The Examination: Deelaundry
House is a smart guy. So is Wilson. Their banter drew - and continues to draw - a lot of people into “House,” the show, and House, the fandom.
But here’s the thing. It’s hard to write that banter. Some shoot for “sarcastic,” but end up only sounding pissed off. Others who attempt humor end up missing the point completely.
deelaundry is one of those writers who manages to pull it off. From Proposing (written before New Jersey's civil union law):
Marriage is between a man and a woman! You can't marry another man!
Forgot about that. Wilson!
I’m working over here.
We can't do a wedding. Laws of the state and so forth.
That's too bad.
We could move to Massachusetts.
Nah, I'd have to pack; that's a pain.
We could have one of those, what do you call it, commitment ceremony things instead.
Gotta go; I have a meeting.
Don't leave me hanging!
Fine.
Dee has created a world in which House and Wilson raise a child together, and also found time to touch on canon events, such as House’s poker buddies, in Why Dr. House Cancelled Poker Night.
Will, if that was his name, had his hands on his hips and looked ready to start a tirade when I stepped up to them.
“You know, we have free pick-up and drop-off service.”
Dr. House turned to me and gave me a warm greeting - well, warm for him. “Dry-cleaner! It’s been ages!”
“Dr. House, good to see you. We also give a ten percent, um, family volume discount.” I looked from Dr. House to Will and back, hoping my interruption wasn’t a bother.
“I told you we should have gone with my dry-cleaner! Your plumber, much cheaper than mine, and your mechanic, simply a genius. But my dry-cleaner’s the best.”
Dee's been writing in the House fandom for over a year, concentrating primarily on House-Wilson slash and friendship fics, with some forays into gen, het, slash with other pairings, and femslash. She refers to herself in her bio as a slash junkie, with a husband who "doesn't get the appeal of slash at all but is supportive if it gets him more sex. (Sometimes yes, sometimes no.)"
You can find Dee’s fics archived here.
Personally when I'm reading fic I read both gen and slash, but when I write, I stick to gen because that's where I see the characters in my mind. Most of what you write falls onto the slash side of things. Is that because you find the characters take you there naturally? Or because it's more fun to play with House and Wilson in that setting? (And for what it's worth, they do seem to enjoy themselves and each other more in a slash setting than they do on the show.)
Someone once called my first fic, in which Wilson and House have a commitment ceremony, an AU fic, which highly annoyed me. I prefer to think of it as post-canon. It hasn’t happened yet, but that’s not to say it never will.
I don’t think a homosexual relationship is inevitable for House and Wilson in canon, but I do think it is very much possible and would, given good writing, emerge naturally from their current canon relationship. In fact, there are so many possibilities for the House and Wilson, and that’s what I write: happy slash and unhappy slash, committed relationship, friends with benefits, friends without benefits, even sometimes, rarely, life without each other. As Walt Whitman said, “I contain multitudes.”
Did you see the writing of the "My Fathers' Son" fics a natural extension of House and Wilson within an established relationship? Were you worried about the reception of adding a kid to the mix?
I do see it as a natural extension (although, once again, not an inevitable one), but that’s not how I approached it at the time. I was thinking how I hadn’t written much in the way of angst fic, and then my brain handed me “My Fathers’ Son.” I had no clue how long it would be, as shown in this early email to my beta: “I have the first part of it done, and it's about 2800 words. I'm thinking the whole thing may be 8000 or so words, maybe longer.” It turned out to be almost 26,000 words.
I wasn’t worried about the reception of a kid - I was worried that it was too damn long for anyone ever to read. Other fandoms tend toward epics, but my impression was that most Housefic stuck to the range of 3000-4000 words.
I know you've written additional episodes within that Jack/My Fathers' Son universe. What keeps drawing you back to it?
Simple answer: Because there are more stories to tell. Some of the later-written stories were based on questions people asked me about areas of MFS they wanted better explored. A few were unrelated prompts I was given that made me think of MFS. And in one case in particular, I was going through an issue in my own life that I wanted to write about - and it fit with MFS, so I got House and Wilson to talk it out for me.
Do you remember the first time you ran across fanfic? What about House fanfic?
In the 1980s I got into Star Trek (original series), and bought several of the follow-up novels. I was vaguely aware that fanfic existed and even wrote one story of my own, with Nimoy becoming Spock, or something like that. Then no fanfic for years and years until this wonderful thing called the internet.
I read fic in a few different fandoms (X-Files, Damon/Affleck movies, Queer as Folk US, Oz, Ocean’s 11) on and off, and then in Spring 2006 I thought, hmm, wonder if there’s anything out there for this show House that I kind of like. I found the Housefic archive on Squidge, and my world was rocked. Got the DVDs, started writing my first fic, watched all the S1 & S2 episodes I'd missed, signed up for LJ, and everything escalated from there.
What drew you to writing House fanfiction?
The characters of House and Wilson have such strong, intelligent voices and are so intriguing overall. My early thoughts about writing House fanfiction were heavily influenced by their camaraderie, evident in episodes like Mob Rules, House vs. God, and the other “Odd Couple” episodes. They are lonely men who are not so lonely when they’re together.
How does a story start for you? A specific scene? A plot? A snatch of conversation?
It often starts with a daydream. Some type of prompt will happen - a specific prompt from a friend or reader, something that happens in my life, a discussion about the show or characters, a simple what-if thought - and I’ll daydream a scene or two.
I'm going to pick on you for this, since you've done some dialogue-only fics. (And, personally, I think you've got a great ear for writing House and Wilson conversations.) How challenging is it to write dialogue only fics? How do you set about starting one? Do you start with the intention of writing only dialogue, or does the fic lead you there?
For me, dialogue is the story. Even for a “regular” fic, many times I write the dialogue of a scene first, and then fill the action in around it. The second fic I wrote (and the third, versions one and two) was dialogue only; I justified leaving off the action, even though it felt like “cheating,” because it was so boring.
Of course, certain actions do occur. The intriguing challenge then becomes to have the actions described in the dialogue in a natural way, so it doesn’t scream that that’s what you’re doing - which is fun.
Dialogue is a particular pleasure in fics with House and Wilson, because they have such distinct voices, and they banter about such interesting things in canon. With such intelligent and quick-witted characters, you really have a range of what you can have them discuss, and it’s very fun.
As you can tell, dialogue only fics come naturally for me. (And thank you, Namaste.) Someone else wanting to try one would first and foremost need to play the conversation out in her or his mind to ensure it was interesting enough to stand on its own. You could imagine your characters on the telephone, preferably a corded landline phone so they can’t move around. If that seems natural, it could be a dialogue only fic. If the characters want to move around, or any visual elements of the scene are important, dialogue only probably won’t work.
What's the hardest part of writing for you?
Physical description, hands down. Someone once said, “I like your works and Nakanna Lee’s.” That pairing amused me, because Nakanna, who is excellent, is very lyrical and descriptive in her writing, whereas I feel like I’m more “just the facts.”
What's the easiest?
Dialogue. (See above.)
What's been the hardest fic for you to write?
Part Eight of “Keeper” is currently the hardest. I have most of Part Nine and Ten done, but just can’t seem to get past the block with Eight.
“Around the World and Back Again (Grace Jones’ Polar Opposite Remix),” which I wrote for remix-redux, gave me heartburn for forever. The writing itself wasn’t that difficult, but there was a lot to live up to with thedeadparrot’s original, “Singapore,” and I didn’t want to get it wrong.
“Pillory” was a stretch, in a good way. I had the plot and characterization firmly in mind, but keeping the language/voice consistent and writing so much description and so little dialogue was challenging.
What's more fun to write, a DVD commentary of one of your fics - analyzing your own writing process -- or an MST? (I ask because it seems to me that both practices are a question of taking apart an existing story - one version for analysis, one for humor.) Which is harder?
It’s an interesting question because those two don’t parallel in my mind. It’s like saying, “Do you prefer eating dessert or watching TV?”
DVD commentary is about exploration, to me. Really I write them to provide a historical record for me of what I was thinking and feeling when I wrote certain things - a reminder of why I did things the way I did, and fuller information about the ‘universe’ of the fic. (And of course there’s an element of “wasn’t I so clever.”)
MSTs are about having fun. Not making fun, having fun. The dialogue only aspect appeals, of course, as well as the chance to imagine the characters seeing themselves from the outside. MSTs also provide the opportunity to exaggerate the characters’ traits and foibles and be silly. I could never seriously write a fic that has Wilson and Cameron making out in the diagnostics conference room; in an MST I’d hardly give it a second thought. Self-inserts, and friend inserts, are also amusing - imagining how I or others I know would interact with House, Wilson, and the others.
And while I'm at it I find that a lot of people attempt to write humor, but fail miserably. What's your approach in trying to write something funny?
The first step is not thinking, “I want to write something funny.” House as a character has an absurdist take on a lot of situations, so coming up with one of those situations and then letting him go is one approach that often works. He can be very playful - you just have to come up with something for him to play with. (Hint: pestering Wilson, flustering Cameron, goading Foreman, riling up Cuddy, confusing Chase, and rolling his eyes at patients are all situations that can fill House with glee.)
How do you overcome writer's block?
Memes involving writing sometimes help. My favorites so far have been Stump the Writer (someone would give me a line I’d written and I’d have to remember which fic it came from; if I guessed incorrectly the person could ask for a custom fic), Timestamp (someone would pick a fic and ask what happened a certain time before or after it), and Three Fics I’d Never Write. They produced some fun ficlets and even a few longer fics.
What do you look for in fic that you read?
Wilson. Doesn’t that sound terrible? But I’m on a Wilson kick right now.
The other two things I look for are emotional verisimilitude (it feels like this could happen) and evidence the writer put effort and thought into the fic. When it comes to reading, I tend to be a gourmand rather than a gourmet.
Has writing fic changed the way you watch the show?
No, although it’s fun to grab new background tidbits about the characters (Aunt Sara! House’s grandmother is Dutch!), and to see elements of fics I’ve written coincidentally pop up (the one AM movie theater reference in Family reminded me of “Theater 3”).
Reading the fic originally did change the way I watched the show; it moved me from casual viewer to obsessed devotee. (My husband thanks all the great Housefic writers for that, by the way.)
What would you change on the show if you had that power? (Other than canon slash - or maybe that's something that's more fun to just play with in fic than if it were established?)
I’d strengthen the characters other than House. House likes having strong people to play off of. Why are the producers insistent on making Wilson a doormat and Cuddy a harpy, and neither of them decent doctors?
Canon slash would be great! As I said above, with good writing, it’d make a natural addition to the show - and, taking a step back, it would be wonderful to see on a top ten series. There would still be plenty to explore in fanfic, so no fears there.
Thanks, Dee. Any questions from anyone else out there?
But here’s the thing. It’s hard to write that banter. Some shoot for “sarcastic,” but end up only sounding pissed off. Others who attempt humor end up missing the point completely.
deelaundry is one of those writers who manages to pull it off. From Proposing (written before New Jersey's civil union law):
Marriage is between a man and a woman! You can't marry another man!
Forgot about that. Wilson!
I’m working over here.
We can't do a wedding. Laws of the state and so forth.
That's too bad.
We could move to Massachusetts.
Nah, I'd have to pack; that's a pain.
We could have one of those, what do you call it, commitment ceremony things instead.
Gotta go; I have a meeting.
Don't leave me hanging!
Fine.
Dee has created a world in which House and Wilson raise a child together, and also found time to touch on canon events, such as House’s poker buddies, in Why Dr. House Cancelled Poker Night.
Will, if that was his name, had his hands on his hips and looked ready to start a tirade when I stepped up to them.
“You know, we have free pick-up and drop-off service.”
Dr. House turned to me and gave me a warm greeting - well, warm for him. “Dry-cleaner! It’s been ages!”
“Dr. House, good to see you. We also give a ten percent, um, family volume discount.” I looked from Dr. House to Will and back, hoping my interruption wasn’t a bother.
“I told you we should have gone with my dry-cleaner! Your plumber, much cheaper than mine, and your mechanic, simply a genius. But my dry-cleaner’s the best.”
Dee's been writing in the House fandom for over a year, concentrating primarily on House-Wilson slash and friendship fics, with some forays into gen, het, slash with other pairings, and femslash. She refers to herself in her bio as a slash junkie, with a husband who "doesn't get the appeal of slash at all but is supportive if it gets him more sex. (Sometimes yes, sometimes no.)"
You can find Dee’s fics archived here.
Personally when I'm reading fic I read both gen and slash, but when I write, I stick to gen because that's where I see the characters in my mind. Most of what you write falls onto the slash side of things. Is that because you find the characters take you there naturally? Or because it's more fun to play with House and Wilson in that setting? (And for what it's worth, they do seem to enjoy themselves and each other more in a slash setting than they do on the show.)
Someone once called my first fic, in which Wilson and House have a commitment ceremony, an AU fic, which highly annoyed me. I prefer to think of it as post-canon. It hasn’t happened yet, but that’s not to say it never will.
I don’t think a homosexual relationship is inevitable for House and Wilson in canon, but I do think it is very much possible and would, given good writing, emerge naturally from their current canon relationship. In fact, there are so many possibilities for the House and Wilson, and that’s what I write: happy slash and unhappy slash, committed relationship, friends with benefits, friends without benefits, even sometimes, rarely, life without each other. As Walt Whitman said, “I contain multitudes.”
Did you see the writing of the "My Fathers' Son" fics a natural extension of House and Wilson within an established relationship? Were you worried about the reception of adding a kid to the mix?
I do see it as a natural extension (although, once again, not an inevitable one), but that’s not how I approached it at the time. I was thinking how I hadn’t written much in the way of angst fic, and then my brain handed me “My Fathers’ Son.” I had no clue how long it would be, as shown in this early email to my beta: “I have the first part of it done, and it's about 2800 words. I'm thinking the whole thing may be 8000 or so words, maybe longer.” It turned out to be almost 26,000 words.
I wasn’t worried about the reception of a kid - I was worried that it was too damn long for anyone ever to read. Other fandoms tend toward epics, but my impression was that most Housefic stuck to the range of 3000-4000 words.
I know you've written additional episodes within that Jack/My Fathers' Son universe. What keeps drawing you back to it?
Simple answer: Because there are more stories to tell. Some of the later-written stories were based on questions people asked me about areas of MFS they wanted better explored. A few were unrelated prompts I was given that made me think of MFS. And in one case in particular, I was going through an issue in my own life that I wanted to write about - and it fit with MFS, so I got House and Wilson to talk it out for me.
Do you remember the first time you ran across fanfic? What about House fanfic?
In the 1980s I got into Star Trek (original series), and bought several of the follow-up novels. I was vaguely aware that fanfic existed and even wrote one story of my own, with Nimoy becoming Spock, or something like that. Then no fanfic for years and years until this wonderful thing called the internet.
I read fic in a few different fandoms (X-Files, Damon/Affleck movies, Queer as Folk US, Oz, Ocean’s 11) on and off, and then in Spring 2006 I thought, hmm, wonder if there’s anything out there for this show House that I kind of like. I found the Housefic archive on Squidge, and my world was rocked. Got the DVDs, started writing my first fic, watched all the S1 & S2 episodes I'd missed, signed up for LJ, and everything escalated from there.
What drew you to writing House fanfiction?
The characters of House and Wilson have such strong, intelligent voices and are so intriguing overall. My early thoughts about writing House fanfiction were heavily influenced by their camaraderie, evident in episodes like Mob Rules, House vs. God, and the other “Odd Couple” episodes. They are lonely men who are not so lonely when they’re together.
How does a story start for you? A specific scene? A plot? A snatch of conversation?
It often starts with a daydream. Some type of prompt will happen - a specific prompt from a friend or reader, something that happens in my life, a discussion about the show or characters, a simple what-if thought - and I’ll daydream a scene or two.
I'm going to pick on you for this, since you've done some dialogue-only fics. (And, personally, I think you've got a great ear for writing House and Wilson conversations.) How challenging is it to write dialogue only fics? How do you set about starting one? Do you start with the intention of writing only dialogue, or does the fic lead you there?
For me, dialogue is the story. Even for a “regular” fic, many times I write the dialogue of a scene first, and then fill the action in around it. The second fic I wrote (and the third, versions one and two) was dialogue only; I justified leaving off the action, even though it felt like “cheating,” because it was so boring.
Of course, certain actions do occur. The intriguing challenge then becomes to have the actions described in the dialogue in a natural way, so it doesn’t scream that that’s what you’re doing - which is fun.
Dialogue is a particular pleasure in fics with House and Wilson, because they have such distinct voices, and they banter about such interesting things in canon. With such intelligent and quick-witted characters, you really have a range of what you can have them discuss, and it’s very fun.
As you can tell, dialogue only fics come naturally for me. (And thank you, Namaste.) Someone else wanting to try one would first and foremost need to play the conversation out in her or his mind to ensure it was interesting enough to stand on its own. You could imagine your characters on the telephone, preferably a corded landline phone so they can’t move around. If that seems natural, it could be a dialogue only fic. If the characters want to move around, or any visual elements of the scene are important, dialogue only probably won’t work.
What's the hardest part of writing for you?
Physical description, hands down. Someone once said, “I like your works and Nakanna Lee’s.” That pairing amused me, because Nakanna, who is excellent, is very lyrical and descriptive in her writing, whereas I feel like I’m more “just the facts.”
What's the easiest?
Dialogue. (See above.)
What's been the hardest fic for you to write?
Part Eight of “Keeper” is currently the hardest. I have most of Part Nine and Ten done, but just can’t seem to get past the block with Eight.
“Around the World and Back Again (Grace Jones’ Polar Opposite Remix),” which I wrote for remix-redux, gave me heartburn for forever. The writing itself wasn’t that difficult, but there was a lot to live up to with thedeadparrot’s original, “Singapore,” and I didn’t want to get it wrong.
“Pillory” was a stretch, in a good way. I had the plot and characterization firmly in mind, but keeping the language/voice consistent and writing so much description and so little dialogue was challenging.
What's more fun to write, a DVD commentary of one of your fics - analyzing your own writing process -- or an MST? (I ask because it seems to me that both practices are a question of taking apart an existing story - one version for analysis, one for humor.) Which is harder?
It’s an interesting question because those two don’t parallel in my mind. It’s like saying, “Do you prefer eating dessert or watching TV?”
DVD commentary is about exploration, to me. Really I write them to provide a historical record for me of what I was thinking and feeling when I wrote certain things - a reminder of why I did things the way I did, and fuller information about the ‘universe’ of the fic. (And of course there’s an element of “wasn’t I so clever.”)
MSTs are about having fun. Not making fun, having fun. The dialogue only aspect appeals, of course, as well as the chance to imagine the characters seeing themselves from the outside. MSTs also provide the opportunity to exaggerate the characters’ traits and foibles and be silly. I could never seriously write a fic that has Wilson and Cameron making out in the diagnostics conference room; in an MST I’d hardly give it a second thought. Self-inserts, and friend inserts, are also amusing - imagining how I or others I know would interact with House, Wilson, and the others.
And while I'm at it I find that a lot of people attempt to write humor, but fail miserably. What's your approach in trying to write something funny?
The first step is not thinking, “I want to write something funny.” House as a character has an absurdist take on a lot of situations, so coming up with one of those situations and then letting him go is one approach that often works. He can be very playful - you just have to come up with something for him to play with. (Hint: pestering Wilson, flustering Cameron, goading Foreman, riling up Cuddy, confusing Chase, and rolling his eyes at patients are all situations that can fill House with glee.)
How do you overcome writer's block?
Memes involving writing sometimes help. My favorites so far have been Stump the Writer (someone would give me a line I’d written and I’d have to remember which fic it came from; if I guessed incorrectly the person could ask for a custom fic), Timestamp (someone would pick a fic and ask what happened a certain time before or after it), and Three Fics I’d Never Write. They produced some fun ficlets and even a few longer fics.
What do you look for in fic that you read?
Wilson. Doesn’t that sound terrible? But I’m on a Wilson kick right now.
The other two things I look for are emotional verisimilitude (it feels like this could happen) and evidence the writer put effort and thought into the fic. When it comes to reading, I tend to be a gourmand rather than a gourmet.
Has writing fic changed the way you watch the show?
No, although it’s fun to grab new background tidbits about the characters (Aunt Sara! House’s grandmother is Dutch!), and to see elements of fics I’ve written coincidentally pop up (the one AM movie theater reference in Family reminded me of “Theater 3”).
Reading the fic originally did change the way I watched the show; it moved me from casual viewer to obsessed devotee. (My husband thanks all the great Housefic writers for that, by the way.)
What would you change on the show if you had that power? (Other than canon slash - or maybe that's something that's more fun to just play with in fic than if it were established?)
I’d strengthen the characters other than House. House likes having strong people to play off of. Why are the producers insistent on making Wilson a doormat and Cuddy a harpy, and neither of them decent doctors?
Canon slash would be great! As I said above, with good writing, it’d make a natural addition to the show - and, taking a step back, it would be wonderful to see on a top ten series. There would still be plenty to explore in fanfic, so no fears there.
Thanks, Dee. Any questions from anyone else out there?