Cafe Topic For 5/11

[Comicality]

 

This is something that I like to ask of everyone reading and posting every now and then. Mostly because it really interests me. And because it's the whole reason that I started writing in the first place.

 

I can remember a time when Nifty and other story sites just weren't giving me the kind of emotionally stimulating stories that I was looking for. I mean, they were really SCARCE! If you look back in the Nifty archive around 1998, you'll see what I mean. Were they hot? Sure, some of them were. But they didn't contain the kind of emotion and heart that I needed to feel...'satisfied' after reading them. You know?

 

NOT to disrespect any of the authors of that time! I'm sure they were loved and followed by many people that were looking for exactly what it was they provided. But I remember being frustrated by looking for something that fit me and my needs *specifically*. There was, in my opinion, a huge gap in the whole 'profession' that wasn't speaking to me directly. And when I found authors like Jaxsper Finn, Dean Lidster, and others...I realized that something more was possible. Somebody understood. And that absence gave me the inspiration to do something on my own. You know?

 

So...let us know, right here and now, what you personally think is 'missing' in the gay teen writing genre? What is it that you feel needs to be said? I mean, with so many stories, some are bound to fall into the inescapable pit of cliches and 'expected' storylines. But do they tell YOUR story? Maybe you need a story about 'obviously gay' boys, maybe you need more angst, less angst, maybe you like your characters older, maybe younger, maybe you want more rural stories, maybe you feel a lack of decent adult/youth stories, maybe you want an emo or goth story with piercings and and make up and the whole thing...who knows?

 

Whatever you think is 'missing', whatever hole there is that you think needs to be filled with these stories (pun intended, hehehe!) let us know!

 

 

 

[Graeme]

One big area that is very light on is non-North American stories. There are a few, but not many, and even there they tend to be located in specific countries (eg. the UK). Readers like to read stories to which they have a cultural connection. I can read American stories, but I'm disconnected from the culture because I'm not American. This is one reason why the majority of my stories are set in Australia. Besides being a place I know reasonably well, I'm also appreciative of the readers from Australia who are looking for stories set in their world.

 

But where are the stories set in the Philipines, in India, in New Zealand, in South Africa? These are all countries that have significant English speaking populations, but stories set in these places are few and far between. And that's just looking at a few English speaking countries. There are also a need for stories for people who live in Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Russia, China, Japan, Brazil, Costa Rica....

Edited May 12, 2010 by Graeme

[Agincourt]

For Graeme, I hope you're familiar with the stories by the author called "Kiwi" that are set in New Zealand. I also learned quite a lot about British life in the stories by Jo Vincent a/k/a "Joel", particularly Aladdin's Awakening, Mystery and Mayhem at St. Mark's, and Mystery and Mayhem at St. Mark's - Sequel (they should be read in that sequence). And I actually had to study up on the rules of cricket in order to understand parts of Hartswood Priory, set at a fictional English boys' boarding school in the 1960s.

 

But I agree that geographic diversity (at least at an international scale) is pretty lacking in the stories one usually sees. It probably reflects the location of the authors. I might be able to fake my way through a story set in France, for example, just because I speak French and have vacationed there, but it would take a lot of research on my part and probably checking with some of my French friends on details. Even then I would have to be careful not to be too self-conscious about the locale -- in other words, avoid the temptation to hit people over the head with those details. Probably I would do it from the perspective of a visitor to France who is from North America, because then it would make sense for the differences to be "discovered" in the course of the story. But that's more a product of my own limitations.

 

As to the main question -- I have to agree that early Nifty tended to be pretty down and dirty. I started viewing Nifty when it was still hosted on a server at Carnegie-Mellon University, at nifty.andrew.cmu.edu. Someone at the school must have decided that hosting a bunch of gay porn didn't quite mesh with the institution's image, so it was moved onto an independent site. There were some really classic stories that emerged in those early days, but they were classic only in the sense that they were really well-written porn, not that they contained serious story value and emotional connection. I think of The Fiend and No Such Thing As Ghosts as two particular favorites that now appear at various sites around the net. No one would accuse them of having major story content, but they're great getting-off material (at least for me).

 

What has emerged nowadays, however, is a growing number of people who recognize that stories, even gay-themed stories, are really about people, not penises. Today you get stories like Everybody's Wounded by Duncan Ryder. Or The Circle by Smokr. These are stories that portray love, heartbreak, coming-of-age, and the challenges of life -- with the overlay of the additional challenges of being different in a society that seems to prize conformity.

 

So -- what's missing? Jeez, that's a hard one. And to tell my story as a teen, you'd have to write about a character whose sexuality was so closeted that he just denied it altogether, and stayed out of the social game. My closet was like a survival shelter, well-stocked for a long stay. And it didn't help that I was basically a shy person anyway. It was popular when I was growing up to speak of "sublimation" of sexual urges, and that's pretty clearly what I did, throwing myself into activities that were, to be sure, rewarding, and that kept me safely out of danger. If I was the drummer in the band playing at the school dance, for example, I didn't have to worry about bringing a date to that dance. Whew! I was a virgin until age 17, a young college freshman, when I met another young guy at a party in another city where I was visiting a friend, and somehow we ended up going back to his room. It was a glorious experience for me, and answered countless questions for which I probably already knew the answers. But even though I now knew for sure what team I was playing on, I was still shy, still cautious, still closeted.

 

I wonder how my life might have been different if, back then, I had had access to all the stories available today that show young people coping with these feelings and deciding to affirm their true selves, rather than retreating into that comfortable, well-furnished closet?

 

Hmmm . . . looking over what I just wrote, I see that I haven't really answered your question at all. Sorry about that.

 

A

[JamesSavik]

explosions, pointless car chases and wrecks,

dirty cops and dirty Feds, corrupt politicians,

dope heads, winos, punks, perverts, non-molesting priests, gun fire at night,

confrontation, collaboration, confusion, coronation, celebration,

mourning, bliss, discord, rebels in the hills, your favorite pills,

photo-realism and psychedelia, insanity and neurosis,

10,000 shades of gray including black and white.

[Graeme]

For Graeme, I hope you're familiar with the stories by the author called "Kiwi" that are set in New Zealand. I also learned quite a lot about British life in the stories by Jo Vincent a/k/a "Joel", particularly Aladdin's Awakening, Mystery and Mayhem at St. Mark's, and Mystery and Mayhem at St. Mark's - Sequel (they should be read in that sequence). And I actually had to study up on the rules of cricket in order to understand parts of Hartswood Priory, set at a fictional English boys' boarding school in the 1960s.

There are a number of good authors out there who have their stories set in non-North American countries. Apart from the UK though, which I would guess to be the second most popular location after North America, there's only a handful of authors for each region. I'd struggle to list more than maybe five authors who set stories in Australia or New Zealand, for example (taking my neck of the woods). I remember how excited I was when I first stumbled across a decent story that was set in Australia (this was while I was still coming to accept myself, and well before I started writing). I want that excitement to be available to people from other nations, too. That story, by the way, was After We Danced, by Mark Peters.

 

As for India, we've had a couple of authors submit stories to the anthologies here that are set in that region, but that's about it. India has the largest English-speaking population of any nation in the world, but there's a distinct lack of quality stories set in that region. At least as far as I know There may be many, but only on specialised sites.

 

But I agree that geographic diversity (at least at an international scale) is pretty lacking in the stories one usually sees. It probably reflects the location of the authors.

Very true, and there's not a lot we can do about that, apart from encouraging authors from different nations to keep writing