Post-nano musings on writing origfic

[lobelia321]

Some differences I noted in my experience of writing an orignovel in a month and my experience of writing short stories that are fanfic slash. (Note: this is my experience only; I speak not for that of anybody else nor do I wish to promulgate any general rules.)

Characters
In origfic, it is necessary to invent characters, unless it be historical fiction or fiction modelled upon real-life personages. My nano novel was neither of these things.

I am not used to inventing characters. I am used to characterising fanon and canon. Sometimes, my characterisations have been so original that they have felt like orig characters. Sometimes, indeed, readers have even mistaken a character of mine for an origcharacter (April Bingham). But in fanfic, I only ever invented secondary characters, and even there, even with marginal non-entities, I always tried to find a canon character. I have become very good at making up 99 percent of a characterisation from scraps: in rps, I once had only one black-and-white passport photo (John Noble) and a three-sentence bio; in fps, I once had one line spoken by another character and no visuals at all (April Bingham); and in rps AU, I have one single pic (the one in my icon) and no name of a film extra that inspired a crucial character (in Desert Prince; not yet posted).

In origfic, duh, one has to make characters up from scratch. With some of these characters, I did a sleight-of-hand I have become used to from rps: I used the visuals of an actor or other personage as a basis. In some other cases, I used already existing rps-personae in my head and gave them a new name. In yet other cases, I invented a name that seemed interesting, and a setting. In two cases, this worked extremely well: I managed to invent some characters I cared about as much as about some of my slash characters. In other cases, I've not yet managed to make the characters come alive for me.

I'm finding that all those advice bits that one reads about creating a mini-portrait of one's characters are now coming in useful. I didn't really need them for fanfic. Although for fanfic, they can be useful, also: today I did little q&a sheets for John and the wraith, and I discovered some interesting things. You know: does he have scars? what is his worst nightmare? what does he smell of? what clothes does he sleep in? That type of thing. (I can give you my creative writing workshop list of these in another post, if interested.)


Women
Women present me with a particularly knotty sub-set of origcharacters. I have written few women in fanfic. Despite my overtly professed love of the Mary Sue, I think I've been ingrained with the secret fear of slashon (my neologism, based on canon and fanon and meaning 'generally-held lore among slashers'), namely the fear of the Mary Sue.

Every time I come to writing a woman, I think, oh no, how will this be not a Mary Sue? It's as if every single woman character is tainted with Mary Sue'ism. It's most inconvenient. And also absurd. In my origfic reading of published novels, I love women characters. But I just haven't yet got used to writing them. I want to practise this more. What I tend to do in order to avoid the Mary Sue, is to invent characters that are very unlike me: they are not my age, not my nationality, not my ethnic background, not my class, have got a fashion sense totally alien to mine, have no command of the English language and speak in broken English.

This is like a horrible parody of the Mary Sue! The very evident Anti-Sue!

I find these women characters wooden and I don't like them. Must I set every origfic novel in an all-male military camp, prison or boys' boarding school???

Sex and love
In my fanfic short stories, sex and love have been the point.

In my novel, they weren't.

This caused twists in my brain and a surfeit of plots. I blew things up, had people chase all over the world, introduced gratuitous thriller elements, chases, sudden deaths, Aristotelian recognitions galore. Now I'm left with that mess.

How easy is the generic expectation of love plus sex in (my) slash.

As a result, my novel rarely makes me swoon.

Anything else?
If I think of it, I'll put it in another post. :-) (-: :-) (-:



What have others found, if applicable???

Comments

[sophrosyne31.livejournal.com]

Reading this on the hoof, as it were: I'd love to see your kind of checklist for the character maps. It sounds like asking the questions in the first place is the really curious bit: even thinking to ask about scars, for example. That seems like a great idea.

There is of course the thing about borrowing bits of character not only from rps but from people around you. This is old-hat obviously but has only just occurred to me: I can use, like, people I know. Although then I run the risk of enraging people I know. But if you just brush them lightly and take a few grains, surely...

Lobe, these notes of yours on the difference between origfic and fanfic are very interesting. Keep thinking!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you for finding them interesting! Needless to say, I myself find them interesting. Mainly because I've never had these thoughts before. Never had the experiences needed to have them!

The rl rps has, also, occurred to me. I haven't yet found a modus operandi to deal with it at all. I'm not used to taking people who don't come in the form of internet pictures or TV episodes.

I've had more ideas about origfic/fanfic and fanon/canon but I'll post them tomorrow as it's now late.

I'll also post Jill Dawson's checklist! *mwah*

[sophrosyne31.livejournal.com]

Funny isn't it how fanon is so much more cogent that actual RL people you know, whose personalities are far more complex and variable. Fanon is plastic but still, contained. I just don't seem to have found a novel to write yet that could accommodate a Dom or a Viggo, more's the shame. I am going to put a Camille Desmoulins (French revolutionary stolen from Hilary Mantel) in my next book, though. :)

It's excellent that you're posting about this right now, as far as I'm concerned, as I'm just in the process of character-mapping for a book myself. Questions about scars, primary schooling, peccadilloes and tormented inner aspirations are exactly what I need to think about!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Character mapping? What is it and how do you go about doing it?

*waits eagerly for the pearls of wisdom* :-) (I am a sow! Throw me those pearls!)

[sophrosyne31.livejournal.com]

You're the one who went to the A.L Kennedy talk thingie! how was it, was it useful? what pearls of wisdom did SHE drop?

Character maps are, as I understand, just what you're doing. Sussing out all the details about a character, his/her background, likes, dislikes, habits, circumstances, etc. I learned the term in editing, where editors should make maps of novelists' characters to check for consistency etc.

Uh, apart from the general principle, that's pretty much all I know. My notes at present go like: Someone has a fetish for $2 shops. Someone likes to pretend to fall asleep on her boyfriend's lap. Etc. Not so much 'map' as 'squiggle'.

[viva-gloria.livejournal.com]

Characters:
first nanowrimo was historical and based on Real People, so I didn't have to make up everything; but I did have to make up their personalities. The protagonist published several journals in his lifetime so I had an idea of what he might've been like, but I pretty much made up minor characters from whole cloth. It was weird. I didn't latch onto the trick of using photos / paintings as starting points until later -- and it does make things so very much easier.

I've done those character sheets from time to time but, especially with historical settings, I spend as much time on the questions as the answers!

As for women, I like writing 'em in fanfic, partly because of the dreaded Mary-Sueism: I do think it's perfectly possible to write a female character, even right in the middle of a slash story, who's a character in her own right and not a projection of the author; and I am amused / annoyed -- depending on mood and commenter -- when I find readers, and writers, recoiling from the whole concept.

That said, there are very few females in either of my nanowrimo projects. And they are often either (a) symbols of entrapment or (b) crones with nasty habits. Or (c) in fanfic, whores.

I do like your concept of the AntiSue. And it's quite likely true that I put more of myself into my male characters (fanfic or orig) than my female ones.

Sex and love? See above under 'entrapment'. Now I come to think of it, both my novelish original works have an element of this.

Though they also both have close male friendships that are not written in a slashy way.

(Though, especially with the co-authored one, we had to go through taking out the more ... intertextual ... bits. And I think we both wrote slashy backstory to get it out of our systems. But I don't think it's a slashy novel.)

Can you explain 'Aristotelian recognitions' please? Phrase rings a bell but brain not working.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

The historical novel idea also occurred to me: it's like sanctioned fanfic! But something in me isn't ready for that; something in me wants to jump in at the total deep end and make everything up. It's like the recompense for not having the genre safety net and not having the ready-made audience: I get to have total control.

The question is, of course, total control over what? I realised that to have total control I must first make up the characters more completely than I have. I must make them into canon characters so that I can then fanonise them.

I think doing those sheets is a good idea. Ultimately, I suspect, it doesn't much matter what you ask yourself as long as you ask something. It will all stimulate the brain.

Entrapped crone whores! *cackles*

wrote slashy backstory to get it out of our systems. I can't believe you slashed your own characters before even writing their canon. You are truly dyed in the wool.

Aristotle had two things that a complex plot should have: recognition and reversal. It's too late at night for me to remember the Greek for these but it will come to me tomorrow. Reversal is reversal of fortune (Odysseus happy on boat goes to Odysseus wet in ocean). Recognition is discovery of some hitherto hidden fact (Odysseus thinks he married a wife but discovers he married his mother -- this is also an example how often recognition and reversal go hand in hand).

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Obviously not Odysseus, but Oedipus married his mother!!

(must go to bed...)

[tiemyshoez.livejournal.com]

I posted a comment on one of your slash stories a loooong time ago, but I stumbled back upon your LJ recently and am fascinated by your thoughts on novel v. slash-writing. Hope you don't mind that I'm weighing in again. I'm especially interested in your points about writing women, because it nags at something that's nagged at me regarding slash: that it seems to unwittingly foster a kind of misogyny.

Maybe misogyny is the wrong word, but in slash, what is privileged above all else are the interior worlds of men. In fact, part of what I love about good slash is that it opens up men in the most delightful, generally unseen ways, with all their, you know, gruff tenderness and brotherly affection and passion, etc. But as this world is being built up, I do see that women characters are dreadfully neglected. All too often, even in the best writing, they become the equivalent of the token gay friend in hetero movies. I wonder if this is because slash is so invested in a kind of masculine language, the male way of speaking and thinking, to really give too much attention to women ... or whether it's because slash is a way of projecting heterosexual women's desires (the particular things that turn them on about men) onto the page, and so other objects of non-desire get short shrift. And I think in some fanfiction, there's definitely a vein of anti-feminism -- as if the intrusion of women and heterosexuality are incredibly threatening to the fictional world. Thus all the rampant anti-Mary Sueing.

I do think that in most genres of romance literature (let's face it, that's what slash is), the characters not implicated in romance or without romantic potential get shafted. Maybe that's why women don't get much attention in slash.

Sorry for writing so much -- it's just an interesting topic. In any case, I hope you get to know your female origfic characters better. Women deserve the richness of representation you give your men, in the stories of yours I've read.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Wow, thank you for coming back after so long. What was the slash story you commented on? Was it back in the days of lotrips or later (SGA?)?

Re misogyny: in a patriarchal world, in which many aspects of life are dominated by men, slash gave me a way to celebrate that instead of raging against it in angry frustration (e.g. football/soccer! war movies!). Slashing Black Hawk Down, e.g., is deliciously subversive. On the other hand, sometimes it's good to remember the angry rage for purposes of pointing the finger at the real world.

The other thing about slash vs orig (which only occurs to me now) is that slash is at heart pornographic. (Or the slash I like to read and write is, at any rate.) And origfic isn't. My fantasy of man-on-man has been with me way before I discovered slash so writing to that fantasy fed into all sorts of swooniness that writing women doesn't. So I'm sure that adds to my having to get used to writing women. Although I did do a bit of writing women in SGA; that was my intro to writing women -- and, what's more, het women!

Thanks so much for your last remark, especially. That is really heartening.