lunabee34 | You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes ...

Entry tags:

You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes ...

Expect spammation this weekend. I am all by my lonesome and also ill and unlikely to go anywhere. Consider yourselves thusly warned. :)

So, I've been thinking about something for a little while now and then

thelastgoodname and I emailed about it and I decided to make a post because I find myself intensely curious about the way the rest of you approach this issue.

Until very recently, the fanfic I wrote fell into one of two categories. I either wrote stories that I thought other people would like to read (stories that the current trajectory of fandom is loving) or stories for which I received some bolt of lightning kind of inspiration (and these usually tend towards backstory or bits that canon has elided). By and large, the kinds of stories I usually write are not the kinds of stories I most like to read. In fact, I would often find myself thinking, "I'd really love to read X story. Why has no one written it?" while doing nothing about it.

It suddenly occurred to me that *I* could write the stories I wanted to read. Um, yes. Duh. Really, really duh. But for me not so much. It's taken me a while to get into the headspace where I can enjoy something I've written as much as something someone else has written, and even then I don't enjoy it in the same way. I still would prefer that someone else write that kickass Sheppard/Caldwell sex-slave AU because if I wrote it there would be no mystery for me there, no hanging on the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen. There would be pleasure in the words and in the craft of it and in the figuring out the bones of the story, but it's not the same kind of pleasure as coming to a piece entirely from the outside (or as outside as you can be given the way that fandom has a tendecy to make us all ~~rub off on~~ influence each other LOL). Also for me is the issue that many of the stories I really, really want to read hit kinks (either sexual or narrative) that somehow feel strangely personal to write stories about. For example, I have no qualms telling you guys that I enjoy rape fic, but it somehow makes me feel vulnerable to contemplate writing it myself.

Even so, I've found myself writing fic in the past couple months that I wanted as a reader rather than a writer. So what about y'all? Thoughts? Examples?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh! I am sorry you are sick! But if you are lonely and bored this weekend maybe you can give me a Sessile Beta for my kinky Inara/Saffron fireflyslash shortfic?

If I have my characters do sexual things that I like, I feel sort of caddish because they tend to be things that I've actually done, and so I sort of feel What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas.

It's really common for me to have ideas for things that I couldn't possibly write--sort of like WordVids! I can't do it, but other people have the chops.

Yes, yes. I would love to get a sneak peek at your Saffara. :)

And I plan to watch much Homicide this weekend. Thursday was devoted to puking and watching SPN and today was devoted to puking and watching SGA and I think tomorrow will devoted to HLotS and not puking.

I also have ideas for things that I know I can't write. I just can't write long stuff. And I mostly like to read long stuff. So I'll have these ideas that really ought to be 20,000 words in execution and when I write them somehow get distilled down into a disappointing 2,500.

About your willingness to read: Yayness! I've written the whole PWP except the sex, so I should have it for you tonight.

A big, sympathetic Ewwww! about the whole reverse peristalsis thing. HLOTS has some (but not a lot) of stuff that leads one's ginger ale and saltines to make a hasty exit, but I'm not sure about its ability to assist in keeping them DOWN.

And the deer is always tealer on the other side. I always keep thinking about which 2,500 of the 20,000 words are REALLY necessary.

*going to check mail now*

Also, what is this teal deer thing? Years in fandom and I never heard anybody use that term and in the past three months it's everywhere.

Ummm. Still no increase on the amount of porn since yesterday...I did rummage sales and then Yogalates class so. Ummm. But by tonight, I swear!

"Teal deer" is the reverse-acronym for "tl; dr" (Too Long, Didn't Read). Which is my reason for not thinking of myself as a BtVS fan no matter how much I like the show.

Ah okay. My next question was gonna be what does tl;dr mean, so two birds with one stone.

LOL

What I write is pretty much what I'd like to read. I tend to not really find what I really, really want to read in fanfic, unfortunately. But while writing it myself at least gets it out there, it's still not the same, since I don't enjoy reading my own writing the same way I would someone else's - I already know everything that's going to happen, so what's the point? (I am not a rereader for the same reasons. I imagine I might enjoy reading my own writing more if I were a big rereader, since then the unknown wouldn't be the main draw.)

Which begs the question for me: What do you really, really want to read in fanfic? :)

And I agree with you that writing it is not the same as reading it. In addition to what you've mentioned here, I also like reading someone else's work better because one of the things I come to fanfic for is to be turned on and the act of writing tends to de-eroticize what I'm writing about. It becomes less about this hot experience I'm immersing myself in and more about me trying to get something right. Not very sexy when you're worried about the language of your sex scene. LOL

I tend to find written sex the hottest when I'm writing, actually. I think because I really prefer visual porn? I don't read fic for the porniness because it doesn't really do anything for me and part of that is that I don't visualise when reading and images are what I find arousing rather than words. But when I'm writing, I tend to visualise more (still not very well, certainly not the equivalent of a movie in my head or even still pictures, but I can focus somewhat better than what I get when reading) so I am actually "seeing" it more.

As for what I want to read, well, as I said, I tend to write the sort of thing I'd like to read and for the most part it doesn't tend to line up well with what the rest of fandom is writing.

Oh, that is so interesting.

I also am not a visual reader. I almost never have images in my mind when I read. Sometimes I do when I'm writing, but it's usually a single image that comes to me and the rest of the fic spirals out from there and I don't visualize the rest. In fact, sometimes when I'm writing a fight scene or something else complicated, I have to literally draw it out so I don't write something that's not possible. LOL

But I usually don't get turned on by anything I am writing, unless I've swallowed my fear and written one of my bulletproof kinks, and then it feels more like I'm transcribing a fantasy than actually writing.

I think i write things either because i get a neat image of something happening - like 'Letters', and the tattoos, and riding the motorcycle over the bridge down in the Keys - or i want to write something other people have written and i found lacking. Like amnesia!fic. I know, that sounds rather bitchy but it's how 'Hands' came about.

Some stuff i really do want someone else to write because i'm *lazy*. Or because i know i'd go off on crazy tangents and it would be so fucking long and drawn out...when all i want is a pwp.
:)

*nods*

That's often how my bolt of lightning inspiration takes shape. An image or a sentence or a little character insight that I suddenly notice that just begs for exploration.

And that doesn't sound bitchy at all. That's a perfectly valid reason to write something. And yay that you did cause yummy fic.

(deleted comment)

Yeah, me either.

Although I'm really trying to wean myself out of it. Like, the other day when I thought, "Man, John McClane in panties would be so hot. Wish somebody would write that," rather than waiting around for something that was never gonna happen, I wrote it myself. And it was very satisfying. :)

And I mean, yeah me either as in

I don't know what my deal is either because I have the same deal

not

I also don't know what your deal is.

Um. *flail*

:)

Also for me is the issue that many of the stories I really, really want to read hit kinks (either sexual or narrative) that somehow feel strangely personal to write stories about.

Yeah. Really, really yeah. There's a DWP story (unfinished but posted (http://telanu.thirteenblackbirds.net/thexingredient.htm)) that I would have loved to write -- that I would love to write my own version of -- but because I like it so much, because it does all the things I want to read about, I can't write it.

Maybe it's also the fantasizing versus writing aspect of things; some things (like the sex stories that I want to read) are better left to other activities, a running storyline in my head at opportune moments, rather than written down and shared with the world. (Or maybe for those types of stories, I get too distracted when writing them.)

My other problem -- and this shows up in the narrative kinks I like, too -- is that they all tend to soapish melodrama in my head, but the stories I write are all restrained and realistic.

The stories where someone gets amnesia or has some sort of compulsion to act or restriction on acting, and there's a relationship of convenience ("you should move in with me because you've forgotten everything but I only have one bed"), and there's unrequited love except without the plot contrivances it would be requited, and then there's a happy ending after all -- those stories are the ones I love to read, but I would feel terribly embarrassed to write them because, well, too much information.

On the other hand, people usually assume that everything you write has some ring of truth to it, even when it doesn't (the "if you've written about molestation or rape, you must have been raped or molested yourself" phenomenon at work). So mostly you can't win.

But then you can't get the stories you want to read. But maybe I will write them. Someday. In the future. When I can wrap my head around wanting Andy Sachs to get amnesia and have to move in to Miranda's house and share Miranda's bedroom for reasons that are completely unclear to me, and then there is sex. The end.

(Now that I've just typed that, I see what the problem is: "reasons that are completely unclear to me." I can buy a lot of things that ordinarily wouldn't make any sense when reading. When I'm writing, it has to be perfectly clear and sensible in my head; I can't handwave anything when I'm writing, and the stories I really like to read often involve some level of handwavines.)

OMG yes. I didn't say this in the post, but a lot of the fics I really love to read are not what I would necessarily consider the best writing. They're melodramatic and full of plot contrivances or what have you. But then I have to really stop and think because this fic made me cry or it turned me on or it made me laugh. It made me feel something and so what is good writing anyway? Something with an elegant metaphor or something that makes people feel?

And then I realize that one of the reasons I don't write those stories is because I have this standard of what makes good writing that suddenly seems patently ridiculous.

Am I making any sense here? I feel like I'm sort of flapping my arms about and spewing nonsense. LOL

Yeah, that's a big part of it, too, the "good writing" standard that requires no contrivances and no blatant tugging of heartstrings.

But when you say, "makes people feel," which feelings are we talking about? Because the kind of satisfaction that comes from melodrama is different from the kind that comes from "literature," right? I mean, we've both read very good things that escaped the melodrama curse even though they probably should have succumbed (The Lovely Bones comes to mind). Of course, I'm not sure how you would hit the stuck-together-sharing-a-sleeping-bad-and-then-sudden-sex plot and still be beautifully written with elegant metaphors, but surely someone can do it. Just not me.

How about using a more, ahem, bottom-up rather than top-down standard: i.e., not "Is this a contribution to World Literature that has Aristophanes biting his nails?" but "I have half an hour for some pleasure reading! Will I get more enjoyment out of reading 8/? in SmarmPeddler's J/D h/c epic or out of reading some more of that new Minette Walters I got from the library?" (I'm using pleasure reading as the standard, because OBVIOUSLY even a bad fanfic is more fun than putting away the laundry.)

You have a new icon! I like it. :)

For me, I usually do get more pleasure out of reading the fanfic than the other.

You're absolutely right, but this is also the impulse that brought the world American Idol, and I'm not sure I can support that kind of thinking in my writing. Because I'm a huge snob.

I really like So You Think You Can Dance (icon, qv) so I don't think I can throw stones at people who prefer American Idol. I've had a lot of (fortunately reasonably amicable) disagreements in meta posts about Guilty Pleasures fics. The fics that I read (...at least the ones that I get all the way through...) give me insights into characters I love, sometimes in the context of thrilling adventures (for one value of thrilling or another), and they often use strikingly fresh language and are technically very well-crafted. If I said that they deserve to be in the Pantheon of Great Literature, I'd be lying or delusional, but they're absolutely as good as, well, Minette Walters.

See, I wonder how people like Walters go about writing what they write. I think maybe I'm just a fundamentally different sort of writer. Or maybe I just need to broaden my writing horizons.

See I don't know.

I gave a paper at a conference last weekend and my paper was about a Victorian writer named Ouida. She was hugely important and famous and influential in her day but she's pretty much fallen off the radar at this point. Someone asked me whether I think Ouida's work is interesting in terms of what it has to say about the culture and the time period or whether I think it has genuine literary merit. And the question made me stop and think and realize that I didn't know how to answer it. Because elegant metaphors, not so much. But yes with the fun and the funny and the tears and suspense.

I'm not sure that the satisfaction I get from high literature and other kinds of reading *is* different because I tend to not separate them in my mind. (Which, of course, begs the question of why I do so with fanfic if I don't with published works) Stephen King alongside Dickens.

I guess it really all boils down to what I think I'm trying to do when I write fanfic. Impress/intellectually engage or stimulate the emotions. And suddenly, I'm kinda not sure anymore. As you say, both would be super awesome.

That's a great question: what are we trying to do when we write fanfic?

I've just realized that I have very different headspaces for reading and writing. Maybe the intent -- what I'm trying to do -- is different, too: I read to entertain myself. Do I write to entertain other people? Or to make a point? Or something else entirely?

Also, what does "genuine literary merit" mean? I mean, John Grisham and Danielle Steele have some sort of merit, and so do Dickens or Shakespeare -- and it's the exact same merit, right? Culturally, at least, at the time of their writing. Shakespeare and Dickens have just lasted longer, but maybe that's only because Grisham or Steele haven't had the opportunity to last through generations.

You know I hear a lot of people say they write for themselves and I believe that as a motivation, but I'm not really sure it's true for me. I pretty much always write for others. Doesn't mean that I'm afraid to write stuff that I think will appeal only to a very small percentage of people, but I am always aware of and thinking about how an audience is going to respond to what I'm writing.

And I have no idea what genuine literary merit means. I really don't. I feel vaguely blasphemous saying this, but it's like porn. I know it when I see it. Or something. I mean, I will argue that The Stand has literary merit but not so much The Bodyguard's Assignment which is the most formulaic and crappy romance novel I have perhaps ever read. But that's not because I think romance novels have no literary merit--hello, Sweet, Savage Love--but because that particular novel is freaking awful.

The stories where someone gets amnesia or has some sort of compulsion to act or restriction on acting, and there's a relationship of convenience ("you should move in with me because you've forgotten everything but I only have one bed"), and there's unrequited love except without the plot contrivances it would be requited

Ooh, ooh, I've written that. Only there are two beds. This does not last.

Really? What fandom? What pairing? Would I love it a lot?

YA RLY, Batman, Dick/Babs, and I think it's pretty swell. (http://seriousfic.livejournal.com/16663.html#cutid1)

Cool. ;)

Hey, do you know invisibleshrew? Ze just posted about having finished S3 of HLOTS. I told her you were just starting.

No, I don't know that person. But I am planning this weekend to look up those comms and that fic you told me about in your email. I can't do a lot with lj at work because the computers have these crazy filters on them so I haven't had the chance to check it out yet. I am so excited about getting into the fandom though. I've only watched the first couple season three episodes, but hot damn. How is this show so freaking good and the first I really heard of it was when you started watching it?

Unfortunately, it's not much of a fandom, more that a number of people in fandom think it's a great show.

The word is being spread, though--I don't have HBO, so I haven't watched The Wire in broadcast.

herself_nyc recommended it, so I rented some DVDs, liked it, and pretty much picked up HLOTS as an association item.

Yes, that is pretty swell (and it's not even my fandom), but now I have another WIP to track. Alas. (I was led to believe--by my own fevered brain--that this was a finished story; I am bereft of a conclusion and the attendant sex.)

It is finished, I'm just posting an update every Monday. I could drop you a line when the whole thing is done.

Would you mind terribly letting me know? I'm enjoying it a lot (you're a great writer), but I am appallingly bad at keeping track of things I want to read when they happen serially, and since I'm not in the fandom or know anyone who is, I probably wouldn't think to check up on it.

Hey, me again. Just wanted to let you go I finished my story. (http://seriousfic.livejournal.com/tag/series:+change+my+world) Guess we'll just have to start calling me the WIP Slayer, woot.

Awesome! Thanks.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes ...

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject