Chekhov’s Queer—The Importance of Writing Casually Queer Characters
“One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.”
—Anton Chekhov, Russian playwright and master storyteller
If you’re a writing craft junkie like I am, you’re probably already familiar with “Chekhov’s gun,” the narrative principle that any information or details added to a story must be intrinsic to the plot. This principle is so engrained in modern fiction that readers know to trust in what they’re told and develop expectations based on the details, facts, clues, and general information the author chooses to include. If there’s a gun sitting on the table, eventually there’s got to be a reason for it, a use for it, right?
(10 Things Writers Should Consider When Writing About Gender Identity.)
Generally, it’s great advice, especially for writers just starting out who may be prone to excessive world-building (raises hand) or raising intrigue just for fun (smiles nervously). So, over the course of my writing career I’ve made my peace with the fact that Chekhov’s gun must go off, but what about Chekhov’s queer?
The main character who’s bisexual and ends up in a straight-passing relationship?
The kid protagonist who’s questioning their identity and gender while going on a magical quest that has nothing to do with their identity or gender?
The side character who’s an asexual person of color in a wheelchair that helps the main character start a bagel shop?
Do the identities of these characters need to affect the plot to be relevant?
No.
Once louder for those in the back, NO!
In fact, it’s critically important for those characters’ identities to be represented on the page casually with zero plot repercussions at all. Why?
Because it challenges the default.
Despite it being 2024, in fiction today, a character is (still) by and large presumed straight, cisgendered, able-bodied, and white unless the reader is told otherwise due to our history of suppression and marginalization of any other identity. The fact that the straight, cis, able-bodied, white person is the default expectation, particularly in the minds of straight, cis, able-bodied, white readers, perpetuates that suppression and marginalization. Many writers are trying to change the default by writing explicitly different characters with disabilities or identities that range across gender, sexuality, and race while also explicitly noting when characters are straight, cis, able-bodied, and white. This is how you challenge the default.
If we don’t, if we let the default baseline identity represent only the majority by forcing any deviation from it to be plot-relevant, then what we’re really saying as a society is that only some people deserve to be in certain stories. That only white girls get to go on wild adventures, straight detectives get to stop a crime-fighting ring, or cisgendered, able-bodied boys get to be trapped inside a video game. It’s saying if that Black trans detective’s pansexual identity doesn’t explicitly help him solve the mystery, then he should be a straight, cis, white man because that is the default readers are comfortable with.
Check out Laura Piper Lee’s Hannah Tate, Beyond Repair here:
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And that is deeply problematic. Because when we gatekeep which characters get to be themselves in whatever story they’re facing, we’re reinforcing the idea that Black characters only get to be in stories of Black oppression, characters with disabilities get to be in stories that center that disability, that every queer YA character must be in a coming-out story, and that trans folks only belong in stories about their transitions. As if a person that deviates from the default is only allowed to tell their story of how or why or what happens when they deviated from the default. It forces these characters of different identities to still be understood only in relation to how they aren’t the majority. That is messed up, and we as writers must course-correct.
As a pansexual, cis, white woman in a straight-passing monogamous relationship, I experience the dismissal of my identity’s relevance often. A close friend who is a lesbian once joked that bisexuals were like milk—we both have expiration dates. I sat with that for a while, turning it over in my head, probing why that dumb joke hurt the way it did. Finally, I realized why—by dismissing my identity’s relevance because I’m married to a man, this friend, this queer woman, was telling me that my identity only mattered in terms of my sexual utility and availability, an idea that is fundamentally rooted in misogyny and the suppression of women. Having a male partner now does not erase my history, my preferences, or the way I see the world. Who I am does not revolve around my sexual utility, and the same should be true for queer characters.
My debut novel is an adult romantic comedy featuring a bisexual, cis, white woman who, spoiler alert, falls for the hot male carpenter next door. Even though her identity is extremely relevant to her worldview, to the people she chooses for friends, and her own past, I’ve still gotten a handful of reviews with sentiments about Hannah’s identity like, “box-ticking,” “no bearing on plot,” and “she didn’t have sex with a woman, though.” The kicker is, some of these reviewers are bemoaning the lack of real representation since Hannah’s identity isn’t central to the plot without realizing that what they’re really asking for is a very limited form of representation centered on Hannah’s deviation from their straight, cis, white default. They don’t want real representation—they want the default or a plot-relevant explanation for why the author didn’t give it to them.
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If you have ever found yourself irritated at the inclusion of a casually queer character, ask yourself why. Question whether your idea of the default can be expanded to include people of all orientations, abilities, races, and gender expression. And if you’re also a writer, challenge yourself to expand who you cast in your stories (while being mindful of whether you’re the right person to tell their story) and describe all characters’ skin tones, not just those that aren’t white, which is something I’m working on actively myself.
And for the love of all that’s good, let the queers live.