(the fire & taboos)
Aug. 14th, 2004 04:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaI was wondering why people repeatedly write the things they do-- what are your themes? Are you conscious of having themes? Is there something in particular that obsesses you about the pairing you choose over any other; and if your pairings are many & varied, is there some thread connecting your most common approach to them...?
Do people usually write through asking themselves questions, or do they more often just express whatever unlabeled emotional morass squirms inside them? It's a mixture of these things, isn't it. Asking 'what if' and 'why' and 'how'-- that's going to be why we write as much as asking 'what' (as in, 'what do I feel strongly about?')
It's curious to me, the idea that something can be 'too raw' or 'too personal' or 'too taboo' (too anything!) to write about-- because if I don't write about the most personal, emotional things to me, what is there to drive me onwards? What else is there besides whatever inflames one's passion? How can a writer -not- focus on what they're most passionate about?
Similarly, I don't quite see where 'morals' fit into all of this. Like, the ethics of what one actually -does- in the 'real world' as a person-- how should (does?) that really interact with what one deals with in fiction? Not that fiction is 'just fantasy' by any means-- but what is it if not 'no holds barred' in terms of what we approach? How can one have even one taboo subject without threatening the very basis of an artist's integrity?
I started thinking about this 'cause I did get flames on Fiction Alley about my Ron/Ginny fic (which made me laugh, no worries) because it was incest & therefore (morally) 'wrong'. Some people complimented me on being 'brave' enough to write it even though I knew (apparently) that I'd get flamed. Heh. Honestly, the idea of what anyone's going to think never crosses my mind before starting to write. As I edit & after I finish-- sure. But before? There's only the inspiration-- the urge to get it out.
What morality can exist within the artist's impulse? Sure, moral judgement exists within the characters and the society one portrays, as well as within the personality of the author and the eventual reader-- but how would it apply to the impetus itself? Are not the darkest things some of the most fascinating?
Basically, something tells me people aren't necessarily writing for the same reasons, even when it's about one subject. They're taking the same themes, even taking the same two characters and types of characterizations of said characters, and it's still something -different-. That's really what makes or breaks an H/D fic for me, as much as characterization or writing style-- whether the themes underlying the writer's perception of them as a couple match what I'm looking to explore.
I just realized that I like(?) to write about emotional brutality; well, in sexualized terms specifically. I don't know why, but as far as I can tell, it's pretty true. That's a big part of what attracts me about H/D. The way that passion rips you apart and the hope that it'll put you back together. The way that needing another person, that obsession-- the way it can twist you and define you and empower and destroy you at once. Desire the destroyer-- love the revealer; both at once. It has to be both at once.
Instinctually, I wonder how could H/D be any other way, really, but I realize this is a trick of my own perception, which is hard to escape. This is what I see, because it's what I want to see. I ask the question: can it work? How can it work? Tell me the truth. And I feel like the question is somehow the goal in itself, perhaps, moreso than any resolution. There can be no resolution, with violent/adversarial love-- only constant struggle. To take away the conflict in life sometimes seems like an almost destructive act-- as if it's to take away the drive one has to keep living. To keep going.
All the fluffy H/D out there is telling me that this isn't what people are looking for: this isn't what they want. They want a spicier, but essentially more traditional romance. Adversarial resentment may be hot to start with, but then you have to get past it: to settle down. Have a 'real' relationship, which means talking about things and liking and respecting the other person, right. Yeah.
Except... well... I don't care about that, so. Well, I don't. I love friendship-- I've always been obsessed with reading about passionate friendship, so it's not that this is something that doesn't interest me as a story. It's just a question of what I'm interested in personally exploring repeatedly in terms of romance, I think, and that gets to be much more about sexuality and how one deals with intense desire. H/D isn't really about love or hate, to me: those are just words. It's about more basic things-- more raw, elemental, base urges-- things like hunger, need, desire, craving, loneliness, visceral disgust, rage, fear, the need to be protected, the need to be alone, the fight-or-flight response.
Harry and Draco are both very emotionally immature for their age in different ways, and that's why I love them. That's why stories about them post-Hogwarts, when things are different, when they've 'gotten over it' to some degree, just don't touch me-- I don't even instinctively 'get' the appeal. If they're 'over' it, who cares? I never want either of them to be over any it (the rage, the hate, the pettiness, the misunderstanding, the resentment, the competitiveness, the need-- all of it). Ever. I want them to be with their hands around each other's throats, whether literally or metaphorically, at their deathbed. I want them to never stop burning. I want the fire.
I want to write about the fire. About burning alive. About need. When your whole heart is bursting with need, and you can do nothing about it-- it just festers and poisons you, your inability to really connect with that one person or any person. Or, you can connect, but you can never connect -fully-. Always frustrated. Always alone. Kinda... y'know, existential angst, basically, except with porn and angry teenagers. That's what I dig. Like, on the most visceral level, anyway-- clearly other things are fun to write about too. Just not as... um... brutally 'fun', I guess?
~~
Do people usually write through asking themselves questions, or do they more often just express whatever unlabeled emotional morass squirms inside them? It's a mixture of these things, isn't it. Asking 'what if' and 'why' and 'how'-- that's going to be why we write as much as asking 'what' (as in, 'what do I feel strongly about?')
It's curious to me, the idea that something can be 'too raw' or 'too personal' or 'too taboo' (too anything!) to write about-- because if I don't write about the most personal, emotional things to me, what is there to drive me onwards? What else is there besides whatever inflames one's passion? How can a writer -not- focus on what they're most passionate about?
Similarly, I don't quite see where 'morals' fit into all of this. Like, the ethics of what one actually -does- in the 'real world' as a person-- how should (does?) that really interact with what one deals with in fiction? Not that fiction is 'just fantasy' by any means-- but what is it if not 'no holds barred' in terms of what we approach? How can one have even one taboo subject without threatening the very basis of an artist's integrity?
I started thinking about this 'cause I did get flames on Fiction Alley about my Ron/Ginny fic (which made me laugh, no worries) because it was incest & therefore (morally) 'wrong'. Some people complimented me on being 'brave' enough to write it even though I knew (apparently) that I'd get flamed. Heh. Honestly, the idea of what anyone's going to think never crosses my mind before starting to write. As I edit & after I finish-- sure. But before? There's only the inspiration-- the urge to get it out.
What morality can exist within the artist's impulse? Sure, moral judgement exists within the characters and the society one portrays, as well as within the personality of the author and the eventual reader-- but how would it apply to the impetus itself? Are not the darkest things some of the most fascinating?
Basically, something tells me people aren't necessarily writing for the same reasons, even when it's about one subject. They're taking the same themes, even taking the same two characters and types of characterizations of said characters, and it's still something -different-. That's really what makes or breaks an H/D fic for me, as much as characterization or writing style-- whether the themes underlying the writer's perception of them as a couple match what I'm looking to explore.
I just realized that I like(?) to write about emotional brutality; well, in sexualized terms specifically. I don't know why, but as far as I can tell, it's pretty true. That's a big part of what attracts me about H/D. The way that passion rips you apart and the hope that it'll put you back together. The way that needing another person, that obsession-- the way it can twist you and define you and empower and destroy you at once. Desire the destroyer-- love the revealer; both at once. It has to be both at once.
Instinctually, I wonder how could H/D be any other way, really, but I realize this is a trick of my own perception, which is hard to escape. This is what I see, because it's what I want to see. I ask the question: can it work? How can it work? Tell me the truth. And I feel like the question is somehow the goal in itself, perhaps, moreso than any resolution. There can be no resolution, with violent/adversarial love-- only constant struggle. To take away the conflict in life sometimes seems like an almost destructive act-- as if it's to take away the drive one has to keep living. To keep going.
All the fluffy H/D out there is telling me that this isn't what people are looking for: this isn't what they want. They want a spicier, but essentially more traditional romance. Adversarial resentment may be hot to start with, but then you have to get past it: to settle down. Have a 'real' relationship, which means talking about things and liking and respecting the other person, right. Yeah.
Except... well... I don't care about that, so. Well, I don't. I love friendship-- I've always been obsessed with reading about passionate friendship, so it's not that this is something that doesn't interest me as a story. It's just a question of what I'm interested in personally exploring repeatedly in terms of romance, I think, and that gets to be much more about sexuality and how one deals with intense desire. H/D isn't really about love or hate, to me: those are just words. It's about more basic things-- more raw, elemental, base urges-- things like hunger, need, desire, craving, loneliness, visceral disgust, rage, fear, the need to be protected, the need to be alone, the fight-or-flight response.
Harry and Draco are both very emotionally immature for their age in different ways, and that's why I love them. That's why stories about them post-Hogwarts, when things are different, when they've 'gotten over it' to some degree, just don't touch me-- I don't even instinctively 'get' the appeal. If they're 'over' it, who cares? I never want either of them to be over any it (the rage, the hate, the pettiness, the misunderstanding, the resentment, the competitiveness, the need-- all of it). Ever. I want them to be with their hands around each other's throats, whether literally or metaphorically, at their deathbed. I want them to never stop burning. I want the fire.
I want to write about the fire. About burning alive. About need. When your whole heart is bursting with need, and you can do nothing about it-- it just festers and poisons you, your inability to really connect with that one person or any person. Or, you can connect, but you can never connect -fully-. Always frustrated. Always alone. Kinda... y'know, existential angst, basically, except with porn and angry teenagers. That's what I dig. Like, on the most visceral level, anyway-- clearly other things are fun to write about too. Just not as... um... brutally 'fun', I guess?
~~
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-08-14 08:48 am (UTC)Regarding our continuous exploration of certain themes, I think it helps that there are a finite number of themes to explore. I haven't really given much thought to this except in passing in Literature class, but since a theme is universal (and its universality is what makes the story 'immortal', if you will) it's what we, as people and as a race, have explored, continue to explore, and will explore until the last. The question of good versus evil - good will triumph, but how? - is, of course, present in Beowulf, in Sir Gawain, even in The Outsider/The Stranger (though you might need to really squint for that one). I think we just write about the themes we write about because we don't have an answer yet.
That's speaking on a whole. As for themes we personally write about, I really do think people are just trying to find answers to things that cloud their mind. I notice I write a lot about death, specifically how it affects those left behind and what it drives them to do, but that's because the death in OotP really shook me up. A part of it is me looking for reassurance that he'll be okay. Another part of me is asking questions that no one wants to, or can, answer.
We can definitely write about things that aren't questions to us (check out every single essay for school and story for my writing class), that aren't even interesting for the most part. But I think the things that we put most of ourselves into are things we're trying to find an answer, some kind of resolution, for.
By the way, as I aside, how do you deal with flames? I am, essentially, a three-year-old maturity wise. I'd probably quote infuriating places of the Bible back to them. But that's just me :)
no subject
Date: 2004-08-15 05:45 am (UTC)It's definitely true -for me-, regardless-- that approach of writing about things because they shake me up. One of my first (if not the first) finished (original) fic I'd written was a rape-fic, and I wrote that 'cause I was trying to process coming in contact with that subject in real life for the first time. So I just... was trying to make sense of it. But it seems like some people don't touch the things that bother/scare/disturb them, y'know? I dunno. Like... they don't want to know, are afraid of the answer; whatever 'the answer' is. And that basic lack of fear of answers seems so -necessary- to me as a writer and yet I dunno if that's just a -type- of writer-- the type I am, y'know? And yah, it seems like the non-questioning stories are just... not going to be really -gripping- or intensely emotional, but maybe that's not what some readers/writers -want-.
Hah. I don't really deal with flames at all. I just angst for a bit, and hopefully get someone to reassure me that they're stupid & my writing doesn't, in fact, suck :D My R/G flames were sorta wimpy, though :> Self-righteous rage is the one aspect of Harry that's rather far from me :>
no subject
Date: 2004-08-15 11:14 am (UTC)Well, after reading piles of fanfic, I think my standards are pretty low in that a sign of 'good' writing would be a) having used spellcheck and b) getting the characters somewhat IC. But that's just a cop-out answer.
'Good' writing is hard to classify, obviously, since everyone's tastes vary. I think good writing is the ability to communicate, period. And tone, mood, theme, characterisation, all those, if done right, add to the communication. Other people don't feel that way. Transfigurations by Resonant, for example, is one of my all-time favourite fics, not to mention non-published works. But it always gets slammed because people say that the characters are way too OOC. I agree that her version of Draco is a bit hard to swallow (haha, no dirty joke intended), but her characterisation is solid (that is, she never veers from the Draco she intended to write), she really captures the tone and mood of a school that is trying to rebuild, and she explores some pretty good themes (loss, grief, defeat, fear, um... sorting hats.)
And yah, it seems like the non-questioning stories are just... not going to be really -gripping- or intensely emotional, but maybe that's not what some readers/writers -want-.
Well, we can't angst all the time ;) Although I think I do want to draw a line between fluffy fic and comedic fic. Most fluffy fic I call trash (I can't say 'all' because sometimes I just want shmoop, but it's more like comfort food than anything else) but comedic fic can be conflict-ridden and emotional, it's just a light emotion on the other end of the 'oh no Harry's a poor emotionally abused boy that is an outcast from the wizarding world what can he do but turn into a whore?' type thing. Seven Things... by Pru is one of those light but good ones. I just don't see how fluff fits into the equation.
(Just thinking about it, I don't think there are any fluffy published works.)
Harry Potter is more volatile than the other fandoms I was a part of, simply because there's a whole group of fundamentalists that think the book is a book against their deity. I haven't been flamed yet, but then again, I've posted uh, one story. I just think other people's scathing replies are interesting.