first times, established relationships, and breaking off from canon

[jlh]

So I was reading an essay on metafandom by minisinoo about suspension of disbelief in slash, in which she says:

This is why I tend to have problems with OTPs -- both slash and het. There's a sense of "assumed inevitability" that must be bought into off camera rather than built within the story itself. The writer assumes the reader accepts the pairing even before reading. As long as readers do, all is well ... but it won't convince those who don't already see it. (And that often includes me, I'm afraid.)

Frankly, there's little I see as a given about relationships. I want to be wooed into believing by a well-told tale. In turn, I extend that courtesy to my readers. I don't expect you, the reader, to see anything as a given, either. It's my job to sell it to you.

It's ASSUMPTION that kills the believability of a story. Show, don't assume. Build the case. Convince me.

This idea—that all ship fic has the burden of "selling the ship"—is something I've rejected for a while now, though I've never talked about it much specifically. But I do have a problem with it, and this essay makes it easier for me to organize those thoughts, finally.

I see this in a context of a lot of essays that get written about the "dangers" of the OTP or shipfic, who talk about fic for shippers being lazy whenever it doesn't completely make the case for a ship to the non-shipper. I don't see my job as a writer to be "selling" anyone about anything. I mean, I'm not a copywriter. I'm not putting in a carefully researched "reason to believe" with documentation available to the FTC upon request, or showing you the blue water pouring into the absorbent padding. If I wanted to do that, frankly I'd write an essay, which seems to be what this person wants me to do. (And have; I co-wrote the ship_manifesto on Seamus/Dean.) An essay is a document that is meant to convince, by design. It includes assertions and (hopefully) proof of those assertions. It plows into canon and finds those canon moments that establish the ship. Those essays link to fics that really are about convincing non-shippers about a ship—often, first-time fics that do all that heavy lifting.

But in a story, in order to convince a non-shipper of the validity of a ship, I would have to take the reader carefully by the hand either from the last moment of canon, or the last moment of canon from which I have broken off, and through every stage of the relationship until that relationship becomes sexual. (Obviously we're talking about non-canon ships here; canon does the work for you in canon ships.) That requires writing a first-time fic.

Now, I know that first-time fics are popular, but I don't always want to write a first-time fic, and I certainly don't always want to read a first-time fic. And in order for an established relationship fic to reach this level of convincing—to bear that burden of proof, to include that "reason to believe"—it has to have essentially a mini-first-time-fic embedded fairly close to the beginning of the fic. I don't want to always read or write a three-sentence first-time fic in the beginning of the established relationship fic. To me, that gets in the way of having the established relationship fic in the first place.

For example, I write all this Ryan/Simon, but except for the AUs, I've never actually written a Ryan/Simon first-time fic. I might never write one. I don't find the first time they realized they were attracted to each other—which I believe to be roughly a nanosecond after they met—to be all that interesting. I have written a sort-of "figuring out this is more than sex" fic, but even that is more Simon presenting himself and Ryan saying "okay" without a whole lot about Simon's journey—though I have alluded to it in other stories. Therefore, I haven't written that "convince you" Ryan/Simon fic. If you watch the show, and you're not seeing the ship, I probably haven't written anything that will "sell" you on the ship.

Sometimes in the reviews for Eight Ways from Sunday readers would say that I had sold them on Seamus/Dean, or less often, Draco/Ginny. (They were usually already sold on Harry/Hermione before reading it.) However, that wasn't my goal as a writer; I wanted to write a story about friendship and romance. I wasn't thinking, "these are the moments in canon that make me ship Seamus and Dean, and therefore I have to include references to them in this story in order to sell as many non-shippers on this pairing as possible." I just wrote a story, and hoped it was good, and hoped that the characters all interacted in a way that made sense for the relationships that I was setting up—romantic or not, slash or not.

I've also written smaller stories, like Pretty From Behind, where I don't say anything at all about how a non-canon pairing got together, even though the story is set some years in the future (in this instance, Harry and Hermione are married and in their late twenties). Pretty from Behind isn't that short—about 3000 words—but it also isn't about how Harry and Hermione got together. It's about Harry and Hermione exploring their sexuality with each other, mostly. And I'm not sure that I have to say how they got together, even though of course it's in the same universe as EWFS. That's in my head, sure, and I say that, but the reader is under no obligation to read the first story.

I read plenty of ship fics, usually for relationships that I ship, and I don't expect all of them to do all that heavy lifting from canon to the start of the fic. In fact, one of the things I like about established relationship fics is that they are free of that burden, and instead go on to a problem that I think is much more urgent, and ironically much less explored or expected to be explored in fic: what happens after they declare their great love? What happens after the wedding, the moving in together, the deliberate decision to be a couple? How do they work around their differences, especially if they got together in a highly charged situation? For example, with Harry/Draco, their having lots of sex within a highly codependent relationship during the war makes a lot of sense to me—but how they stay together after the excitement of war is over, how they have a peaceful life together (if they do) is much less clear. For that reason, I like post-canon established relationship fics—and I don't require that they give me all that much at the start about exactly how the couple got together.

It's for these reasons that I get a little testy when people talk to me about how all fics must lead the reader from canon to the start of the fic, or must "convince" the reader of a ship. I reject that all fics must do this. Certainly, that isn't true of all of my fics. And how limited we would be, if all fics had to bear this burden! But I also reject that the fics that don't do that are therefore lesser "OTP" fics. That label is a bit of a slur at this point, and I find that to be a shame.

Comments

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Interesting question. I definitely don't think fic has to sell anybody on a particular ship. I tend to like first time fics a lot, but I couldn't even say that those are about selling the ship to me. It's usually, now I think about it, often more about the extra "wrongness" that sometimes comes into it in some of my pairings for their first time? I mean, that it adds this level of "Omg, what are we doing, we shouldn't but I want to!" I do like the moment where the canon relationship changes, but it's not all about OMG, FIRST TIME!!

But when it comes to established relationships I know I've heard people argue for H/D especially that you can't just have a fic where they're together and that's never made sense to me. Why can't you? I'm fine with fics that just plop me down for the first time with H/D in a specific relationship. I probably need the author to have some idea how they got together just because if they don't it might show in the writing, but there's a whole different treasure of stuff to be gotten in a fic about a relationship that doesn't necessarily depend on how they got together.

Thinking of Maya's DDG, for instance, that fic really does start out with Harry and Draco in an established relationship that's different from canon, and while it does go back and show the beats in that relationship the subject of the story is more about the relationship that's already established. It's...well, I guess I lump it in with "relationship" stories rather than first time because even thought it is a fic about how Harry and Draco get together it's far more about how they make their non-sexual relationship work than the two of them falling in love in a heated moment and having sex.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

But when it comes to established relationships I know I've heard people argue for H/D especially that you can't just have a fic where they're together and that's never made sense to me. Why can't you?

ITA! That fic is not doing that heavy lifting and it shouldn't have to! If you want first-time H/D fic there is so much of it, why demand that the ER fic has to include the first time as well? If you as a reader always need to be lead by the hand from canon to fic, then stick to the first time stories.

And with Maya's story, really, why can't those stories be written? I want to read those! ER gets labeled as curtain fic, but I think that's because so many writers lack imagination, or are so tied to the happily ever after that they don't want to envision later problems, but those problems don't have to be within the relationship itself—they can be problems that the couple have to face together, and watching that can bring its own kind of pleasure.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I have to revisit this again after Lost last night. I was having this conversation about it on TWOP. To sum up, Lost is a crazy show that jumps around in time--both in terms of how the story's told and in the story itself. Anyway, last night we saw this group and what was going on with them and these two characters made a pretty good team. The woman then says she's going to leave the island even though it's 1974 so her life in 2008 doesn't exist yet. The other characters makes a funny plea for her to stay and says "Just give me two weeks." She says "Okay, 2 weeks." Then it says "3 years later" and they're living together.

And I thought of this convo because I read this comment:
"But it's been ten minutes for us. If I'm going to enjoy a romance I want to SEE it, I want to enjoy all its stages, especially the falling in love part. I don't want to be dropped into the middle of a done deal, where the two are already old marrieds. This is what they did with Jack and Kate off island also, just dumped us into the middle of it. It's probably ok if someone isn't watching for the romances, and just wants them to be told in shorthand and kept out of the main story, but I enjoy romance well done. And it can't be well done in this kind of instant fashion, like a cliff notes version of a love story."

And I disagreed, saying:
I was pleased with the way they did it, which to me seemed very different from, for instance, hiding the fact that Kate has Aaron through the episode until she picks up the baby and says "Mommy's home" when she's never had a relationship with him before.

This reminded me of Monica/Chandler getting together on Friends--which I bought too. We saw them working together well, getting along, saw Juliet responding to Sawyer's little sideways smiles and him smiling more when he saw he was getting through to her. I thought that "Just give me two weeks" followed by "three years later" was all I needed to know. They don't have to be the greatest love affair of all time, but I totally believe they could build something together. In the Friends episode I remember there was just an exchange where Monica was depressed because somebody confused her for the mother of the groom at her brother's wedding. Chandler said, "I don't think you look like Ross' mother." Then later we saw them in bed. I had no problem only having that one line to work with. In fact, when they later went back and told you how they got together I thought it was awful and turned something sweet into something just kind of stupid and cheap, which was a waste.

In this case it was the two of them working well together, and Sawyer's sidelong smiles with Juliet responding to them and him seeing her respond to them were enough to totally make me believe they'd have a relationship. Maybe not OMG Tru love! but a relationship. His "just give me two weeks" after that conversation totally gave me the jist of their love story. The way they got together just wasn't the important part.

Anyway, I would love it if Sawyer/Juliet stayed together even though I've always believed Sawyer/Kate as being attracted in the past and always thought they made more sense than Sawyer/Jack. But then, I tend to be a sucker for the established friendship/partnership marriage pwns old flame who's the love of my life story."