Post-fic Notes & Navel Gazing for "No Choice"
So I had writers block. Well, semi-writers block. I was writing words, I just didn't like any of them - they were boring.
So I decided to do something I've never actually done before: reply to a kink meme prompt. I figured I'd quickly browse through the prompts, and when I found one that hit a few of my kinks, I'd quickly hash out a few hundred words and post it anonymously. I'd hoped to simultaneously cure my block (because kinky porn can't be boring, right?) and also give myself a chance to bask in the feeling of having actually accomplished something, since it's been ages since I've posted a fic.
Well. Here I am close to 13,000 words later. (Notes contain major spoilers for No Choice)
I first feel like maybe I need to apologize to the original prompter, because my brain went off on a tangent that made the original prompt only a small part of the final fic (and I'm not entirely sure that it was the tone you were looking for). This was not what I was planning on writing originally - I was going to make it a lot more cut in dry, ie., Jared's an asshole who charmed Jensen and then used him as a pawn in a power game with Jeff. Then Jared decided to try and redeem himself, and Jensen grew a backbone and then CHAD started throwing one-liners at the whole situation and things started to really spiral out of control.
Once I got a three or four thousand words into the fic, however, I realized the my brain was unconsciously trying to do something I've meta'd about in the past but never done on this scale myself - it was trying to actually tell a story using sex. See, I have this thing where every once and awhile I rant about authors who insert sex scenes into their fics at random, like they're required interludes away from the story itself (rather than using them to further the story). I've always threatened to one day write an entire story using sex. And apparently now I've done it. Sort of.
See, I'm not completely happy with how this story turned out. I let my characterizations be dictated by the kink, whereas I usually try to do the opposite. Jensen, in particular, felt a bit too one-dimensional to me, but I couldn't seem to get him to open up more. While I did get into a groove in writing about halfway through the fic, I feel like the beginning in particular suffered from the block I mentioned that inspired me to go kink-meme surfing in the first place. Overall, though, I used more cliches than I would normally feel comfortable with, and did a lot of telling vs showing.
But I can now say that I wrote 12,000 words of kinky porn, and I think this probably got me over the last of my inhibitions regarding writing kink/porn, so maybe now you'll see a bit more of this seep into my usual sappy/plotty fic. Only, you know, I'll try not to throw EVERY kink in the book at one fic again.
A few more random notes
- In my head, Mark is Mark Sheppard, but it could also be Mark Pellegrino. I purposely kept that vague and untagged. In my head, this character is Jeff's 2nd in command, and is just as tired of Jeff as Jared is.
- Nick is a complete OC, as are the rest of the people in the room.
- Tom was cast simply because I needed someone to fill the vapid, pretty model cliche. I had debated using Misha in this role (or a similar role) but the original prompter requested that Misha not be used in this sort of a role.
- Chad really is straight, and is a corporate lawyer-type. He's Jared's childhood friend, and moved to the city (which is probably Los Angeles but might be NYC) a few years after him (having made the pitstop of university first). At first he was impressed by all the sex his friend was having, but then he realized that Jared was getting screwed (and not in the fun way) and he's been on his case ever since to do something about it.
- Jared in this fic is definitely more broken than Jensen, but that's not to say that he's completely innocent. He was never really in love with Jeff, but the two of them fucked their way up the ladder, sometimes together, sometimes separately - whatever was needed. Jeff could have never let himself have true feelings for Jared, because it would have made him too vulnerable.
- Jared did some modelling himself when he was younger, first for JDM, but then others began paying attention to him. When Jeff found out, however, he put Jared through a hard BDSM scene the day before a photoshoot that could have been the tipping point of leading Jared's career away from him. It was consensual to the degree that their relationship ever was, but it left Jared with bruises and other marks all over his body that meant the photos from the shoot the next day were unusable. It had the affect of ruining Jared's reputation as a model.
- When Jared met Jensen, he originally planned to just use him, but he honestly did fall in love with him.
- If Jared thought that Jensen was up for it, he'd probably continue to share Jensen with his business contacts to try and further Jensen's career -- he just doesn't know any other way. But he probably won't do it again without Jensen's consent beforehand.
- I really don't know what Jensen's complete backstory is, besides that he's led what could only be termed a very mediocre life - he's never felt like he's gotten unequivocal approval from anyone. When he came out, his family and friends were disappointed and never really understood, which only compounded this. He came to the city searching to start a new life, but he didn't really know where to find it. He does have some friends who care about him and are concerned about him (they're not sure what to make of Jared in his life and they don't know the half of it), but Jensen doesn't really even see how much they'd have his back if he would just let them.
- Jared knows Jensen can sing because he's seen him perform with Chris (one of the friends mentioned in the above note).
- I consciously didn't have Jared use any pet names besides 'love' for Jensen, and vice versa. This is because Jared really does see Jensen as being different from all the others he 'plays' with. He's never asked Jensen to call him anything besides his name because he wants Jensen to want him, and not the role he's playing.
- The two aspects of this that were probably hardest for me to write was the lack of safewords (if the prompt hadn't specifically called for dubcon, I would have included them, and in my head if you want to imagine that they exist, it wouldn't really change the foundation of the story that much) as well as Jensen being tied to the ceiling by his shirt, which I know is a very unsafe bondage technique.
- One of my biggest kinks (along with power play in general) is probably what I would call "casual kink", where the kink is just there without a big deal being made about it. This definitely played into the matter-of-fact way that I described most of the kink in the fic, and it's also why I couldn't not include the shirt bondage, even though I knew it was pushing the safety limits. In my head, Jared had originally planned on binding Jensen's hands with the belt out in the hall, but when he saw the way Jensen got tangled in his shirt, he adapted. It's not that Jared doesn't know how to use the stereotypical BDSM tools - as evidenced by the photo he took that was on the TV - he's just as comfortable improvising.
- After this fic, Jared and Jensen did both continue to work with Jeff - but on their terms. Jeff continued to try and get both of them into his bed, but they both refused (Jensen in particular). The chase was enough to keep Jeff interested, though, which was what Jared knew would happen.
- I don't know if Jared and Jensen lived happily ever after in this verse, but I'd like to believe they did -- each of them helping the other better themselves and grow more confidence.
So I decided to do something I've never actually done before: reply to a kink meme prompt. I figured I'd quickly browse through the prompts, and when I found one that hit a few of my kinks, I'd quickly hash out a few hundred words and post it anonymously. I'd hoped to simultaneously cure my block (because kinky porn can't be boring, right?) and also give myself a chance to bask in the feeling of having actually accomplished something, since it's been ages since I've posted a fic.
Well. Here I am close to 13,000 words later. (Notes contain major spoilers for No Choice)
I first feel like maybe I need to apologize to the original prompter, because my brain went off on a tangent that made the original prompt only a small part of the final fic (and I'm not entirely sure that it was the tone you were looking for). This was not what I was planning on writing originally - I was going to make it a lot more cut in dry, ie., Jared's an asshole who charmed Jensen and then used him as a pawn in a power game with Jeff. Then Jared decided to try and redeem himself, and Jensen grew a backbone and then CHAD started throwing one-liners at the whole situation and things started to really spiral out of control.
Once I got a three or four thousand words into the fic, however, I realized the my brain was unconsciously trying to do something I've meta'd about in the past but never done on this scale myself - it was trying to actually tell a story using sex. See, I have this thing where every once and awhile I rant about authors who insert sex scenes into their fics at random, like they're required interludes away from the story itself (rather than using them to further the story). I've always threatened to one day write an entire story using sex. And apparently now I've done it. Sort of.
See, I'm not completely happy with how this story turned out. I let my characterizations be dictated by the kink, whereas I usually try to do the opposite. Jensen, in particular, felt a bit too one-dimensional to me, but I couldn't seem to get him to open up more. While I did get into a groove in writing about halfway through the fic, I feel like the beginning in particular suffered from the block I mentioned that inspired me to go kink-meme surfing in the first place. Overall, though, I used more cliches than I would normally feel comfortable with, and did a lot of telling vs showing.
But I can now say that I wrote 12,000 words of kinky porn, and I think this probably got me over the last of my inhibitions regarding writing kink/porn, so maybe now you'll see a bit more of this seep into my usual sappy/plotty fic. Only, you know, I'll try not to throw EVERY kink in the book at one fic again.
A few more random notes
- In my head, Mark is Mark Sheppard, but it could also be Mark Pellegrino. I purposely kept that vague and untagged. In my head, this character is Jeff's 2nd in command, and is just as tired of Jeff as Jared is.
- Nick is a complete OC, as are the rest of the people in the room.
- Tom was cast simply because I needed someone to fill the vapid, pretty model cliche. I had debated using Misha in this role (or a similar role) but the original prompter requested that Misha not be used in this sort of a role.
- Chad really is straight, and is a corporate lawyer-type. He's Jared's childhood friend, and moved to the city (which is probably Los Angeles but might be NYC) a few years after him (having made the pitstop of university first). At first he was impressed by all the sex his friend was having, but then he realized that Jared was getting screwed (and not in the fun way) and he's been on his case ever since to do something about it.
- Jared in this fic is definitely more broken than Jensen, but that's not to say that he's completely innocent. He was never really in love with Jeff, but the two of them fucked their way up the ladder, sometimes together, sometimes separately - whatever was needed. Jeff could have never let himself have true feelings for Jared, because it would have made him too vulnerable.
- Jared did some modelling himself when he was younger, first for JDM, but then others began paying attention to him. When Jeff found out, however, he put Jared through a hard BDSM scene the day before a photoshoot that could have been the tipping point of leading Jared's career away from him. It was consensual to the degree that their relationship ever was, but it left Jared with bruises and other marks all over his body that meant the photos from the shoot the next day were unusable. It had the affect of ruining Jared's reputation as a model.
- When Jared met Jensen, he originally planned to just use him, but he honestly did fall in love with him.
- If Jared thought that Jensen was up for it, he'd probably continue to share Jensen with his business contacts to try and further Jensen's career -- he just doesn't know any other way. But he probably won't do it again without Jensen's consent beforehand.
- I really don't know what Jensen's complete backstory is, besides that he's led what could only be termed a very mediocre life - he's never felt like he's gotten unequivocal approval from anyone. When he came out, his family and friends were disappointed and never really understood, which only compounded this. He came to the city searching to start a new life, but he didn't really know where to find it. He does have some friends who care about him and are concerned about him (they're not sure what to make of Jared in his life and they don't know the half of it), but Jensen doesn't really even see how much they'd have his back if he would just let them.
- Jared knows Jensen can sing because he's seen him perform with Chris (one of the friends mentioned in the above note).
- I consciously didn't have Jared use any pet names besides 'love' for Jensen, and vice versa. This is because Jared really does see Jensen as being different from all the others he 'plays' with. He's never asked Jensen to call him anything besides his name because he wants Jensen to want him, and not the role he's playing.
- The two aspects of this that were probably hardest for me to write was the lack of safewords (if the prompt hadn't specifically called for dubcon, I would have included them, and in my head if you want to imagine that they exist, it wouldn't really change the foundation of the story that much) as well as Jensen being tied to the ceiling by his shirt, which I know is a very unsafe bondage technique.
- One of my biggest kinks (along with power play in general) is probably what I would call "casual kink", where the kink is just there without a big deal being made about it. This definitely played into the matter-of-fact way that I described most of the kink in the fic, and it's also why I couldn't not include the shirt bondage, even though I knew it was pushing the safety limits. In my head, Jared had originally planned on binding Jensen's hands with the belt out in the hall, but when he saw the way Jensen got tangled in his shirt, he adapted. It's not that Jared doesn't know how to use the stereotypical BDSM tools - as evidenced by the photo he took that was on the TV - he's just as comfortable improvising.
- After this fic, Jared and Jensen did both continue to work with Jeff - but on their terms. Jeff continued to try and get both of them into his bed, but they both refused (Jensen in particular). The chase was enough to keep Jeff interested, though, which was what Jared knew would happen.
- I don't know if Jared and Jensen lived happily ever after in this verse, but I'd like to believe they did -- each of them helping the other better themselves and grow more confidence.