I was going back through my notebooks and found a couple of notes for ideas that I’ll probably never write, and thought I’d offer them up to the universe and see if someone else might be inspired to take them up:
- Oliver Queen as a Sentinel, and Felicity Smoak as his Guide. How does a Sentinel’s imperative to protect the tribe interact with “You have failed this city”?
- Goose (from the MCU) and Crookshanks (from HP) are the best of friends. Heck, Crookshanks might even be a Flerkin himself. Someone who’s better at writing humorous stories than I am could have a blast with this.
Finally, 3. The note is, “What if Lily Potter managed to escape with baby Harry?” I know; I laugh, too, rereading it. That gives no hint of what happens *after* she escapes
, so it’s about as broad an “idea” as can exist.
I’ve been looking for more fanfic to read, and have been unsuccessful. Two of my favorite fanfic writers are now writing mostly in fandoms I have no real interest in. (Obviously, that’s their choice, and they should write what they want to write. I’m just disappointed because they both are *good* writers, and I miss not having their stories to look forward to.)
Several stories that sound good in concept/summary are so badly written (whether an overabundance of grammatical mistakes, typos, a confusing sentence structure, or so slight on details and depth that they read more like an extended outline than a story) or go in directions that I *actively* dislike so much that I give up reading them.
I’ve read all the stories recommended by my usual sources (technically, not *all*; rather, all that are in fandoms I’m interested in and sound appealing), and the ones I’m finding on AO3 are all listed as Explicit. Many of them are have tags for situations/acts that I find objectionable and/or a complete turnoff.
Frankly, I’m tired of “erotica” as a genre. In another time, those stories would’ve been labeled pornography, and a number of them would’ve deserved it. Feeding my mind and subconscious (soul? I’m no theologian) with that kind of story … isn’t appealing.
Sex scenes are still *scenes* and should function as such – advancing the story. Unfortunately, a lot of writers either don’t understand that, don’t care, or simply don’t have the skill to write sex scenes *as scenes*. I find myself skipping over that a lot, even in stories by otherwise good writers.
I saw an interview with Louis L’Amour a couple of days ago where he said (paraphrasing) that he never wrote one word of pornography or obscenity, and he thought that using them was often a cover for a lack of skill.
To the extent that such writing too often doesn’t advance the story, I have to agree. Though I will be the first to admit that sometimes a muttered, “S***!” is the only appropriate response to a situation. *grin*
I should note that this issue isn’t limited to fanfiction; there are *many* erotic romances out there that stop the story when the characters have sex. Worse, some writers go to absurd lengths to make the story interesting/exciting. The one that stands out in my mind has the hero and heroine having sex on the back of a moving camel.
Yep, you read that right. A camel.
I suppose it could’ve been worse; it could’ve been a cowboy romance and they were doing it on the back of a bucking bronco.
So
, yeah – I’m in a drought of stories at the moment. I’m hopeful that next month’s Rough Trade challenge will provide some excellent reading, but in the meantime, at least I have more time for reading (original fiction or history, usually) and writing (currently working on a short story threatening to become a novella and maybe a novel with a working title of “A Messiah on Re-Entry”). So … silver lining? *grin*
