maygra | Bwah! More questions! And answers! (Reply)

1. When I was giving fb for the False Comforts series, IIRC you said you were fascinated by altered states of consciousness. Why, and how did you write it so well? Research? If so, what kind? <3

I honestly can't remember any specific research except I did some reading on the effects of sleep deprivation (which is a major factor for Sam), for the rest, some of it is personal experience and some of it is observational.

I'm not someone who gets seriously ill very often, but it has happened on occasion and I've had a few surgeries, some of which were less than routine. For me personally is the fact that I have been so ill twice, to the point where I have memories of things happening that no one who was there can corroborate (mostly family.) Whole conversation that never happened, things I thought I did with other people, that also apparently never happened. The description in Sam's head about having pneumonia and having an entire set of memories that no one else recalls is from personal experience. A good many things I thought had happened, never did, and it took me a long time to realize that I had completely and totally made up kind of waking dreams while I was out of my head with fever and too little oxygen in my lungs and brain for me to tell the difference.

All that said, I am kind of generally interested in what the human is capable of, once it loses some of the constraints of day to day life -- the bazillion decisions that we make without even thinking about them -- not involuntary reactions like breathing and our hearts beating, but the more or less conscious ones we make without realizing they are conscious choices -- like reaching for the salt at a meal, or deciding in what order to put on clothing or jewelry -- and what would happen if those patterns get interrupted.

So some of it (and I thank you for thinking I wrote it so well) just has to do with imagining what it would be like if you couldn't trust your senses, or not all of them. That even in delusions (or in myth building) there's always some grain of what's true and real, and ho much of what we perceive is because we chose to perceive it this way or that.

2. Interested to know how you (as someone who's been in fandom for a while) feel about the quality of fiction writing, as a trend? Do you think it's something that changes over time as technology makes it increasingly available to a wider range of age-groups/backgrounds? Or does it depend on the particular fandom it's associated with?

SPN is my first fandom, but I know it's not your first, so just curious :)

All of the above. *g*

I have to say that overall, I don't think the ratio of good to bad (as subjective as that is) has really altered very much over the past ten years or so. I think there is more of both, and I think the increasing volume makes it more difficult to find quality writing, not becasue there's less, but because there's more of everything. I also think there are some fandoms that tend to attract certain kinds of people in greater or less degrees of competency -- although that is more an impression than something I can point to and provide examples. (i.e. I think people attracted to literary fandoms (As opposed to literary classics converted to film) may possibly, though not universally, be likely to attract people who are well read and who have greater command of language that say your average SPN fan. Not that SPN fans are illiterate or not well read, but that motivation to tell stories comes from a different place than those who write in a manner meant to emulate Austen or O'Brien, or Shakespeare -- much in the same way that Literary fiction has it's fans and Genre fiction (mysteries, thrillers, SF/Fantasy) has it's fans.) Some people read everything and enjoy it and some people have a narrower range of what they find enthralling.

That said, I do think that when fan fiction first came online, there may have been a slightly more marked lean toward better written fiction, but I think that was due primarily to the fact that a great deal of the available access to the web was done through educational services and that the people most likely to be online and actually writing fan fiction initially came from a more well educated or higher educational (and possibly more affluent) level than we see now where access is so much more widespread.

What I think fandom at large has kind of come to terms with is that different people come into fan fiction and fandom for different reasons and different standards of what is good. I mean some people really, really abhor poorly written fiction in the technical sense. The fact that other people seem to find that less of a problem (if the kind of glowing reviews often seen on what I'd term as badfic are any indication) and so what those requiring technical excellence in addition to a good story (or good p0rn) and what those who are looking for whatever floats their boat are vastly different.

I do think (again without evidence) that some younger people (say under 25 at the high range) may find their competency at technology far exceeds their competency at the nuts and bolts of writing. I dislike playing the age card because I don't think people 20-30 years my junior are stupid or unable to produce good work -- but I think the areas of focus have shifted slightly from a broadly inclusive level of competency to competency in what is useful. About the only offhand example I can think of is in handwriting, which has much less emphasis in our digital age -- and the use of a kind of digital shorthand. People seem more focused on what they are saying than how they say it and I find that a little sad.

3. Why do you write slash, I mean what is there in it for you?

I actually wrote an essay about this years ago, and I think my views have refined somewhat but are much the same.

Part of what appeals to me about slash, and about m/m slash is the total lack of actual experience I have with either being male or a being a guy in love. It may or may not be that much different than a woman in love, but that's at least something I have experience with.

There is also a good dose of physical appeal in it in that I find athletic male bodies to be fascinating and beautiful in a way that I don't find women's bodies to be. (i.e. that the current standards of beauty in womens bodies appeal to me not at all -- I'm all for girls with more curves and more generous proportions than is more commonly accepted -- as totally personal preference.) And I honestly think a good deal of that male appeal comes from the total lack of competition I feel with men. I don't want to be one, I don't necessarily want to actually have one which makes them strange and mysterious creatures.

But the fascination of slash really is all about plumbing the unknown. I'm never going to know what being a guy feels like with all the cultural and social difference, so a lot of it in slash is making the unfamiliar familiar, of bring them closer to my understanding without fundamentally altering who these characters are.

I'm not entirely sure that's clear -- if not, I'll try harder to explain.

Also, on a less thinky level, there's an audience in it for me, and interesting things to read, and it's something I enjoy and have been able to share with a great many wonderful women and men. There's a gut level appreciaton for the whole concept of guys being vulnerable to one another that may not be true in real life, but appeals nonetheless.

The poll is here: http://maygra.livejournal.com/358266.html

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