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

[lunabee34]

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?

Comments

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

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.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

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.