Femslash for the straight woman

[jedi_penguin]

Woo-hoo! Stories for the house_femfest were due at the beginning of the month and I finally finished mine. I'm not too fussed about missing the deadline. It wasn't an exchange so I didn't have to meet a deadline and I'm glad I held on to it until it wound up being what I wanted it to be instead of just the thousand word minimum. Not that I set out to write

Comments

[jedi_penguin]

I know you're busy, so please don't feel like you need to rush it. I was more anxious to finish it than post it!

[tweedisgood]

everyone just KNOWS that "femslash is boring." *eye roll* Yeah, I'm SURE that's the problem...

Lack of male parts on display is the 'problem', of course. Genficcers feel your pain. Most people read fanfic to get their jollies, not for the characterisation, dialogue or all the things we *write* for. Link me to it when it's done and I'll gladly appreciate it for the skill...

[jedi_penguin]

Oh, I'm hardly going to start calling myself a "femslasher" any more than I have ever called myself a "slasher" or a "het person." I've recently decided to embrace the term "multi-shipper" because that really is how I approach fanfic. The only pain I feel is figuring out the audience for whichever story I'm telling at the moment, but since I write more for myself than an audience, I'm not too worried about that either

[tweedisgood]

The problem with gen fic is that you've got to be secure enough in your writing abilities to know that you can pull out the characteristics you want to highlight without the foil of another canon character to help you out

I'm all for foils and interplay between characters, but I don't feel it needs to be at all romantic or sexual to work just fine. In "Lost Gods", for example, the relationships were intensely important, more so than the plot (though I enjoyed plotting), but none of Giles' ones were shippy in that sense (pace the small confession at the end which did not, I think, influence the foregoing action at all) - at least, that was my firm intention. Same goes for "Watcher's New Clothes". Genfic and solofic are two quite distinct animals to my mind. My solo Giles is also well-acquainted with the angst fairy - the show saw to that - and sometimes a small amount of maudlin introspection may be appropriate, but all depends on the situation in which you put your character in the first place.

you established your fanfic cred

[jedi_penguin]

Sorry, but I still think it's about the jollies..

Oh, I won't disagree with you there! I got distracted by my own reading/writing habits and forgot to address this point, but that doesn't mean that I think you're incorrect. I think it often is about the jollies, written with interchangeable characters that have nothing to do with canon at all. While I'm firmly convinced that a well-written "jolly" story can tell you a lot about a character, too many authors don't see that as being the true point of the story and that disregard is glaringly obvious. It makes me sad. :(

Genfic and solofic are two quite distinct animals to my mind.

As they should be...but seldom are.

If what you say is true, I feel a little sad, because I think that, with a few exceptions, the quality of my writing went steadily up the further I departed from the safe but somewhat predictable waters of shipperfic - of course, experience and practice counts too, so it might have done had I stayed there, but I suspect not.I think we agree here. True improvement--