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escritoireazulOh, so much good discussion and so many comments have helped me become even more concise and aware of the questions I'm asking and the thoughts I have. Thank you all for your comments and thoughts and suggestions and explanations.
Here is the original post about it, with discussion in the comments.
I think I can break down some of my thoughts within larger topics.
Labels
At what point does a fic need to be labeled gen or shippy? There was a lot of talk about how slash fic doesn’t mean the feelings of one character are reciprocated, but as long as there is a clear attraction from one side, the story becomes slash.
However, what if the main story is not about that attraction, returned or not, and is instead about fighting a war or saving the world or surviving high school, and the emotional aspect is just one side plot of many? Is it still a shippy fic then, or is it a gen fic with relationships (or the lack) on the side?
I think I want to label it like that, so it could be gen and het, or gen and slash, because to me, relationships on the side are a part of general life. To phrase it better (I hope), a shippy fic would be focused on the relationship (or lack) first, and on anything else second, but a gen fic would be focused on the something else (say a long adventure plot) first, and the relationships second (or even farther down the list). Because the relationship isn’t the most important thing in the story, to me it’s not shippy, it’s a gen fic with relationships.
What do you think?
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marenfic said this about what qualifies a story as femslash: “[T]here needs to be a clear attraction from at least one person for it to qualify as femslash.”
That is what I was looking for (though I’m not discounting anyone else’s responses at all, I really enjoyed them all, and they really helped) in an answer, something I could understand and use to evaluate the line between shippy fic and gen fic.
I still have thoughts on it, though, and questions.
I think one of the ideas I’m actually aiming at with this discussion is the difference between labels and warnings, whether they exist, where the difference takes place, and what it is specifically.
For example, still using “lineage and the Slayer line” to draw from (more or less), if Faith had a similar moment with Xander (a brief kiss), does the story become a het fic? What if the main purpose of the story is not that kiss, or Faith’s attraction to Xander, but instead Faith looking for a reflection of herself in someone else, taking her hope and future dreams from that person, and it’s not about the relationship (or the physical manifestation of the lack of relationship) at all but about Faith. Wouldn’t that be a gen fic with a kiss? I think so, and I think the same goes for what actually happened in “lineage and the Slayer line” because the kiss isn’t the most important part of the story. If I read this without knowing what it was written for, I would have thought female gen fic first, and femslash second.
However, Faith does feel attraction for Kendra, and it was written for the femslash challenge, and no random male is interchangeable in Kendra’s role, because the story is all about how she and Faith relate because they are women and Slayers. I still don’t know if it is femslash though, or gen fic with a little femslash on the side. Does that little bit on the side mean the whole thing is femslash?
Ascadence_k says, “if there is any attraction, it can be labeled shippy.” It can be, I can understand that, but should it be if the attraction/relationship isn’t the main point of the story? (I think I’m circling here with my thoughts. Actually, I know I am.)
bluestargirl6 brought up a really interesting point about labels, and how frustrating they can be when a story is falsely labeled (her example was stories carrying NC-17/Adult labels which don’t deserve them, no sex is involved, and especially not graphic sex [a distinction which is my addition because I think non-graphic sex falls more under R/18+ than NC-17/Adult]. She went on to talk about how it might not quite be false advertising, especially in longer stories with multiple chapters, where not every chapter as explicit sex but future ones will, which is a good point, and a nice addition.)
Before she added that, though, I had some other ideas on why slash stories in particular might end up with unwarranted higher ratings. First of all, if a fic is just rated NC-17, do you the reader assume it means for sex unless it is otherwise stated? Should fic ratings have more detail (NC-17 for violence or NC-17 for graphic sex or R for language, you get the picture)? And do we have different expectations from headers as writers than as readers? (She says she does, and makes some really good points about not wanting to be “spoiled” for the story [for lack of a better term in my indirect quote here] but wanting to know what she’s getting into as a reader, but not wanting to have to be witty but clear in the summary or list potentially uncomfortable pairings which might give away the plot.)
Do you think ratings should come with more detail? For example, NC-17 for violence or NC-17 for graphic sex or R for language and violence. Would that help stop the label problem? Also, do you think some slash stories are labeled higher than they deserve because slash is a more "taboo" topic like graphic sex or violence? (Obviously, I don't think it is and wouldn't label like that, but it makes me wonder if that's part of the thought process behind labeling it higher.) Or do you think it's literally just a wrong label?
That leads me to another thought I had about labeling slash stories when they are really more gen stories with a bit of relationship on the side. When we as authors do that, are we encouraging the mindset that slash stories need to be labeled because otherwise readers might stumble on it and get upset? Do I, as a non Buffy/Spike fan, get upset when I start a story which isn’t about them, but they end up being a part of it as a couple? No. But then I do appreciate knowing it will be there, so I can choose whether or not to read it. Except that’s normally when it’s the main plotline. See? Cyclical thought and no easy answers.
Another thingbluestargirl6 and I talked about was my question about whether gen fic (or het fic too) becomes slash if the slash relationship is a side plot. She thinks it does, even though the reverse isn’t true, because people are very sensitive about slash. “At some point, warnings become as much about protecting writers as they do about guiding readers. I’ve seen plenty of people get blasted for ‘sneaking’ homosexuality into fics and ‘forcing’ readers to read it.”
Which is absolutely horrible, and a double-standard, and it does suck. Thoughts on this? (Not whether it sucks or not, though if you do have thoughts on that, feel free to share them, I more mean the double-standard in the labeling.)
faechick brought up another point which I think is a good ending to this section of the discussion (for now). She said, when sharing her definition of a character sketch, “a look at a character—this can be labeled as Gen, Het or Slash also, depending on how you view the character in question. (I’d say that in not obviously gay characters a slash warning is good for the readers when you’ve chosen to portray them that way?).”
I really think I have two different discussions here, one labeling in fanfic and one labeling in commercial fic (whether formal publisher/bookstore labeling [which is fairly sporadic] or informal reader labeling), because she makes a really nice point there about how characters are portrayed in the canon and how the fanfic author interprets their sexuality possibly different from others might and whether a label is necessary then.
Graphic Sex
No fic has to have sex, and I didn’t actually mean that, despite the somewhat facetious previous title to the first post (which has now been changed for clarity). Part of what I wonder is are certain types of fics expected to have sex (graphic or not)? Are het or male slash stories more likely to have graphic sex than femslash?
Unfortunately I think so, and this bothers me. However, I don’t write a lot of graphic femslash either, though I love it and would love to be able to read more.
marenfic had two really great points in her comment. The first was that Western societies are, in general, not as comfortable with female sexuality, especially when it becomes explicit. The second was that there is a language barrier to writing explicit femslash, and though I hadn’t thought about it in this context, there really is. As she says, “all of our words for female genitalia are either too clinical for erotica (vagina- although I think it's a fine word, I'm in the minority) or have negative connotations for a lot of people (pussy, cunt). So when you have two females, you have double the language problems.”
My problem is that I worry sometimes the lack of explicit sex in my writing, fanfic or non-fanfic, will be taken as me being uncomfortable with femslash in general or especially graphic femslash and I am really, really not. I happen to love femslash and graphic sex in femslash, and like I said earlier, would love to have more.
I have trouble writing graphic sex at all; I have struggled for hours with every single sex scene I’ve ever written, because I don’t feel I am able to write a story containing graphic sex which is erotic, just plain hot, feasible, in-character, and well-written.
My fears for being taken the wrong way based on my writing are, obviously, personal hang-ups, and are exacerbated when I’m writing for a femslash community and many of the other stories contain graphic sex, but I didn’t think sex fit into the story I was trying to tell.
That, too, isn’t just about femslash, though. I have a real problem with gratuitous sex in stories, though this is less about fanfic and much more about published commercial fiction, and really has no bearing on this discussion.
docmichelle said that sex should serve the story, and she’s very right about that, which pretty much sums up all I wanted to say on the topic without delving into ranting about published fiction. (That’ll happen some other day, I’m sure.) If it doesn’t serve the story, it will be forced, and if it’s forced, I think it does a disservice to the story, to the author, and to the reader.
I have quoted so many people in here I feel like I'm writing a paper again. This is a good feeling. I'm also overflowing with ideas and spent way too much time on this tonight, commenting and thinking and revising, time I should have spent editing the novel or writing the sequel novel, but this was good too.
Edited to Add Ha, ha, ha, that is what I get for not writing it up in livejournal, and then not checking to make sure nothing was wrong with the code. All user names should be fixed now, I hope.
Here is the original post about it, with discussion in the comments.
I think I can break down some of my thoughts within larger topics.
Labels
At what point does a fic need to be labeled gen or shippy? There was a lot of talk about how slash fic doesn’t mean the feelings of one character are reciprocated, but as long as there is a clear attraction from one side, the story becomes slash.
However, what if the main story is not about that attraction, returned or not, and is instead about fighting a war or saving the world or surviving high school, and the emotional aspect is just one side plot of many? Is it still a shippy fic then, or is it a gen fic with relationships (or the lack) on the side?
I think I want to label it like that, so it could be gen and het, or gen and slash, because to me, relationships on the side are a part of general life. To phrase it better (I hope), a shippy fic would be focused on the relationship (or lack) first, and on anything else second, but a gen fic would be focused on the something else (say a long adventure plot) first, and the relationships second (or even farther down the list). Because the relationship isn’t the most important thing in the story, to me it’s not shippy, it’s a gen fic with relationships.
What do you think?
marenfic said this about what qualifies a story as femslash: “[T]here needs to be a clear attraction from at least one person for it to qualify as femslash.”That is what I was looking for (though I’m not discounting anyone else’s responses at all, I really enjoyed them all, and they really helped) in an answer, something I could understand and use to evaluate the line between shippy fic and gen fic.
I still have thoughts on it, though, and questions.
I think one of the ideas I’m actually aiming at with this discussion is the difference between labels and warnings, whether they exist, where the difference takes place, and what it is specifically.
For example, still using “lineage and the Slayer line” to draw from (more or less), if Faith had a similar moment with Xander (a brief kiss), does the story become a het fic? What if the main purpose of the story is not that kiss, or Faith’s attraction to Xander, but instead Faith looking for a reflection of herself in someone else, taking her hope and future dreams from that person, and it’s not about the relationship (or the physical manifestation of the lack of relationship) at all but about Faith. Wouldn’t that be a gen fic with a kiss? I think so, and I think the same goes for what actually happened in “lineage and the Slayer line” because the kiss isn’t the most important part of the story. If I read this without knowing what it was written for, I would have thought female gen fic first, and femslash second.
However, Faith does feel attraction for Kendra, and it was written for the femslash challenge, and no random male is interchangeable in Kendra’s role, because the story is all about how she and Faith relate because they are women and Slayers. I still don’t know if it is femslash though, or gen fic with a little femslash on the side. Does that little bit on the side mean the whole thing is femslash?
As
cadence_k says, “if there is any attraction, it can be labeled shippy.” It can be, I can understand that, but should it be if the attraction/relationship isn’t the main point of the story? (I think I’m circling here with my thoughts. Actually, I know I am.)bluestargirl6 brought up a really interesting point about labels, and how frustrating they can be when a story is falsely labeled (her example was stories carrying NC-17/Adult labels which don’t deserve them, no sex is involved, and especially not graphic sex [a distinction which is my addition because I think non-graphic sex falls more under R/18+ than NC-17/Adult]. She went on to talk about how it might not quite be false advertising, especially in longer stories with multiple chapters, where not every chapter as explicit sex but future ones will, which is a good point, and a nice addition.)Before she added that, though, I had some other ideas on why slash stories in particular might end up with unwarranted higher ratings. First of all, if a fic is just rated NC-17, do you the reader assume it means for sex unless it is otherwise stated? Should fic ratings have more detail (NC-17 for violence or NC-17 for graphic sex or R for language, you get the picture)? And do we have different expectations from headers as writers than as readers? (She says she does, and makes some really good points about not wanting to be “spoiled” for the story [for lack of a better term in my indirect quote here] but wanting to know what she’s getting into as a reader, but not wanting to have to be witty but clear in the summary or list potentially uncomfortable pairings which might give away the plot.)
Do you think ratings should come with more detail? For example, NC-17 for violence or NC-17 for graphic sex or R for language and violence. Would that help stop the label problem? Also, do you think some slash stories are labeled higher than they deserve because slash is a more "taboo" topic like graphic sex or violence? (Obviously, I don't think it is and wouldn't label like that, but it makes me wonder if that's part of the thought process behind labeling it higher.) Or do you think it's literally just a wrong label?
That leads me to another thought I had about labeling slash stories when they are really more gen stories with a bit of relationship on the side. When we as authors do that, are we encouraging the mindset that slash stories need to be labeled because otherwise readers might stumble on it and get upset? Do I, as a non Buffy/Spike fan, get upset when I start a story which isn’t about them, but they end up being a part of it as a couple? No. But then I do appreciate knowing it will be there, so I can choose whether or not to read it. Except that’s normally when it’s the main plotline. See? Cyclical thought and no easy answers.
Another thing
bluestargirl6 and I talked about was my question about whether gen fic (or het fic too) becomes slash if the slash relationship is a side plot. She thinks it does, even though the reverse isn’t true, because people are very sensitive about slash. “At some point, warnings become as much about protecting writers as they do about guiding readers. I’ve seen plenty of people get blasted for ‘sneaking’ homosexuality into fics and ‘forcing’ readers to read it.”Which is absolutely horrible, and a double-standard, and it does suck. Thoughts on this? (Not whether it sucks or not, though if you do have thoughts on that, feel free to share them, I more mean the double-standard in the labeling.)
faechick brought up another point which I think is a good ending to this section of the discussion (for now). She said, when sharing her definition of a character sketch, “a look at a character—this can be labeled as Gen, Het or Slash also, depending on how you view the character in question. (I’d say that in not obviously gay characters a slash warning is good for the readers when you’ve chosen to portray them that way?).”I really think I have two different discussions here, one labeling in fanfic and one labeling in commercial fic (whether formal publisher/bookstore labeling [which is fairly sporadic] or informal reader labeling), because she makes a really nice point there about how characters are portrayed in the canon and how the fanfic author interprets their sexuality possibly different from others might and whether a label is necessary then.
Graphic Sex
No fic has to have sex, and I didn’t actually mean that, despite the somewhat facetious previous title to the first post (which has now been changed for clarity). Part of what I wonder is are certain types of fics expected to have sex (graphic or not)? Are het or male slash stories more likely to have graphic sex than femslash?
Unfortunately I think so, and this bothers me. However, I don’t write a lot of graphic femslash either, though I love it and would love to be able to read more.
marenfic had two really great points in her comment. The first was that Western societies are, in general, not as comfortable with female sexuality, especially when it becomes explicit. The second was that there is a language barrier to writing explicit femslash, and though I hadn’t thought about it in this context, there really is. As she says, “all of our words for female genitalia are either too clinical for erotica (vagina- although I think it's a fine word, I'm in the minority) or have negative connotations for a lot of people (pussy, cunt). So when you have two females, you have double the language problems.”My problem is that I worry sometimes the lack of explicit sex in my writing, fanfic or non-fanfic, will be taken as me being uncomfortable with femslash in general or especially graphic femslash and I am really, really not. I happen to love femslash and graphic sex in femslash, and like I said earlier, would love to have more.
I have trouble writing graphic sex at all; I have struggled for hours with every single sex scene I’ve ever written, because I don’t feel I am able to write a story containing graphic sex which is erotic, just plain hot, feasible, in-character, and well-written.
My fears for being taken the wrong way based on my writing are, obviously, personal hang-ups, and are exacerbated when I’m writing for a femslash community and many of the other stories contain graphic sex, but I didn’t think sex fit into the story I was trying to tell.
That, too, isn’t just about femslash, though. I have a real problem with gratuitous sex in stories, though this is less about fanfic and much more about published commercial fiction, and really has no bearing on this discussion.
docmichelle said that sex should serve the story, and she’s very right about that, which pretty much sums up all I wanted to say on the topic without delving into ranting about published fiction. (That’ll happen some other day, I’m sure.) If it doesn’t serve the story, it will be forced, and if it’s forced, I think it does a disservice to the story, to the author, and to the reader.I have quoted so many people in here I feel like I'm writing a paper again. This is a good feeling. I'm also overflowing with ideas and spent way too much time on this tonight, commenting and thinking and revising, time I should have spent editing the novel or writing the sequel novel, but this was good too.
Edited to Add Ha, ha, ha, that is what I get for not writing it up in livejournal, and then not checking to make sure nothing was wrong with the code. All user names should be fixed now, I hope.
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Date: 2006-02-21 04:56 am (UTC)When I post a story, I tend to err on the side of caution, listing pairings where only I see them, where I intended there to be even the slightest hint of attraction. Since I write for myself, this is mostly for a catelogue of my own stories, really.
Over at the xmen-femslash yahoo group, about 90% of the stories have REALLY bad gratuitous sex. (I think that a big part of this reason is that it is written by men who just want to picture two women getting it on.)
I am slowly becoming more comfortable writing erotic femslash (actually, erotic male slash comes easier to me, from the two short short fics I've written... and masturbation fics come even easier, LOL). My personal issues with writing graphic sex comes from lack of inspiration to do a well written piece. With my attention span (non-existant) pieces are forced into flashes of action or thought, so a really well done sex scene would be a big stretch at this point.
About the ratings, I've seen that happen many times: slash fics getting rated higher just because they are 'taboo'. I think that is just plain bullshit.
About couples... That's a bit harder. If the fic is well written enough, I usually don't care who I am reading about. But, if the fic is already mediocre or relatively bad... I am going to pitch a fit when the author comes out of nowhere with a pairing that I didn't see coming (and hate) or any other comparable situation. This is why I (for the most part) stick to reading my favorite authors, or my favorite pairings.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 05:24 am (UTC):) I often feel that way. Haven't yet read this installment (scrolling down, though, your username tags are broken) but may have thoughts for you tomorrow; I make no promises.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 03:16 pm (UTC)(http://harriet-spy.livejournal.com/304580.html?format=light)
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 03:17 pm (UTC)