Don't Forget The Gay Character

While you're working on your novel, you might want to consider the type of character that will be interacting with your protagonist.

Since all stories involve a quest of some sort, you'll need people who help the main character along their journey to resolution.

Make one of those characters gay and you'll have a better chance of getting published.

In her debut novel, Atlas of Unknowns, debut author Tania James draws on the East Indian culture that she rose from. Her plot is not entirely uncommon, dealing with two sisters who are divided by a misunderstanding. The treatment in this case is fresh, in that the sisters are poor Indian Christians and when was the last time you read a story about that particular minority?

And, there's a lesbian, a pariah in Indian culture.

The minor characters who interact with the two sisters have some common baggage that the reader knows about while the girls, of course, do not. The baggage is opened and displayed in bits and pieces, like any good story, so that the reader will keep turning the page to see the whole set of luggage.

There's the man who might have married their mother if not for some mystery, but it's hard to keep a lesbian's longing under wraps without having her jump out of the closet at the close of the novel in a sort of "gay-us ex machina" treatment.

So from early on, the lesbian is painted in a tragic light, evoking sympathy as she stands in the shadows, aiding one of the sisters in her struggle to re-unite with the family. If not for a terrible misunderstanding, if not for the lesbian falling in love with the sisters' mother, things could have been so very different and they'd have a rich father.

Gay characters are popping up often in novels, now that cell phones and e-mail render outdated the old way of creating a misunderstanding between characters that drives the plot. How better to drive a couple apart than to drop in the gay person who is seen as a rival?

Jane Austen used the slow pace of correspondence in her works to create divisions that would later be repaired as the record was set straight. Modern writers can use homosexuality and unrequited love in the same way.

Keep in mind that literary agents and their assistants are young, hip and liberal. Gay characters that a reader can feel sorry for will only add to the lustre of your manuscript.