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Yuletide reveals, and the stories I wrote
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yuletide stories are revealed, and I wrote:
Norway - CJ Cherryh/Alliance Universe, gen (well, as gen as these people get), for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
meteordust. Of the two stories, this is the one that I think is spectacularly, obviously mine; not only is it in the same fandom/same characters as the story I received (which is kind of delightful, actually), but it's exactly the same sort of thing I write for SGA, albeit with a different team.
And All the World Made New - Patrick O'Brian/Aubrey-Maturin novels, femslash, Clarissa/Sophie, formakesmewannadie. And this is the one that I think no one in a million years would have guessed that I wrote, but that I really enjoyed writing anyway.
Norway was picked up as a pinch hit. I'd decided that I wasn't going to do pinch hits unless I saw something that I really, really wanted to write. So, scrolling idly through the requests, I stopped dead when I saw something that was almost exactly what one of my requests had been, something I'd been dying to read for ages -- something I had considered writing just for myself in the past. And now I could write it for someone else, and if that happened not to be the request that was picked up of mine, there would be at least ONE story with those characters out there, and it would be appreciated by someone! How could I not?
It was spun off an idea I'd already had, about the Hellburner team going back to Earth; I had written a little of the beach scene a few years ago (although it changed a lot in the process of reshaping it for my recipient's request). The final story ended up more focused on the group than on Paul and Ben in specific, though out of the group, Paul and Ben are the ones who really fascinate me, ever since I read the books. I really loved writing them, I was thrilled that there are at least a couple people out there other than myself that like them too, and I wouldn't mind writing them again someday.
And All the World Made New is a story I never would have expected to write. I've never done femslash before -- f/f relationships in my original fiction, sure, but never in fanfic as an extra-canonical relationship. When I got my recipient's requests, I'd initially planned to work on one of the other ones. But on her Yuletide post in her journal, this was the one that she said she really wanted, and I because of that, I felt like I ought to at least try.
And I surprised myself by really loving it. I had to research the hell out of it -- I'd actually only read the O'Brian books up to book 10, so one of the major characters was one I hadn't even met in the books yet. So I read all the books that contained Clarissa; I kept a big text file of all the bits and pieces that would help me characterize her (what she looked like, some of the better dialogue exchanges from her interactions with Stephen and Jack, etc). On top of that -- and in retrospect, this seems kind of overkill, but this just goes to show how I'll do historical research at the drop of a hat -- I researched pre-Victorian erotica. It was completely fascinating; I read a ton of stuff online about the way that sexuality and pornography and homosexuality was approached in 18th-century Europe, none of which actually ended up making it into the story. I read Fanny Hill! Well, not the whole thing -- talk about painfully purple prose. But I originally intended the story to be very graphic, and I wanted it to be authentically graphic, in the sort of language that I used.
When I went to write it, however, what I ended up with, once I got into their heads, was incredibly restrained and even sort of, if this isn't a total contradiction in terms, passionately chaste. Going with the two characters I was writing, and trying to be true to them as possible, I simply couldn't see Clarissa tearing off Sophie's clothes and shagging her in the stables. For Clarissa, sex is not really an act of passion but, rather, as casual as brushing her hair, something she describes in the books as an act of friendship or comfort. For Sophie, it's kind of the opposite -- Clarissa is overly casual about sex, Sophie is not nearly casual enough. She was kept totally in the dark about sex right up until her marriage, and is still somewhat afraid of it or at least intensely embarrassed by it; I don't think she'd know an orgasm if one strolled up and asked her over for tea. Sophie is the very epitome of the "lie back and think of England" British wife. In the context of slashing Sophie, her behavior is perfectly consistent with a person who's never enjoyed sex because she's been trying to do it with someone who's got the wrong set of genitals, and doesn't know enough about how the world works to have even considered that might be the problem. But since she's spent her life thinking that sex is a vaguely shameful act between a husband and wife for mainly procreative purposes, actually changing her mind about that was something that was going to take a novel, and not one that I could write in a month and a half, either.
And that's why I approached it in the story the way that I did. Sex is a comfort thing for Clarissa, but for other people, not for herself. Sophie doesn't crave sex at all (though she might, with the right person) but she's incredibly isolated and lonely, as is Clarissa. The most likely relationship that I see between the two of them, at least initially, is one that involves a lot of cuddling and kissing and talking and curling up around each other, and not a whole lot of outright sex -- a very slow exploration of an alien landscape. Clarissa needs to learn that someone might be interested in her for something other than sex; Sophie needs to learn that she could be wanted for her body, and want back in return. And it won't happen overnight. But I could imagine this being a very drawn-out thing, something that never supplants their socially-sanctioned relationships with their husbands, but continues to sustain them to the end of their days -- a strong and loving friendship with certain, ahem, side benefits, Sophie slowly waking up to her own sexual potential and Clarissa to the emotional inner life she's been denied.
Hence the bits of correspondence at the end. Those who've read my SGA fic know that I'm a total junkie for what you might call documentation fic -- letters, diary entries, mission reports and other detritus of their daily lives. And I love the idea of Sophie and Clarissa having a long-term affair, and the kids suspecting what's going on but never exactly being sure. Jack's daughters grew up into such prim and proper ladies that they would never dream of insinuating that their mother had a long-term lesbian relationship with a family friend. Brigid, on the other hand, is annoyed by her cousins' coyness with the whole thing; it's perfectly obvious to her. And I loved the idea of Sophie expressing her illicit passions semi-openly in a lot of rather bad poetry, paeans to her relationship with Clarissa disguised in nature metaphors and a lot less well-concealed than poor naive Sophie realizes. (Tender leaves kissed by the dew, indeed!) I had originally wanted this part to be longer -- in fact, my very first idea was that the entire story would be in the form of excerpts from Sophie's diary and from the girls' letters to each other -- but it was really just supposed to be a very small epilogue, so I restrained myself and included only the pertinent bits.
And that's the story of the story. I was terribly nervous about this one, since it's worlds away from the SGA gen that I've been writing for the last two years -- literally and figuratively. I've never done femslash, never done a historical fandom before. And I really can't express how thrilled I was that my recipient liked it; I was pleased and excited and just generally very happy with my whole Yuletide experience.
yuletide stories are revealed, and I wrote:Norway - CJ Cherryh/Alliance Universe, gen (well, as gen as these people get), for
meteordust. Of the two stories, this is the one that I think is spectacularly, obviously mine; not only is it in the same fandom/same characters as the story I received (which is kind of delightful, actually), but it's exactly the same sort of thing I write for SGA, albeit with a different team.And All the World Made New - Patrick O'Brian/Aubrey-Maturin novels, femslash, Clarissa/Sophie, for
makesmewannadie. And this is the one that I think no one in a million years would have guessed that I wrote, but that I really enjoyed writing anyway.Norway was picked up as a pinch hit. I'd decided that I wasn't going to do pinch hits unless I saw something that I really, really wanted to write. So, scrolling idly through the requests, I stopped dead when I saw something that was almost exactly what one of my requests had been, something I'd been dying to read for ages -- something I had considered writing just for myself in the past. And now I could write it for someone else, and if that happened not to be the request that was picked up of mine, there would be at least ONE story with those characters out there, and it would be appreciated by someone! How could I not?
It was spun off an idea I'd already had, about the Hellburner team going back to Earth; I had written a little of the beach scene a few years ago (although it changed a lot in the process of reshaping it for my recipient's request). The final story ended up more focused on the group than on Paul and Ben in specific, though out of the group, Paul and Ben are the ones who really fascinate me, ever since I read the books. I really loved writing them, I was thrilled that there are at least a couple people out there other than myself that like them too, and I wouldn't mind writing them again someday.
And All the World Made New is a story I never would have expected to write. I've never done femslash before -- f/f relationships in my original fiction, sure, but never in fanfic as an extra-canonical relationship. When I got my recipient's requests, I'd initially planned to work on one of the other ones. But on her Yuletide post in her journal, this was the one that she said she really wanted, and I because of that, I felt like I ought to at least try.
And I surprised myself by really loving it. I had to research the hell out of it -- I'd actually only read the O'Brian books up to book 10, so one of the major characters was one I hadn't even met in the books yet. So I read all the books that contained Clarissa; I kept a big text file of all the bits and pieces that would help me characterize her (what she looked like, some of the better dialogue exchanges from her interactions with Stephen and Jack, etc). On top of that -- and in retrospect, this seems kind of overkill, but this just goes to show how I'll do historical research at the drop of a hat -- I researched pre-Victorian erotica. It was completely fascinating; I read a ton of stuff online about the way that sexuality and pornography and homosexuality was approached in 18th-century Europe, none of which actually ended up making it into the story. I read Fanny Hill! Well, not the whole thing -- talk about painfully purple prose. But I originally intended the story to be very graphic, and I wanted it to be authentically graphic, in the sort of language that I used.
When I went to write it, however, what I ended up with, once I got into their heads, was incredibly restrained and even sort of, if this isn't a total contradiction in terms, passionately chaste. Going with the two characters I was writing, and trying to be true to them as possible, I simply couldn't see Clarissa tearing off Sophie's clothes and shagging her in the stables. For Clarissa, sex is not really an act of passion but, rather, as casual as brushing her hair, something she describes in the books as an act of friendship or comfort. For Sophie, it's kind of the opposite -- Clarissa is overly casual about sex, Sophie is not nearly casual enough. She was kept totally in the dark about sex right up until her marriage, and is still somewhat afraid of it or at least intensely embarrassed by it; I don't think she'd know an orgasm if one strolled up and asked her over for tea. Sophie is the very epitome of the "lie back and think of England" British wife. In the context of slashing Sophie, her behavior is perfectly consistent with a person who's never enjoyed sex because she's been trying to do it with someone who's got the wrong set of genitals, and doesn't know enough about how the world works to have even considered that might be the problem. But since she's spent her life thinking that sex is a vaguely shameful act between a husband and wife for mainly procreative purposes, actually changing her mind about that was something that was going to take a novel, and not one that I could write in a month and a half, either.
And that's why I approached it in the story the way that I did. Sex is a comfort thing for Clarissa, but for other people, not for herself. Sophie doesn't crave sex at all (though she might, with the right person) but she's incredibly isolated and lonely, as is Clarissa. The most likely relationship that I see between the two of them, at least initially, is one that involves a lot of cuddling and kissing and talking and curling up around each other, and not a whole lot of outright sex -- a very slow exploration of an alien landscape. Clarissa needs to learn that someone might be interested in her for something other than sex; Sophie needs to learn that she could be wanted for her body, and want back in return. And it won't happen overnight. But I could imagine this being a very drawn-out thing, something that never supplants their socially-sanctioned relationships with their husbands, but continues to sustain them to the end of their days -- a strong and loving friendship with certain, ahem, side benefits, Sophie slowly waking up to her own sexual potential and Clarissa to the emotional inner life she's been denied.
Hence the bits of correspondence at the end. Those who've read my SGA fic know that I'm a total junkie for what you might call documentation fic -- letters, diary entries, mission reports and other detritus of their daily lives. And I love the idea of Sophie and Clarissa having a long-term affair, and the kids suspecting what's going on but never exactly being sure. Jack's daughters grew up into such prim and proper ladies that they would never dream of insinuating that their mother had a long-term lesbian relationship with a family friend. Brigid, on the other hand, is annoyed by her cousins' coyness with the whole thing; it's perfectly obvious to her. And I loved the idea of Sophie expressing her illicit passions semi-openly in a lot of rather bad poetry, paeans to her relationship with Clarissa disguised in nature metaphors and a lot less well-concealed than poor naive Sophie realizes. (Tender leaves kissed by the dew, indeed!) I had originally wanted this part to be longer -- in fact, my very first idea was that the entire story would be in the form of excerpts from Sophie's diary and from the girls' letters to each other -- but it was really just supposed to be a very small epilogue, so I restrained myself and included only the pertinent bits.
And that's the story of the story. I was terribly nervous about this one, since it's worlds away from the SGA gen that I've been writing for the last two years -- literally and figuratively. I've never done femslash, never done a historical fandom before. And I really can't express how thrilled I was that my recipient liked it; I was pleased and excited and just generally very happy with my whole Yuletide experience.
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Lovely! It could even explain the total change that occurred (unexplained in the series) from Sophie HATING Clarissa (with the scarlet dress, and assuming she was one of Jack's floozies, and the near divorce), to the later closeness where they seem to be the very best of friends. An actual "missing scene" which we, as fans, always like to have filled in. Brava!
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...Sigh. *fixes HTML*
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