Moth's Fiction and Fanfiction
written by candlelight to be read under the stars
A rationale for slash
A rationale? Writers are often asked why they choose to write some things and not others. I suppose sooner or later some of my friends are going to wonder why on earth I am writing slash fanfic and GLBTQ erotica. I sometimes wonder myself! This is an initial attempt to answer them (and me) in advance.
The short answer is, of course, 'Why not?' but some of you might like more than that!
First of all, there is the purely academic reason. This is not an attempt to evade the issue! My interests have always lain in culture clash, equal opportunities, minority rights etc. and I would be just as likely to write about racism, sexism, xenophobia etc. Except that none of these have flourishing communities on LiveJournal. However, I find that these other ‘isms’ creep into a great deal of my writing anyway.
Secondly, I love fantasy and romance. It doesn’t really matter if the protagonists are human, of either gender, or alien or a mixture. Animals are fine, too, as in stories like Duncton Wood. So are were-creatures and other supernatural beings. There is a great deal of romance and fantasy in the bookshops and I have read my way through a lot of it. I have only recently found the existence of good m/m fic online. In published books the choice often lies between serious literature like Maurice (which I like but don’t want all the time) or really bad pulp fiction which I don’t like in any genre. So I have been devouring what I have found online and among the newer writers and publishers who have been introduced to me through the internet. I decided to join in.
Thirdly, some of my favourite books are incredibly erotic. A Suitable Boy and The Map Of Love stimulate all the senses and leave the reader daydreaming about the characters and situations. I wanted to transfer some of this into fantasy which is my favourite genre. I was also fascinated by the fairly new ‘permission’ to write romance featuring two men. This has only become acceptable to publishers since the law changed in England, less than fifty years ago, so it is a young area of fiction. There is an element of the erotic in things that are new, in things that are or have been taboo. This, I think, is another of the strands that attracts me to m/m fiction. I have to say that I am equally attracted to sex between aliens etc.
Fourthly, the fanfic community is very welcoming and exciting. As well as giving an outlet for sharing the pleasure in various fandoms, there is a serious angle to this. Most of my friends within the community are trying hard to improve their writing and for two years now I have attended a convention of slash fanfic writers. I am about to attend the third. I have learnt an enormous amount about writing from the people there and from the reading they recommend. Naturally, the writing I do to attract ‘concrit’ as concrete criticism gets called, falls into the slash fanfic category.
I don’t see why writers should be told to ‘stick with what they know’. If they did, we would never get animal stories, or sci-fi, and Shakespeare would not have given us any wonderful female characters. So I am more than happy to research and try to write in new fields. I try to put myself in the place of any character in my writing but I hope this doesn’t mean that they are all in some way female. Shakespeare’s Juliet was not male. I would just as happily write cats or werewolves, and have, indeed, written penguins in a crack!fic story. Crack!fic, in case you aren’t familiar with the term, covers wild, way-out versions of familiar stories, with the characters presented in the guise of animals, or aliens, or even gingerbread men.
I think very few people have cut and dried unchanging attitudes towards their own and others’ sexuality over their lifetimes and see no reason why a woman should not be interested in a romance between two men. If the readers want sex scenes to ‘spice up’ the story, I am happy to read, and ask, and consider, and do my best to write them! In fact, I enjoy the challenge! Sometimes I enjoy the scenes, in my head, too! More often, when I read, I prefer to use my imagination.
I have said elsewhere how much I enjoy fantasy gaming and role playing. My main ‘muse’ is the ‘hero’ of my work in progress about modern fairies. He is bisexual. I have no idea whether I deliberately chose that for him or whether it was imposed on me by some kind of magic. It is my strong belief that the character arrived fully formed in my head and if he is an aspect of my subconscious, well, I don’t mind!
I’m not sure if all this rambling constitutes a rationale. Maybe it will tell you something about me. Maybe it will tell you something about my stories. At any rate, I enjoy what I write in this ‘area’ of fiction, and hope you will too.
