Confession: I Have a Gay Fanfiction Problem
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Ladies and gentlemen, all my dear readers, I feel the need to come clean about something. Something embarrassing.
I have a problem, one that will shock you to your core and change everything you know about me.
I have a gay fanfiction problem.
Yes, that’s right. A gay fanfiction problem.
Credit to freepik.com
What is The Gay Fanfiction Problem?
The Gay Fanfiction Problem isn’t what it sounds like. I swear I don’t read fanfics at all!
Despite its name, it doesn’t actually have to do with gay fanfiction at all. The name apparently just originated from Tumblr, which explains that.
The Gay Fanfiction Problem is actually the name of a common linguistic problem in writing, involving a not-at-all politicized element of grammar: PRONOUNS!
Credit to freepik.com
If you have a scene with two people of different genders (and not even a romance scene. Just two people talking or interacting in some way), after you establish who each of the characters are, you can pretty much let their pronouns carry the rest of the scene.
A hypothetical scene with Blue Eagle and Queen Venus, my superhero and supervillain from my book, The Adventures of BLUE EAGLE, Vol. 1 can read essentially this way:
“Queen Venus! I’ve figured out your evil plan!” declared Blue Eagle.
“It’s too late! Herald City, and everyone in it, will fall victim to my MLM scheme!” cackled Queen Venus.
He stepped closer, readying his eyebeams. “Nonsense! I’ve alerted the people to what an MLM is! No one will be signing up for your Level 3 package! Your scam is over!”
Upon hearing her latest scheme had fallen to pieces at his hands, she summoned a dozen plant vines from the ground. With a ferocious roar, she willed them to attack, but he was too quick. His eyebeams vaporized each of her organic constructs in mere seconds.
She launched herself forward, throwing punch after punch at him. One right cross connected solidly to his jaw, sending him stumbling back. He threw an uppercut, but she sidestepped it. Her hook failed to land as he ducked under it. She caught his next punch, and he caught hers.
What do we see here? Ignore for a moment that I’m transcribing the fight blow for blow. We’re not talking about how I craft a fight scene. There are books to teach you how best to do that, and I’m writing it this way to make a point about gendered pronouns.
No, what we see here is that at no point during the exchange are you confused who’s who. We’ve established in the beginning that the scene involves Blue Eagle and Queen Venus, and despite my constant use of pronouns for most of that exchange, it’s clear at all times when I’m referring to Blue Eagle and when I’m referring to Queen Venus.
But now let’s imagine that the main villain of my story was King Venus. With that in mind, let’s try that again:
“King Venus! I’ve figured out your evil plan!” declared Blue Eagle.
“It’s too late! Herald City, and everyone in it, will fall victim to my MLM scheme!” cackled King Venus.
He stepped closer, readying his eyebeams. “Nonsense! I’ve alerted the people to what an MLM is! No one will be signing up for your Level 3 package! Your scam is over!”
Upon hearing his latest scheme had fallen to pieces at his hands, he summoned a dozen plant vines from the ground. With a ferocious roar, he willed them to attack, but he was too quick. His eyebeams vaporized each of his organic constructs in mere seconds.
He launched himself forward, throwing punch after punch at him. One right cross connected solidly to his jaw, sending him stumbling back. He threw an uppercut, but he sidestepped it. His hook failed to land as he ducked under it. He caught his next punch, and he caught his.
I think you can see the problem.
Of course the people who complained loudest enough about this issue are the gay fanfiction writers. Could you imagine trying to write an erotic scene like this?
It’s impossible to tell what’s going on in that fight scene now. Who launched forward? Who punched who in the jaw? Who slowly, sensually, lowered their hand, eliciting a gasp and then a moan as their fingers caressed….
Oh, uh…. *cough*. Excuse me.
But you now see the so-called Gay Fanfiction Problem, right? The problem with gendered pronouns in scenes where there are two people of the same gender? You can’t tell who is doing what or saying what!
From there, we come to the question of how do we solve the problem. How do we solve the Gay Fanfiction Problem?
Obviously, we don’t solve it with the Straight Fanfiction Solution. But some solutions are better than others, so let’s take a look at them.
Gay Fanfiction Problem, Solution #1: No pronouns
We come first to the preferred solution of the Republican Party….no more pronouns. Oh, how Matt Walsh and Marjorie Taylor Greene would weep in joy.
But I’m not too big on this solution. We have pronouns for a reason. Writing, reading, and speaking in all nouns would get repetitive.
Don’t believe me? Let’s go back to our fight between Blue Eagle and King Venus. Geez, typing “King Venus” is so weird, since I’ve been writing stories with the villain Queen Venus for so long. I have to keep correcting myself.
Anyhoo, sorry, sorry! Got sidetracked there. Example with all nouns, go:
“King Venus! I’ve figured out your evil plan!” declared Blue Eagle.
“It’s too late! Herald City, and everyone in it, will fall victim to my MLM scheme!” cackled King Venus.
Blue Eagle stepped closer, readying Blue Eagle’s eyebeams. “Nonsense! I’ve alerted the people to what an MLM is! No one will be signing up for your Level 3 package! Your scam is over!”
Upon hearing King Venus’s latest scheme had fallen to pieces at Blue Eagle’s hands, King Venus summoned a dozen plant vines from the ground. With a ferocious roar, King Venus willed them to attack, but Blue Eagle was too quick. Blue Eagle’s eyebeams vaporized each of King Venus’ organic constructs in mere seconds.
King Venus launched King Venus forward, throwing punch after punch at Blue Eagle. One right cross connected solidly to Blue Eagle’s jaw, sending Blue Eagle stumbling back. King Venus threw an uppercut, but Blue Eagle sidestepped it. King Venus’ hook failed to land as Blue Eagle ducked under it. King Venus caught Blue Eagle’s next punch, and Blue Eagle caught King Venus’s.
Was that fun to read? No? Well, it wasn’t fun to write, either. And I didn’t even write that! I just copied and pasted what I wrote before and just swapped pronouns for nouns, and it was still miserable to do. The fact that it’s late as I write this and I’m falling asleep might have something to do with that.
Way too repetitive, with the same two names being thrown back and forth over and over again. No, this isn’t going to work.
Next solution, please!
Gay Fanfiction Problem, Solution #2: Epithets, monikers, and descriptors
The next potential solution is to use epithets, monikers, and descriptors instead of pronouns to indicate who your narrative is talking about.
For those who don’t know, an epithet is “a characterizing word or phrase accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a person or thing”. A moniker is “a nickname or pet name for a person”. The difference between the two is fairly muddled, but epithets are generally more formal, and sometimes more rude.
But Batman might be described as “The Dark Knight”, “The Caped Crusader”, or “The World’s Greatest Detective”. Or you might more casually refer to him as “the cowled superhero” or “the cowled figure”.
This seems a lot better than just using nouns and names. More creative, less repetitive. And this does not involve forgoing pronouns altogether. So let’s see how this works using our example above:
“King Venus! I’ve figured out your evil plan!” declared Blue Eagle.
“It’s too late! Herald City, and everyone in it, will fall victim to my MLM scheme!” cackled King Venus.
He stepped closer, readying his eyebeams. “Nonsense! I’ve alerted the people to what an MLM is! No one will be signing up for your Level 3 package! Your scam is over!”
Upon hearing his latest scheme had fallen to pieces at the superhero’s hands, the villain summoned a dozen plant vines from the ground. With a ferocious roar, he willed them to attack, but his blue-clad opponent was too quick. The eagle-themed vigilante’s eyebeams vaporized each of the monarch’s organic constructs in mere seconds.
The green figure launched himself forward, throwing punch after punch at Herald City’s champion. One right cross connected solidly to the hero’s jaw, sending him stumbling back. The master of plants threw an uppercut, but the mighty defender of good sidestepped it. The deadly hook failed to land as his opponent ducked under it. The thorny-crowned villain caught his enemy’s next punch, and the beloved hero caught the villain’s.
We’re getting a little bit better, I guess. We know who’s talking, and we don’t keep seeing the same name pop up over and over again. Blue Eagle. King Venus. King Venus. Blue Eagle. Blue Eagle. Queen Venus, I mean King Venus. King Venus. King Venus. Blue Eagle.
But was it exhausting to read? I imagine so, because it was exhausting to write. I don’t think I could manage another paragraph of that, let alone an entire book! It was clunky, it was still repetitive, and it feels really forced. How many times did some variation of the word “hero” get thrown out there?
It’s funny, because I was gonna say that I sometimes rely on this problem too much in my own writing. And I probably do. I’ll refer to “the teen hero”, “the veteran superhero”, “armored teen”, “the tattooed henchman”, “the anxious superhero”, “the eagle-themed heroes”, and so on and so forth.
But wow was that painful.
That said, I do think it’s a good thing to use sparingly. The trick is to have a number of descriptors that you can fall back on–monikers like “The Scarlet Speedster” or descriptors like “the red-clad hero”, or even personality traits like “the boisterous vigilante”–in conjunction with nouns and pronouns.
So this solution definitely gets a tentative thumbs up as long as it’s used sparingly and creatively. Something I’ll admit I need to work on myself.
Hey, writing’s a journey and you’re all on the road with me.
Gay Fanfiction Problem, Solution #3: Context clues
The next potential solution to this is to use context clues to determine who’s who.
Your characters aren’t static, identical humanoids with no defining characteristics. They are doing different things, are in different positions, have different emotional states, so on and so forth.
To be clear, this isn’t the same as referring to someone as “the bald villain” or something like that, as in descriptors from my last solution.
I’m just saying to trust your audience to understand that if you have skinny guy and muscular guy talking, and you write something like “He playfully punched his massive arm”, your audience knows who playfully punched whose massive arm just from that alone, especially if the muscular guy in that exchange had just previously said something in jest.
In fact, you saw this very thing in my initial example. To show this in action, I’m not going to rework or edit anything, only highlight. Check out the last two paragraphs, with the bold faced paragraph an example of the solution and the italics one the pure problem paragraph:
“King Venus! I’ve figured out your evil plan!” declared Blue Eagle.
“It’s too late! Herald City, and everyone in it, will fall victim to my MLM scheme!” cackled King Venus.
He stepped closer, readying his eyebeams. “Nonsense! I’ve alerted the people to what an MLM is! No one will be signing up for your Level 3 package! Your scam is over!”
Upon hearing his latest scheme had fallen to pieces at his hands, he summoned a dozen plant vines from the ground. With a ferocious roar, he willed them to attack, but he was too quick. His eyebeams vaporized each of his organic constructs in mere seconds.
He launched himself forward, throwing punch after punch at him. One right cross connected solidly to his jaw, sending him stumbling back. He threw an uppercut, but he sidestepped it. His hook failed to land as he ducked under it. He caught his next punch, and he caught his.
Now if you read this far into this hypothetical story, you would know that Blue Eagle is a traditional superhero and King Venus–like my actual Queen Venus villain–has control over plants. You would know their powers at this point. Additionally, from their previous exchange, we know that King Venus’s evil MLM schemes have been foiled, giving him a valid reason to be angry.
In that bold paragraph, you can still tell who is acting and who is being acted upon by their use of powers, or their emotional reaction. King Venus would have been the one who would let out a ferocious roar, as he is angry about his plan’s failure, and he would be the one to summon plant vines and will them to attack. Blue Eagle would be the one to be using his eyebeams, as he would have been established to have those powers already.
It’s a particularly clunky example since I conceived of that whole section on the spot to specifically make a point about pronoun usage, but you see what I’m saying, right? In that bold paragraph, even though I used nothing but he/him pronouns, you can still tell who the narrative is talking about at any given point by using context clues.
Now look at this italics paragraph, the very last one. I continued to use the same gendered pronouns, but included no context clues whatsoever. You can’t tell who I’m talking about when I say he threw a punch or he ducked his head.
So, as you can see, context clues are a great solution to the Gay Fanfiction Problem, and probably the best one we’ve seen yet. If your female main character goes to buy a sandwich from a food truck run by another woman, then a sentence such as “She reached inside her wallet and handed her a $20 bill in exchange for the food” leaves no ambiguity as to who is being referred to.
Context clues, you get an unequivocal thumbs up.
Gay Fanfiction Problem, Solution #4: Avoid narration and dialogue tags
Here’s an interesting solution that doesn’t come from me, but instead from Karen Diem.
Karen is the author of the superhero urban fantasy series, Arca. With nine books in this series under her belt, I think she probably knows a thing or two about writing.
She gave a suggestion that, while limited and not really applicable to the exact passage I’ve been tinkering with, is such an obvious and easy fix that I can’t believe I didn’t think of it first.
And that’s by skipping dialogue tags.
This is a big problem in my writing. Because I picture everything in my mind as a movie or TV show, I feel a need to often have my characters emote visually. Facial expressions, gestures, and the like. This is more so in my main series WIP than in The Adventures of BLUE EAGLE, but it’s there nonetheless.
But in a situation where two characters are having a back-and-forth conversation, this outright eliminates the issue. There are no pronouns because there is no narration; only two characters talking.
Along with fixing the Gay Fanfiction Problem in the most obvious in-the-moment way, it also brings another longer term solution into the forefront: Don’t get into the problem in the first place.
In writing, whenever you have a wordflow or linguistic problem of any kind, it’s ultimately because you put yourself in a situation where that’s the problem. You placed your characters in a situation or moved your narrative in such a way that you have trouble conveying what you need to convey.
Now, at some point, these problems become unavoidable and you need solutions on how to deal with them. In this case, you can’t have a story where characters of the same gender don’t interact in any way other than standing perfectly still and talking.
But an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as they say. And any time you avoid walking into one of these prose-related problems in the first place is a time you don’t even have to employ these creative solutions.
So thank you, Karen, for your secret double meta-solution.
Gay Fanfiction Problem, Solution #5: Write in a language that doesn’t have gendered pronouns
No.
“Learn another language and write in that” is not a serious solution, no.
Final Thoughts
I have a Gay Fanfiction Problem.
I hope you all don’t judge me for it.
But sometimes, in my writing, I find myself writing scenes with multiple characters of the same gender interacting in some way. Not even directly interacting physically. But one person sees another, or hears another, or hands someone something.
He saw him. She heard her. They thought about them again.
How do I convey who these pronouns are supposed to be referring to in these sentences?
That is the Gay Fanfiction Problem.
And there are solutions.
You can just not have pronouns and refer to people constantly by their given names. But that gets repetitive and clunky.
You can use things like nicknames and signifiers. Epithets, monikers, and descriptors. You don’t want to rely on that exclusively, but it can be used in conjunction with nouns and pronouns to help break up what you’re using.
You can add context clues by making it obvious to the reader who the subject of a sentence is and who is the object.
You can avoid dialogue tags–and therefore pronoun usage–altogether in scenes where it’s just two characters talking. Limited, but eases the issue.
Which leads into a more meta-solution: Don’t write yourself into situations where your prose is going to have this problem in the first place. The best way to solve a problem is not to have it.
But here we are. Looking into my humiliating, embarrassing Gay Fanfiction Problem and thinking of solutions.
Don’t judge me, okay? I wouldn’t kink-shame you, so don’t linq (short for “linquistics”) shame me.
For exciting superhero fiction written by me, be sure to check out the BLUE EAGLE Universe!