What I Write About
Jun. 12th, 2006 07:31 amI write about people going away from the people who've known them as children to become their own people as adults and make their own choices. Dawn says it in the Spike/Dawn bit I posted a while ago. Hermione says it in the still not completely edited "Years Later." Mariana and Bill both say it in my possibly still unfinished post-Death Eater Ginny goes mad story. Pretty much everybody says it in "Montana."
This, of course, is what I did. I went all the way across the country for college--away from everyone who'd ever known me and who I was then--figured out a lot about who I was, decided Northern California is my home, came back, and finished up the process of becoming an adult here. This is half of why realizing this is freaking me out. If I'm still working it out in fic, does that mean I haven't really worked it out in real life? Or am I just shoving my own experience onto my characters? This is, perhaps, the more annoying option. I've always hated the "write what you know" advice, partially because it means you get horrid stories where your 20-year-old male actors sound and act like 30-something female librarians, and partially because we're fiction writers and fiction writers make stuff up. I dislike the realization that, just like so many other authors, I have the annoying tendency to repeat the same themes--and even almost the same lines of dialogue--over and over in different stories about different characters.
In a relationship context, this means I write about people who are already their own people as adults and come together from that place. Willow says it about Spike and Xander in "Montana," it's true of Matt and Ben in "Eleven Days at the Rocking M," and it's why the end of the battle in Serenity made Mal/River a very real possibility to me.
This, of course, is what I would want in a relationship. I'm not looking for one, but if I did come across one, I'd want it to be with someone who's already her own complete self. Someone who's looking for a partner, not someone to fill in all the blanks in her identity. Most romantic notions are of the filling in the blanks sort, and that's why I tend to love romance in fiction and hate people in love in real life and why I'll never write my Prison Break AU idea.
This, of course, is what I did. I went all the way across the country for college--away from everyone who'd ever known me and who I was then--figured out a lot about who I was, decided Northern California is my home, came back, and finished up the process of becoming an adult here. This is half of why realizing this is freaking me out. If I'm still working it out in fic, does that mean I haven't really worked it out in real life? Or am I just shoving my own experience onto my characters? This is, perhaps, the more annoying option. I've always hated the "write what you know" advice, partially because it means you get horrid stories where your 20-year-old male actors sound and act like 30-something female librarians, and partially because we're fiction writers and fiction writers make stuff up. I dislike the realization that, just like so many other authors, I have the annoying tendency to repeat the same themes--and even almost the same lines of dialogue--over and over in different stories about different characters.
In a relationship context, this means I write about people who are already their own people as adults and come together from that place. Willow says it about Spike and Xander in "Montana," it's true of Matt and Ben in "Eleven Days at the Rocking M," and it's why the end of the battle in Serenity made Mal/River a very real possibility to me.
This, of course, is what I would want in a relationship. I'm not looking for one, but if I did come across one, I'd want it to be with someone who's already her own complete self. Someone who's looking for a partner, not someone to fill in all the blanks in her identity. Most romantic notions are of the filling in the blanks sort, and that's why I tend to love romance in fiction and hate people in love in real life and why I'll never write my Prison Break AU idea.