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]

I agree with your general point, but I'll quibble with your example: Maturin and Aubrey love women and do not share a home, or even a cabin on voyages. Sure, you could write fanfic in which they sneak off for some quality time, but you'd have to be a mighty fine writer to make that fit with what O'Brien gave us.

Slash with Holmes and Watson is easier; all you have to do is assume Watson is bi or more closeted.

subtext is like that

[redbird]

I don't think Jack and Stephen are lovers, but there are people who read it that way, or as Stephen being in unrequited love with Jack. The point is that people read text, and subtext, differently. The subtext is available there if someone is looking for it, between the ways they address each other and the fact that they do, in fact, share a cabin much of the time (rather than Stephen sleeping in the standard location for a ship's surgeon).

Re: subtext is like that

[willshetterly.livejournal.com]

While readers are going to read what they will into stories, I don't subscribe to the school that says whatever a reader thinks is legit. Crazy readers impose crazy readings and ignorant readers impose ignorant ones. But I also don't think the author's intention is paramount--though I do think it should not be ignored. I guess I think reading subtext is detective work, and you have to be careful that you're not making up clues.

For me, the gay relationship in the Wizard books was so obvious that I remembered it as explicit, I didn't read a gay subtext in the Aubrey/Maturin books (I would've expected a bit of recognition from one or both of them during the scenes where homosexuality comes up), but Holmes/Watson can seem deliberately self-slashing, especially after Reichenbach Falls, when Doyle seems to have said, "Okay, it's obvious what my readers want, so I'll chuck Watson's marriages and write about the odd couple sharing a flat."