Snack -- Vive le grudgefuck!

[themostepotente]

Well...

I just finished my second Snack -- 3000k. I'm quite pleased. The first one I actually wrote -- brilliant plan of action, executed poorly. I must go back and fix one of these days.

I love this pairing for a multitude of reasons;

They hate eachother.

They really hate eachother.

They really, really hate eachother.

So to all the gifted Snack writers -- amanuensis1, cluegirl, ellen_fremedon, fabularasa, isiscolo...

What is the key ingredient to writing this pairing and doing so convincingly?

IMHO, this is one, if not the most difficult slash pairings to pull off.

It's like...trying to snap a picture of your two-year old at Sears Portrait Studio :P

It's like...putting a pair of sunglasses and a big floppy hat on your dog, hoping he'll stay that way and strike a pose :P

They...just...won't...cooperate.

FYI -- I'd love to hear from everyone. If I have forgotten anyone that writes Snack in abundance, 'please' just give me a firm slap on the wrist, and I'll edit.

--P

Comments

[fabularasa.livejournal.com]

Oh gosh, I'm so sorry I didn't see this post sooner -- it really just slipped by me entirely. However, I've nothing really to add other than to strongly second some points made earlier, specifically isiscolo's point about antagonist-slash being a natural plot magnet. It's the basic human plot; it's why people still read Pride and Prejudice (and Much Ado About Nothing, as amanuensis1 points out). When I weave imaginative romantic scenarios in my head, whether about HP characters or the mailman, conflict is always the key element. I suppose you'd have to chalk that up to personality, really.

Also, I liked dphearson's point about these two characters being the most Romantic in the generic sense of the word. Of all the characters Rowling has created, not many are more than skillfully drawn caricatures. These two, I think, come the closest to being three-dimensional, complex human beings, so the temptation to throw them in the centrifuge and see what comes out is pretty strong. Because they exerted such a strong gravitational pull, I became convinced on first read that the conflict between them must somehow be at the heart of the plot as Rowling conceived it, and well, conflict leads to. . . see paragraph A.

All of which answers your question not a whit, does it? Because you wanted to know what's the key ingredient to writing this pairing well. I may not be well equipped to answer that, because I find it so hard to write anything else. I try, really, I do, but then inevitably one off them wanders into the room, and their presence is so strong that everything starts to revolve around them, and well. . . see paragraph B. But I would have to say that for me, the key is voice. If you don't hear their utterly distinctive voices in your head clear as day, then don't try it. I think any number of HP characters -- precisely because they are caricatures -- can be fudged; I mean, how intimately do I have to hear Ron's voice to write him and pull it off, really? But if I'm faking Snape or Sirius, it will show from a mile off. So dialogue is key for me, and that figures because my stories are pretty dialogue-driven.

And that leads me to my final point: talking. I want characters who can talk. I want characters who have things to say to each other -- complicated things, hard things, nasty things, whatever. I want characters with a history, and whose history weighs on their every word. I want talk to be freighted with meaning, to bleed meaning. So Snack is inevitable, for me.

In thinking about this I went back and looked at some of my stuff, to remind myself, and I counted 17 Snape/Blacks. Jeez. I have a problem. In my defence, though, lots of other people do get laid in my stories, so maybe it balances out. Kinda. In a way.