The Examination: Karaokegal
With some authors, you see their name on a fic and know what to expect. With karaokegal, though, click on one of her stories and you could end up with almost any ‘ship or style within the fandom. There’s House/Wilson from the start with Games People Play:
House noticed everything. It was his gift and a curse. He noticed a certain amount of “Julie” in the air even when Wilson was moaning “Greg”. He knew it wasn’t only guilt or duty that kept Dr. Wilson running home like a faithful puppy, even though he couldn’t be faithful to anyone. He most certainly noticed Wilson’s split second of paralysis when he heard House say “spank”. He played with the puzzle in his head like a psychosexual Rubik’s cube until he fell asleep with a twisted smile and very strange dreams.
And House/Cameron here in Any Way You Want It:
“Oh, for…” And suddenly he’d put his arms around her shoulders and pulled her up into an embrace. His mouth was on hers, waiting for a response and pushing ahead when he didn’t get one. Cameron’s brain caught on that this was really happening. If this was one of House’s jokes, it was extremely elaborate, involving his tongue pushing deeply into her mouth, his hands grasping her back and his leg pushing between hers, promising everything she’d dreamed of. Her arms encircled his neck, her fingers touched the skin under his collar, and felt a shiver in response.
Maybe some House/Chase, from Up On The Roof:
Chase was close enough for House to notice that moonlight became him. His hands were now on the wall on either side of House’s shoulders. There was nothing the least bit threatening in Chase’s manner, yet he had House trapped by his unwillingness to hurt him.
or Cuddy/Cameron, or Wilson/Chase, or House/Cuddy ... You get the idea. It’s all there. It’s not easy to write from multiple viewpoints, but she makes it seem like it is.
You can find her fics catalogued at karaokegal’s LJ under “The Boxed Set” for fics from 2006 and in quarterly wrap-ups from 2007.
You're one of the few writers that moves comfortably from House/Wilson to House/Cameron, and make it seem easy. Is it as easy as you make it seem?
One of the things I’m really grateful for in retrospect is that my first Google search for “House Wilson Slash” sometime during the fall of 2005 took me to House_Slash rather than House_Wilson. At first I was kind of surprised that there was anything besides House/Wilson because that was what jumped out at me from the first episode I saw, which due to some Netflix confusion was “Damned If You Do,” so it was pretty hard NOT to see it. However when I saw the headers that said Wilson/Chase or House/Chase or even Cameron/Cuddy, I thought, OK that’s interesting and took a peek. It took me about three months to read through the entire archive, during which time I felt like a character in a slash story, glued to my desk, panting, obsessed. That experience gave me a much broader world-view of the House-I-verse besides “Oh it’s all about House and Wilson,” including my first taste of Bastard!House/Usedandabused!Chase, which is still one of my favorite guilty pleasures.
I was also willing to read all the genres. My taste for angst and hate!sex hadn’t asserted itself yet. I read “happy” stuff without the revulsion that I would feel for it now. That’s sort of a happy period in memory, because I hadn’t yet started writing and I wasn’t saturated with all the smut clichés. I could read “screwed him into the mattress” and not pull out the mental red pen.
The first time I turned to what the slash fan base might see as the “dark side” did feel weird, because at that point I was so emotionally invested in House/Wilson, both onscreen and in fiction, which seemed to require a commitment to hating Cameron. It’s easier to read Wilson/Chase as a H/W slasher because it still means that Wilson is swinging THAT way whereas if House is in a heterosexual situation, it theoretically invalidates the slash potential. I really had to talk myself in to seeing House’s attraction to Cameron. kj_draft helped by giving me a check-list of the House/Cameron moments which are as important to those shippers as seminal H/W moments are to their fans.
I had also joined Housefic fairly early on, so I knew there was HOT House/Cameron fiction being written. I felt guilty reading it, because of the whole H/W thing, but I was already formulating the Hot and Well-Written Trumps Everything philosophy if only by instinct. I like hot smut and I’m not all that concerned about what kind of genitals are involved.
I decided I wanted to take a shot at it, if only as a personal challenge. I signed up for a House/Cameron smut-a-thon. The request I got, gave me the lee-way to throw in some “borderline” House/Wilson which helped ease me into the idea of House/Cameron. This led to My Aim Is True where I also took the opportunity to inject what some folks considered to be too much realism. The famous “hummer from hell,” instead of the perfect, smooth blow-jobs so prevalent in pretty much all fanfic of the smutty variety. I let Cameron have a little trouble doing it, which seemed to bother a few readers.
There’s a whole other “Meta” discussion to be had on “how much reality is too much?”
Once I came out as bi-fictional and round-heeled, it got a lot easier, and I’ve taken to flaunting my status. It’s always strange to see the split reaction of the teeming millions along the lines of “Only for you would I read House/Cameron” and confusion as to why half the comments on a clearly-labeled House/Cameron story seem to be from people who hate Cameron.
A lot of the credit for my ability to write convincing House/Cameron has to go to Hugh Laurie. Until late Season 3, there was literally no one in the cast he didn’t seem to have some level of sexual chemistry with, Omar Epps being the possible exception. Whether I, as a House/Wilson advocate wanted to see it or not, there were definitely moments with Cameron where House was clearly interested, although those moments carried more weight when House was played as a far more layered character with a lot of self-doubt that he was in any way lovable. I think the “Why do you like me,” scene is as charged as the “stupid screwed up friendship” one, for which kudos go to the writers as well.
What is it that you find interesting in Cameron when so many other writers ignore -- or even actively hate her? (By the way, I hate the hating thing, personally.)
Let’s face it; in a non-canon slash pairing, (i.e. no on-screen snogging) the primary female character has to be a threat. I’ve certainly treated her as a threat to be neutralized, preferably with mockery and there’s a quite a bit of anti-Cam snark in my H/W fics, when I’m not using her as a weapon.
I actually think that H/W needs Cameron the way H/W (IMAO) needs a Wilson wife in the picture, both for on-screen angst and the fictional kind. Cuddy does NOT fulfill the same function.
Cameron got more interesting to me when I started reading Cameron/Stacy femslash, since the relationship was inherently filled with anger. YUM, anger!sex. “Hunting” and “All In” helped as well, although god knows I’ve wanted to smack her upside the head numerous times in every single season including the current one.
I’d still like to see more writers approach the intricacies of Merry Little Christmas. One of my “core beliefs” regarding House MD is that Cameron NEEDS to become Wilson to have any hope of getting House. MLC came very close to spelling it out as canon. Could anything have been more threatening to H/W than Cameron, on her knees, binding House’s self-inflicted wounds?
Do you have a favorite 'ship? And if you do, do you find it hard to then write in another 'ship? Or to steal a question someone once put up elsewhere ... can you write the 'ship if you don't believe in it?
I still identify as a H/W shipper. I think both canon and subtext support them having had or still having a sexual/emotional relationship of some kind, although I also maintain there is no way to read it as a happy, functional, fluffy relationship either. I love the characters and I love reading good angsty stories about them preferably with smut.
Regarding the other ships: I can write anything. It’s up to the teeming millions to say whether I can do it well or not. I’ll do it as a gift. I’ll do it for a challenge or a fic-a-thon. Sometimes I’ll just do it just to piss people off.
What do you look for in a fic to read? And to echo back to the earlier questions, do you find yourself seeking out fics from one style of 'ship more than another?
Say it with me, boys and girls: Hot and well-written trumps everything.
I’m a bi-fictional reader as well as writer and I won’t discount anything merely because of pairing. I think those who do are extremely small-minded and missing out on great fic. On the other hand, if it’s labeled fluff or schmoop, especially for H/W, it better be by someone I consider a known commodity otherwise it ain’t gonna happen, so I’m probably missing out on great fic that way and maybe I’m being small-minded as well.
I’ll give any fic a go if it’s labeled “hate!sex,” (which includes anger, apathy, jealousy, revenge etc etc) and while I loathe the very sight of the new kids on the screen, I might be willing to read some fiction with them, if it meets those criteria. (There’s a Cole/Kutner story by one of my faves that I’m looking forward to reading.)
I am pretty much NOT reading multi-parters or epics right now. Which is odd because two of the stories that made me want to be a part of this fandom are Hangman and Knots. Go figure. Basically I don’t have the time and I fear getting invested in a story that lets me down.
Up to a thousand words (and assuming NOT fluff/schmoop), I’m usually willing to at least take a look at the first line. On the other hand a single smut cliché or use of “ducklings” and I’m out of there.
You've done the "Come As You Aren't" party twice now, and it seems like it's a great idea for people to actually shake up their own style. Have any of the fics out of the "Come As You Aren't" party surprised you? Do you think it's a good idea to play with your style?
Last part of the question first-Ab-so-bloody-lute-ly.
Play with EVERYTHING. Write pairings you hate. Do past tense if you think you can only do present. There is nothing that gets my hackles up more than a writer, no matter how much I like their writing, just coming out and saying that they can’t write a pairing or a style or a fandom. I say “bullshit.” Admit that you just don’t want to, fine, but you should still do it. One of many reasons I venerate paperclipbitch so much is that she does EVERYTHING! Multi-fandoms, multi-pairings and is more than willing to write against her OTP by request without whinging or whining about being asked to “edit her muse.”
Hence the party. Hence especially my desire to see “cross-dressing” i.e. slashers go het or vice versa. Further to that, my desire to make people read that which they normally wouldn’t, including myself.
So many great stories have been written for both parties, ranging from the adorable to the incredibly disturbing. The two that stand out from last year are deelaundry’s Pillory, which still gives me nightmares even to think about it and perpsi’s No Small Magic, a really, really powerful House/Wilson epic with just enough stealth schmoop to be acceptable to my schmoop-hating self.
This year was amazing as well, mostly for the way people were willing to write out of their comfort zones in terms of fandoms and pairings.
Lord willin’ and the crick don’t rise, there will be a party next year and I have a fairly good idea what my costume will be.
This may seem difficult, because your writing embraces all sorts of styles, but is there something with fic that you've been nervous about trying?
I’m very uncomfortable with the whole, present tense, flowing, poetic, string a load of subjective clauses together with commas, and wonder if the damn sentence is ever going to end, because, really, that’s what your life has come to feel like since House died.
(Sorry for the stereotyping, but that’s what a lot of those fics feel like to me.)
Some writers handle that style brilliantly, but I’m not one of them. It’s very hard for me to maintain present tense and I think it reeks of pretentiousness when I do it.
I don’t think I’d ever write 2nd person, except I did it for one of the MMOM fics just to do something different. (I was up to U; I was getting desperate.)
How does a story start for you? A specific scene? A plot? A snatch of conversation?
Anywhere. Everywhere. All of the above. Usually an image or an idea that I want to get to and I’ll build a story around it. If I have a request or a prompt, I just let it sit in my unconscious until something bubbles up. Sometimes the plot-bunnies just come and bite me, such as the post-episode fics, or something like Kol Nidre. That was a situation where I looked at the calendar and knew I had to write the story immediately, preferably before any of the other writers did it.
I get a lot of ideas at the gym, especially on the treadmill. Anything to get my mind off what I’m actually doing.
What's the hardest part of writing for you?
Sitting down and doing the physical writing.
I still write most of the first drafts on paper, and doing it in solitude is uncomfortable for me. I like to take my notebook and be out in the world.
I’ve probably done my best writing at the Mint, which is the karaoke bar I frequent. I’m sort of with the crowd, but by myself. I also write on BART, or sometimes at the office when there’s a severe bunny bites that can’t wait.
There is a transition happening. I’m starting to do more first drafts on the computer, especially for the drabbles because of the word-count, but I still think there’s something lost when I don’t have the whole paper to computer to beta sequence in place.
The KELs (Killer Ending Lines) can be a struggle, especially on the drabbles. I’m blessed to have Beta Goddess Carol who will tell me if it’s not Killer enough and keep pushing me until it is. We went back and forth at least four times on the end of Like a Hurricane, and I’m glad she would not settle for “good enough” because more people have told me that ending made them cry than just about anything I’ve written.
What's the easiest?
Dialogue.
What's been the hardest fic for you to write?
This last costume fic was seriously frustrating. Pictures at an Exhibition I was fighting my angst instincts the whole way, and I suspect House, Wilson and anybody else I write about in the near future are going to pay the price.
The Chase Fic That Ate My Life a/k/a-Redemption Song, was perhaps overly ambitious. The first draft went over 10,000 words and Beta Goddess Carol had to do some serious pruning. Whole scenes hit the cutting room floor. Chase’s swim coach completely disappeared and poor Debbie in accounting was severely edited.
Cuddy’s Delight -- I can and will write anything but coming up with a viable Dom!Cameron for a birthday gift!fic was tricky.
What do you do if you encounter writer's block?
I don’t accept the existence of such a thing.
Let's see if we can broach this subject without wanking ... real person fiction. I know that's a real issue for some people, but there are a lot who also find it just as legitimate a form of fanfic as fictional person fic. What would you like to say to people who just don't get it, but are openly curious about it? (Beyond the basic answer of don't like, don't read.) What got you interested in writing real person fic? Does it grow out of the show (say, seeing how Wilson and House interact in a scene and wondering about what happened behind the scenes) or out of the actors independently from the show?
I’m not sure how I ended up at fryandorlaurie but once I did I was completely drawn in to their world of “Stugh” so strongly that it was impossible to think they weren’t involved. That led me to thinking that if Hugh was not completely straight there might be something behind all the onscreen House/Wilson chemistry besides great acting. I found hughandrobert, which is a much smaller community.
Some of the stories there were hot, but nothing like the intensity and incorporation of “real life” that I’d seen in the Stephen/Hugh stuff.
My first RPS story, Wrap Party, was born out of a single mental image: Hugh Laurie sitting at a piano, singing Noel Coward songs and Robert Sean Leonard listening. I started with a little background information on both of them, such as the RSL/Ethan friendship and Hugh being friends with Ken/Emma etc. Then I found out about the Robbie Coltrane connection, which made me think about the similarities between Cracker and House MD (crossover fic, anyone?) and the next thing you know, Robert Sean Leonard was doing Shakespeare in the park, Robbie Coltrane was playing Falstaff, and Hugh was smoking pot and taking Robert for a ride on his motorcycle.
I don’t think I intended things to go past the first story, but then Real Life started giving me more material, like all the interviews that RSL and HL gave about working together, which led to Like A Hurricane which is sort of my “magnum opus” in RSL, although interestingly enough, not the one which led to the biggest wank.
Each story in the series has gotten more complex, and included more “real life,” to the point of my needing to actually write RSL’s fiancée “Gaby,” in the most recent story, which I’m sure put a lot of people off their feed. I went so far as to make sure I got her horse’s name correct, although apparently my usage on that was a bit wanting.
An interesting point is that some people object to the series (and I guess I do have to admit that it’s a series now) not because of the RPS factor but because of my treatment of Stephen Fry. You think H/W vs H/Cam shipping wars are ugly? There are people who won’t read my Hugh&Bobby stories because the idea of Hugh with anyone but Stephen makes them physically ill. I’m not sure how they deal with the “canon” that Hugh is married with three children.
Within RPS and RPF fandoms, there are arguments as to how much you can incorporate significant others, family members etc and how to do so. Just to quickly discuss another fandom, there’s practically a fanon in TDS RPS (The Daily Show RPS) that Jon Stewart and or Stephen Colbert have gotten divorced from their spouses in order to facilitate their relationship. I am having none of that. I insist on making any RPS/RPF I write, fit into the known circumstances.
In terms of Hugh&Bobby, that means Gaby, Jo, Stephen, the kids, the friends, the horse, etc. Otherwise, it’s cheating.
There’s no real answer to people who say they are too squicked out by the very idea to even try it, except to recite a bit of Green Eggs and Ham. Come on in people, the water’s fine.
Few things in the world make me squeeeee louder than getting a comment that says “I’ve never read RPS before, but I love yours.”
The one thing I’m not going to use as a “defense” is to try and say it’s not the real Hugh & Robert (or Keith Olbermann/Stephen Colbert or John Barrowman/David Tennant) because as noted above, I’ve done my best in all those cases to make it as close to what I think the real person is like as possible. I’m probably wrong. I’ve never met any of them, but if I’m going to make that the case that my House is a valid version of the Greg House shown in canon, I want to make the same case for my RPS/RPF characters. (OK, maybe Uma Thurman isn’t a squeee-ing fangirl. But she’s so much fun to write that way.)
Thanks, karaokegal. That’s it from me. Any questions from the rest of you out there?
House noticed everything. It was his gift and a curse. He noticed a certain amount of “Julie” in the air even when Wilson was moaning “Greg”. He knew it wasn’t only guilt or duty that kept Dr. Wilson running home like a faithful puppy, even though he couldn’t be faithful to anyone. He most certainly noticed Wilson’s split second of paralysis when he heard House say “spank”. He played with the puzzle in his head like a psychosexual Rubik’s cube until he fell asleep with a twisted smile and very strange dreams.
And House/Cameron here in Any Way You Want It:
“Oh, for…” And suddenly he’d put his arms around her shoulders and pulled her up into an embrace. His mouth was on hers, waiting for a response and pushing ahead when he didn’t get one. Cameron’s brain caught on that this was really happening. If this was one of House’s jokes, it was extremely elaborate, involving his tongue pushing deeply into her mouth, his hands grasping her back and his leg pushing between hers, promising everything she’d dreamed of. Her arms encircled his neck, her fingers touched the skin under his collar, and felt a shiver in response.
Maybe some House/Chase, from Up On The Roof:
Chase was close enough for House to notice that moonlight became him. His hands were now on the wall on either side of House’s shoulders. There was nothing the least bit threatening in Chase’s manner, yet he had House trapped by his unwillingness to hurt him.
or Cuddy/Cameron, or Wilson/Chase, or House/Cuddy ... You get the idea. It’s all there. It’s not easy to write from multiple viewpoints, but she makes it seem like it is.
You can find her fics catalogued at karaokegal’s LJ under “The Boxed Set” for fics from 2006 and in quarterly wrap-ups from 2007.
You're one of the few writers that moves comfortably from House/Wilson to House/Cameron, and make it seem easy. Is it as easy as you make it seem?
One of the things I’m really grateful for in retrospect is that my first Google search for “House Wilson Slash” sometime during the fall of 2005 took me to House_Slash rather than House_Wilson. At first I was kind of surprised that there was anything besides House/Wilson because that was what jumped out at me from the first episode I saw, which due to some Netflix confusion was “Damned If You Do,” so it was pretty hard NOT to see it. However when I saw the headers that said Wilson/Chase or House/Chase or even Cameron/Cuddy, I thought, OK that’s interesting and took a peek. It took me about three months to read through the entire archive, during which time I felt like a character in a slash story, glued to my desk, panting, obsessed. That experience gave me a much broader world-view of the House-I-verse besides “Oh it’s all about House and Wilson,” including my first taste of Bastard!House/Usedandabused!Chase, which is still one of my favorite guilty pleasures.
I was also willing to read all the genres. My taste for angst and hate!sex hadn’t asserted itself yet. I read “happy” stuff without the revulsion that I would feel for it now. That’s sort of a happy period in memory, because I hadn’t yet started writing and I wasn’t saturated with all the smut clichés. I could read “screwed him into the mattress” and not pull out the mental red pen.
The first time I turned to what the slash fan base might see as the “dark side” did feel weird, because at that point I was so emotionally invested in House/Wilson, both onscreen and in fiction, which seemed to require a commitment to hating Cameron. It’s easier to read Wilson/Chase as a H/W slasher because it still means that Wilson is swinging THAT way whereas if House is in a heterosexual situation, it theoretically invalidates the slash potential. I really had to talk myself in to seeing House’s attraction to Cameron. kj_draft helped by giving me a check-list of the House/Cameron moments which are as important to those shippers as seminal H/W moments are to their fans.
I had also joined Housefic fairly early on, so I knew there was HOT House/Cameron fiction being written. I felt guilty reading it, because of the whole H/W thing, but I was already formulating the Hot and Well-Written Trumps Everything philosophy if only by instinct. I like hot smut and I’m not all that concerned about what kind of genitals are involved.
I decided I wanted to take a shot at it, if only as a personal challenge. I signed up for a House/Cameron smut-a-thon. The request I got, gave me the lee-way to throw in some “borderline” House/Wilson which helped ease me into the idea of House/Cameron. This led to My Aim Is True where I also took the opportunity to inject what some folks considered to be too much realism. The famous “hummer from hell,” instead of the perfect, smooth blow-jobs so prevalent in pretty much all fanfic of the smutty variety. I let Cameron have a little trouble doing it, which seemed to bother a few readers.
There’s a whole other “Meta” discussion to be had on “how much reality is too much?”
Once I came out as bi-fictional and round-heeled, it got a lot easier, and I’ve taken to flaunting my status. It’s always strange to see the split reaction of the teeming millions along the lines of “Only for you would I read House/Cameron” and confusion as to why half the comments on a clearly-labeled House/Cameron story seem to be from people who hate Cameron.
A lot of the credit for my ability to write convincing House/Cameron has to go to Hugh Laurie. Until late Season 3, there was literally no one in the cast he didn’t seem to have some level of sexual chemistry with, Omar Epps being the possible exception. Whether I, as a House/Wilson advocate wanted to see it or not, there were definitely moments with Cameron where House was clearly interested, although those moments carried more weight when House was played as a far more layered character with a lot of self-doubt that he was in any way lovable. I think the “Why do you like me,” scene is as charged as the “stupid screwed up friendship” one, for which kudos go to the writers as well.
What is it that you find interesting in Cameron when so many other writers ignore -- or even actively hate her? (By the way, I hate the hating thing, personally.)
Let’s face it; in a non-canon slash pairing, (i.e. no on-screen snogging) the primary female character has to be a threat. I’ve certainly treated her as a threat to be neutralized, preferably with mockery and there’s a quite a bit of anti-Cam snark in my H/W fics, when I’m not using her as a weapon.
I actually think that H/W needs Cameron the way H/W (IMAO) needs a Wilson wife in the picture, both for on-screen angst and the fictional kind. Cuddy does NOT fulfill the same function.
Cameron got more interesting to me when I started reading Cameron/Stacy femslash, since the relationship was inherently filled with anger. YUM, anger!sex. “Hunting” and “All In” helped as well, although god knows I’ve wanted to smack her upside the head numerous times in every single season including the current one.
I’d still like to see more writers approach the intricacies of Merry Little Christmas. One of my “core beliefs” regarding House MD is that Cameron NEEDS to become Wilson to have any hope of getting House. MLC came very close to spelling it out as canon. Could anything have been more threatening to H/W than Cameron, on her knees, binding House’s self-inflicted wounds?
Do you have a favorite 'ship? And if you do, do you find it hard to then write in another 'ship? Or to steal a question someone once put up elsewhere ... can you write the 'ship if you don't believe in it?
I still identify as a H/W shipper. I think both canon and subtext support them having had or still having a sexual/emotional relationship of some kind, although I also maintain there is no way to read it as a happy, functional, fluffy relationship either. I love the characters and I love reading good angsty stories about them preferably with smut.
Regarding the other ships: I can write anything. It’s up to the teeming millions to say whether I can do it well or not. I’ll do it as a gift. I’ll do it for a challenge or a fic-a-thon. Sometimes I’ll just do it just to piss people off.
What do you look for in a fic to read? And to echo back to the earlier questions, do you find yourself seeking out fics from one style of 'ship more than another?
Say it with me, boys and girls: Hot and well-written trumps everything.
I’m a bi-fictional reader as well as writer and I won’t discount anything merely because of pairing. I think those who do are extremely small-minded and missing out on great fic. On the other hand, if it’s labeled fluff or schmoop, especially for H/W, it better be by someone I consider a known commodity otherwise it ain’t gonna happen, so I’m probably missing out on great fic that way and maybe I’m being small-minded as well.
I’ll give any fic a go if it’s labeled “hate!sex,” (which includes anger, apathy, jealousy, revenge etc etc) and while I loathe the very sight of the new kids on the screen, I might be willing to read some fiction with them, if it meets those criteria. (There’s a Cole/Kutner story by one of my faves that I’m looking forward to reading.)
I am pretty much NOT reading multi-parters or epics right now. Which is odd because two of the stories that made me want to be a part of this fandom are Hangman and Knots. Go figure. Basically I don’t have the time and I fear getting invested in a story that lets me down.
Up to a thousand words (and assuming NOT fluff/schmoop), I’m usually willing to at least take a look at the first line. On the other hand a single smut cliché or use of “ducklings” and I’m out of there.
You've done the "Come As You Aren't" party twice now, and it seems like it's a great idea for people to actually shake up their own style. Have any of the fics out of the "Come As You Aren't" party surprised you? Do you think it's a good idea to play with your style?
Last part of the question first-Ab-so-bloody-lute-ly.
Play with EVERYTHING. Write pairings you hate. Do past tense if you think you can only do present. There is nothing that gets my hackles up more than a writer, no matter how much I like their writing, just coming out and saying that they can’t write a pairing or a style or a fandom. I say “bullshit.” Admit that you just don’t want to, fine, but you should still do it. One of many reasons I venerate paperclipbitch so much is that she does EVERYTHING! Multi-fandoms, multi-pairings and is more than willing to write against her OTP by request without whinging or whining about being asked to “edit her muse.”
Hence the party. Hence especially my desire to see “cross-dressing” i.e. slashers go het or vice versa. Further to that, my desire to make people read that which they normally wouldn’t, including myself.
So many great stories have been written for both parties, ranging from the adorable to the incredibly disturbing. The two that stand out from last year are deelaundry’s Pillory, which still gives me nightmares even to think about it and perpsi’s No Small Magic, a really, really powerful House/Wilson epic with just enough stealth schmoop to be acceptable to my schmoop-hating self.
This year was amazing as well, mostly for the way people were willing to write out of their comfort zones in terms of fandoms and pairings.
Lord willin’ and the crick don’t rise, there will be a party next year and I have a fairly good idea what my costume will be.
This may seem difficult, because your writing embraces all sorts of styles, but is there something with fic that you've been nervous about trying?
I’m very uncomfortable with the whole, present tense, flowing, poetic, string a load of subjective clauses together with commas, and wonder if the damn sentence is ever going to end, because, really, that’s what your life has come to feel like since House died.
(Sorry for the stereotyping, but that’s what a lot of those fics feel like to me.)
Some writers handle that style brilliantly, but I’m not one of them. It’s very hard for me to maintain present tense and I think it reeks of pretentiousness when I do it.
I don’t think I’d ever write 2nd person, except I did it for one of the MMOM fics just to do something different. (I was up to U; I was getting desperate.)
How does a story start for you? A specific scene? A plot? A snatch of conversation?
Anywhere. Everywhere. All of the above. Usually an image or an idea that I want to get to and I’ll build a story around it. If I have a request or a prompt, I just let it sit in my unconscious until something bubbles up. Sometimes the plot-bunnies just come and bite me, such as the post-episode fics, or something like Kol Nidre. That was a situation where I looked at the calendar and knew I had to write the story immediately, preferably before any of the other writers did it.
I get a lot of ideas at the gym, especially on the treadmill. Anything to get my mind off what I’m actually doing.
What's the hardest part of writing for you?
Sitting down and doing the physical writing.
I still write most of the first drafts on paper, and doing it in solitude is uncomfortable for me. I like to take my notebook and be out in the world.
I’ve probably done my best writing at the Mint, which is the karaoke bar I frequent. I’m sort of with the crowd, but by myself. I also write on BART, or sometimes at the office when there’s a severe bunny bites that can’t wait.
There is a transition happening. I’m starting to do more first drafts on the computer, especially for the drabbles because of the word-count, but I still think there’s something lost when I don’t have the whole paper to computer to beta sequence in place.
The KELs (Killer Ending Lines) can be a struggle, especially on the drabbles. I’m blessed to have Beta Goddess Carol who will tell me if it’s not Killer enough and keep pushing me until it is. We went back and forth at least four times on the end of Like a Hurricane, and I’m glad she would not settle for “good enough” because more people have told me that ending made them cry than just about anything I’ve written.
What's the easiest?
Dialogue.
What's been the hardest fic for you to write?
This last costume fic was seriously frustrating. Pictures at an Exhibition I was fighting my angst instincts the whole way, and I suspect House, Wilson and anybody else I write about in the near future are going to pay the price.
The Chase Fic That Ate My Life a/k/a-Redemption Song, was perhaps overly ambitious. The first draft went over 10,000 words and Beta Goddess Carol had to do some serious pruning. Whole scenes hit the cutting room floor. Chase’s swim coach completely disappeared and poor Debbie in accounting was severely edited.
Cuddy’s Delight -- I can and will write anything but coming up with a viable Dom!Cameron for a birthday gift!fic was tricky.
What do you do if you encounter writer's block?
I don’t accept the existence of such a thing.
Let's see if we can broach this subject without wanking ... real person fiction. I know that's a real issue for some people, but there are a lot who also find it just as legitimate a form of fanfic as fictional person fic. What would you like to say to people who just don't get it, but are openly curious about it? (Beyond the basic answer of don't like, don't read.) What got you interested in writing real person fic? Does it grow out of the show (say, seeing how Wilson and House interact in a scene and wondering about what happened behind the scenes) or out of the actors independently from the show?
I’m not sure how I ended up at fryandorlaurie but once I did I was completely drawn in to their world of “Stugh” so strongly that it was impossible to think they weren’t involved. That led me to thinking that if Hugh was not completely straight there might be something behind all the onscreen House/Wilson chemistry besides great acting. I found hughandrobert, which is a much smaller community.
Some of the stories there were hot, but nothing like the intensity and incorporation of “real life” that I’d seen in the Stephen/Hugh stuff.
My first RPS story, Wrap Party, was born out of a single mental image: Hugh Laurie sitting at a piano, singing Noel Coward songs and Robert Sean Leonard listening. I started with a little background information on both of them, such as the RSL/Ethan friendship and Hugh being friends with Ken/Emma etc. Then I found out about the Robbie Coltrane connection, which made me think about the similarities between Cracker and House MD (crossover fic, anyone?) and the next thing you know, Robert Sean Leonard was doing Shakespeare in the park, Robbie Coltrane was playing Falstaff, and Hugh was smoking pot and taking Robert for a ride on his motorcycle.
I don’t think I intended things to go past the first story, but then Real Life started giving me more material, like all the interviews that RSL and HL gave about working together, which led to Like A Hurricane which is sort of my “magnum opus” in RSL, although interestingly enough, not the one which led to the biggest wank.
Each story in the series has gotten more complex, and included more “real life,” to the point of my needing to actually write RSL’s fiancée “Gaby,” in the most recent story, which I’m sure put a lot of people off their feed. I went so far as to make sure I got her horse’s name correct, although apparently my usage on that was a bit wanting.
An interesting point is that some people object to the series (and I guess I do have to admit that it’s a series now) not because of the RPS factor but because of my treatment of Stephen Fry. You think H/W vs H/Cam shipping wars are ugly? There are people who won’t read my Hugh&Bobby stories because the idea of Hugh with anyone but Stephen makes them physically ill. I’m not sure how they deal with the “canon” that Hugh is married with three children.
Within RPS and RPF fandoms, there are arguments as to how much you can incorporate significant others, family members etc and how to do so. Just to quickly discuss another fandom, there’s practically a fanon in TDS RPS (The Daily Show RPS) that Jon Stewart and or Stephen Colbert have gotten divorced from their spouses in order to facilitate their relationship. I am having none of that. I insist on making any RPS/RPF I write, fit into the known circumstances.
In terms of Hugh&Bobby, that means Gaby, Jo, Stephen, the kids, the friends, the horse, etc. Otherwise, it’s cheating.
There’s no real answer to people who say they are too squicked out by the very idea to even try it, except to recite a bit of Green Eggs and Ham. Come on in people, the water’s fine.
Few things in the world make me squeeeee louder than getting a comment that says “I’ve never read RPS before, but I love yours.”
The one thing I’m not going to use as a “defense” is to try and say it’s not the real Hugh & Robert (or Keith Olbermann/Stephen Colbert or John Barrowman/David Tennant) because as noted above, I’ve done my best in all those cases to make it as close to what I think the real person is like as possible. I’m probably wrong. I’ve never met any of them, but if I’m going to make that the case that my House is a valid version of the Greg House shown in canon, I want to make the same case for my RPS/RPF characters. (OK, maybe Uma Thurman isn’t a squeee-ing fangirl. But she’s so much fun to write that way.)
Thanks, karaokegal. That’s it from me. Any questions from the rest of you out there?