Speak Stiltedly and Wear a Yellow Shirt

It’s been quite a while since I read any Jane Austen fanfic, but a friend of mine lent me Mrs. Darcy’s Daughters by Elizabeth Aston. When you write in a post-copyright fandom, you can sell your fanfic just like Real Fiction. I’d love to write some Barsoom fanfic and get paid for the pleasure.

Mrs. Darcy’s Daughters is high on plot and low on atmosphere, not unlike the Jane Austen fanfic I used to read. The Darcys have gone off to Constantinople, leaving their young sons at Pemberley and their five daughters in London for the season. These daughters bear an uncanny resemblance to Mrs. Bennet’s troublesome brood, with one telling exception - there is no equivalent of Jane.

Two daughters are saucy, one preachy, two flirty. Our Lizzy-equivalent survives her requisite crush upon an unusual Wickham-equivalent, then manages to get into an Elinor-style bind with her cousin’s fiance. Yet nowhere do you see the stoicism that marks true Austen heroines. Instead, the author goes out of her way to point out the amoral nature of society’s restrictions. In Pride and Prejudice, blame for the waywardness of the younger Bennet daughters is attributed to the unequal marriage of their parents, but no explanation is ever given as to how Mrs. Darcy’s Daughters turned out so poorly.

Since true Austenfic revolves around issues of character, it is strange to find the five sisters unchanged in the end, except for the odd marriage or two (or three). Fanfic can be literary but in this case, despite the fancy trade-paperback binding, it isn’t.

With the conclusion of AAA and the ASC Awards, a new fanfic year starts for me. In the course of the past month and a half, I’ve been reading reams of fanfic, including almost all the VOY fic posted to ASC this year, some TOS, TNG and MIS (miscellaneous Star Trek works not necessarily associated with a show), and at least the beginning of every non-smut story in AAA. Now that the feedbacking frenzy and AAA voting are over, I have time to write again.

Reading and evaluating all that fic, even if it’s only for a 1-2-3 vote in AAA, is a lot of work, so it’s insulting when someone like the person Rocky blogged about accuses you of having voted for your friends or otherwise unjustly ignored his latest masterpiece. It’s also discouraging to see minions and sockpuppets trying to undermine the voting process.

One thing that doesn’t bother me is losing. I didn’t place in AAA, but I read some memorable stories (all by other people who didn’t place, but that’s another kettle of fish). I don’t know what the results are for ASC, but I’m not going to be Best Author or anything of the sort and that’s fine with me. I figure I’m a writer’s writer - that is, other writers seem to appreciate my writing more than the average reader does. That means fewer votes, but they’re more precious to me.

I love all the feedback, of course, and I never object to a nice graphic, but the biggest benefit of Awards season for me is reading other people’s fic that I’ve been putting off all year. I used to read and write only VOY, but gradually bites of TNG, TOS and MIS have been added to my menu. (ENT has been banned because no matter how good it is, it still reminds me of the show. Brrr.) And it’s that foray into reading TOS that brought you…

Khan filk! Sometime before Awards I’d thought of writing a Ceti Alpha V story, but, like many stories I thought of last year, I never actually wrote it. Then I read Rabble Rouser’s “Weeds” and started thinking again about my idea of Ceti Alpha V. I’ve always found that an overdose of other people’s fic gives the muse more ideas.

So my fanfic resolution is to write more TOS, possibly even involving some bridge crew - but that’s a stretch for me. I’m a Khan fan first and foremost.

Lori told me about the title meme, though her own response was lost in the ether. I did see Liz and Rocky’s answers. I’ve never had much trouble assigning titles, but most of them fall into a few large, uninteresting categories:

Abstract Nouns: Assimilation, Ambassador, Colony, Hiatus, Lethe, Lurking, Taboo; Ship in a Bottle, Preliminary Debriefings, Home Front, Holodeck Safety Protocols

Concrete Nouns: The Author, The Dance, The Museum; The Bottle of Bajoran Blue Wine: A PADD Story, The Efficiency Expert, A Maquis Holiday; Jade’s Drabble, Mushroom Soup, Beta Energy, Haiku for Anne

Other Fragments: Choose Life, Like This, Logic Dictates, Thrive, Tertiary

Now those are all servicable titles, right up there with real-life titles like The Hobbit and Memory. You don’t find too many artsy, obscure titles on the bookshelves - publishers tend to go with short, strong and memorable. On the other hand, a Trek writer has the example of Shakespearean quotes used for TOS titles and the temptation to reuse good titles from Trek past:

Literary Quotations: To Perish in that Howling Infinite (Moby Dick), Once More Unto the Breach (Henry V), Honey-Dew (Kubla Khan), Video Meliora Proboque (Ovid: “Video meliora proboque; Deteriora sequor” - I see the better way and I approve of it; I follow the worse.), Sans Ailes (Byron: “L’Amitie’ est L’Amour Sans Ailes” - Friendship is Love without his wings!)

Song Quotations: Take it on the Run (REO Speedwagon), The Wrong Emotion (REO Speedwagon), Every Word I Said (REO Speedwagon), A Light Beyond (Art Garfunkle), Than Fade Away (Neil Young), and about 70 filked filk titles which I won’t include here

Episode Names: Mirror, Mirror; Borg Error (a coda to Human Error), Au Naturel (a coda to Natural Law)

The Borg title classification above leaves only a few titles creative (or uncreative) enough to need explaining:

The Dance (Tunkai), one of a ream of Voyager stories called “The Dance.” The title was one of the requirements of the “The Dance” J/C contest for which this story was written. I gave my “The Dance” a subtitle from the story’s linguistic history of Tsunkatse to distinguish it from the other hundred stories of the same title.

The ChetSev Series is a nickname that eventually made it onto the website. JetC stands for Janeway et Chakotay, so I coined “ChetSev” as a joke to stand for Chakotay and Seven. Since it took too long to say “my series of episode additions to C/7 episodes” every time, I ended up making it the official series title.

One Line, Two Dimples was a short response to a challenge to write the same scene two ways, from the producers’ and fans’ perspectives. To TPTB, Robert Beltran has one line and he can’t get it right. To the fans he has…two dimples.

The Lamne’rau is Romulan for “the Borg.”

What’s Left of Her is a relevant Janeway quote from Unimatrix Zero. The story itself is an AU coda to UMZ.

If Ayn Rand Wrote ST:VOY is a response to the If My Aunt from Minnesota wrote Star Trek challenge.

The Unity of the Multiverse is a quote from near the end of the story, but I believe the title came before that section of dialogue. This one is my favorite title, for its techno-poetry.

Marriage is Irrelevant is one of Seven of Nine’s lines in the story. Otherwise, she was not a major character.

DQ Babes in the Mirror-Mirror Universe was intended to be as campy as the title implies, but the muse undermined it in production. I loved the title so I kept it.

Janeway: The Musical! (Filk of La Mancha) was inspired (as a title) by Jim Wright’s review of the episode “Muse,” which he nicknamed, “B’Elanna: The Musical!” The subtitle makes it clearer which musical is being filked.

Seven of Borg is analogous to Locutus of Borg. Seven of Nine is already Borgy, but I needed a title that said “over the top with Borg.”

148 is the number of days that Buffy was dead (the second time). At least one other fic uses that number in the title.

The Silent Movie of the Soul is another Buffy title. I’m pretty sure the story involves an actual silent movie, but the ponderous title style seems more appropriate for Buffy fic than Trek.

I took a fanfic survey today; the usual paleo-fan questions about zines and how-has-the-net-changed-fandom were in there. One question no one asks is how print changes your perception of a fic. Since I printed out my Glory Days PDF, I’ve found myself enjoying the story more than I would on-screen. I read one of the stories on-screen before, so I do have a basis for comparison.

So I have this option for the printed page. It’s easier on the eye, less disposable, less likely to be dismissed with a command-W. Maybe it’s thirty years of reading good stories in print, compared to three years of reading questionable stories on-screen, that has given me the prejudice. Maybe it’s the ease of picking up and putting down a book, compared to the trouble of bookmarking a story and searching for where I left off. I usually think of the pro-zine crowd as exclusionary and inbred, but if it were just about the advantage of paper over photons, I’d be in their camp.

I hope someday someone invents a passive computer screen - something black and white, at 600dpi, that generates no light - something that looks just like the printed page. It could be done mechanically in black and white, or chemically in color. It might even break down the barriers between pay-per-fic and fanfic.

Seema informed me that it’s time for the Awesome Author Award yet again. I’ve entered in the past two years, and I’ll be carrying on the tradition this year as well. My goal last year was not to repeat any entries. I wasn’t sure I could do that again, seeing as I haven’t written any J/C to speak of lately, but when I checked carefully I still had more stories than categories. Here are my lists, including this year:

The only J/C stories I still haven’t entered are Taboo, Like This, Video Meliora Proboque, and A Maquis Holiday. That’s a good start for 2004, I suppose. Two repeats were allowed this year under the contest rules, but I’m not repeating. If I didn’t win last year (I didn’t), I’m never going to win, so no tactical considerations apply. I’d rather put out newer fic that people are less likely to have read and have a few people see it and think (to misquote Monty Python) she’s not dead yet.

LJ is too slow to look up the exact quote, but I believe A.J. Hall commented in RJ’s LiveJournal that she could understand people not reading slash for moral reasons. Ah, here it comes:

Some people, it is true, who I know and who write slash have difficulty in understanding the “I never touch slash on principle because it can never be canonical” attitude. Most would have considerably more sympathy with a consistent moral position.

I was thinking about that, and came to the conclusion that there is no legitimate moral reason for not reading slash. There’s a moral basis for avoiding smut, and insofar as slash is smutty it falls under that reason, but slash without the smut is not a moral issue.

Why not? We read murder mysteries, even though murder is wrong. Were there an entire genre devoted not only to murder but to the glorification of murder it might be wrong to write in it, but not to read the occasional story. Even in non-fiction, we read about terrible things without feeling that reading about them makes us culpable in them.

The objections to slash are more basic than moral differences, and I think they fall into two categories: the literary and the visceral. A visceral dislike for slash is often identified with homophobia, but it’s more commonly human nature. Heterosexual men, especially, are deeply squicked by the notion. It’s not as strong as the incest taboo, but it’s out there and it’s a good enough reason not to read slash.

My objection falls into the literary camp. I have nothing against reading fiction that’s about homosexuals - I particularly enjoyed LMB’s Ethan of Athos, even though it’s not one of her better works. I don’t even have anything against writing about homosexual characters, be they Willow/Tara or characters in my own original fic. It’s not homosexuality as a topic that disturbs me but slash as a genre. A host of fans explicitly devoted to reversing canon sexual orientations, to writing stories because they are risqué, and to being generally contrary or rebellious do not appeal to me. It doesn’t make me want to know them, to be part of their clique, or to read their stories. The slash description adds no value for me - it merely alerts me that the story wasn’t directed at the general reader but at a subcommunity whose motives and principles I barely understand, never mind share.

I think when RJ exempted “Lust Over Pendle” from the slash genre she meant it in this sense - not that the story wasn’t about a non-canon homosexual relationship, but that it wasn’t about contradicting canon for its own sake. It was not about being slashy. I haven’t read it so I can’t say for sure.

There are other subcommunities of fandom that are just as self-congratulatory and anti-canonical as slash is - J/C fandom comes to mind immediately - but most of them don’t assert or assume a literary superiority over other fans. It is entirely possible that slashers are better writers, overall, than non-slashers, but that’s a matter of statistics which does not make slashfic better in principle than other kinds of fic. Being slashy is not a literary good in and of itself, and no amount of claiming it is will make it so.

Cool link of the day: Borg, especially the Borg Queen wavs at the bottom.

I started this entry about a week ago in a spirit of BOFQness and didn’t finish. After a day of writing fic and playing with FicML, I’m not so jaded - but the conclusion should be the same either way.

There’s a lull on ASC between February 1st and awards time in April. (I know they start earlier, but I only do VOY so for me, it’s April.) I’ve been thinking of spending the lull not writing fanfic.

You may say that I already spend too much time not writing fanfic, and that I hardly need to dedicate two months to not doing something I fail to do so naturally. I certainly am not pretending that I will devote the next two months to not reading fanfic. I already don’t read so much fanfic that no extra effort is necessary in that area. Moreover, I don’t feel that I’m voting properly unless I read the entire year’s worth of Voyager fic during the month of April itself, and preferably during the actual voting period. I love a challenge…

No, I want to stop writing fanfic because for the past few weeks, the ghosts of original fics past have been haunting me. Wasn’t I a cool idea? they say, and I was almost ready for submission. It’s the Tolkien-inspired ones that have been at me lately, not that they’re fanfic in any real sense of the word - they’re more like Tolkien in Space. I’ve been neglecting the original writing impulse, and the muse should never be thwarted when she’s willing to work.

I’m counting on the ASC Awards to inspire me to write more fanfic, after my break for original fic. Wish the muse luck!

A Voyager fan manifesto, à la Liz.

1. I think publishing RPF is wrong, unless you have the Real Person’s permission.
2. I don’t particularly care if you think it’s offensive of me to say what I think. If you choose to read insults into other people’s opinions, then I’d recommend you stop reading other people’s opinions.
3. I have no interest in slash, mainly because I don’t see a non-political motive for changing canon sexual orientations (in either direction). I’m not in fandom for the gender politics. See #4 also.
4. I have no interest in smut. I’m not in fandom for titillation, pornography, or free biology lessons.
5. I have very little interest in angst, but I don’t mind a good tragedy.
6. There’s nothing in the world like a good crew story, unless it’s a good AU.
7. I have a muse and she’s not afraid to use me.
8. I have a not-so-secret weakness for J/P, and a well-known one for C/7. I’m still working on the T/K - the bun is in the oven.
9. No, you may not archive my fic. Why should your site get hits out of my labor? Feel free to link my fic with the links provided at the beginning or end of each story, but don’t think I’m going to pay any fic taxes to get you to do that, either. I’m not in fandom for the marketing degree.
10. It’s the 24th century, people! Please stop killing your characters in childbirth.

Late-night addendum added to question 4.

1. A pairing that you enjoy reading but will never write, and why.

Chakotay/Torres, because it seems so right yet I don’t know enough
about the first three seasons of Voyager to write in that time period. That
seems like their time, to me.

2. The pairing that you think has spurred the most really awful fan
fiction.

I’m going to have to go with the majority here - Janeway/Chakotay
has the worst, and the
best, fan fiction out there, but only because it has the lion’s share of the Voyager
pairing market. Statistically speaking, it should get all the outliers.

3. A pairing that you just don’t get.

Doc/7. People keep telling me it’s a pairing, with fans, but all I’ve ever
seen of it is a few one-off fics. [See comments.]

4. A pairing that you think is difficult to write believably,
and an example of it done well.

Picard/Troi of C&C
fame goes without saying, but for Voyager I’d have to say Janeway/Paris is a
tough one
to write believably, and nothing really comes to mind that was believable. I’ll
have to root around for one when I get home.

[Monday night addendum] I looked through my notes for a couple
of J/P contest-type situations, and yes, no J/P fic has ever really blown me away.
Thanks for the recommendations (see comments), but I
still haven’t found that J/P fic in the sky. I don’t know that angst done well is
necessarily J/P done well - it seems to me that the main J/P challenge is
keeping them together, not setting them up for a life-scarring fling (as is so often
done to the poor ‘fleet brats). So I will continue to search for the perfect J/P.

This year’s J/P contest
(2002
TomKat Awards) is open for submissions until December 15th, and is a blind
contest. I entered two losing stories in last year’s not-so-anonymous contest,
neither of which was the perfect J/P fic. I think I’ll enter again. I could even
work in some C/7 and Die J/C Die themes, though I think I did that last year. I
suppose I could write that mass-pregnancy fic that I never got around to back
when I was ’shippy…

5. A pairing that you have written or have thought about writing,
despite your own surprise that you would consider it.

That would have to be Garak/7. It never would have happened without
Seema’s nefarious incitement.

Check out
We Read Crap So You Don’t
Have To, a blog of fic rec announcements. I don’t know that a one-blogger
show can keep up with that long list of rec sites, but man is it trippy to look at.
Just wait a minute before you click anything.

I think I forgot to announce the
zendom update, again. Read
up on how the fans fan.