briarwood | Gen vs Het

Question for you folks, as my flist is wise and all-knowing *g*

I started a new fic last week. I'm not ready to spill details yet (unless you happen to be in the com. where I mentioned it yesterday), but I'm wondering how I should label this one.

Scenario: Future-fic. In this story, a major character (who is single in canon) is married (to a woman). The wife is another canon character but not a series regular. My story is not a "ship" story: the marriage is not the focus of the tale, but it is necessary background, not something I can discard from the story. No sex scenes, minimal romantic dialogue - the main character just happens to be married.

Personally, I think of the story as Gen. Ultimately, it doesn't matter to me because I'll write the fic I want to write.

But when I post this story, how should I label it? I mean, does this non-central relationship make the story "het" rather than "gen"? If I include the pairing in the story info, would that imply it's a 'ship fic?

Story labelling, IMO, is informational. It should give a true picture of the story to follow, so readers can make a decision whether or not to click on the link. So I want to get this right - not in terms of how I think of the story, but in terms of matching the information to what the reader should expect.

Am I making sense?

[ETA: It's like, when I wrote Predator I posted it as Gen with Jim/Carolyn in the pairing, and that was okay because it was an "ancient history" pairing in terms of the fic. She was dead in the present. That's not how it is with this new story. M and F are still married, and happy. It's just that the story ain't about that.]

Basically, if you see "Gen" or "het" as a label, what does that mean to you? If you see a pairing listed, what expectation does that create?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

IMHO I see "Gen" as being like a G or PG rating at the movies, no 'on-screen' sex, minimum bad language, sutitable reading for all ages.

'Het' would be 'on-screen' sex.

I don't know about 'ship. I really don't do fandoms that 'ship anybody, so I can't help much with that.

I'm sure I've muddied the waters, so I'll go back to work. :)

I'm sure I've muddied the waters, so I'll go back to work. :)

No, you haven't - and that's how I always thought of "Gen", too. But fandom definitions do change, and evolve, so I'm not so sure that's what it means to others any more.

Ship just means relationship. In some fandoms it only means het relationships (and then it covers all ratings, it just means the fic features the pair in a romantic or sexual context); in others it means anything romantic or sexual, het or slash.

Okay, this explains a lot, I'd always thought that it had to refer to a romantic relationship, but I can also see that it might mean something else. Cool, I learned something today!

*wanders by across the friendsfriendlists, hoping that's okay*

For what it's worth, I'd tend to go for a label like "gen with reference to x/y", or "mostly gen apart from reference to x/y".

Right now, there seems to be a lot of fuzziness in how categories get interpreted, and there are people who feel that a story marked as "gen" should have no reference to relationships at all and people who feel that something that's marked as "het" or "ship" (or "slash") should be focused on the relationship.

So I go for a bit of extra detail as a way of avoiding the hassle.

*wanders by across the friendsfriendlists, hoping that's okay*

Of course it is :-) And thanks for your thoughts!

"gen with reference to x/y"

Huh. Yeah, that might work. Although "reference" might be understating it.

The fuzziness I agree on. I know what my expectations are, re. labels, but I don't get all worked up if my expecations turn out to be wrong. Mostly I don't want folks who will probably enjoy the story to pass it over because "Ew, het!" ... but I don't want to, like, lie about it, either.

Catch 22.

Someone on my f'list

synecdochic had a very similar post (http://synecdochic.livejournal.com/111282.html) last week!

I have issues with labels on fic, mostly because I labelled something "femslash" recently because it had hints of a f/f relationship (and their interactions were the focus of the story) but someone had commented and said "Wheres the femslash in this" *blinks* So yeah, now I hate labelling my fic because what I see might be different to what other people see!

I think there's an expectation that a fic labelled as slash (or femslash) will make the relationship explicit, even if there's no actual sex. Sounds like you were writing UST (?) and with that there's always the "if you're clueless you'll miss it" part.

*goes to check out

synecdochic's post*

Oh. That fic again. I've been aware of the fanwank about it but haven't paid much attention because I wouldn't read Rodney-fic if you paid me (well, maybe if you paid me *a lot*...) so have no opinion on the fic in question. But, yeah. Thanks!

Yeah it was ust and I'm sure I labelled it that (I can't remember which fic it was now because that's how much I care that someone had a hissy fit lol!) but yes, you are right, there's this expectation that anything over a PG with the word femslash will have sex or something (do people not realise that ratings aren't just for sex, language and other content affect it too?)

Also if I put "het" or a het pairing on a fic with femslash in it, that means that there's explicit het and they won't read it. *sigh*

I guess we can't win, right?

I haven't read it either because I've not caught up on reading all of Syne's fic yet... What I don't get is the fanwank over whether an author called something one thing or not another. I mean, it's the author who is writing, it's THEIR vision - how they see the characters. *shrugs*

do people not realise that ratings aren't just for sex, language and other content affect it too?

A-ha! There's your problem. In the USA, sex is way, way more likely to get an adult rating than violence is. So that's the default assumption.

It's why I refuse to use the MPAA system. I just go for "All ages", "Mature" and "Adult" (and I never use the first of those anyway).

To me "Het" implies written heterosexual encounters of an adult explicit nature. "Gen" is content for everybody/all age levels wherein there is little to no sexual content and what is there, is vanilla canon, at most a kiss or a tickle, and should not be the focus of the story.

But that is me ; ) And I have been disappointed by labels in my lifetime!

little to no sexual content and what is there, is vanilla canon

So what do you call it if it's vanilla non-canon?

You said this character was part of the series, but not a main character. Is it a shocker to find them married or just a pleasant surprise? Shocker - I'd list the pairing in the warning, otherwise I would just consider their marriage as part of your storyline/background. IMHO - a no biggie.

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