OT (sort of): Slash--A Unique Art Form
mgt...@juno.com
Flamingo, and I have her permission to repost it. I found it so
inspiring that I wanted to share it with all of you. Some of it is
very S&H specific but I thought it would be better to post it
unsnipped. Much of what Flamingo says about slash writing is
applicable to any erotica -- indeed, to fiction writing of any sort.
"TE" refers to her amazing novel "Total Eclipse of the Heart," which
can be found at
http://www.squidge.org/~flamingo/starskyhutchslash/TEotheH/
EmGee
----------------------------------------------------------------
Slash is a unique art form. Those of us who know its history are
grateful and respectful that it exists. Women's writing is the most
oppressed form of writing in all the world. For centuries women
weren't allowed to be educated, and weren't allowed to have an
opinion, never mind a forum to share it in. For most of the years
we've been on this planet women weren't allowed to write anything,
and then when they were, what they could write was limited by what
was "proper" for a woman. This continues in many places today. Slash
is the first erotic writing (the most oppressed of all women's
writing) written BY women FOR women. It is a powerful political
statement, an act of freedom of expression that, when it first
occurred, was courageous and scary and amazing to behold
-- and still is even though it's everywhere and we take it for granted
now. It was and is a unique art form, which is why it is deserving of
study. Slash is many things, but first and foremost it is a platform
for women to share their fantasies, something most cultures and
religions and even relationships have denied us. If all you do is
*read* slash, you are working to make the world more open to
creativity and freedom of expression. You're listening to a woman
speak her mind and share her most private inner thoughts. Reading
that story is giving that woman the freedom to do that. Didn't know
you were a freedom fighter, did you? ;-)
[Can I have an "amen"?]
Sex scenes in slash should be treated the same way ALL scenes should
be
treated in fiction. No scene in a fiction piece should exist unless it
moves the story forward, either through critical character development
or through plot development. A really good scene should do both. The
purpose of any sex scene in slash must be to move the story forward.
It's not a reward for wading through the plot! Every sex scene in TE
moves the plot forward and/or develops character elements. The sex
scenes *have* to be there. Decisions are made in them. People change
through them. Characters learn things about themselves and their
partner. They learn things about love and trust and the meaning of
passion and even friendship. They're important.
I have a friend who *always* reads the sex scenes in any story first.
I blew a gasket when she told me this. I'm not writing all those non-
sex scenes in the middle just to kill trees, anymore than I'm writing
those sex scenes just to increase the sales of panty-liners. A story
isn't a piece of pie that you can pull apart because you think the
crust is boring and eat the filling. Every scene has to have a POINT.
If you can read a scene and say to yourself, "what was the point of
this?" and can't answer that question, take it out or rewrite it to
give it a point. A story is a complete work, an integrated whole, and
whether successful or not, it's a work of art, and if it is slash, an
act of defiance.
Likewise, if you don't want to write a slash scene because you have
problems with that, then why do you need to make your story slash in
the first place? Why make writing more difficult than it has to be?
People can love each other in every way without sex, and gen fiction
has always been there to fulfill that need. If the sex is that
unnecessary, then ask yourself if your story needs to be slash. In
science fiction, they tell you the first test of your story is, "does
this really need to *be* science fiction"? If your story can be told
after taking out the science fiction elements, then don't make it
science fiction. It's not window dressing. The science fiction has to
be a critical element of the story, totally integral. Slash should be
the same way. Why clog up a perfectly fine story, relationship or
otherwise, by introducting an element that doesn't need to be there?
If the slash element can be removed and not effect the story, then
take it out. It's just clutter. Gen writers have written incredibly
powerful stories about love between the guys without
needing to slash them. Check out both the Thousandth Man and The
Goliath on the gen site (by Suzan Lovett) and tell me those aren't
two of the most satisfying relationship stories you've ever read,
filled with passion and feeling and everything we're looking for in a
relationship story. You can do that. Don't force yourself to write
things that you're uncomfortable with.
The whole purpose of slash is to free you to express your fantasies.
If you don't want to do that, don't. However, if you do write a slash
story and spend the whole thing leading the reader to believe
SOMETHING is going to happen, and that SOMETHING is going to be the
culmination of the story, the satisfying conclusion that ties all the
strings together and makes it all make sense and satisfies the reader
for anguishing about all that conflict, and then you shut the door
before doing that...well, don't be surprised if the reader is not
happy with you. Because you haven't finished the story! I'm still
searching through the archives looking for the missing chapter!
Waaah! ;-)
So, when you "skim over the very graphic bits" you're missing
character development and plot changes you won't find in the rest of
the novel. Yes, I know *lots* of people who can't handle my sex
scenes. I've been told that even in other fandoms I wrote in. I write
slash because no one will pay me to produce stories like this, and I
*need* that freedom of expression. Passion has been the driving force
of my life, and I need to explore that and slash is the only avenue
open for me to do that. That's why as much as I love gen and respect
it and encourage people to read it, I will never write it. I can
explore those themes in other avenues. Slash is the only place where
I can be free.
Everyone reads stuff in the best way they can for themselves. I watch
monster movies through my fingers or with a pillow over my face. So, I
can dig it. Just know that you're missing stuff when you do that, if
you have to, and that some of the stuff you're missing is the entire
point of the story. At least in my stuff.
> Does this mean I am a
> gay man in a woman's body or something?
In all honesty (and that's the only way I can ever react), I have to
say this statement threw me for a loop. It's unfortunate that you're
trapped in such rigid stereotypes. Now that you're actually enjoying
slash, I
hope your world view will broaden along with your fiction choices.
Human nature is much more fluid than most people know. ANYONE can
fall in love with ANYONE else, without warning, without having been
attracted to "people like that" whatever *that* is. This is real
life. I was in a very nice relationship with a young man that I
enjoyed very much when I met the woman I fell in love with. We've
been together twenty years. I still love men, and enjoy their company
and am sexually attracted to them. But I love Anne more. All my
passion is wrapped up in that relationship. It took us both by
surprise and we fought it for years but finally realized we would
never be happy any other way. I haven't regretted a day of it, in
spite of the hassles, in spite of all the bullship with the rest of
the world. This kind of thing can't be planned, it can't be explained
away. It HAPPENS to real people all the time. It's life. I considered
myself hetero before I met Anne. I still have a "hetero" mindset, and
still get really stupid in the presence of a handsome man. I just
don't take them home anymore. So what am I? I'll tell you what I'm
not. I'm not confused.
The entire point of TE was to explore what it means to be "gay" or
"straight" and how flexible and limiting those terms are. When asked
if S&H were gay (which reporters did all through the run of the show)
David Soul said many times, "Why do we have to label
relationships 'gay' or 'straight'. I think it's stupid." Paul and
David never labeled the relationship of their characters and they
were asked many times if they were gay. They never said they weren't.
They never referred to the relationship between the characters as
anything less than a "relationship" -- the same way they referred to
their own. They wouldn't label S&H or themselves, they wouldn't close
themselves into a narrow place.
Enjoying slash means that you've expanded your horizons. It means
you've discovered freedom to *think* about different possibilities,
different relationships. Enjoy it. It all just means you're a woman
shedding your chains. It can be hard to move around at first. You'll
get used to it. And then you'll start to run.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
ASCEM messages are copied to a mailing list. Most recent messages
can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASCEML.
chan...@yahoo.com
<snip>
This is really fascinating, MG. Thanks for posting it and thanks to
Flamingo for letting you share it with us.
I'm sure many people will find lots to chew on in this post, but this
is the part I felt the strongest reaction to:
> Sex scenes in slash should be treated the same way ALL scenes should
> be
> treated in fiction. No scene in a fiction piece should exist unless
it
> moves the story forward, either through critical character
development
> or through plot development. A really good scene should do both.
I'm not a S&H fan or much of a slash fan, but I'm intrigued enough to
Flamingo's comments that I think I'll check out hir story. I'll also
make a Trek recommendation--when I read the above, the story I
immediately thought of was Jungle Kitty's "Uneasy Dancers." I've read
it several times and there isn't a single scene--sexual or not--that
doesn't move that story forward.
Chanteuzi
jat_sa...@fan.as
> --- In ASCEML@y..., mgtrek@j... wrote:
>
> <snip>
to
> Flamingo's comments that I think I'll check out hir story.
_Total Eclipse_ is to S/H what Killa's "Turning Point" is to K/S. It
*converts* people. Just a warning.
I'll also
> make a Trek recommendation--when I read the above, the story I
> immediately thought of was Jungle Kitty's "Uneasy Dancers." I've
read
> it several times and there isn't a single scene--sexual or not--
that
> doesn't move that story forward.
True!
Flamingo's post, incidentally, was made in response to a thread in
which several people said things like, "I read slash but I just skim
the really graphic parts" or "I read for the emotion, not the gay-sex-
manual stuff"--a fairly common discussion on that list, but not the
sort of thing I see here. And you can imagine how warm and cozy it
makes the writers feel when somebody says, "I loved your slash story
but I couldn't read the sex parts 'cause gay sex is kinda icky."
If you do read Total Eclipse, too...well, *I* don't see how anybody
follows the *plot* if they're not reading the sex scenes fairly
closely. This is not a criticism. I just wonder whether some of
these readers are perhaps fibbing a bit.
Jane
Alara Rogers
> Flamingo's post, incidentally, was made in response to a thread in
> which several people said things like, "I read slash but I just
skim
> the really graphic parts" or "I read for the emotion, not the gay-
sex-
> manual stuff"--a fairly common discussion on that list, but not the
> sort of thing I see here. And you can imagine how warm and cozy it
> makes the writers feel when somebody says, "I loved your slash
story
> but I couldn't read the sex parts 'cause gay sex is kinda icky."
>
> If you do read Total Eclipse, too...well, *I* don't see how anybody
> follows the *plot* if they're not reading the sex scenes fairly
> closely. This is not a criticism. I just wonder whether some of
> these readers are perhaps fibbing a bit.
I haven't read the story in question. I do totally agree that sex
scenes should move the story forward, and that when they do, they are
very important to read. I, however, have been known to skip sex
scenes in stories where I've learned the hard way through reading too
much of the author's work that the sex *has* nothing to do with the
plot, *doesn't* significantly advance characterization (or it does...
and then it goes on for 3,000 words longer than necessary), and,
well, starts to get totally boring.
This isn't the case with Total Eclipse, I'm sure. Just wanted to
point out that, as ideal as it would be for sex scenes to be
necessary to the plot, sometimes they're *not*, because the writers
weren't interested in doing so.
'Chele
>This was posted on a Starsky & Hutch slash list. The author is
>Flamingo, and I have her permission to repost it. I found it so
>inspiring that I wanted to share it with all of you.
Oh, I'm so glad you did share it! I found it inspiring as
well, even though I do take issue with a couple of things.
And since I'm talkin' 'bout what she said, you're more than
welcome to share this with her, if you like.
Let me say up front, I adore Flamingo's writing. She is an
exceptional slash author and "Total Eclipse of the Heart" is
definitely on my Top Ten list for novel-length stories. That
said, wow, do we see the art of writing differently!
Flamingo wrote:
>Didn't know you were a freedom fighter, did you? ;-)
>[Can I have an "amen"?]
Amen, sistah! But, I knew I was a freedom fighter. With
slash and girly feminism, I buck the patriarchy AND the
matriarchy. <weg>
>Sex scenes in slash should be treated the same way ALL scenes
>should be treated in fiction. No scene in a fiction piece should
>exist unless it moves the story forward, either through critical
>character development or through plot development. A really good
>scene should do both.
OK, now there's where I started to get nervous and by
this point:
>I have a friend who *always* reads the sex scenes in any story first.
>I blew a gasket when she told me this. I'm not writing all those non-
>sex scenes in the middle just to kill trees, anymore than I'm writing
>those sex scenes just to increase the sales of panty-liners. A story
>isn't a piece of pie that you can pull apart because you think the
>crust is boring and eat the filling. Every scene has to have a POINT.
I was alternating between banging my head on the desk
and ROFL. See, for me, it's almost exactly the other
way 'round. For me, the plot can get in the way. I
could really give a good goddamn about the latest alien
race the pairing is facing; I just want to know how that
race effects them, singly and as a couple, UNLESS one or
more of that race captures me *as a character*. For me,
pretty much *all* fiction is character driven -- *any*
given plot is almost incidental. That's probably why
I'm so bad at plotting -- the stories I've finished,
the stories I'm most proud of, are character sketches
with very little or no plot.
The other thing I take exception with is the idea
(outdated, IMO) that a piece of writing is a static
thing, which can only be read in the order the author
intended and, by extension, can only be interpreted in
one way -- the way the author intended. I'm sorry.
Fiction just don't work that way. Even Mark Twain said
the critics took out more than he put in!
Every reader brings a unique set of circumstances to the
mix: literacy level, life experiences, current mood and
frame of mind, all sorts of variables that can mess with
the author's intentions enough to turn Hemmingway into
Austen. This I know from personal experience.
The first time I was exposed to _A Farewell To Arms_
(probably at 14 or 15, Goddess knows why, since I
didn't even *get* half of what it was about), I thought
it was a wonderful romantic tragedy. When I first read
Jane Austen (college, *not* small-town-Texas high school,
mind you), I equated her with Hemmingway, only without
the war stuff, which suited me just fine.
Few years after that, during my second try at academia,
my tastes having refined somewhat with my first (4 year
long) try and the 3 years in between, I picked up
_Farewell_ again with the intention of doing something
with it for a mid-term paper. By the end of the first
chapter, I was seriously wondering what on earth had
driven me to believe that this book was *readable*,
much less a great romantic work. I slogged through the
thing, but in the end, I decided that Hemmingway's
appeal was simply lost on me and that he wasn't a part
of my personal canon of literary geniuses. I wrote my
paper on _Jane Eyre_.
So the next semester, when one of my English seminar
professors brought up the idea of the reader interacting
with the text, I got it right away. Every piece of
writing becomes as many different, unique, equally
valuable, works of art as there are readers who read it.
I suppose, to judge by a recent discussion, that I am
firmly in the postmodern camp. From what she writes here,
I don't *think* Flamingo is. Ain't it cool, though, that
from such different perspectives, we can arrive at
basically the same place? She writes a story she's proud
of and I read and adore it. Nifty neato, it's IDIC! :^)
I guess that's also proof that all the behind-the-scenes
thinking, while fascinating from sociological and
psychological standpoints, doesn't really matter worth a
damn when it comes to the enjoyin' of a good story! <eg>
>In
>science fiction, they tell you the first test of your story is, "does
>this really need to *be* science fiction"? If your story can be told
>after taking out the science fiction elements, then don't make it
>science fiction. It's not window dressing. The science fiction has to
>be a critical element of the story, totally integral. Slash should be
>the same way.
OK, see, I have *always* had a problem with this viewpoint.
Personally, I think that a <grabs genre out of the air> soap
opera would still be a soap opera if it were set on a space
station, but I'd be a darn sight more likely to watch it.
Port Charles, an ABC soap I'd stopped watching, captured my
attention again this summer with a vampire storyline.
Vampires being one of my favorite things in the world, I
naturally tuned in. But it's still a soap; the main plot
is still a lover's triangle. The fact that two of the three
involved are undead creatures of the night (well, actually,
these creatures seem to be able to go about during the day,
too) is almost incidental. Still, I'm watching it. The plot
is soap opera silly. (Lucy the Vampire Slayer?!? Okaaaaay.)
The *characters* have captivated me. They have fangs. <g>
I'm the same way with slash. If it's got a possibility of
a male couple, I'll watch it, no matter how bad it is, at
least until I get a good fix on how the characters look and
move and on their speech patterns. Then I'll read about it,
since fanfic IMO usually improves upon a TV show. In rarely
completed cases, I'll write about it and change it to be what
*I* think of as better.
Wracking my brain, I can't think of a single fandom in which
I haven't read a really good established relationship story
where the slash was, by Flamingo's definition, just window
dressing. Whenever the main plot is the starship crew
making first contact, or the cops solving a crime, or the
Scoobie Gang averting the latest apocalypse, the slash isn't
an integral part, but it's one I'd certainly miss.
Whomever Flamingo was replying to wrote:
> > Does this mean I am a
> > gay man in a woman's body or something?
Heh. I have to laugh at this. I've had two different
gay male friends describe me in this manner, several years
apart, and in both cases it was intended as, and I took it
as, a compliment. <giggle>
>It all just means you're a woman shedding your chains. It can
>be hard to move around at first. You'll get used to it. And
>then you'll start to run.
Mmmm. That girl do have a way with words don't she? Other
than what bits I argued here, I agreed with pretty much
everything she said, especially the stuff about writing
what you're comfortable with and what's real.
One other thing I'd like to add and that is that discussion
like this is also an act of freedom fighters and posting to
a newsgroup or an email list is also:
>a powerful political statement, an act of freedom of expression that,
>when it first occurred, was courageous and scary and amazing to
>behold -- and still is even though it's everywhere and we take it for
>granted now.
--'Chele, can't wait to see what the rest of y'all think
<to email me, remove the meat below>
Loneliness is the poverty of the self; | J. Michele Freemon
solitude is the richness of the self. |
| www.abu-ali.org
May Sarton | ja...@io.spam.com
Mark Stanley
I think the problem here is the way you're interpreting the word "plot".
It sounds like you're defining it to mean "external action." On the
contrary, all pieces of writing must have plots to be good, but that
plot can be, "X and Y have sex. It goes very well, and they both have
spectacular orgasms." Or "X contemplates the aftermath of Good Episode."
Stories without external action, despite fandom's light-hearted label,
are not automatically stories without plot. Only a bad writer will
produce a story without a plot.
I understood Flamingo to mean that a sex scene should be as essential to
the story as all the other scenes. It should also be as well-integrated.
You shouldn't be able to isolate it from the rest of the story, either
to skip it or to read it first, and have either it or the story make
sense.
Too many sex scenes have that "tacked on" feel, leading one to suspect
that the author thinks she needs a sex scene in order to attract
readers, not because it's neccessary for the plot. A bad or unneccessary
sex scene can be like that lump of lyrics cut and pasted into the middle
of a songfic -- it has nothing to do with the plot, and it brings the
story to a dead stop while the characters do the horizontal lambada.
I'm all for reader participation in the narrative, but I don't think
that includes rearranging that narrative. If you're going to read a
story, read the whole thing, in order. And if you're going to write a
story, make the whole thing worth reading.
Mark
--
I wouldn't know subtlety if it came up and bit me on the
ass. But then, that wouldn't be very subtle, would it?
--Olivia, Treksmut mistress
~~~
mrs...@sk.sympatico.ca
http://www.geocities.com/mrs260/
jat_sa...@fan.as
> 'Chele wrote:
> > For me, the plot can get in the way. I
> > could really give a good goddamn about the latest alien
> > race the pairing is facing; I just want to know how that
> > race effects them, singly and as a couple, UNLESS one or
> > more of that race captures me *as a character*. For me,
> > pretty much *all* fiction is character driven -- *any*
> > given plot is almost incidental. That's probably why
> > I'm so bad at plotting -- the stories I've finished,
> > the stories I'm most proud of, are character sketches
> > with very little or no plot.
> >
>
> I think the problem here is the way you're interpreting the
word "plot".
I'd agree, especially as I too am a character writer. I only find
out what's going to happen because it's what the characters get
around to doing. Still, it irks me to read a story where *either*
the alien race or the sex scenes seem unconnected, as if the story
could just as easily do without them, or could be two separate
stories.
Now, having said *that*, I also have to admit that lately, I've run
into too many stories in which the integration of the A and B plots
is way contrived. Police buddies and lovers investigate a case--that
just *happens* to resemble strongly one of the traumas of the past
for one of them...Captain and first officer facing a relationship
crisis make a diplomatic visit--in which a couple of the aliens are
struggling with pretty much the same issue... Like other fanfic
cliches, this is the kind of thing I begin to notice even when the
story I'm reading at the time is just fine. (Flamingo's Total
Eclipse of the Heart, which I love, begins with a mystery drug
unknown to science. I pull up my disbelief-suspenders and keep
reading, but I do wish she'd found another way into the plot.)
> I understood Flamingo to mean that a sex scene should be as
essential to
> the story as all the other scenes. It should also be as well-
integrated.
> You shouldn't be able to isolate it from the rest of the story,
either
> to skip it or to read it first, and have either it or the story make
> sense.
And yet S/H fans talk about which chapters of Total Eclipse they
personally go back and revisit (the sex-intensive ones, as a rule).
Though I didn't do that, myself, to begin with, and given that people
say they stay up all night on a first reading--as I've often heard
about Killa's K/S as well--I assume they're not skimming either.
I suspect what may be happening here is a gap between the maker's
point of view and the user's. As a *writer*, I'm with Mark when he
says,
> I'm all for reader participation in the narrative, but I don't think
> that includes rearranging that narrative. If you're going to read a
> story, read the whole thing, in order. And if you're going to write
a
> story, make the whole thing worth reading.
It bugs me to think that I wrote the Altair part, say, in Coals of
Fire, and some people might never read it because they're skimming
for the sex scenes. I put the same energy, the same writing passion,
in both A and B plots. (And anyway there are only two sex scenes in
Coals, so by that standard it's not a good story.)
Still, as a reader, I've done not only the kind of selective reading
that caused 'Chelle to react so differently to the same novel when
she read it at different times (and boy, am I with you on the
Hemingway thing), but the kind of "revisit the favorite parts"
reading that TEotH fans talk about. And I agree with the theory that
the artist can't control the reception of the artwork, that the
reader makes the text she reads...yet I can't write like that. I
write like a modernist and read like a postmodernist. There are
reasons postmoderns say the author is dead: this is one of them. I
don't know how you make a text at all under the assumption that you
are not making it, that only the reader can make it.
Jane
cimfi...@hotmail.com
slash essay:
> >I have a friend who *always* reads the sex scenes in any story
first.
> >I blew a gasket when she told me this. I'm not writing all those
non-
> >sex scenes in the middle just to kill trees, anymore than I'm
writing
> >those sex scenes just to increase the sales of panty-liners. A
story
> >isn't a piece of pie that you can pull apart because you think the
> >crust is boring and eat the filling. Every scene has to have a
POINT.
>
> I was alternating between banging my head on the desk
> and ROFL. See, for me, it's almost exactly the other
> way 'round. For me, the plot can get in the way. I
> could really give a good goddamn about the latest alien
> race the pairing is facing; I just want to know how that
> race effects them, singly and as a couple, UNLESS one or
> more of that race captures me *as a character*. For me,
> pretty much *all* fiction is character driven -- *any*
> given plot is almost incidental. That's probably why
> I'm so bad at plotting -- the stories I've finished,
> the stories I'm most proud of, are character sketches
> with very little or no plot.
Well, I think that advancing character development, while not exactly
the same thing as advancing plot, would disqualify a sex scene from
being a scene that *doesn't* have a point. I don't think your idea
here is in opposition to hers. I also find character development much
more interesting than plot, though I'm not ready to throw plot out the
window. On the other hand, I take issue with pretty much any sweeping
generalization, and "every scene has to have a POINT," I believe,
falls into that category. I do often skim over scenes that don't seem
to have much of a point, or that seem to have a point along the lines
of "this is really hot, don't you think?", but that doesn't mean
there's something inherently wrong with PWP. People do write it on
purpose, because they wanted to, and other people do enjoy it, and I
can even see myself at some future date including a scene (not
necessarily a sex scene) in a story that didn't have a point. I can
even see a scene that didn't have a point within itself still
contributing to the work as a whole.
> The other thing I take exception with is the idea
> (outdated, IMO) that a piece of writing is a static
> thing, which can only be read in the order the author
> intended and, by extension, can only be interpreted in
> one way -- the way the author intended. I'm sorry.
> Fiction just don't work that way. Even Mark Twain said
> the critics took out more than he put in!
This sounds a bit like Northrop Frye, a very very old literary critic
who I *believe* to be emphatically Modernist (although I don't totally
know what I'm talking about, so anyone, esp. Jane, is free to correct
me). I know this would get tiresome if I did it too much, but I'm
going to quote a very long sentence from him: "The failure to make,
in practice, the most elementary of all distinctions in literature,
the distinction between fiction and fact, hypothesis and assertion,
imaginative and discursive writing, produces what in criticism has
been called the 'intentional fallacy,' the notion that the poet has a
primary intention of conveying meaning to a reader, and that the first
duty of a critic is to recapture that intention. " On the other hand,
some Modernists (not Frye, I think) would argue that a work of
literature can be interpreted in only one correct way; they wouldn't
say that that was the way the author intended, though. Of course,
this doesn't disagree with Postmodernism, either.
> >In
> >science fiction, they tell you the first test of your story is,
"does
> >this really need to *be* science fiction"? If your story can be
told
> >after taking out the science fiction elements, then don't make it
> >science fiction. It's not window dressing. The science fiction has
to
> >be a critical element of the story, totally integral. Slash should
be
> >the same way.
>
> OK, see, I have *always* had a problem with this viewpoint.
> Personally, I think that a <grabs genre out of the air> soap
> opera would still be a soap opera if it were set on a space
> station, but I'd be a darn sight more likely to watch it.
I'm with you. I'm not sure who "they" are, although I know I've heard
their stricture expressed before, but I'm pretty sure they're a party
I don't approve of. It's another one of those sweeping
generalizations. Gosh darn it, if I want to write a story that is
really about the human condition and consists entirely of character
interaction, and just set it in space, who are *they* to tell me not
to? (Or a romance, and set it in space? What the heck is wrong
with space opera, please?) And who are they to define the proper
boundaries of the genre, either? They sound like some snobby
Modernist lit. professors hiding out in the vast populist
freedom-fighting commie movement of sf, to me.
> Wracking my brain, I can't think of a single fandom in which
> I haven't read a really good established relationship story
> where the slash was, by Flamingo's definition, just window
> dressing. Whenever the main plot is the starship crew
> making first contact, or the cops solving a crime, or the
> Scoobie Gang averting the latest apocalypse, the slash isn't
> an integral part, but it's one I'd certainly miss.
Again, it's the author's call. The least we can do is grant them the
assumption that they (a) know what they're doing and (b) had a reason
for it. We don't have to like it, but that doesn't mean they've done
something wrong.
> Mmmm. That girl do have a way with words don't she? Other
> than what bits I argued here, I agreed with pretty much
> everything she said, especially the stuff about writing
> what you're comfortable with and what's real.
Yep!
> One other thing I'd like to add and that is that discussion
> like this is also an act of freedom fighters and posting to
> a newsgroup or an email list is also:
>
> >a powerful political statement, an act of freedom of expression
that,
> >when it first occurred, was courageous and scary and amazing to
> >behold -- and still is even though it's everywhere and we take it
for
> >granted now.
>
> --'Chele, can't wait to see what the rest of y'all think
cim, cordially likewise
cimfi...@hotmail.com
> I suspect what may be happening here is a gap between the maker's
> point of view and the user's. As a *writer*, I'm with Mark when he
> says,
>
> > I'm all for reader participation in the narrative, but I don't
think
> > that includes rearranging that narrative. If you're going to read
a
> > story, read the whole thing, in order. And if you're going to
write
> a
> > story, make the whole thing worth reading.
><snip>
> Still, as a reader, I've done not only the kind of selective reading
> that caused 'Chelle to react so differently to the same novel when
> she read it at different times (and boy, am I with you on the
> Hemingway thing), but the kind of "revisit the favorite parts"
> reading that TEotH fans talk about. And I agree with the theory
that
> the artist can't control the reception of the artwork, that the
> reader makes the text she reads...yet I can't write like that. I
> write like a modernist and read like a postmodernist. There are
> reasons postmoderns say the author is dead: this is one of them. I
> don't know how you make a text at all under the assumption that you
> are not making it, that only the reader can make it.
>
> Jane
I agree, "if you're going to write a story, make the whole thing worth
reading," certainly. You have an obligation to make the whole thing
*worth* reading, but unfortunately, no one has an obligation to read
the whole thing, no matter how worthy it is. They're free to consider
plot-development to be of inherently less value than sex, and
post-modernistly, we can't say that they're wrong. As a reader, I'm
free to like stories with reservations, or even to like certain scenes
and not others, whatever those scenes are.
As a writer, I don't know that it's possible to write without at least
hoping, if not anticipating, that someone will "take out" what I "put
in." If they weren't going to, why put anything good there at all?
The problem is in the leap from the writer's viewpoint to the creation
of rules for readers. We can hope, but we can't demand.
cim