Along the same lines as Adrian's question about writing for the opposite sex, I wondered how everyone felt about writing for the opposite sexuality. As a hetero, do you feel awkward about writing gay story lines? If you are gay do you struggle writing straight romance? I have straight, gay and bisexual characters in my book. I found the gay characters the most difficult to make believable as I kept wandering into stereotypes. In fact, with one very gregarious character I had to develop a whole back story unrelated to his sexuality before I could take him seriously. Anyone else had difficulties adding characters outside the experience of their own sexuality? What do we think are the main pitfalls of writing outside your own experience in any context?
Victoria, I think your very brave.
What an excellent and terrifying question.
I feel awkward about writing about anything I have no knowledge of. To the best of my knowledge, I have met a handful of gay people. I know nothing about gay people or same-sex couples, or same-sex parents with adopted children, so I would not attempt to write about them.
I'm not happy about gay adoption for many reasons, but as a humanitarian I believe each to their own lifestyle choices of sexual preferences and cultural and religious beliefs, so long as it's not rammed down my throat.
lols. This is some odd timing...I've just tweeted about todays writing: a sex scene between two men.
As a bi woman I have no experience with this...it was certainly an interesting experience. Without getting too explicit I merely pondered sex acts I am familiar with, adjusted the logistics and certain, ahem, requirements then layered over with the personality traits of the characters involved.
I do use stereotypes and tropes in my writing (playing with the why and inversions) but sex is one of the few places where they do not creep in. Sex is a stripping away of those elements, leaving the core of characters exposed in the shores of pleasure.
I think my biggest uncertainty was the pattern of sex. The tricks. This is only ch.1 of OBR:2 but when the time comes I will seek to select beta readers that can call me up on these aspects if necessary.