Writing myself into a pit

[gryphonsegg]

I can read LJ again, but I can't post anything there.

In the meantime, I have to wonder if I'm getting too Serious Business with my fiction ideas. I've tried to write a mystery set in a far future society with three genders, none of which are (supposed to) map to anatomical sex. It ended up being about and about how even communities that are supposed to be beyond traditional gender roles and maybe even beyond the gender binary altogether can fall into their own patterns of gender bias and sexual normativity that reveal a mix of misogyny and ablism. I tried to write a superhero story, and it ended up being about sexist double standards, tokenism, classism, being or failing to be One of the Good Ones, and being a young woman struggling with both telepathy and depression. Then I had this terrifying nightmare about a supernatural horror scenario which, as I realized after I woke up, would make a great setting for a book. Once I started to people it with human characters, though, pretty much everything that wasn't directly about avoiding the supernatural threat was about rape culture and prison reform. These are the kinds of stories I would like to read, but when try I write them, it's so easy to fall down into the emotional pit that the characters are in and lose the will to do anything, including write more of the story. When I stop and distract myself with other people's writing, I feel less bad, but what I really want to do is keep going and write the characters up out of the pit. (Some of them, I fear, are too much like me in that they'll just fall back in later, triggered by the next set of events.) I don't want to write shallow stories that ignore serious issues, but do want to finish some stories, which becomes more difficult as I think about what issues the fictional societies might have. If I try to start over with simplified worldbuilding that doesn't spell out any underlying injustices in the society, I feel like I'm not being honest about how humans work.

Comments

[esmenet]

I don't want to write shallow stories that ignore serious issues, but do want to finish some stories, which becomes more difficult as I think about what issues the fictional societies might have. If I try to start over with simplified worldbuilding that doesn't spell out any underlying injustices in the society, I feel like I'm not being honest about how humans work.

Thank you for putting into words my own difficulties with writing original fiction. If you do really go into the issues, it's really, really difficult, but if you don't then it's wrong.

I think fanfiction is easier, in a way. It's less exhausting when a canon has already dealt with a few issues—or even if it's failed completely on one or two, because that gives you a starting point.

[lady_ganesh]

It's less exhausting when a canon has already dealt with a few issues—or even if it's failed completely on one or two, because that gives you a starting point.

YES.

[gryphonsegg]

It's less exhausting when a canon has already dealt with a few issues—or even if it's failed completely on one or two, because that gives you a starting point.

This is my experience too. If someone else's canon has failed on something, I might get the urge to comment on that in fic, but I don't feel the responsibility to address it in everything I can think of writing for that canon.

[surrealistdreamer]

I understand that it's hard. I wish I had a solution to all this, but I don't.

[gryphonsegg]

I guess I'll just have to overthink it some more. /lolself

[surrealistdreamer]

Oh you. -pets you-

[lady_ganesh]

Sometimes it helps to focus on the characters and where they can find resolution/satisfaction/a better emotional or practical place in life. Let's face it, we're all soaking in rape culture, but we can often find our own triumphs and better places anyway, so if you give them something better, or an opportunity to try to find that, it can give you a positive emotional hook.

Not sure if that'll help, but....

[gryphonsegg]

Hmm . . . I'll have to think about this some more. I mean, I never wanted to do downer endings, but when I think about it carefully, I realize that my successful resolutions for characters are more likely to fall into the categories of "prevented terrible thing," "made bad situation less bad," or "got back what was lost" than the category of "gained/achieved something that is a positive good." Maybe being more generous to the protagonists is the answer . . .