Back again to rant about the unluckiest boys alive... Yep that is right. I am talking about our gay protagonists. The stories I am talking about all have a boy who will soon not be able to catch a break to save his life. For some reason I am finding authors who feel the need to put their characters through every hell imaginable before the story ends.

Why?

People who read these ridiculous rants of mine, I must ask you: what genre are you writing again? If you clicked "Crazy Random Shxt With Excessive Plot Lines" then you are doing fine. What? That genre doesn't exist? Oh I think they call it LGBT for short. I swear these stories are out of this world... not always in a good way.

No word of a lie, I expect to see a story about an orphan who is beat up and runs away from home only to be picked up by sex traffickers who sexually assault him and sell him to a millionaire who happens to be a werewolf and claims him as his mate then teaches him to live as a submissive in the BDSM world but it turns out he is a wizard with unbelievable powers so he snaps his fingers and becomes president of the United States (shxt that would be an improvement).

Sound familiar? Yeah maybe not exactly, but holy cow I have seen a whole lot go on in one story. Less is more? Now that could be just the thing. I get it that you might want to have lots of action and adventure, but even the apocalypse sounds like it is less eventful than some of your stories out there. I kind of find it amusing, but kind of not.

I would love to read a normal person, who happens to be gay, and maybe has some small drama in his life but makes it through and lives happily ever after. I couldn't find it here on Wattpad for a long time. They are few and far between it seems. That is what inspired me to write some of my one shots, and more importantly was the drive behind my novella "Unfaithful."

Picture this, I am struggling with the winter blues. I try to find fluffy romance but story after story is centered around beaten, assaulted, bullied boys who can't catch a break. I have twenty unread new books in my library and I've only read a few chapters of them before I'm dissatisfied... I want... I need...

It hits me as I'm sitting and watching a movie with my mom. I want this. This simple romance that has her heartfelt and in tears. I need this- only for my kind of guy. That was the answer I had been looking for. I wanted a "normal romance," only gay. I wanted something a little more... Drama-less.

So I wrote about it. I used my craft for the power of good. My guy wasn't raped or abused. He wasn't an orphan and his parents didn't die during the story. There were no car crashes, plane crashes or wars. He fell in love with the "wrong" person and didn't fall in love with the "right" person, but it wasn't catastrophic.

I realised that if I focused on the small steps in a portion of my characters life instead of giving every detail... My boy came alive. I built his personality and surroundings using just his perspective. It was hard at times and I did get criticised for it by one or two readers. But I liked the end result.

It took chapters for them to kiss. They only had sexz once. Still the feedback was mainly positive. This taught me that you can have it this way and it is satisfying. So I used the theory again with a smexy story...

And it worked even better! Still I got positive feedback and my readers beg for more. It wasn't over the top, well outside of the threesome/family thing anyways, at least not for what is happening to my characters. I let the story revolve around the strange family dynamic and forgot the rest.

I found focus. Now it can be your turn. Pick something you want to highlight and then let your character take you there. I'm not saying life is that simple. It's not always. Your readers know that and might be looking for simple instead of their crazy life.

Like me. I am bouncing from department to department trying to get a steady job. My partner went for a long-awaited surgery at the same time I almost died from a virus AND my young nephew came from across the country to visit forcing me to live with my religious in-laws while they took care of him and me... *gasps* You see? I need a little simple right now.

Give me the crazy stuff when I'm working 9 to 5 and nothing is going on for four months straight. Then I'm dying for the excitement of werewolves, vampires and the criminally insane. I need a laugh or to be rivited in my seat.

Point of my rant?
Sometimes life is hazardous enough.
Give readers a variety to whet their palate.
Simple can be good in your stories.
Gay boys don't NEED to go through hell and back.
They already do.
And it sucks.
So give them an escape from it.