A question about tags

[GhostlyArtz]

Okay so, if you have a story and it has a canon gay couple, do you tag it as BL or GL? Even if the story doesn't actually focus on the relationship?

More information on the question: I've figured it will take 600 'pages' before I start the second portion of my story. In the first portion, there is really no gay couple? Like, I might do a hint here or there but it's nothing there or everything is in the past. But the second portion, one of the main characters will be in a long term relationship with another girl. Their relationship would feature heavily, but not in any sexual, maybe not even an exactly romantic context.

It'd be more like a fact, they are together. They love one another. Okay, actual plot and important stuff.

So should I tag it as girl love? I feel like they would lead to different expectations than what will actually be portrayed though.

(And then the third part features a broken up boy couple dealing with their differences, but again it is a lot less romantic and more you broke my trust and made me kill you. I don't really do well with the whole... romantic writing side of things and I don't plan on doing any romantic subplots (partly because I hate them unless I'm reading a romance). But, it will still be heavily hinted at, if not outright said, so should I mark it as boy love? But that would be way after the 600 page mark so... again with expectations and me not meeting them)

 

[OliviaMyriad]

GL/BL subplot perhaps.

 

[Samuel_Spader]

You can give some sort of warning on the chapter that has such subplot, if the BL or GL stuff is not the main focus (or perhaps rarely mentioned except one some certain events).

So personally, I think you don't need to tag it.

 

[Sabruness]

in my personal opinion, if there's the square root of jack romance then dont tag it as BL/GL. Honestly, if you did it would raise the question of baiting BL/GL readers which, depending on the person, is not a polite thing to do.

At most, maybe go with BL/GL subplot tags if they're a minor part of the plot. Also, make it explicitly clear in the description. Again, to avoid the seeming pretense of baiting.

 

[mostlyharmfulll]

As far as I know, there are no strict rules for tags (apart from content warnings), so you should do what you think represents your story best. Do you think that the gay content is so important that it should be one of the advertisements for your story? If you add the tags, readers will expect said content. Tags are there to make it easier for readers to find stories with topics they are interested in, after all.
Another option would be to add the tags and write something like "tags x and y won't be relevant until 600 pages into the story" so everyone knows what to expect.

 

[Moonpearl]

BL & GL are genres rather than just tags, so you sort of have to have a certain amount of romance to avoid making those a lie.

I second using "BL Subplot" and "GL subplot" for these situations. They were created for this very sort of thing, after all.

 

[yansusustories]

I agree with rather using the BL/GL subplot tag just because of the amount it is featured in the story. As in regard to this:

Their relationship would feature heavily, but not in any sexual, maybe not even an exactly romantic context.

I wouldn't worry about it. Love is more than sex and/or romance. If they are in a relationship there is likely (hopefully) some form of love involved. Even for your part 3 when the couple is broken up, there is likely love. Otherwise, they wouldn't feel hurt, right? So I think that your story still includes boys' love and girls' love even if it's not done in a typical way. Actually, thank you very much for including a side of love we often don't get to see. I feel like the genre(s) can use more of that!

 

[CupcakeNinja]

Okay so, if you have a story and it has a canon gay couple, do you tag it as BL or GL? Even if the story doesn't actually focus on the relationship?

More information on the question: I've figured it will take 600 'pages' before I start the second portion of my story. In the first portion, there is really no gay couple? Like, I might do a hint here or there but it's nothing there or everything is in the past. But the second portion, one of the main characters will be in a long term relationship with another girl. Their relationship would feature heavily, but not in any sexual, maybe not even an exactly romantic context.

It'd be more like a fact, they are together. They love one another. Okay, actual plot and important stuff.

So should I tag it as girl love? I feel like they would lead to different expectations than what will actually be portrayed though.

(And then the third part features a broken up boy couple dealing with their differences, but again it is a lot less romantic and more you broke my trust and made me kill you. I don't really do well with the whole... romantic writing side of things and I don't plan on doing any romantic subplots (partly because I hate them unless I'm reading a romance). But, it will still be heavily hinted at, if not outright said, so should I mark it as boy love? But that would be way after the 600 page mark so... again with expectations and me not meeting them)

If its not a main tag, i wouldnt bother putting it in the official tags but you CAN add it to the summary as a tag. Lotta authors do custom tags like that.

But if i made a story that just had a gay couple in it? No i wouldnt bother. Thats not what the story is about. Im not gonna give minor characters that much importance unless they are part of the main cast and maybe not even then

 

[thedude3445]

Tags are there for your story to get more visibility, so tag whatever you want that you think will get more people to see your story. Though, if you think that people will be angry if your tag isn't as accurate as they would like, you may want to avoid it. Up to you.

 

[GhostlyArtz]

Thank you all for the responses! I just wanted to make sure since I saw somewhere else someone got flak when one of their MCs went the gay route (I hadn't read the story, so I'm not sure how important it was for the plot, just apparently people got butthurt over getting a good portion through the story and finding out that hey, the character is gay) so I was a tad worried about mine even though I don't think it should warrant a tag.

I think I will stick to not tagging it, but if it does get mentioned use one of the subplot tags (I wasn't aware those tags existed; tagging isn't exactly my forte)

I wouldn't worry about it. Love is more than sex and/or romance. If they are in a relationship there is likely (hopefully) some form of love involved. Even for your part 3 when the couple is broken up, there is likely love. Otherwise, they wouldn't feel hurt, right? So I think that your story still includes boys' love and girls' love even if it's not done in a typical way. Actually, thank you very much for including a side of love we often don't get to see. I feel like the genre(s) can use more of that!

I'm a sucker for stories where they have relationships that are focused less on the sex/romance than the actual relationship. They are unfortunately rare and hard to find as people seem to prefer the romantic subplots/relationships rather than the ones that are more focused on the other bits that make up a relationship. (This is of course regarding the non-romance genres. For romance I am just in it until they get together in which case I lose interest and drop it like it's a bad egg so I can't really say if they go into the more platonic side of the relationship)

 

[yansusustories]

I saw somewhere else someone got flak when one of their MCs went the gay route

And this is why we suggested a homosexual/gay/lesbian protagonist tag before but people said it was covered by the BL/GL genre and bisexual protagonist tag so we didn't need that as well