Trismegistus: On Influence

[lebateleur]

sub_divided also asked about influences. And here I talk about them.

Back in the day when I was first attempting explicit slash, my influences were...other slash. And let me tell you – ten inch throbbing members, multiple orgasms, semen geysering everywhere, the older, thinner man shrieking in release, orbs of various brilliant hues – my fanfic had it all.

I don't like to talk about those days very much.

I'm also not going to talk about how my pre-Internet fanfiction featured a lot of baroque description, because it was Vampire Chronicles fanfiction, and as we all know, Vampire Chronicles fanfiction doesn't really exist.

Just like Anne Rice's vampires aren't gay.

And neither is her son.

Then there was a period of about two years where I didn't really write anything. When I got back into fandom, it was through manga, and it's had a massive effect on my writing.

Manga is by nature episodic with relatively self-contained stories, and I this has influenced the way I write fanfic. Although most of my fics are one shots, they could easily be parts of a series. They resemble single manga chapters in structure – there's build-up, a climax of some sort, and then an openish ending ready to lead into the next bit. I don't intentionally write them this way, so I think it's something that has subconsciously rubbed off on me.

The Japanese novelists I read have been the single greatest influence of which I'm consciously aware. They tell stories differently than Westerners. Western narrative has a clearly defined goal at the outset, and the events between it and the climax are directly related to the achievement of that goal. The emphasis is on the problem and how it's solved.

In contrast, Japanese narrative structure is much looser. Characters are introduced and various things happen to them, but the overarching goal is missing. This isn't to say that there aren't problems and climaxes, but rather that the emphasis is on the characters more than the quest.

I think this has definitely rubbed off on me, and you can see it in my writing – my stories certainly have problems and climaxes, but I rarely write fics with the quest as the central theme. I'm much more interested in putting characters A and B into Situation Q and seeing how they interact with one another than describing the hoops B must jump through to save A, who's been kidnapped. You can certainly see this in my one shots, but it's obvious in the longer fanfics I've written as well, where the structure of events is more like branches on a tree than an A to B to C to D progression.

So yay. Influence.


これで以上です。

Comments

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

Japanese narrative structure has influenced you very much-- I find your fics very reminiscent of Japanese writing, and it's one of the reasons I found your stuff so appealing. How very interesting to learn you never wrote Vampire Chronicles. XD

[lebateleur.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I truly love how Japanese narrative writing leaves so much unsaid, and it's up to the reader to fill it in. I find it draws me much more deeply into a story than being explicitly told how broken up Character A is about Situation Y. I don't pull this off as well as the Japanese do, but I'm working toward it;)

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

Well it's also "as well as the really really good Japanese do," too. I'm sure there's a lot of Japanese crap that doesn't get passed on to the rest of the world...

[lebateleur.livejournal.com]

Indeed there is - I had absolutely no knowledge whatsoever about Japanese authors before I started buying novels in Japanese, so I had to start by selecting reading material via the 'oh, this cover is intriguing' method, and it was quite hit and miss before I stumbled onto the good stuff!

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I have only just gotten through the crap stage, known classics aside. Who's the good stuff in your view?

[lebateleur.livejournal.com]

Well, with the obvious caveats that I'm a much better reader in English and it's all a matter of personal taste anyway, blah, blah, blah, here's the shortlist:

Yoshimoto Banana, whom I think everyone knows already, but she has written a lot of good stuff. My three favorites are Kitchen, Utakata, and Tokage.

Ekuni Kaori (江國 香織), especially Kirakira Hikaru and Suika no Nioi. She also cowrote Calmi Cuori Appassionati, which I must admit to not having finished yet.

Yamada Eimi (山田詠美), especially Shikisai no Musuko, which is a weird mixture of Japanese storytelling and Shirley Jackson.

Ishida Ira (石田衣良), especially Angel, which has a really cool premise that I might totally rip off for fanfic one of these days.

Miyabe Miyuki (宮部みゆき), who has written five hundred billion books, mostly genres I don't usually read. Ryuu wa Nemuru and Yoru wa Nemurenai were fun reads.

Yamamoto Fumio (山本 文緒) also wrote a pretty cool book called Blue Moshiku wa Blue, which creeped the bejeebus out of me, but something just didn't click for me with the story on the whole. I'm going to reread it one of these days and see if my opinion changes.

I also read a lot of BL novels and other light reading series (12 Kingdoms, Four Dragon Island), but I'm guessing that's not what you were asking about. As soon as I finish my current crop of books I'm going to try my hand at some supernatural stuff, and perhaps some jidai mono too.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Is 12 Kingdoms light reading? I've wanted to have a go at it but was expecting it to be kanji-heavy in the names department as anything Chinese-based is going to be. Not an impediment, then?

[lebateleur.livejournal.com]

Ah, lack of clarity on my part. By light reading, I meant that the old Japanese ladies on the trains are less impressed to discover that one is reading serialised novels than Ekuni Kaori.

As for the kanji, it's my favorite thing about Japanese, so it only seems like a chore half the time. There's a bit of a learning curve as I remember, but if you're diligent about looking everything up in the first 50 or so pages, it takes care of itself later on.

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

I bet!