Why I Refuse to Write "Mainstream" Books
When comparing gay-friendly media, or media that features positive LGBT representation at all, the pool is pretty small. It is a field that is growing, but a field that is still extremely limited, nonetheless. When considering the subgenre of that genre that features in-depth, personal accounts of LGBT storylines, the pool shrinks to infinitesimal rates. This is where I’d like to come in.
Hi. My name is Kara Ireland, and I write lesbian romance novels.
My dream is to become the face of lesbian fiction, one day. I know, I know — Why such a specific market? Don’t you want to cater to the bigger crowds? How come you’re alienating yourself by writing niche? Settle down and gather ‘round.
Predominantly, my reasoning is that the world is changing and evolving. I want to be at the forefront of that evolution. It was never my intention to exclusively write LGBT-specific content, but - well - I am gay. It seems foreign to me to attempt writing about heterosexual relationships when that is not the current reality in which I live. It is extremely unnatural for me to write from the male perspective in such intimate details; possible, but uncomfortable. After all, I haven’t dated a boy since the eighth grade. Men are as foreign to me as doing the pacer test and the science fair. I’d like to leave both of them in the past, thank you very much.
Alternatively, there is still much to be done to remove the stigma from the LGBT community. My version of normalization is writing that opposes the tropes. The lesbians in my stories are not predatory women that skulk around, leering at women they find attractive. They are not only butch, with short hair, donned in plaid and combat boots. They are not hyper-sexual beings that objectify and sexualize every encounter they have with women. For me, normalization looks like dismantling the tropes and reinterpreting them as I have experienced them. Generalizations don’t work in anyone’s favor.
There is power in saying that a character is gay, and proceeding to display the intrinsics of that associated relationship. It is empowering to see representation without some underlying, political stance driving its inclusion. It is redeeming to see yourself in media.
Ever since I’ve come out, it’s always been lost on me - Where are all of my lesbian main characters, with an emphasis on her relationship, rather than just mentioning that component of her identity in passing? We need more than knowing that a character is gay. That flawed attempt at showcasing and normalizing the LGBT community is ineffective, because it doesn’t teach tolerance. Display the intimate and affectionate moments with her wife. Show them kissing. Portray those excessive sex scenes with the same fervor that networks portray straight couples. Exposure works best. Alternatively, where are all of the gay main characters whose emphasis is not on the fact that he is gay? Where are the innocent love stories that are not saturated in over-sexualized depictions for the fetishists? Normalization doesn’t look like merely including a gay character; normalization is the seamless integration of these people into everyday storylines and experiences. We want to get to have the cake and eat it, too.
I have done that, and more, for over three million people with my books. While most of my emphatic support comes from people who have some affiliation with the LGBT community, I do not have a lot of immediate support as an author because of the subject matter I write about. Let me be clear: My family does, in fact, love and support me and my endeavors. They celebrate my successes and mourn my losses. My brother has designed two of my covers, my mom always shares my links on Facebook, and my dad loves to tell people about my success after encouraging me to publish initially.
My family is great - But they’ve never read my books.
The type of support that I speak about is the genuine, cover to cover, indulgence on my work as others have done. I don’t want their praise, I want their support to have some merit. I want to be able to reference my book, and have them know what I’m talking about. I don’t want blind support; I want it genuinely. They want me to gain exposure from shows like Steve Harvey and Ellen, but they won’t support me at home on the simplest level - picking up the book and seeing what they’re blindly endorsing. They haven’t read my books, and they won’t, likely because I write LGBT content.
I surmise that this is the reason because about three years ago, my brother tried his hand at blogging. He was writing for leisure, not because he was passionate about it. My parents read his blog. This was the same year that I published my first book, Journals. When he asked them to read his articles, they found time to do it. They didn’t meet him with excuses (insert: the font is too small, I don’t have time, reading makes me sleepy). That has bothered me for longer than I would like to admit. How was it that they could find it within themselves to support his hobby, and not my passion? Granted, reading books does admittedly take more time than reading a blog post, but the sentiment remains the same: if it is important to someone, you try. I would’ve settled for a first chapter, but they never budged on it. I’ve let it go, for the most part. You can’t write for everyone.
What has roused this latent grievance again is a comment from my dad: Why can’t you just write more mainstream books?
And I get it - Writing in a more widely accepted genre would grant me a bigger audience, more willing publishers, a slew of literary agents, etc. But that is not what I want right now.
I write what is natural and comfortable for me. I am a lesbian, out and proud, and once I realized that, my entire history suddenly made sense to me. I fall in love with women. I fantasize about women. I have sex with women. I am a bonafide lesbian and I will never apologize for that. My books feature lesbian relationships because it is written by a lesbian. This is the life I know; these are the struggles I have faced. This is my reality. Documenting that in fiction is what I am best at.
When all of the trivial technicalities are stripped away: I write romance novels. I write love stories for the hopeless romantics; the ones who swoon at how poetic it is to document a growing flame. I write love stories for people who enjoy romance; those who squeal at the first kiss and anticipate the first bout of I love you’s with shaking fists. I write love stories for people who like to fall in love with love all over again, every time, with every new character they meet. Every single one of my books features lesbian content. The main characters are always women who love women. Spoiler alert, every couple engages in a romantic relationship eventually. I fictionalize what I have experienced; everything I have experienced (that is worth noting) has been with women. This is how we normalize what has been stigmatized. This is my contribution.
My dad is constantly telling me that I have a ‘gift’ and how I could be ‘so much better’ if I just wrote something ‘more mainstream.’ He does this while refusing to admit that “mainstream” equals “straight.”
I have been told to “write something that everyone wants to read,” but I am not going to compromise the platform I’ve built for myself to comfort straight people. I won’t. I am not going to compromise my own desires to sate others, either. I don’t typically politicize what I am doing, but at the core of it: straight people have more than enough content. There is an abundance of authors tackling romance from the heterosexual perspective. I’m sure Carolyn Brown, and Nicholas Sparks, and all of the other straight romance authors are great, but come on. I can list the well-known advocates of LGBT literature on one hand. David Levithan, Adam Silvera, Alex Sanchez, Julie Anne Peters, and Nancy Garden are all that came to mind, off the top of my head. Maybe two, if I alter my definitions of ‘well-known.’
And of those, how many books do we have to sift through to get to the wholesome content that doesn’t include shame, rejection, and the traumas of being in the closet? How many of those books feature characters that are out and proud, happy to be themselves, and confident enough to seek love, unrestrained? How many are simple love stories, without politicizing what it means to be gay, enforcing that nothing is wrong with homosexuality, and challenging religious and social norms?
Not many.
With my books, I want to portray love in its simplest forms. I don’t want to make it heavy with activism. I don’t want to make the reader theorize about religion and the morality of depicting gay characters. I don’t want to make it about anything other than two people finding love. We deserve our lighthearted stories just as much as our straight counterparts. That is what I want to do. I want to be the vessel for people to indulge in, because reading K. Elise Books is easy. I want people to reward themselves with my books after a hard day of fighting to be themselves, where they don’t have to suit-up in their armor to continue in fiction. I want my books to be a solace for anyone in the community. I want my books to reach out and embrace their readers with open, loving arms that promote acceptance and normalcy.
Frankly, I think it is a stroke of insensitivity to suggest otherwise to someone who has deviated from that overwhelming narrative. I write for myself and others like me. It is not an endeavor to be inclusive or diverse; this is my authenticity at work. I am gay. I am Black. I am a woman. Creating characters that look like and represent me is merely capitalizing on my reality, not exploiting a platform in the name of progressivism. It’s no gimmick, and abandoning that for profit and more widespread fame does not appeal to me. These are things about me that will not change. I want more of me out there, because there are a lot of us. We deserve content, too.
What I want for myself has nothing to do with making money. If I can profit from what I do in the midst of it, wonderful. I want to give people like me a voice. I have grown content with myself and what I am accomplishing. What I do is not contingent on the approval of others.
My admission towards those who are on the fence about reading my books is this:
Anyone can read and enjoy my books because love is universal. People who are not in the LGBT community can enjoy my books because I am a good writer. As I write for myself and those like me, I inadvertently write for the masses because I capture feelings that everyone goes through. Anyone can relate to the anxiety behind getting up the courage to pursue their crush. Anyone can relate to the exhilaration of a first kiss. Anyone can relate to the heartache of a breakup. Anyone can relate to the innocence of exploring a first love. These feelings and experiences are universal. Getting hung up on the representation of alternative sexualities is what makes one blind to the humanity behind it all.
