Sep. 18th, 2023

briarwood: (SG1 Jack)
 Not every story I’ve written is good. I’m reasonably sure that’s true for everyone. But generally I do like my own work. I write what I want to read. 

There is one story, though, which I really don’t like; ironically, it’s one of my most popular. End of the World. I wrote this one in a particular mindset and it has a really messed up portrayal of consent. Don’t get me wrong; I like dub-con. In fiction. I’ve written my share of dubious consent; mostly SPN. Good dub-con lets the reader decide, and everyone’s interpretation will be slightly different. But as a writer, when I write dub-con, it’s always clear in my mind where the line is, and on which side of the line the characters are. I didn’t have that clarity writing End of the World. It’s a slave story, and there’s a lot of dark stuff in there - torture and rape and death - as well as the dub-con scenes. Unintentionally on my part, I feel like the story is saying that X isn’t rape, because Y is worse. And I’m really uncomfortable with the thought that any reader might have that take-away.

I have considered deleting that story on many occasions.

Since I re-wrote Phoenix, I think I also want to tackle End of the World. I don’t think I can fix everything wrong with it; it’ll still be a slave fic and that brings issues with it. But maybe I can make myself a bit more comfortable with the story. 

I made a start on the weekend, but it’s harder than I thought. The first person narrative gets in the way. Frankly, I’m not a good enough writer to pull off an unreliable narrator. Maybe that was the problem all along.

So I guess job one is to change it to a third-person narrative, then see if switching the POV on some parts will make it better. I’m thinking about messing with the timeline, too. If start at the end of the story and tell the slavery story in flashbacks it will “spoil” the original ending, but it will change the perspective on the “past” sections. Might work. 

Profile

briarwood: AI avatar of me as a witch (Default)
Morgan Briarwood

April 2025

S M T W T F S
  12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
27282930   

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 7th, 2025 12:01 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios