks with a single character point of view and is implicit in what the character is experiencing. That is to say "They walked in silence for a moment again, and Megan distracted herself with how many freshmen were just outright staring at them as the approached campus," (to pull from what I'm working on right now) rather than "They walked in silence for a moment, and Megan thought, Everyone is staring at us! They're not even being subtle about it anymore. What could this all be about?" (For obvious reasons, given what I was able to come up with right here when called on to come up with actual internal monologue.) Writing like this allows me to not be quite so strict with myself on the show vs tell thing by using telling to characterize the implicit POV character. Or maybe I'm just fooling myself, I don't know. This got kind of rambly, but I hope I was clear in what I meant and that thinking about this is helpful.
posted by Caduceus at 4:18 PM on June 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
So what is your point of view? Is it first person? If so, whose POV is it? Is it the character you're trying to describe? If so, the important word to choose are the ones he would choose for himself, whether or not those are necessarily stereotypical, negative, or positive. You say he's not conflicted about who he is; I guess the problem here is figuring out how an unconflicted not-typically masculine cis-gay man might think about himself, which I'm certainly not the person to figure that out. In this situation, you can also characterize him by the way he thinks about the exterior world, though, rather than how he thinks about himself. If it's from the point of view of the partner, then figuring out how he might think about his partner--how he might tell others, how he might put into words his perceptions of his partner--is what's important.
Probably though, that'd be easier for you if you were writing in first person, so is it third person limited? If so, how limited? Do you show any character interiority at all? If not, that's when you want to get totally Palahniukey with things, which is to say, that's how that lunatic advises you write. He's probably right, if you can pull it off, if you want your style to be that, but I'd find trying to write like that impossible and exhausting.
Is it third person omniscient? If so, that's (in my experience) easy to make a mess of. It allows you to tell what's going on in any given character's mind, but it's really hard to show a character's interior in this POV, in my experience. It's maybe best to be judicious in doing so, and otherwise approach it a lot like third person limited, and to be explicit in talking about a character's interior thoughts and feelings (which is to say, using "thought" and "felt" and such like Chuck says not to do in that link).
I like to use a third person limited POV that sticks with a single character point of view and is implicit in what the character is experiencing. That is to say "They walked in silence for a moment again, and Megan distracted herself with how many freshmen were just outright staring at them as the approached campus," (to pull from what I'm working on right now) rather than "They walked in silence for a moment, and Megan thought, Everyone is staring at us! They're not even being subtle about it anymore. What could this all be about?" (For obvious reasons, given what I was able to come up with right here when called on to come up with actual internal monologue.) Writing like this allows me to not be quite so strict with myself on the show vs tell thing by using telling to characterize the implicit POV character. Or maybe I'm just fooling myself, I don't know. This got kind of rambly, but I hope I was clear in what I meant and that thinking about this is helpful.
posted by Caduceus at 4:18 PM on June 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Maybe you can make the point of "not masculine enough" by the character not being interested in the traditional "manly" things, like football or cars or beer, or whatever. (Yes, I know this is stereotypical bullshit but the partner's family is operating on the stereotype level.)
posted by SemiSalt at 12:14 PM on June 30, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by SemiSalt at 12:14 PM on June 30, 2019 [1 favorite]
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posted by Sassyfras at 10:39 AM on June 29, 2019 [1 favorite]