The decision to write about gay and bisexual characters wasn’t something I really spent a lot of time thinking about. Like many writers who follow a ‘pantser’ style of writing where some elements of storyline and character come to them during the writing process, I found the sexuality of my characters gradually formed all by themselves. Almost as if they were born that way.

Interesting, isn’t it?

I have many gay and bisexual people I know, and in some ways, just blogging about this topic seems silly, because it’s almost as if I’m making sexuality an “issue”, when really, it is just another aspect of our humanity. The reason why I’m even discussing it in this post is because I rarely see it written about in mainstream fiction, which makes me wonder if it is not completely accepted within the industry.

I’ve never read a mainstream novel from a big publishing house about gay/bi characters before reading The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare. I truly enjoyed reading about the love affair between Alec and Magnus in her novels, and I can’t wait to see how their relationship unfolds on the big screen when The City of Bones movie is released this summer.

In my book The Eve Genome, there is a love affair among side characters that are gay and bisexual. Writing these two was easy. They were meant for one another. I couldn’t have imagined writing them any other way.

So what about you? Have you read any great books with gay or bisexual characters? Tell me your thoughts.