New York Minute
Title: New York Minute (http://ssf-moonshadow.com/archive/archive/0/newyork.html)
Responding to Theme: Favorite fics
Pairing: Snape/Lupin
Length: Novella, complete
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Violence, terrorism, explicit sex.
Very Brief Summary: On September 11, 2001, Remus Lupin was in the World Trade Center. This is what happened next.
This is probably the toughest writing experience I've ever had, including my final paper at seminary. Not only was I melding the Wizarding World with modern terrorism, I was doing my best to honor the thousands who died in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania on that horrible day.
The challenge was simple: write a fic for musigneus as part of the Pervy Werewolf "In Like A Lion" ficathon in March 2005. I wanted to write a nice smutty story for her, really - except that the Plot Bunny From Hell got in the way.
I'd had a recurring image for the last two years, ever since I started reading fan fiction: Remus Lupin and Severus Snape caught in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centers. Why I had this image is still unknown; I wasn't in New York on 9/11, don't know anyone who was in or near the Towers, and had only visited the Towers once, in 1985. I also hadn't seen any fanfiction that put the Potterverse characters in a similar situation. All I knew was that I couldn't get that image out of my mind, and when the ficathon came along the PBFH grabbed my brain in its long sharp fangs and wouldn't let go until I gave up and cried uncle.
I spent nearly a month researching and outlining before I started to write; I'm compulsive about getting the details right regardless of what I do, and this time I had to know as much as I could about the attacks if I had a prayer of writing something that would not exploit the situation. I ended up reading three books (one on the building and day to day operations of the Towers, an oral history collection by the survivors and witnesses, and Dennis Smith's Report From Ground Zero) and numerous magazine and newspaper articles on line, plus studying pictures and diagrams of the area to know exactly what had happened, when, and where.
I also realized partway through my outline that I needed to set up the nascent romance beween Remus and Severus before the attacks, or Severus's grief when he thinks Remus is dead would make no sense. That's when I wrote the scene in the pub where Remus reads one of Michaelangelo's poems to Severus, and Severus realizes that what he feels is more than friendship. I chose Michaelangelo because I love his sonnets, and because they were some of the very few pre-modern poems that were explicitly written to a member of the same sex. I thought the slightly old-fashioned tone of the Symonds translation would work for two wizards, plus Symonds was the first translator to restore the correct pronouns to the poems (all previous English editions had rewritten the poems so they seemingly were directed at Michaelangelo's friend Vittoria Colonna rather than his lover, Tommaso Cavalieri).
Some parts were agonizing to write; Severus grieving, Poppy's gasp of horror at seeing the rubble when they portkey in a couple of hours after the attacks, Severus finding Remus in the park. And others were surprisingly funny; I'm terribly fond of Remus, addled on painkillers and playing with a sandwich pic while trying to get Severus to kiss him in public. I also had fun imagining a Wizarding division in the FBI and its counterpart in MI-6, and have written a couple of drabbles where Harry's unseen supervisors include James Bond, M, and M's chief of staff Bill Tanner.
I was gratified when musigneus liked the fic, and that others did so as well, even if a few people all but screamed when I posted it (in sections thanks to LJ's limits on characters in a post). I did my best, and I'm still proud that I managed to walk the high wire without falling.
Responding to Theme: Favorite fics
Pairing: Snape/Lupin
Length: Novella, complete
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Violence, terrorism, explicit sex.
Very Brief Summary: On September 11, 2001, Remus Lupin was in the World Trade Center. This is what happened next.
This is probably the toughest writing experience I've ever had, including my final paper at seminary. Not only was I melding the Wizarding World with modern terrorism, I was doing my best to honor the thousands who died in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania on that horrible day.
The challenge was simple: write a fic for musigneus as part of the Pervy Werewolf "In Like A Lion" ficathon in March 2005. I wanted to write a nice smutty story for her, really - except that the Plot Bunny From Hell got in the way.
I'd had a recurring image for the last two years, ever since I started reading fan fiction: Remus Lupin and Severus Snape caught in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centers. Why I had this image is still unknown; I wasn't in New York on 9/11, don't know anyone who was in or near the Towers, and had only visited the Towers once, in 1985. I also hadn't seen any fanfiction that put the Potterverse characters in a similar situation. All I knew was that I couldn't get that image out of my mind, and when the ficathon came along the PBFH grabbed my brain in its long sharp fangs and wouldn't let go until I gave up and cried uncle.
I spent nearly a month researching and outlining before I started to write; I'm compulsive about getting the details right regardless of what I do, and this time I had to know as much as I could about the attacks if I had a prayer of writing something that would not exploit the situation. I ended up reading three books (one on the building and day to day operations of the Towers, an oral history collection by the survivors and witnesses, and Dennis Smith's Report From Ground Zero) and numerous magazine and newspaper articles on line, plus studying pictures and diagrams of the area to know exactly what had happened, when, and where.
I also realized partway through my outline that I needed to set up the nascent romance beween Remus and Severus before the attacks, or Severus's grief when he thinks Remus is dead would make no sense. That's when I wrote the scene in the pub where Remus reads one of Michaelangelo's poems to Severus, and Severus realizes that what he feels is more than friendship. I chose Michaelangelo because I love his sonnets, and because they were some of the very few pre-modern poems that were explicitly written to a member of the same sex. I thought the slightly old-fashioned tone of the Symonds translation would work for two wizards, plus Symonds was the first translator to restore the correct pronouns to the poems (all previous English editions had rewritten the poems so they seemingly were directed at Michaelangelo's friend Vittoria Colonna rather than his lover, Tommaso Cavalieri).
Some parts were agonizing to write; Severus grieving, Poppy's gasp of horror at seeing the rubble when they portkey in a couple of hours after the attacks, Severus finding Remus in the park. And others were surprisingly funny; I'm terribly fond of Remus, addled on painkillers and playing with a sandwich pic while trying to get Severus to kiss him in public. I also had fun imagining a Wizarding division in the FBI and its counterpart in MI-6, and have written a couple of drabbles where Harry's unseen supervisors include James Bond, M, and M's chief of staff Bill Tanner.
I was gratified when musigneus liked the fic, and that others did so as well, even if a few people all but screamed when I posted it (in sections thanks to LJ's limits on characters in a post). I did my best, and I'm still proud that I managed to walk the high wire without falling.