Not another story about straight white men - Part 3

This week we're highlighting the LGBTQ characters in our stories, and reflecting on where we want to go next to improve representation in our stories.

Let's start with our canon couple: Diana and Christie.

It's awesome that Diana was out and proud starting from the pilot episode of White Collar. We heard about her partner Christie and finally met her in later seasons. For the Caffrey Conversation series, I delayed including Diana because I was trying to adhere to canon timelines. I regret that I didn't feature other LGBTQ characters while I waited for her to arrive. 

Warning for spoilers for the Caffrey Conversation series.

Where I'm pleased regarding Diana is that I kept some of the pilot's fantastic lines from and by her, and used those in her introductory scenes. Diana doesn't sidle into the story. She makes an impression. Silbrith took advantage of our pre-series timeline to show us Diana and Christie's first meeting -- how fun to see the sparks fly! Thanks to that scene, Christie has become a recurring character with a larger role in our series than she had on the show. 

As it turns out, I did introduce a gay character early in the series: Henry Winslow. My failing was not realizing he was gay until he finally hit me over the head with his refusal to be matched up romantically with any female characters. Once I knew, I decided to make his coming out a big event in the series. 

On the one hand, I felt like that honored his experience and gave readers a chance to guess before the big reveal. I especially enjoyed the conversation he had with his grandfather in Caffrey Disclosure about whether the family company would grant gay employees equal benefits and support, related to their recruitment of Vernon -- an expert in the field of facial recognition. This was followed by a conversation where Peter tells Neal that he'd be proud of him regardless what his orientation is. I loved Peter's awkwardness and how he didn't let that derail his determination to make his point.

On the other hand, keeping Henry in the closet meant going even longer without an openly gay character. He doesn't make his announcement until Caffrey Aloha. Fortunately he has a loving and supporting family who accept him. I'm also glad that Henry isn't a token gay character who is quickly forgotten. He's close family and best friend to our lead character Neal, and has made his presence known as someone to be reckoned with.  

Silbrith invented Agent Travis Miller for stories that followed Caffrey Disclosure, outlining his experiences of being bullied based on his orientation. She generously let me borrow him in Caffrey Disclosure, where his role continued growing because he's such a fascinating and admirable person. At one point he matches wits with a homophobic villain, and I made sure the villain doesn't have a voice in that scene; although it's mentioned that he uses slurs, readers don't have to hear them.

Once we had Henry and Travis as significant characters in the series, I'm glad we didn't simply match them up with each other. Instead, Travis starts dating Neal's college friend Richard, and Henry falls for an architect with a connection to Peter's brother. Those romances continue throughout the series, and we have plans for both couples.

Caffrey Disclosure also featured Theresa as a lesbian character. I envision Cassie from that story as bisexual, but I don't think I explicitly mentioned that. In Silbrith's Crossed Lines series -- a crossover with Supernatural -- Crowley and Electra are both bisexual, and Jeremy is gay, so we're getting representation among the villains, too.

When we move to Silbrith's Arkham Files, we have shapeshifters from the world Merope. Of those characters, we know Lavinia has taken the form of human women and men, and I asked what that meant for Lavinia and her fellow Meropians. Silbrith's response was, "I consulted with Lavinia. After lecturing me on the narrow-mindedness of most humans, they agreed that genderqueer or non-binary best describes Meropians." I'm interested to see how this plays out in a series set in the 1970s.

So far we haven't introduced any trans characters in the Caffrey Conversation series. My first attempt at a trans character was in Dragon's Egg Blue, a Discworld story. I'm pleased with the result, and that encourages me to do more.

Also outside of Caffrey Conversation, last month I posted "To Be Fond of Dancing," which features Jane Austen's characters Emma Woodhouse and Jane Fairfax as a couple. Meanwhile, Silbrith has plans for a lesbian couple in her Six-Crossed Knot series.

Future plans for the Caffrey Conversation AU include revealing that one of Neal's professors is gay, and also a friend of Sara's. Another gay couple is planned in an upcoming story titled Night Music. We'll also see Richard reconciling with his father -- who was not supportive when Richard first came out. Likewise, we'll see Eric's family adjust as he and Henry become more serious about each other.

The novel that I've been sloooowly working on is set in the future, and one of my underlying assumptions in the story is that bisexual is considered the default orientation rather than heterosexual.

So far we haven't featured an ace character yet -- or perhaps it's safer to say that none of the characters have yet revealed themselves to be ace. In fact, that's how we feel about our cast, in general. There is more diversity in gender and sexual orientation to be revealed as we get to know the characters better.

I like how Silbrith worded it in one of our email chains on this topic: LGBTQ aspects are WIPs in our stories.

We recognize we have more work to do in this area. We've talked about doing a follow up on this series of posts a year from now, with a goal of having more characters to highlight.

The good news is that reflecting on this topic provides us with awareness and inspiration. In fact, I need to stop writing and make note of an idea that just popped into mind, related to the FBI LGBT group that Silbrith mentioned in her story The Queen's Jewels.