~~ on slashing the obvious
Dec. 28th, 2004 05:17 pmI think since I'm nearly writing it right now, I've been rethinking some of my old ideas about the definition of 'original slash'.
Initially, I saw a heterosexual romance developing between my female narrator and the main male character, but somehow that was unsatisfactory-- too obvious, perhaps. So I invented a male foil to the (male) hero-- and one of his secondary or 'shadow' functions was definitely to become a romantic/sexual draw to my male protagonist.
In terms of me writing any romance in this story at all, I wanted to use these two characters, though at the back of my mind, the heroic protagonist and the antagonist were hardly going to expect this, and I still felt the girl somehow 'should' be with the guy in some alternate universe where I was unaware of other ways of thinking.
So perhaps the reason this potential protagonist/antagonist relationship is 'slash' (or just 'slashy'?) is that I'm twisting the 'real' (or original) narrative in my head, making there be two layers working with each other. The expected story i first envisioned and the second story I found more compelling 'cause it was possible too, but really because it fit my kinks better. I saw slashy possibilities because that's what I wanted to see, and I think no matter how much you talk about slashy subtext really being there, a lot of slashers perceive what they want to be there. It's just that me creating the character for that purpose was taking this one step further and playing with my own expectations.
It could be more simple, of course. I immediately knew that this relationship was going to be more central & intense than the relatively tame friendship between the girl and the guy-- these two men are at opposing sides of a huge conflict and their whole lives revolve around each other whether or not they're fully aware of it. And because there's this huge importance there, I felt any sort of romance would only be taking the existing chemistry from their respective roles to the next level. As soon as I conceived of these two characters, the intense narrative connection between them became obvious-- it was only sexualizing it that felt... iffy.
I feel as though writing them as attracted to one another would be subverting (or at least working aside from) some idea of a 'cultural canon' or perhaps simply the cultural norm as far as I'm aware of it as the writer. That's why it seems important that a definition of slash, whether or not it's 'original', should state that one's not writing about self-identified (or culturally identified) queerness. It's central that neither of my characters see themselves as gay at least with regards to each other-- whatever -that- means.
( I have a few ideas, of course. )
Initially, I saw a heterosexual romance developing between my female narrator and the main male character, but somehow that was unsatisfactory-- too obvious, perhaps. So I invented a male foil to the (male) hero-- and one of his secondary or 'shadow' functions was definitely to become a romantic/sexual draw to my male protagonist.
In terms of me writing any romance in this story at all, I wanted to use these two characters, though at the back of my mind, the heroic protagonist and the antagonist were hardly going to expect this, and I still felt the girl somehow 'should' be with the guy in some alternate universe where I was unaware of other ways of thinking.
So perhaps the reason this potential protagonist/antagonist relationship is 'slash' (or just 'slashy'?) is that I'm twisting the 'real' (or original) narrative in my head, making there be two layers working with each other. The expected story i first envisioned and the second story I found more compelling 'cause it was possible too, but really because it fit my kinks better. I saw slashy possibilities because that's what I wanted to see, and I think no matter how much you talk about slashy subtext really being there, a lot of slashers perceive what they want to be there. It's just that me creating the character for that purpose was taking this one step further and playing with my own expectations.
It could be more simple, of course. I immediately knew that this relationship was going to be more central & intense than the relatively tame friendship between the girl and the guy-- these two men are at opposing sides of a huge conflict and their whole lives revolve around each other whether or not they're fully aware of it. And because there's this huge importance there, I felt any sort of romance would only be taking the existing chemistry from their respective roles to the next level. As soon as I conceived of these two characters, the intense narrative connection between them became obvious-- it was only sexualizing it that felt... iffy.
I feel as though writing them as attracted to one another would be subverting (or at least working aside from) some idea of a 'cultural canon' or perhaps simply the cultural norm as far as I'm aware of it as the writer. That's why it seems important that a definition of slash, whether or not it's 'original', should state that one's not writing about self-identified (or culturally identified) queerness. It's central that neither of my characters see themselves as gay at least with regards to each other-- whatever -that- means.
( I have a few ideas, of course. )
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