Casually inserting sexual orientation
EDIT: Many people who are attempting to answer this question are severely misinterpreting the circumstances and setting of the book, so here is some information about Eris that I thought I had included but actually forgot to. This novel is post-apocalyptic. Eris killed her family as a child in an accident, as she possesses the ability to manipulate life force. She blocked out the memory and had convinced herself that she was the last person on Earth until a group of survivors, including Caspian and Marina, arrive and take her in. Eris has literally never known anyone. She cannot remember her family. I am trying to portray her attraction to both boys and girls in the context of her not having any past experience, and only just meeting people that she finds attractive.
My main character, Eris, in my post-apocalyptic novel is queer. Her first love interest, Caspian, is male, but further on in the story I'm going to introduce a secondary love interest, Marina. As far as the reader knows, Eris is straight, because the only person she has expressed romantic interest in is Caspian, a guy. So how can I believably and casually show that Eris swings both ways without the reader being confused by the time she, Marina, and Caspian are in a love triangle?
I want to make clear: this is not sexual. Eris is 16, Caspian is 17, and Marina is either 16 or 17. I will not portray explicit sexual content to show Eris' completely innocent and newly blooming romantic feelings.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/43003. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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Your MC has never met a living soul, per your statement. This would mean that she doesn't know who she's attracted to - not until she's met them, and experienced attraction.
She meets a guy, she's attracted to him. At this point, she only knows that she's attracted to him. She doesn't know if she's attracted to people with a penis, or if she's attracted to people with dark hair (or whatever his hair colour is) - she has a sample size of one.
Later, she meets a girl, and she's attracted to her too. Just as the first instance of attraction was a discovery to her, so is the second. She didn't know she would be attracted to this girl until she met her and was attracted to her.
Since the character doesn't know who she's attracted to until it happens, why should the reader? The way I see it, the reader should learn the MC is what we call 'bi' at the same time as the character does. (Except that she has no reason to think of herself in those terms: the terms 'straight', 'gay', 'bisexual' are dictated by our society's perception of what's "normal". If the character has not been exposed to "society", she wouldn't have this frame of reference.)
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If I'm reading correctly, the crux of your issue is this:
Eris is a girl, she forms a romantic attachment to a boy, the reader assumes she's straight. Later, when she forms a romantic attachment to a girl, the reader may have problems believing it.
If you were to set the issue of sexuality completely aside and approach this as you would any other potentially unbelievable situation in a novel, it may help.
The general consensus for making something, that is potentially unbelievable, believable, is all about set up. To make the later scene with the girl feel completely natural to the reader and not at all unexpected, you can use foreshadowing earlier in your novel.
This concept applies to anything that may jar a reader if it isn't correctly set-up beforehand.
The Shining is a good example:
Stephen King needs the reader to believe that Danny is exceptional and resourceful enough to resist the supernatural forces at play in the hotel, more so even than the adults, and help his mother escape.
He does it by hinting at it in earlier dialogue:
“I asked if your wife fully understood what you would be taking on here. And there’s your son, of course.” He glanced down at the application in front of him. “Daniel. Your wife isn’t a bit intimidated by the idea?”
“Wendy is an extraordinary woman.”
“And your son is also extraordinary?”
Jack smiled, a big wide PR smile. “We like to think so, I suppose. He’s quite self-reliant for a five-year-old.”
If you set up and foreshadow Eris's sexuality, subtly but deftly, in the lead up to the homosexual encounter (a glance here, a thought there, a quick comment in dialogue) it won't come a surprise to the reader and they will accept it without question.
Good luck!
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/43133. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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So how can I believably and casually show that Eris swings both ways ...
EDITED: After clarification from the OP, my first example won't work; the protagonists are too young (~16). However, the answer is roughly the same:
Casually! Have a conversation between Eris and Caspian, or Eris and a friend. And (in the modern world), I'd put aside the "confusion", teenagers in a modern secular city understand same-sex attraction just fine.
An Example: At 16/17 I assume the characters are juniors in high school, eleventh grade in the USA. This would be set in a private conversation, although walking together outdoors is private enough. I put this after a first kiss; for modern times that might be on a first date. If this is the most intimate they've each been with another, that would justify their willingness to be open.
Caspian asked, "Have you ever kissed before? I mean, before me."
"No. Until I met you, my biggest crush was on Elly in the eighth grade. I had dreams about kissing that girl."
Caspian laughed. "Oh, wow. Well, we have that in common. Did you dream about me?"
"Yes. A lot. Have you kissed anybody? Before me?"
"You are my first. I mean besides dreams."
Eris laughed. "Well, it's hard for me to compete with dreams."
"Not so hard," Caspian said. "It's like if you never had ice cream and you keep dreaming about having ice cream, and then you really have ice cream, it's a million times better than you could imagine. I'll choose the real you any day."
Again, the conversation is casual romantic talk. Caspian is only casually surprised Eris admits to her biggest crush being on a girl, and Eris doesn't hesitate to reveal that fact.
The final sentence actually foreshadows the later triangle. Caspian means it in a romantic sense, but Eris has already revealed her dreams of hooking up with Elly, so applied to that, Caspian's assertion that reality can far exceed her dream of a same-sex relationship will, in some sense, come to pass. She will fall in love with Marina.
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I don't think you need to show anything special at all.
Lots of people have multiple love interests (or hookups) over the course of a novel. In some novels, it's entire the premise.
If a character's first relationship in the novel was to a tall blond German runner, you wouldn't think your readers would be confused when the next relationship is with a short bald Nigerian physics professor.
Let your reader be confused. Most readers will figure it out pretty quickly. The few that don't, well, they're the readers that wouldn't really get it after you explained it either.
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