#i've talked about this probably a million times already but it keeps rearing it's ugly head

[metazensae]

Is FoB a gay story?

boop beep boop

heyo don’t mind me, this is just a vent bc i’ve been holding these thoughts for a while and i don’t know where to put them! so here we go!

I had a dear friend of mine read my latest FoB manuscript (ch 1-4). She knows generally where the story is going - like a bunch of the major plot things to come and basics on most of the characters. When I ask a beta to read my stuff, I always ask for feedback on pacing - this is a script for a webcomic, after all, and I just wanna know if stuff still seems interesting or if there’s something off with the pacing or sequencing since... I REALLY wanna minimize redraws as much as possible.

So long story short, the feedback I got was overwhelmingly positive, which made me feel GREAT. But then she closed her review with, “You can’t even tell this is a gay story!”

A gay story?

A gay story.

I was kinda taken aback by the comment. I’m really not shitting on my friend here. I’m more thinking about how this story is perceived by people other than me, the writer. Do people think this is *just* a gay story?

For full disclosure, FoB’s genre is dark fantasy/action, and while it has a pretty representative cast of LGBTIA, I hesitate to reduce it’s plot to a single element that would classify it as gay. The plot is not about the struggles of LGBTIA. Some characters just ARE, and plot happens irrespective of it.

Of course, she just meant her preexisting knowledge that some men will eventually fall in love, and from what she felt when reading it, she didn’t feel a strong indication that it would go in that direction - which might surprise potential readers not in the know. She meant more that people would be swept into the storytelling and, before they knew it, find themselves in the center of a gay romance, whether they want to read LGBTIA literature or not.

The thing is that I don’t want to DUPE anyone. I want it to be pretty clear what people are getting into from the get go. 

Which is:

Dark fantasy / Action (clear from ch. 1)

Lots of blood and violence (clear from ch. 1)

Lots of cursing (clear from ch. 1)

Sex (clear from ch. 3)

LOVE IN ITS VARIOUS FORMS (this is hard to say)

Yes, a very central relationship in this story involves two men, but if it comes out the way I intended, it won’t be everything this story has to offer.

I clearly spend way too much time thinking about this, but I’m pretty sure this is is one of the factors in why I shelved the manuscript for the last month. I’m trying tho. I’ve got so much work ahead of me.

TL;DR -

You can call FoB a gay story if you want, but if that’s what you came for, you’ll be waiting a long ass time before I deliver on that promise. And meanwhile, you’ll be missing a lot of other just as equally great plot stuff I’ve got planned.