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How to Improve Your Slash Fic
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Title: | How to Improve Your Slash Fic |
| Creator: | Erin |
| Date(s): | 2001? |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | mainly Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess |
| Topic: | slash |
| External Links: | Wayback link |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
How to Improve Your Slash Fic is an essay by Erin.
Some Topics Discussed
- "I myself used to read romance novels. I think that's how many of us started out on the road to slash writing. The trick is learning to break yourself out of the habit of flowery writing and overblown metaphors."
- several links, including T. A. S. T. E Recommended Readings in the Erotic Xenaverse, a link to The Illustrated ENCYCLOPEDIA XENAICA, a link to The History of Xena: Warrior Princess, a link to Odysseys and Ecstasy, -- some are offline, including the one to Sidewinder's slash and trash shack
- spelling and grammar checking
- writing emotion for males
- what is a beta and how to find one
Parts
- Introduction
- Research
- Style 1: The Sugar-Free Fic
- Style 2: Emotional Men
- Spelling
- Checking Things Over
- The Beta Reader
- Helpful Links
From the Introduction
First off I want to make this little disclaimer: the following essay may seem fairly harsh and judgmental in some areas, and I'm not going to apologize for that. If you're offended then my email is given at the bottom of the page so feel free to tell me all about it. There. You've been warned. Proceed at your own risk.
[...]
In each section below, the examples I'm using for demonstrations are my own work. I'm more comfortable ripping apart my stuff than someone else's; plus it's a good reminder to me that despite all appearances to the contrary, I'm not perfect. ;-)
The Essay
For the most part writing style isn't a big concern of mine. We all have our own and that's just fine. It'd be pretty dull if we all wrote exactly the same way. However, there are two problems I want to address and they're not limited to the Herc/Xena fandom. In fact, this first one happens much more in The Sentinel fandom than anywhere else I've encountered, but we do have our share of it here. I'm talking about style when writing sex scenes. Or more to the point, a style you should really try to avoid. Now, some of you may want to write just a little bit of foreplay and then cut to the next scene, or others of you may prefer to describe in minute detail, every touch, lick and thrust. That's great. Whatever turns your crank. But whichever way you do it, please try to remember that you're writing a slash sex scene and not a romance novel!
Below is a short list of words and phrases you'll want to avoid when writing your fic:
Euphemisms for cock:
- member
- manhood
- manroot
- tool
- rod
- blazing <insert euphemism here>
- sword/spear of desire/destiny
Euphemisms for come/cum(ing)/orgasm:
- milky white substance (if you're not going to say it then don't describe it.)
- rapture
- any soaring/flying metaphor
- any metaphors involving beaches and oceans
- references to bursting/blazing/all-consuming lights
- ecstasy (not when you're talking about an orgasm. Way too clichéd.)
One final note here: no one's perfect, and the occasional euphemism can slip past you. However, good proofreading on your part, and by your beta reader should weed out most of them.
This second problem does crop up in the Herc/Xena fandom, although not nearly as often as in other fandoms like The Sentinel. I've had difficulties with this one myself, quite recently actually, so I thought I should mention it and make what suggestions I could.
Everyone knows guys have emotions, right? I mean, they're human too (despite all evidence to the contrary...). No, seriously, men have all the same feelings as women; they just don't express them the same way, or sometimes at all. I know most of you are aware of that, but sometimes it's hard to translate that awareness into your fic. The temptation is constantly there to write the characters the way you wish men were, that is, more communicative and caring, etc. But chances are that's not the way the characters behave on the show -- and remember, the goal here is to write a fic where the characters are still recognizable as the ones from whatever show you're basing your story on.
So how do you stop that from creeping into your fic? Well, there are a few ways. If you think you might be straying from the proper characterization, then go back and watch a few of the eps or read some other fic. (See Research for more on that.)
Another good way is to take a step back, figuratively, look at what you're writing and ask yourself: "would any guys I know actually say that?" That's a pretty decent guide to avoiding those overly emotional scenes that probably would never occur in RL.
[...]
Like I said before, this isn't the only way to do it, but it's one of the more believable ways. No overt, in-depth discussions of emotions, no teary-eyed confessions of undying love. Just two guys trying to communicate within the limited capacity of their gender. ;-)
Why is good spelling so important, and why do so many people rant about it? The main reason is that no one wants to wade through a fic riddled with spelling errors. It's annoying, and insulting to the reader. Plus it makes you, as the author, look uneducated, or at the very least, like you don't care enough about your own fiction to proof it.
I for one am not the best speller in the world and I'll freely admit this. So, unless you won the national spelling bee or something, I certainly don't expect anyone out there to be flawless either. However, the computer age has gifted us with this wondrous invention known as a spellchecker. Learn to use it, people!
There's no excuse for not running your fic through a spellchecker! It doesn't matter if you're answering a challenge with a time limit or you're just in a rush to get your fic out for the world to see; take the time to check the spelling!
[...]
It doesn't take that long to run a spellcheck, so do everyone, yourself included, a favor and get into the habit of it.
One last thing here: many people will look at this and wonder why they should bother with a spellcheck since that's what beta readers are for. Wrong! It's incredibly rude to hand off an unchecked piece of fic to a beta reader. They're there to double check your work for you once you've already checked it yourself. Their job is to find anything you may've missed on your own, not to be a one-stop fixit-all for you. Most experienced beta readers simply won't accept a fic that hasn't been spellchecked; they'll send it right back to you. So don't waste theirs or your time. Use that spellchecker!
What is a beta reader? That's the person who graciously agrees to read through your fic and let you know where the mistakes are. Beta readers can do more than proof your spelling, punctuation and grammar, they can offer suggestions on sentence structure, plot points and characterization. This is a good thing! I know that especially for new writers criticism of any kind can be very difficult to take, but what you have to realize is that it's not meant as a personal attack! It's simply a statement of what could use some tweaking in your fic.
In your search for a beta reader, you should probably consider finding more than one. Having two, or more, perspectives is very helpful. If one beta reader misses something, the other might pick up on it. Consider it a safety net of sorts.