One step forward, six steps back (Say Yes to Gay YA)

[pameladean]

sartorias and rachelmanija have an essay up on Genreville (a site well worth the attention of readers of sf and fantasy in general) about sending a collaborative YA fantasy novel to an agent and being told that the agent would represent and expect to sell it if they would just remove a gay viewpoint character, or make the character, at least apparently, heterosexual -- one suggestion was that, should the series the book is part of be a huge hit, the character could be revealed to be gay later on. Ugh.
I am frankly astonished that anybody should have such an experience in 2011, but that just shows my naivete, and my enormous good luck in having an editor who told me that the same-sex relationship in my forthcoming novel was one of the things she liked.
The article is set up so that other authors who have had similar experiences can comment pseudonymously if they like. I am curious but alarmed to see how many more writers have had this happen to them.
Pamela

ETA: The agent not named in the original Genreville post has responded:

http://theswivet.blogspot.com/2011/09/guest-blogger-joanna-stampfel-volpe.html

sartorias and rachelmanija have responded in turn:

http://rachelmanija.livejournal.com/969918.html

And Malinda Lo, who has published YA novels with gay characters, produces some statistics, which demonstrates that really, there is a serious problem here:

http://www.malindalo.com/2011/09/i-have-numbers-stats-on-lgbt-young-adult-books-published-in-the-u-s/

Having known sartorias for the better part of 25 years, and having known rachelmanija for a much shorter but non inconsiderable amount of time, I am inclined to look askance at the agent's version of events.

Comments

[willshetterly.livejournal.com]

You don't think the "So You Want to Be A Wizard" books are YA? If so, they're mid-grade, not adult.

According to the folks on the YA panel I did at Armadillocon, the "fuck" taboo's been thoroughly broken in YA. (When Elsewhere was published, I had to take out a joke with "fuck" in it for the YA hardcover; it went back in for the Tor paperback.) And no one ever complained about the gay guys in Elsewhere having their own room. At least, not that I know.

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

If the odds of selling the book are non-zero but still worse that if it didn't have a gay p.o.v. character, the agent just didn't want to mess with it, instead wanting to take on books with better odds--possibly including this book with the p.o.v. removed. That doesn't seem hard to understand or at all implausible.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I did not say, "Nothing of Diane Duane's is YA HA HA SHETTERLY YOU ARE WRONG WIKTORY FOR THE MRISSA." I asked which ones you're talking about. "So You Want to Be A Wizard" series? Fine, that's YA; that's being published as YA even now. I mean, not with as many books per year as I'd like. (More, mooooore!) But YA, yes, indisputably. Are you talking about the gayness of the adult mentors or something else I'm forgetting about this series?

And no, it's not that I was claiming that you couldn't have the word "fuck" in a YA; that one's pretty simple. It's that people conversing about sex...while having sex...and having the conversation with other people who are not having sex? That is a little more complicated than "the word fuck appears in this conversation," and a little harder on a lot of people's comfort levels.

[pameladean]

I'm sorry, I really can't keep up with you; you are arguing against things nobody has said. Nobody actually called the agent homophobic, either, and nobody actually need be homophobic for this whole thing to have happened: people just have to think that the broad reading public, or the largest possible audience for books of this kind minus a gay character, is homophobic.

I also doubt that people who used to get books with gay characters published are that relevant. Diane Duane hasn't published anything with overtly gay people in it for quite some time, and the Door Into books are not YA. The Young Wizards books have no overtly, unambiguously gay characters.

Again, nobody is saying that nobody will publish YA books with gay characters. The claim is quite specific: some agents are telling writers that their books can be sold if the writers remove gay characters, or their gayness. SOME agents. Your responses seem to be to a much broader and more general statement that nobody has actually made.

I think "whisper campaign" is a serious mischaracterization, also. If you disagree with Rachel and Sherwood's reasons for not naming the agent, fine, but all this innuendo is unhelpful.

P.

[willshetterly.livejournal.com]

Ah. I'd assumed you were familiar with it. My bad. Yes, the mentors are gay, and are of at least Dumbledore-level importance.

Because, really, I was talking about the Duane books that I thought were YA that have important gay characters.

As for having sex and talking about it, one of the more amusing compliments that I got for Nevernever was from someone saying that the best scene they'd encountered in YA fiction about first-time condom use involved a werewolf. The characters definitely talk about sex while having sex, and though they don't talk to anyone else, everyone in the place knows they're fucking.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure the local set of senior wizards are gay. Am I hallucinating? Not protagonists, and full adults, though.

[willshetterly.livejournal.com]

Forgive me for asking, but do you have any experience with publishing? Agents don't have 100% success rates. Those who don't have agendas accept books they think might sell and reject books they're sure they can't. That shouldn't seem hard to understand or at all implausible.

Have you seen the list that Rachel is commenting on?

http://tanuki-green.livejournal.com/329393.html

It would seem to be proof that you can sell gay YA fantasy & SF. What agent wouldn't want someone with the potential for success like Holly Black's?

[daedala.livejournal.com]

I believe it's strongly implied, but not actually stated; nor are they POV characters.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

They are subtextually signposted as gay, but it's never explicitly stated, nor do we ever see them doing anything (like kissing) that would prove that they are more than very close friends and roommates. Many readers do, in fact, assume they are just friends.

[willshetterly.livejournal.com]

Then what is the argument? You say, "some agents are telling writers that their books can be sold if the writers remove gay characters, or their gayness." I would say those agents are homophobic or they know of homophobic editors who won't buy the books, 'cause it sure sounds like they're saying the books can't be sold unless they're de-gayed.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

I have invented the term "collaborative clusterfuck" elsewhere for this type of situation. Pretty much everybody is behaving relatively rationally, perhaps a bit conservatively, but of course people's livelihoods are on the line. Or, possibly, there's a rhinocerous in the corner that nobody is bringing up. (In this exact case, the two authors who started this with their public statement are NOT behaving a bit conservatively, they're pushing fairly hard for their (and my) preferred outcome, at some risk to their careers. But I'll bet quite a few other authors have accepted some pressure against gay YA protags.)

It's hard to know where to start, and pretty much everybody so far seems to have either some rationality, or at least plausible deniability (lots of the questions are hypotheticals on which reasonable people can differ). Unless there really IS a rhinocerous, there's nobody who can solve the problem (no single actor). General raising of consciousness is probably useful, if among the most wearing things to work at.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Thanks. That's entirely compatible with my memory. Possibly, as adults, they're excused from having sex lives (at least in the minds of many of the YA range of readers).

I suspect it's very relevant that they don't engage in much of any flirting or any even subtextually sexual behavior.

[willshetterly.livejournal.com]

Are Francesca Lia Block's gay characters also never explicitly stated as being gay? I would swear there was kissing, but readers add the damndest things to stories.

[pameladean]

I am sure too, but it's quite deniable and oblique. It's not overt; there's no kissing, no physical demonstrations at all, no commentary that couldn't mean friendship only.

P.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

I went and looked this up awhile ago, and there is also a minor and unrelated issue, apparently, of their being based on friends of hers who are /not/ together.

Which nicely dovetails with the perceived need to not have the gayness be particularly obvious.

Fried Green Tomatoes, the movie version, was a perfect example of the latter. (My father was one of the folks who chose to see them as not a lesbian couple.)

[pameladean]

AS I SAID IN MY COMMENT, they need only believe that audiences are homophobic and to think this is a problem.

This is really pretty much beside the actual point, anyway.

P.

[willshetterly.livejournal.com]

Why would they think audiences are homophobic* if people like Francesca Lia Block and Holly Black can sell books?

*Because this is the internet, let me add that, yes, of course some audiences are homophobic. But I rather doubt Block's and Black's audiences are, and I dunno about you, but I would happily have their readership, and I doubt their publishers are unhappy.

[pameladean]

I can't do this anymore. I am not interested in psychoanalyzing a bunch of people I don't know to justify the experience that Rachel and Sherwood related. I find it plausible and believe it. If you don't, I can't help you.

P.

[pameladean]

You can't demonstrate unequivocably that Tom and Carl are gay. I assume this to be intentional. I think they are, but it's perfectly possible to read the books as if they are old close friends.

P.

[pameladean]

Not that many authors would even have to accept the pressure, though I expect some did. They'd just refuse and the agents would represent somebody else who didn't have those pesky gay characters. There are lots and lots and lots of aspiring writers and comparatively few agents and publishers.

I think Sherwood and Rachel are not just trying to raise consciousness, but to get people who would welcome gay characters to specifically say so, which seems like a step beyond, and, if anybody will do it, should improve the situation a great deal.

P.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think that's the basis behind the links on the books going to Amazon. The Tanuki (and hence Rachel) can then track books purchased. (As the financial aspect of the getting people who would welcome gay characters to specifically say so.)

("...it's over there because I'd like to be able to tell how many purchases result, and I can't do that via click-throughs any more because of a sales tax dispute between Amazon and the state of California," she says in one of her posts.)

However, I think if that's what she's doing, then I think it should be stated more explicitly in the post on Tanuki_Green's LJ. For one thing, people might then deliberately purchase stuff that way.

[willshetterly.livejournal.com]

Among the stupider things I do is forget that some people can't read subtext. And others don't read it as well as they think. Dangerous stuff, subtext.

So, yeah, it could be those books shouldn't be on the list of gay fantasy.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

You're correct. I'll put up a note to that effect; I just forgot.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Cool.

(I'd've just emailed you about it, but a) it only just re-occurred to me during that comment, and b) I don't imagine a random email would necessarily do much good.)

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I'm doing a full reread to double-check this very issue right now; most of the way through book 9, I've found no overt reference to Tom and Carl's relationship that doesn't explicitly call it "friends" -- and zero physical contact between them. I was even a bi kid, though granted a very literal one, and it took me until past age 20 to think to myself "heeeey..."