(the fire & taboos)

[reenka]

I 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?
~~

Which Harry Potter Male is Stalking You? by Dooreatoe
Name/Username
Favorite Color
Your Stalker	Draco Malfoy
Days he has been stalking you	101
Where he is right now	Hiding in a tree
How do you find out?	He murders your beloved pet
How it all ends	You agree to go out with him, almost causing him to wet himself
Quiz created with MemeGen!

Comments

[egoteabsolvo.livejournal.com]

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'.

something quite similar happened to me because of a chanslash fic I wrote (a severus/draco).

and I started thinking about answers for the same questions. actually, I looked for them, which was a quite easy things to do, because of my studies (literature and criticism).

eventually, I've come to the conclusion that no, there's not a universally accepted list of subjects on which the artist shouldn't thread.

this assumption would make the artist free to create at his/her own will.

but here comes the trick.

most artists have their own list of taboos (just think about Proust and his masquerade of homosexuality issues...) that they can't easily dismiss. you can ignore people that judge you without bothering to understand, to see things differently. but can you ignore yourself, your inner disgust about a certain theme?

this brings us to the moral matter. the weight of morals on society has shifted, but not changed. in other times there were themes you just couldn't touch. now we are said that everything is at our arm-reach (or pen-reach...). but then, when we make our choices, we are often thrown because of them into the hell of pointless criticism, just because we have been the only ones to not have noticed the label which said "you better not choose this one, dear".

Are not the darkest things some of the most fascinating?

oh yes, they are. at least for me. other (most) people are afraid of the dark, of not knowing in advance.

because it's better/easier venturing down the countryside than exploring the jungle. who knows what encounters you could make there.

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?

not brutally fun, not at all. it's quite a difficult theme you has chosen, because it's one of the most truly human. and most people don't like being put in front of a mirror that tells them that yes, they are just like that, or worse, that no, they aren't like that, they will never be able to be.

better have a perfect little world that we can hold in the palm of our hand and crush when we begin to believe too much in it, telling ourselves that after all it was just an illusion.

better that than a raw emotion displayed in front of us, pulsing and alive and demanding, as if it was our own heart just ripped out of our chest, in a burst of brutal reality.

and if you are wondering, I cheer for this latter...

blue
(hoping to have make some sense, at least, and always enjoying your entries... food for the thoughts, they are! ;D)

[triestine.livejournal.com]

Have placed post in 'memories', will reply soon. I love your entries.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Well, here's a subject that totally obsesses me.:-)

I think...the thing about morals is it's like you say, people write to "get it out." Since writing comes from inside you, everything you put on the page is you. And I don't think people can write things well if they're spending their time avoiding what they *really* want to write (like, if you really want to write Percy/Ron, but you think that's immoral so you'll write, hmmm, H/G instead, it's not going to be interesting...unless in your head you're still secretly writing Percy/Ron. I firmly believe that restraints imposed on an author can be a good thing accidentally).

I think people are way off when they think the "morals" of a writer are present in their pairing or the situation they are writing about, because that's just...it's just a vehicle for what they want to say. If all an incest fic is saying is that incest is okay, that's not saying much. Where your morals come in is more subtle. Reading a story after a while you can sort of see what somebody is saying.

But anyway it fascinates me to know what writers write over and over, because of course you don't really think about it that way, do you. You think of the story first or what stories you like and then if you decide to analyze it maybe you can see what you feel like you have to "say" beyond just telling the story.

[spiritstairway.livejournal.com]

Very excellent post :) I had a fantastic time reading it.

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 :)

[shaggirl.livejournal.com]

First, I covet your quiz results. Except for the cat killing part. :P

I 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...?

I've written two OTP's, H/D and Clark/Lex, which have some similar themes. There's a constant and subtle power struggle going on where neither has a clear advantage over the other, because their soul-deep need for the other makes them equally vulnerable. With Smallville (and you can draw your own H/D parallels) we first meet Clark as a 15 year old farmboy, completely naive and virginal, and then comes Lex, the jaded, 22 year old, sexually ambiguous billionaire. The balance of power should overwhelming belong to Lex. Except Clark's a Super-powerful space alien (with an invulnerable, yet exquisitely sensitive ass ;), so that kind of evens things out. But it's Lex's obsession with Clark and Clark's constant coming back for more, even after the "friendship of legend" (Lex's sunset back-dropped declaration) takes on a sorta creepy vibe, that ensures neither of them is ever going to "win" against the other.

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... Instinctually, I wonder how could H/D be any other way, really...

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.

The element of emotional brutality in H/D is a big attractor for me. It can be played with to a much greater degree than with the Clex, with its 50 years of comics canon telling us Clark has too strong a moral compass to either submit to or inflict emotional abuse, except under really extreme (most fics that do it successfully are labeled AU) circumstances. Physical abuse, yeah, becaue we've got Kryptonite to play with, but rarely emotional abuse.

I like traditional romances, too. I don't think Harry and Draco could ever have anything close to resembling one, though. That doesn't mean I don't think they couldn't ever have a sort of romance, fucked up though it would undoubtedly be (mmm, obsession).

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 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?

Yes. Harry and Draco are always, *always* going to be at each others throats, clawing and kissing and biting a little too hard. I prefer Hogwarts fic, but if the hate and angry sex don't kill them young and pretty, I do like to think of them cheerfully antagonizing each other in their dottage.

As for themes I find myself writing repeatedly, my epic Clex fic is also rentboy fic. It's the element of non-consent that's always present when you've sold yourself for someone else's use that gets me off on hooker fic. I don't worry about whether people will like what I write, and the most twisted things I've written (embryonic cocksucking comes to mind) have been among the best received. There's definitely an audience for that stuff, though they may not be on Fiction Alley.

[danbi.livejournal.com]

These are all interesting ideas and me, pretending I know something, will answer the parts I found interesting.

I don't know why people comment on the new themes they use on their journals. Frankly, I don't give a shit. You want to credit someone? Leave a short note - I'm there to read your journal and your thoughts, not to thank whoever-the-hell on being able to put something together. If I change my theme, I only comment if it's something funny; like recently, I switched to pink and I called myself uber girly cause I thought it was funny. No one actually had to look at the setup to know it was pink; I liked that. Anyway, this has stopped being interesting so let's move onto something else.

There's only the inspiration-- the urge to get it out.

That spoke to me; I cannot stop writing until I've finally got it all out. Ideas fester in me. It's awful - it's an infestation more than anything else. People tell me to take a break; that's all well and good but the ideas keep moving about till I do something about them. However, there are things I won't write - I can't do incest, personally. I've seen some tasteful things done, but I just can't write an entire incestual story. If others do, good for them.

I think people want fluff because they want to know that there is some feeling beneath the hatred. When I write, I try to keep realistic characters (though I'm utterly failing in one story) but they do care about each other, deep down; it's something seen in two lines throughout the story. They usually hate each other, but they are still drawn to one another. For me, it works. I don't much like the oh-my-god-I-love-you-all-of-a-sudden shit; some is well written but is SO obviously OOC. But what can I do? Nothing but stop reading it.

I like having the hate there because I have an obsession with trying to be IC. But hate all the time doesn't work. Hate with something personal like sex...it's fun to read once, maybe twice, but without any feeling? I can't handle it; that's depressing. To me.

Oh, and dracorocksmysox linked me here. I love givin' my opinion, regardless of whether or not others think it's total BS.

By the way, that's funny that they called you brave. Made me laugh.

[zionsstarfish.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I feel like I'm writing exactly the same thing over and over again and I'm scared sometimes that it'll get stale and boring. But for some reason, I'm still writing about finding yourself, finding your place in the world, trying to be brave enough to hold on, and let go. At least, I *think* that's what I write about ;)