1/3 Hi! I just wanted to send a message about the AM au. I LOVE reading it, and a friend and I bond over it, and we just wanted to tell you that we read the au because of your writing, and how beautifully you handle the balance of “but this is historically more accurate” and “but this makes for a better story”. And we’ve both been seeing how much you seem to feel pressured to include an explicit consummation scene in the story, while you don’t seem to feel like it fits, and for what it’s worth,
First of all, I’m sorry it took me like a week to get around to answering this. I am now a foster mother caring for an teeny tiny perfect adorable kitten who needs attention at all hours of the day.
I am so flattered that you and a friend have bonded over my fic and I love to hear how much you appreciate all the work I’ve put into it! I definitely try to find a balance for the au - both between historical accuracy and good story and between what I want and what the readers want.
Early in my fic-writing career, I promised myself that I’d never take requests or commissions. Commissioned and requested fics of my favorite writers had always fallen short for me and I suspected that was because the writer wasn’t enjoying themselves. My worst fics are the ones I don’t have fun with and my worst scenes are the ones I want to skip. It took me a while to come to this conclusion, but the way I see it, if I don’t want to write it, no one will want to read it. Whenever I get to a scene that’s dull or tedious to write, I know I’m doing something wrong. I ask myself, “How can I reframe this scene? What might make it more interesting? Is it necessary? Should it be replaced?” Thinking like that has rescued so much of my writing. I dropped many scenes from “The Whitethorn Hearth” because they didn’t fit and rearranged a lot of the events to improve the flow. I over-wrote chapter 3 and I struggled to pull the chapter together because it was such tedious work. When I caught myself thinking, “I just want to get this chapter over with,” I finally stopped and said, “What is going on right now that’s preventing me from enjoying myself and how can I fix it?” So I took a step back, figured out what was wrong, and ended up really happy with the chapter.
When I started this au, I promised myself that I wouldn’t let audience reactions change my vision for the story. I’ve done my best to stay true to that, but I’ve definitely been influenced. I wanted to write a historically-inspired drama about two people in an arranged marriage, but story veered toward romance because I felt like that was what readers wanted. Mostly, the betrothal part of the au became longer and more detailed than expected. And that wasn’t always a bad thing! I mentioned some of my regrets about the engagement in the guide, but I prefer some of the changes. Originally, Nico and Will didn’t actually say the “L” word until after the wedding, but I’m much more pleased with “The Whitethorn Hearth” than the initial wedding plan. But on the downside, the late changes meant I was unprepared. Because I didn’t take the time to reframe the story, many of those changes were poorly executed.
What I regret most is how much Will’s character fell flat. I only intended to write a few fics about the betrothal, enough to establish Will as a pure-hearted boy who’s always been surrounded and protected by good friends, a loving family, and his connections to powerful people. He starts out innocent and underdeveloped in contrast to Nico, who carries a lot of baggage from his past. AM au Will was also supposed to contrast with canon Will, who I interpret as hardened by the loss of two brothers and fighting in two wars. AM au Will’s character was supposed to develop while he struggled to live far away from his family, to find his place in a new home, and to figure out his relationship with his husband. Unfortunately, because of the extended betrothal phase, I was stuck on the innocent, underdeveloped Will for a long time. I should have reframed the story to figure out how to make him interesting and dynamic in the early story when I realized I’d spend so much time writing the betrothal phase. But at least now that the wedding is over, I can save Will’s boring character and we’ll watch him grow into the war-hardened yet still calm and kind Will Solace we know from canon.
As far as explicit sex is concerned, the reason I started writing smut was because I felt like there was a tragic lack of good, non-underage content in the Solangelo tag. I thought, “hey, I’m a decent writer, maybe I can do something about that.” Then people liked it and they wanted more. But…smut is kind of boring to write, honestly. There’s a formula to it: describe the action, describe the sensation. Maybe add a bit of fun dialogue, possibly some romance, but once you’ve written a few smut fics, you’ve written them all. Sure, you can try different positions, different types of play, or different anatomies, but at the end of the day, it’s still just describing physical arousal. A lot of the time, if you change the setting, the universe, or even the characters, you can still copy and paste the actions and sensations. Smut doesn’t have much room for creativity. I always tried to make mine different; I did my best to frame it to be unique to the setting and I used a lot of dialogue to showcase the characters’ personalities and relationship. Even then, it got boring after I’d written a few, and although I said no whenever someone made a request, I still felt like I had to keep writing smut even though I wasn’t having fun.
Thankfully, I’ve gotten a lot better about staying true to myself since my smut-writing days. If I have a hard time writing the consummation fic, I plan to stop and ask myself why, then find a way to fix it. I don’t think it will be very pornographic. The purpose of the consummation fic isn’t to elicit the reader’s sexual arousal; the purpose is to tell a story of the developing relationship between two characters, specifically them figuring out their sexualities and physical compatibility. It’s also meant to have a slight commentary on how heteronormativity has influenced same-sex sexual practices in the au, with hints of existentialist questions like “What defines sex? What is its function as a non-reproductive practice, personally, interpersonally, and societally? Where does the definition of sex begin and end, and what actions count as sex? Is there an objective definition, or is it entirely subjective? And if it is entirely subjective, can we say that sex exists at all?”
But mostly it’s full of absurdist comedy with a dash of dirty humor, plus some romance.
So no, I don’t want to write smut. But I do want to write the story of Nico and Will hilariously making complete idiots of themselves while trying to figure out anal. If I focus on the aspects of the story that I want to write, then I’ll have fun doing it.
Thank you for your support and for reminding me not to let myself be influenced by expectations. I think most readers will be ok with my choices. I occasionally get comments that are rude, demanding, or entitled, but the majority of my feedback is wonderful and supportive! And if readers are dissatisfied by the level of explicitness, they can fuck right off and find a different fic to read. I’ve already contributed enough smut to the Solangelo tag. It’s my au and I’m going to do what I want!
