Aw. I have a lot of emotions about them, too.
So, Iâm going to tell an anecdote, but before I tell it, Iâd like to be clear: I think the biggest problem in LGBT* representation is that there isnât enough representation of any kind. I am always glad to see representation of any kind: it makes me very happy, and it makes me think the creators of media with said representation are people who share my values.
That said⊠when it comes to representation, there are many other problems and one is: the fact of the matter is, we are all unfortunately brainwashed by society to believe dudes are more interesting and important than ladies.
Which leads to stuff like this conversation I had once:
READER: Are you going to write about gay guys?
SARAH: Sure, I want to write a lot of LGBT characters.
READER: No. Are you going to write about a MAN falling desperately in love with ANOTHER MAN?
The answer, as you all know by now, was âyes, yes I amâ but I admit at that moment I sure didnât want to. I felt terrified for my girls, and for girls generally, who get ignored and get the fuzzy end of the lollipop far too much.
One of the many reasons I quit writing online (yep, that is a weirdly coy reference to fanfic, but also disclaimer because: my experience is not universal, fanfic can be an awesome thing, my experience is just my experience) was that I am mainlyâthough obviously not exclusivelyâdrawn to writing about women, and I felt more and more subconsciously like I couldnât do that. I felt hemmed in and frustrated to encounter hostility when a girl was too important, and horrified to see my own writing become more about boysâbecause itâs hard not to believe what people tell you, itâs hard not to buy into the worldâs definition of whoâs important.
But Iâve written 27 books that will never be published (because they are awful) and 24 of them were about girls. Iâve written 7 traditionally published books, and 6 were about girls. I am into ladiesâ stories, and I want to write about them, and I wanted to write about Holly and Angela, but also feared for them hugely.Â
I mean, if people think that the point of a girl in a story is to make a boy happyâand they may not like her thenâhow could I, I thought, get people to care about girls who werenât going to do that? Who werenât there for that?
And maybe it was unfair of me to be thrown into misery because of that particular question I got, because people are into what theyâre into, and can feel free to ask authors for what theyâre into! (Though I would note all-boys-club no-girls-wanted forever is not, to me, representation, and should not be argued as an issue of representation.) It certainly was lovely of the reader to ask me, because knowing people want more of my writing on whatever subject is exhilarating and flattering to hear. But it was also sad and scary.Â
Boys are taken note of more. The Demonâs Lexicon series, Iâve noticed, was on far more LGBT* lists than the Lynburn Legacy seriesâwhich, Iâm not saying I deserve to be on any lists, Iâm just using myself as an example, and Iâm not saying I donât love Jamie and Seb of TDL because I doâeven though the LGBT* characters and their relationship had more pagetime and narrative centrality in TLL. Iâm saying, I also saw Rachel Hawkinsâs Hex Hall on fewer lists than similar-sellinâ books with gay male supporting characters. Iâm saying the dismissal of girls is an endemic problem.
Boysâ stories are considered better and deeper, as we can see by, for instance, how many Printz winners and Printz honours have male or at least dual PoV rather than solely female PoV (hint: the vast majority). This sadly does not go away when the boys are LGBT*âtheir LGBT* stories are considered more important.
So I spent a lot of time worried about a lot of things: will this aid in torpedoing the series, will nobody care at all times infinity, would it have been smarter to put off the reveal of Angelaâs identity to book two, will people ignore them both as if they are dual Invisible Women, will they dismiss them because (insert various reasons)? And sometimes people did.
But there were other people, too: the people I met at conventions who told me how surprised and delighted they were, the girl I saw at a friendâs signing who unexpectedly recognised me and thanked me, the people who cried and who I instantly hugged (and I hope that was okay because it is not okay to impulsively seize people into oneâs arms and press to bosom unless they are cool with it and usually I try to check!), the people who told me at my own signings that they shipped it.Â
There were, of course, many other worries besides girls getting ignored: I am a flawed person and my writing is flawed, and I hoped not to be hurtful but knew I could be. Moreover, Holly and Angela, as pictured above, have the Big Pre-Battle We-Might-Not-All-Survive-This-Climactic-Scene First Kiss, and I knew people had to be invested in both of them and their relationship for the structure of the entire book to work. Â Â Â
The end result is, despite all my worries, I am so, so glad I wrote Holly and Angela. I am so, so glad to see art like this, not only because itâs beautiful (and it is RADIANTLY beautiful) but because itâs celebratory.
They really mattered to me. And it really matters to me that they matter to you.Â
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