I just updated the Links page of the Auronlu Shrine to include the best shrines out there for each character, including one that's got soundclips of Lulu's original Japanes voice actor. Hm. I'm so used to that sultry purr, it's hard to decide which I prefer.
Resurrection III is causing me problems.
I'm going into a dark place. The problem is, when I write erotica, I feel everything the characters feel. I put myself completely into their heads (or at least into one of them; I'm sure you can tell whom). I'm doing this as catharsis and stress release and enjoyment. As soon as I start getting into disturbing, painful, and unpleasant trauma, I have to take it into my own soul, and it pops up in dreams and leaves fingerprints on me for days afterwards. That makes writing N/C very troubling for me. Moreover, I don't really like it when fanfic writers put their favorite characters through hell and break them. Broken, they are no longer the characters one loved.
My muse is headed down a dark path, and yet it's very hard to write this plot without doing serious damage to Lulu. I want her strong. But how strong is she?
I guess I pushed Auron to the limit in the last one, so there's a precedent. I hadn't really expected to be putting them through hell, I'd meant for these to be a joyous celebration of life and pelasure in the teeth of death!
Resurrection III is causing me problems.
I'm going into a dark place. The problem is, when I write erotica, I feel everything the characters feel. I put myself completely into their heads (or at least into one of them; I'm sure you can tell whom). I'm doing this as catharsis and stress release and enjoyment. As soon as I start getting into disturbing, painful, and unpleasant trauma, I have to take it into my own soul, and it pops up in dreams and leaves fingerprints on me for days afterwards. That makes writing N/C very troubling for me. Moreover, I don't really like it when fanfic writers put their favorite characters through hell and break them. Broken, they are no longer the characters one loved.
My muse is headed down a dark path, and yet it's very hard to write this plot without doing serious damage to Lulu. I want her strong. But how strong is she?
I guess I pushed Auron to the limit in the last one, so there's a precedent. I hadn't really expected to be putting them through hell, I'd meant for these to be a joyous celebration of life and pelasure in the teeth of death!
Comments
Here is my theory about that. You are worried that by putting the character through a traumatic event that it will break her and she won't be the character you love. I propose a different perspective. Yes, there is a breaking/broken point, but the reason we love strong characters is their ability to OVERCOME both physical and personal obstacles. Yes, the event changes them, but the extent of the change is within your control. You can have it totally destroy them and their entire life, or you can use it to make the character stronger, harder (if you want).
Events affect you only to the extent you allow them to. For a major trauma, there is/has to be a period of recovery (how and where and how long up to you), but they can recapture their lives, of course with lingering influences, but the extent of those are your prerogative. Speaking personally, this is what I've discovered: You have a CHOICE. YOu can be a VICTIM or a SURVIVOR. I chose to be a survivor. I can and have had "normal" relationships. It IS possible. Most important is realizing that the event HAS impacted you and recognizing how it has changed/shaped your reactions. Initially, I withdrew into myself, putting the pieces back and making things stronger. Unfortunately there is a lot of truth is the saying, "What doesn't kill us only makes us stronger." IF we let those things strengthen us. The most powerful (for lack of a better word) women I know have survived the most horrific of events and OVERCOME them!
Getting past the past makes you stronger. Looking back, if I could undo what was done, I wouldn't! As it, and the subsequent choices, shaped me into what I am today. And that's a pretty damn independent, strong-willed, confident woman.
Am I making ANY sense?
The trouble is, I had not intended to write a story about a survivor. I was trying to write a story that is strangely not about angst, but is about getting the most out of life, being strong, being joyful, putting away old sorrows and losses that one can't fix. I was writing a series of happy little lemons where the characters are treasuring every scrap of time they have together, for the very reason that they know that in a matter of a few weeks or eve days, he won't be around anymore. To hell with impending doom lurking around the corner-- they're grasping life by the throat and drinking it to the last drop.
It is a very different story if I have Lulu broken shortly before his time is up. It shifts the attention from him to her. It shortcircuits the playful and joyful element which has dominated the story so far. I can't exactly have her shrug it off and go, "oh, well, where were we?" after this chapter is finished.
Both of them are profoundly levelheaded characters who seem able to cope with things in a calm manner when the rest of the party tend to angst: that's what sets them apart and makes them appealling to me (out of envy, mostly). Do I want to tamper with that?
So I'm having to stop and think whether I really want to explore a tougher plot arc than I had intended.
This is in no way to belittle or underrate the therapeutic value of writing such stories, and I certainly write them, I certainly use them to explore some of my own pain. But a) I was writing this set of stories as an escape from RL breakdown, and it's not very healing for me to make myself vicariously live through another trauma on top of one I'm already dealing with right now, and b) I don't think I can tell the story I was going to tell, if I do this instead.
*thinks some more*
You're right about the recovery period though, and that does help. I may be able to get Lulu back on her feet well enough to have her finish the journey with her usual levelheaded resilience. I just don't want to belittle the experiences of real survivors by having her shrug it off quickly and easily.
And on the third hand, until now, I'd been able to keep the story completely canon, in the "who knows what they were doing behind the scenes?" style of filling-in-the-gaps. This isn't something one can easily hide in the gaps. It is also harder for me to stick to canon.
I'll figure it out, I'm just... stuck for now.
But thank you very much for the offering, the wisdom, the words. Sharing a piece of oneself like that with a stranger is... brave? I appreciate your help, and respect those who have faced down dragons and won.