| Vampires and dragons and werewolves, oh my! |
[Feb. 18th, 2007|05:57 am] |
(This post and its assorted questions are aimed at the Phaze/Samhain/EC/etc. reading public, but anyone at all is welcome to toss in a couple of pennies.)
We'd assume that if I actually sat down to write about, for example, Lance going to the moon and JC stowing away somewhere and the two of them having hot sweaty cosmonaut sex, I'd have to get the details right. One or two of them, anyway.
But those would be carefully documented details, because some people have gone to the moon and have been through NASA training and know for sure how such things work, in concrete and quantifiable terms.
Whereas - - not to shock or offend - - vampires, for example, aren't real. So if I wanted to write about vampires, I couldn't, say, interview a vampire (as opposed to interviewing a gay cosmonaut boy band member; they're a dime a dozen).
There are rules to vampirism, yes. But Bram Stoker and Anne Rice and Joss Whedon - - to name a few - - have different rules to their vampire universes. So do you go with whatever feels right? Whichever rules you prefer? Whatever's momentarily popular?
And what about dragons? Or werewolves?
I don't think that I'd want to be cutting-edge and come up with some cool, slick new twist just for the sake of it. As for the established rules, there are a lot of traditions that I'd keep, but also a few that I'd discard.
I think that my question is: if you fail to follow the generally agreed upon rules too closely, will you be kicked out and looked down upon for cutting corners? Or are there so many different vampire (or dragon or werewolf) universes out there, it's okay if my universe rules don't match yours?
Or is it important only to ensure that your own universe agrees with itself, and as long as the story holds up, you're good to go? |
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| If it quacks like a duck |
[Feb. 18th, 2007|06:13 am] |
And then there's the problem of what to call what I write.
Not the slash. I know that when I write slash, it's slash. I mean the other stuff, for the other site.
Is it fiction? Erotica? Erotic romance? Romance? Romantica? Yaoi? Smut? Porn? Sex?
Is it gay or male-male or m/m?
I'm going with gay. It isn't two guys who happen to stumble onto each other, it's two gay guys. Don't fight the label.
It's not yaoi, because I don't follow those conventions. Sometimes it's romantic, because I'm all about the love and the happy ending; sometimes it's erotic, because there's sexual undertones and sexual overtones and quick dirty sex.
What about when there's no sex? Or sex, and no romance?
I'm going to call it, in general, gay erotica. And whichever stories don't fall under that umbrella can just come along for the ride, regardless.
And I'm still going to call myself a pornographer, because I think it's fun. |
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