To start off with, many years ago when I was experimenting with different ideas and genres of novel writing, I began to ask myself the question; Are there enough male characters in my novel?
This of course does not apply to my m/m novels, but those only make up of about half the things I write.
The other half are books driven by female characters with female friends (or female lovers). This is just an automatic habit that I have (most likely stemming from the fact that I am a female).I am not saying that I had critics/friends tell me 'you need more male characters in your novels' it was just something I thought I should have. So I began to put in extra effort into adding male characters. Maybe the main protagonist had a brother? Maybe the best friend was male? Sometimes I grew to love these characters, sometimes they just sort of became a token reason for me to use male pronouns once in awhile.
The other half are books driven by female characters with female friends (or female lovers). This is just an automatic habit that I have (most likely stemming from the fact that I am a female).I am not saying that I had critics/friends tell me 'you need more male characters in your novels' it was just something I thought I should have. So I began to put in extra effort into adding male characters. Maybe the main protagonist had a brother? Maybe the best friend was male? Sometimes I grew to love these characters, sometimes they just sort of became a token reason for me to use male pronouns once in awhile.
It was all honestly a silly exercise. Why should I force in male characters if I don't want them? How many novels have I read that features an all female cast with little to no important male roles? Why can't I write that myself? I appreciate balance, and the representation of all genders, but sometimes I just want to write what I want to read.
When I began writing LGBT romance, this sort of question became even sillier. I am already writing in a niche genre with a limited audience. Why try to play to the general masses when I could just write what I want? Honestly, this was the reason I joined the genre anyway. So I create my ideas with characters that make sense to me. Sometimes it means m/m or f/f or f/f/f or a mixture of it all.
Back to my current project. It is, in essence a f/f fairytale adventure. Two women, falling in love while meeting other women who also fall in love. None of the women are heterosexual, not all of the woman are even cisgendered. I decided that I wanted to write that. I decided that I wanted to explore the differences between being lesbian, bisexual, polyamorous, pansexual, and asexual. I wanted them to go on some crazy queer adventure that has a lot of romance but also a lot of fighting dragons, storming castles, and magic.
For a moment, I just had to take a step back and see that I'm planning a novel with 8 female leads and remember a time when I thought having two female leads was unbalanced.
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