30 Day Fanfiction Meme, Part 4
This is the fourth post in my series of responses to the 30 Day Fanfiction Meme, answering questions #6, #11, #13 and #14 about some of my stylistic preferences.
6. When you write, do you prefer writing male or female characters?
I can’t call it an actual preference, but I tend to find myself writing females more often than I write males. I think this is because I’m very female myself - although a rather liberated one - and it’s thus always a bit of work for me to try and put myself “inside” of a male character’s head. That doesn’t mean I won’t try, though, if a story demands it, and I have written fics from male characters’ point(s) of view.
I don’t hold with the idea that males and females are essentially the same except for a few minor biological differences. There’s voluminous research that proves that idea utterly false. Men think, speak and act differently than women do; and they make different choices and have different preferences. That doesn’t make either men or women superior to the other, but it does mean that writing a convincing male character means I have to have them act in ways I myself might not.
Of course, there are plenty of women who wouldn’t act or think or speak the way I do, either. So either way, I find myself trying to imagine someone other than myself when writing fictional characters.
11. Do you prefer certain genres of fic when you’re writing? What kind do you tend to write most?
Despite the fact that plotting is a major weakness of mine, I prefer fics with plot. “Fluff” or character studies are interesting for a while, but sooner or later I get bored and want to see something actually happen in a story. It need not be major action, and it can certainly be internal to the character as opposed to something external in the outside world.
Some of my earlier fics were character studies or interior landscapes, but as I’ve matured as a writer I’ve tended to move toward stories with plots in them. Not all of the plots are major; an example is my Enterprise story Late Night Contemplation which simply details a small moment of conversation as an imagined turning point in two characters’ relationship.
That’s not to say I don’t write fluff or character studies anymore. They just tend to be incorporated into something a little bit larger these days.
13. Do you prefer canon or fanon when you write? Has writing fanfic for a fandom changed the way you see some or even all of the original source material?
I’m definitely a canon-oriented writer, although I’ll stray into an AU every now and then and I try to at least acknowledge fanon in my work. I’m fortunate that, in all of my fandoms, canon and fanon generally tend to at least not conflict with each other (and in most cases they actively agree). Fanon is interesting and I love it, but ultimately I tend to be a fan of the source material first.
To answer the second part of this question, writing fan fiction hasn’t ever changed the way I’ve seen source material, but reading it has. There’ve been parts of fanon that I’ve encountered strictly in fan fiction that I really liked and made a part of my “head canon.” There’ve also been parts of fanon with which I vehemently disagreed and sometimes went a little out of my way to contradict.
When it comes to the source material, it’s only with rare exceptions that I’ll pretend it isn’t there. Those exceptions tend to be items that the creators themselves have later retconned or removed from the official canon, or when I’m writing in an acknowledged AU.
14. How high of a “rating” are you comfortable with going? Have you ever written higher? If you’re comfortable with NC-17 (aka X Rated), have you ever been shocked by finding that the story you’re writing is G-rated instead?
I’ve written a long diatribe on the subject of writing mature fic strictly for the sake of writing mature fic; and at least one of my stories was written to prove that I’m perfectly capable of writing it. I won’t repeat it here other than to mention that my main point was that any writer who insists that they can’t read or write below NC-17 has a flaw in their abilities and motivations.
My regular standard for fan fiction is that I’ll usually go about to the level of the source material, or maybe just a step or two beyond. It’s not so much that I’m uncomfortable with NC-17 (I’m not, and I do read it) as I don’t see much of a need for it. The bottom line is that there’s only so many things that can go on behind a bedroom door and I prefer to assume that my readers are likely already pretty familiar with them and can let their imaginations take them further if that’s where they’d like to go.
If I use movie ratings, most of my work is PG or PG-13 with an occasional healthy dash of R. But I’ve written at all levels and I rarely find myself surprised at the level of a particular story I’m working on. I tend to be more surprised at the story’s actual events instead.
Original Post: http://sonria.org/blog/2014/30-day-fanfiction-meme-part-4/. You can comment here or there.