My publishing philosophy 5 - more objections against publishing original slash
My publishing philosophy part 1
My publishing philosophy part 2
My publishing philosophy part 3
My publishing philosophy part 4
Another argument against publishing original slash emphasises the importance of intertextuality. For a number of slash fans intertextuality is a basic requirement. They like their slash stories and characters embedded within the specific context of a fandom and personally they prefer to stay within a subcultural community without pursuing an active exchange with the “official” culture and market. In other words, if you strip a slash story of its insider hints and obvious relatedness to the source text or the real persons it refers to - like we do and like it has to be done in order to get a story ready for publishing - you take away the main attraction and charms of a slash story for them.
While I understand and accept the position and have nothing to say against it at all, it doesn’t apply to me personally. I was never interested in fanon or canon. As VigBean slasher I more or less belong to the LotR fandom, I also read AraBoro, but I’m neither a fan of Tolkien’s books nor of the movie trilogy. I’m generally not interested in books or movies with the “good fights evil” theme. I want to stress the point that I’m not implying any quality judgement at all - this is only about my personal taste and preferences. For me personally, there were only a few very fascinating, intense and exciting scenes in LotR - the scenes with conflicts between Aragorn and Boromir and between Frodo and Sam (and of course the reconciliation scenes, too).
Most of the rest is boring to me, especially the long battle scenes with ugly orcs. The LotR trilogy is the only movie I’ve encountered that has the best material in the specials and extended version (again, solely speaking of ‘the best’ for my personal needs, not in the sense of a general quality judgement). While watching the additional scenes that were cut out in the Cinema version I got a feeling that there probably must exist the material that would have made the whole thing into a movie I would love and admire - if they had used it. Each of the additional scenes in the extended version is a crucial and indispensably important scene for the character development in the whole story in my eyes. My personal impression was that the great actors gave their characters depth and multi-layered complexity, but sadly (for me), many of their best scenes were thrown out in favour of yet again one more battle scene between good an evil which is boring to me.
I think I should call myself a fan of Viggo Mortensen and Sean Bean, because I love them, but when I slash them I don’t care about facts or details concerning their real lives. I’ve heard some slashers do a lot of recherché work to get every small thing right, from cigarette brands to car label or dates of journeys etc. I don’t know their birthdays or the names of Sean’s ex-wives and if it belongs to being a fan to care about these things I’m not a fan.
I have written a few stories trying to explore their personalities true to the impression or vision I have of them. But in many stories I simply ‘cast’ them for the roles of the main characters, because I think it’s well within the range of what fits for them, because I love to imagine them in these roles and no one else, because it turns me on to fantasise they’d do these things and find it far hotter to see them in these roles than anybody else.
We don’t know how they really are anyway, every vision of them is more or less fantasy. One author could get all the details right and nevertheless portray them totally not as they really are, while another writer might not be bothered with character canon in the least and maybe instinctively hit very close nevertheless - we simply don’t know, and I personally in most stories don’t aim for that (coming as close to the real person as possible).
I’m interested in themes - role change, loving kink, strong equal partners, conflicts within the relationship rather than between the good pair and the evil enemies outside - and primarily, Viggo and Sean for me personally are the ideal models for the picture I want to paint.
Due to these premises changing one of my stories into original slash is often not complicated or difficult and copyright infringement or offence of personal rights is not an issue in this case.
Not every slash author wants to publish stories in the official market. I prefer reading print mediums to reading in the net, I never read much infront of the screen but usually print out every story I like; that’s one of the reasons why I like holding a book in my hands. But principally, I don’t regard publishing in the official market as ‘better’ than posting in the net.
I had stories published before I entered the slash fandom. I gave up to pursue publishing back then, because I preferred the net: I had the feeling I found the discussion and opportunity for collaboration I was looking for, I found a space where I could write what I really want to write without the restrictions publishers put up, I loved to have room for free experimentation, I liked the possibilities fandom can open for creating a “queer space for women”. (I’m not saying it’s that and nothing else, just saying it opens possibilities for that).
I found what I needed in fandom and wasn’t interested in publishing in the official book market for a while.
That has changed. I still value fandom very highly - I regard it as my home as a writer, because even though I wrote and published before, through and with slash fandom it became clear to me what I want and aim for as a writer and I developed as it never would have been possible for me without slash fandom - personally and as a writer. And most important of all, I found wonderful friends and authors.
But as I said in part 1 of these ‘publishing philosophy’ entries, I don’t get the feedback and discussion I crave for to the extent I ‘need’ it anymore. I won’t give up fandom and I won’t give up my friends, but I went back to invest part pf my energy in the official market. The alternative would have been to change the fandom and become a member of a bigger fandom, which I can’t, for several reasons. To name one, most of the big series and movies are based on the ‘good and evil’ - binarity, so I can’t bring myself to spend my time watching them. I need to insert here that I know wonderful, intelligent people who watch these series and again, nothing against these series and their fans, it’s just not what floats my boat. Also, I’m not interested in young men. I think the number of fandoms that could attract me is limited.
The most disillusioning thing that happened was the ban of half of my stories on the German fanfiction site ff.de. The reasons that were given were the accusation the stories are PWPs, they are a danger for younger readers (even though labelled and posted correctly within their NC 17 rating) and I use a dirty and demeaning language. Ironically, each single story I was forced to delete belongs to those that are published in the official market in the meantime, where they can be bought freely without any age restriction.
So, two years after joining fanfiction-fandom because of the attractive perspective to be able to write and post freely, because I felt restricted by the official publishers, I’m in the situation that my stories are banned in the net in Germany, but accepted by publishing houses.
TBC - last part will deal with my future plans