Sep 16
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Wednesday, September 16, 2015 in
WritingSlash was, apparently, though I had no idea at the time that that was what it was, a relatively early interest for me. I remember thinking up ‘slash’ stories (that were never written) when I was in my early teens. In fact, I had a dream (real night time dream) about two ‘brothers’ in a tv series and at the time, I didn’t even have any idea of what exactly those two had been up to, but it seemed very interesting to me. That continued for a while, until I learned more about gay relations etc. I didn’t know anyone who wrote either slash stories or for that matter fan fiction. Maybe it’s because I’m from a rather ‘provincial’ country or that I’m pretty old by now (I hope my readers are now saying no, you’re not!) but I remember people talking about gay relations as being somehow wrong or sick. Another example: I have a second cousin, who’s quite nice, but maybe a bit simple. Some pop stars came up in conversation (this guy loves pop music) and I mentioned that they were gay, and he said: no way, they seem so well behaved (as in well brought up or civilized, I guess). I didn’t get his meaning – well, in a way I did, but it seemed so totally irrelevant. So clearly in his family (not very surprising, because you really should know a few things about his mother), it’s the way they think about gay people.
From about the same time I began to get my slash ideas, I tried to write (extremely bad) romantic stories about straight couples, but they tended to bore me in the end. Traditional couples don’t interest me. I always like something different, like f/m or the woman being older etc. Not that I even like ‘pure’ romances or will write them. It’s also extremely difficult to write a good straight pairing in fan fiction, because precious few female characters are any good, to be brutally honest. That leaves you to invent an original character, which isn’t very popular, but I have done it in the past (no Mary Sue, more like an anonymous, independent watcher from outside the group the writing is about) or to improve the female character so that I like her, which may not be very popular either, because everyone has a different view of what is a ‘good’ female character.
In original fiction, I’ve been told it’s not really popular to write about female characters (at least in children’s books) because apparently, girls can be expected to read all books, whereas boys can only be expected to read about other boys. Relatively recently (a year or two ago), I remember reading about how critics were lamenting the loss of the most popular children’s books series (due to age I suppose – the writers are no longer up to making up new stories), because they were more or less the last ones who write about boys. Now, I’m not that picky – I also never pay attention to what colour or ethnic background the main character has. All I care about is whether it’s a ‘good’ character (as in one I like).
In fact, I don’t really worry too much about the age of the main character (though I’m getting more than a little tired of what is in Swedish referred to as the ‘middle-aged male mystique’, meaning how you get to dwell in detail on how these men don’t brush their teeth, how they prefer to have a drink instead of eating a proper meal, how they don’t bother to shower, don’t obey their superiors and yet, despite all these drawbacks, are irresistible to significantly younger females.
Sep 15
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Tuesday, September 15, 2015 in
Writing links
Sep 13
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Sunday, September 13, 2015 in
Writing links
Sep 4
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Friday, September 4, 2015 in
WritingThat was fun. I’ve been playing with the option of adding a Cast to my story on Wattpad. Hopefully, it will help any potential readers visualize the characters. At least these are my choices. Maybe others will see the characters differently.
In case you’re curious, these are the ones I picked:
Alexander SkarsgĂĄrd
Aidan Turner
Francois Arnaut
George Rainsford
Jessica Brown Findlay
Sep 3
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Thursday, September 3, 2015 in
WritingSpeaking of adult stories as I did in my last blog post, it occurred to me that all these years of fan fiction/slash really has had a result on ‘conventional’ book publishing.
When I was a teenager, I found myself inventing slash stories, even though I didn’t know anyone else who did (or read anything like that). Where I lived, in a small town, gay issues weren’t discussed. I’m sure gay people suffered discrimination. I do know that being different, albeit straight, was tough here, but then I suspect this is one of the worst towns in the world. I’m not exaggerating. Anyway, for years I didn’t write my stories down, and if I discussed them with anyone, it was my sister who tends to feel about the same as I do about most things.
Then a little later (early 20’s and so on) I decided that I would write my stories. It was fun but a bit embarrassing, because I couldn’t let anyone read them except my sister. Of course, my first stories were awful (and so was my poetry). Still, I don’t regret doing all this writing, because eventually I did get better (at least I hope so).
One day in the late 1990’s I was chatting on the Star Trek chat room (on about.com – I think the site still exists, but the best before date has long since expired). Someone said ‘if you’re a writer, then you’ll be writing fan fiction too, right’? I was puzzled, because I’d never heard of fan fiction. It struck me as ridiculous and I couldn’t see why people would do it. Then, only a few weeks later, I remembered hey, those kinky stories I dreamed up when I was about 13, those were fan fiction (and slash even!) so why not? After that I spent more than ten years writing, writing, writing. Some original fiction, but mainly fan fiction. Even today, when things are extremely different, I sometimes look at one of my old stories and I’m amazed I wrote such good stories so long ago (sadly, I often encounter a different kind of story that I wiill occasionally delete).
What I was going to get to, eventually, by the time I’ve stopped cheering myself up by reminiscing about my good old fan fiction days, is that all those years when so many other people got used to reading and writing slash stories, eventually resulted in people writing such stories for publication.
Which is so much fun. In the past, especially in older books that I’d had handed down to me, anything gay was almost never mentioned, and if anything was, it was usually as an example of something related to mental illness. That’s why it’s so great to find all kinds of different books, not only romance stories that deal with gay (male) couples.
On the other hand, when gay gets more accepted, you tend to lose the plot device that deals with ‘the shameful secret’. I kind of miss that, even if real life is different and I think it’s great that people no longer have to hide.
Sep 3
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Thursday, September 3, 2015 in
WritingI’ve been thinking a bit about my stories being ‘adult’. When I first starting reading and writing fan fiction several years ago, I naively thought that adult = sex story. My stories indirectly mentioned sex, or dealt with sex non-explicitly and so I thought, my stories aren’t adult. Then I began to realize that in English, almost everything is adult. So I found that stories I’d written that had no romance and/or sex were still required to have a high, sometimes very high rating, simply because there might be any of the following: strong language (ie swear words), violence and – most puzzling of all – general ‘serious’ topics.
In Swedish we haven’t had this in the past and even now, it’s not that common. I’m guessing, though I can’t be sure, though to some extent I’ve followed the discussions in the media, in blogs etc, that we feel that images are one thing, but text is another. For instance, my parents never stopped me from reading any kind of book, and I learned to read when I was 3-4 years old. Because if I did get my hands on something an English-speaker might label ‘adult’ (very little sex, but a bit more violence), I always thought ‘uh, what a boring book’ and put it back on the shelf. By the time I would have been interested in reading sex stories I was a lot older and anyway, I had to find them myself. Movies, on the other hand, were different. I knew that some of them weren’t ‘suitable for children’ and took that enormously seriously. This is an example: I was passing by the living room where the tv was and caught sight of a very boring scene in which people were standing in line, I think at the post office. Nothing more happened, but I was terrified I’d come to some sort of harm for accidentally watching an ‘adult’ scene. Yes, that’s how naive I was as a child. 🙂
I don’t think my dad had a problem with sex in stories, though he wasn’t particularly interested. He wanted action, preferably set in space or anyway speculative fiction with lots of action. My mom on the other hand, has a problem with fiction in general and sex in particular, and also violence, even extremely mild violence. I know she used to read mysteries until she met and married my dad, but from then on she’s developed a prejudice against fiction, especially popular fiction. ‘Serious’ fiction, she respects, but wouldn’t read. She praises non-fiction above anything else, but doesn’t read much of even that anymore. But this wasn’t going to be about my mom…
Me, I love non-fiction, and popular fiction (not all subgenres, but lots of it) and also some ‘serious’ fiction, namely classics. I think it’s because I was allowed to read anything and nothing was labeled ‘bad’ literature. I read comics, children’s books, mysteries, fantasy, science fiction etc. And enjoyed quite a bit of it, but hated some of it. By the time I was grown up, I knew what I liked, but I didn’t feel that any type of fiction is necessarily worse than any other. It’s just a matter of quality and personal taste.
Back to stories being adult now – I still don’t completely get it. I mean, sure I know what adult means and I can see that a child might not be ready to read about a war in which really dreadful things are happening. But even now, I find myself always choosing the higher rating if I’m in doubt. That means that I very rarely post anything with a lower than T (PG-13) rating, simply because I want to make sure I don’t offend anyone. I use warnings about things I personally don’t think needs a warning, to be on the safe side.
In Swedish, I normally don’t, but I felt I had to make an exception once in a Swedish fanfic where I dreamed up a relationship between a relatively young man (about 30) with a much older woman (about 60). Strangely enough, writers always think it’s so new, different and unique when they pair up a man who is about 70 with a woman who is about 30. If it’s so unique, why I have seen it about a million times?
I know these things happen sometimes, but I also know it’s almost as rare as the opposite. Yet, people almost vomit when they read about older women and younger men, but not in the equivalent situation. Why? I can accept a well written story about an older man and a younger woman, though my own preferences are different. What I have a problem with, is that it’s presented as ‘normal’ and good whereas older woman – younger man, is not.
Sep 2
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Wednesday, September 2, 2015 in
Writing links
Sep 1
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Tuesday, September 1, 2015 in
WritingI have written a new story in English and I have posted it on my fan fiction site and will also post it on my new Wattpad account. Unfortunately, Wattpad is having issues related to posting drafts, so that will have to wait.
This is an original story, but inspired by a movie.
Wattpad can be a really great site, but the fact that you have to have a cover image makes it so much more difficult. On my own websites, I post stories all the time, as soon as I’ve finished writing and editing/proofreading them. For me, who isn’t very good with graphics and photos, it’s really something that delays publication. That means I have to ask for help, and that depends on someone else having the time and inspiration to make a cover image for me.
Sep 1
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Tuesday, September 1, 2015 in
Writing linksCreating city maps can be hard. Here’s four quick steps to design believable town and city maps.
Read more here.
Aug 28
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Friday, August 28, 2015 in
Writing linksWhen Amstrad launched its word processor 30 years ago, writers were initially resistant – processing was for peas, not words. But many soon saw the benefits of life without Tipp-Ex.
Read more here.
