okay okay okay so i have a lot of book ideas but honestly this isnt book ideas but more so things i need to add in some of my books
- nice friendships, no romance whatsoever
i am a sucker for cliche romance stories but im also a sucker for a nice friendship, so i just want to write a nice book/series where the relationships are just nice friendships and there's no couples
- lgbtq+ characters
okay so i was looking for books that have lgbtq+ characters but the book isn't about their gender/sexuality. i need more main characters that have an interesting plot and aren't straight or cis but the book isn't about them not being straight or cis (also i feel like i need to add more lesbian characters bc in all of the books i've read i don't remember there being any lesbian characters except maybe minor ones)
- poc/non-white characters
i am a white person so if i were going to write any non-white characters i'd need to make sure i wasn't accidentally being racist or anything. but yeah, there definitely needs to be more main characters of popular ya novels that aren't white (maybe i'm just looking in the wrong place but in a lot of the books i've read the main character/protagonist is white)
- chubby/fat/overweight/not skinny characters
to add on, chubby/fat/overweight/not skinny characters that aren't a joke or punchline. i know that most of the time the character's weight isn't mentioned in a book explicitly but in a lot of book to tv adaptations or just fanart/official art the characters/main characters are usually skinny and that needs to be changed
- characters of different/no religions
the no religion thing isn't that important since in most books i've read the characters' religions aren't discussed but still, the only characters i can think of that have different religions are the characters from rick riordan's books and simon lewis from the mortal instruments series. (i would add raphael but i'm mainly going for non christian religions and shit)
[EDIT]: I SHOULD ALSO WRITE MENTALLY ILL/DISABLED CHARACTERS!! ofc i would have to research and talk to mentally ill/disabled people so that none of my writing would be ableist or inaccurate but it would be great to see more writing with mentally ill/disabled ppl
i could probably add more but thats all i can think of for now, one more thing would be that i need to get better at writing flaws and i should also get character w supportive families/non tragic backstories
a lot of this was mostly about representation because holy shit everyone (other than white/cis/straight ppl) needs more representation
and the whole lgbtq+ was about how i was talking to my bi friend and we were discussing how in a lot of the stories nowadays with lgbtq+ etc MAIN characters the plot is just about their struggles with coming to terms with their orientation, and as much as i love those stories bc THERES A NON STRAIGHT OR CIS CHARACTER, i also yEARN for more main characters that aren't cis or straight but have a plot that isn't about them not being cis or straight
but yeah this was more of a chapter to myself
- Grayson
