CHRISTOPHER'S RANDOM RAMBLINGS ABOUT THE WRITING OF HIS FICS

Sometimes, I find it fun to read about the thoughts behind a piece of writing. What was the writer thinking? What WAS the writer thinking?
   These are short texts with some confessions concerning specific fan fiction texts.

About The Enemy of My Enemy
About The Hermiad
About Winter Games
About A Chill Down the Spine
 
 

THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY
This was my second piece that I thought good enough to put online (the first was Way of the Road Warrior).
   For this one I wanted a historical people that could be a plausible threat to ancient Greece. I read about the Sarmatians who conquered the Scythians. Since the Scythians had been portrayed as evil incarnate (In Sickness and in Hell), their conquerors would’ve had to be fearsome indeed and thus fitted the bill. There is after all no need to dwell too long on mundane world changing economical factors and other slower processes in the high action world of Xena. Historical Sarmatian areas also have a huge number of Amazon tombs, so that’s were I got the inspiration for that part of the fic.
   Amage was a real Sarmatian queen, though little else is known about her. Originally, I called her Vodyanoy after a Slavic monster. Sofia thought that name a really bad idea, and I shortened it to Vodya. But when I found out about Amage, I gratefully changed from Vodya.
   The animalistic weapons were inspired by the design of mundane world Scythians and Sarmatians, as are the magical helmets. Scissor swords are probably fictional, but there are historical examples of daggers of this type.
   Writing this episode really opened my eyes to the rich melange of cultures in Central Asia. As for the Xena elements, maybe I involved one too many (Ares, Hades, ‘Dite, the Horde, the Scythians, Eph and the Greek Amazons, Auto, Joxer, even Jett). Sofia remarked that there were probably too many Xenaverse stars for a season 4 episode, budget wise. But I thought it worked out all right. I tried really hard to keep it from being overlong and I edited out bits and pieces. The end is too abrupt, yes, but I’m otherwise fond of the compact sense of it.
   As a curio: a reporter from a Swedish daily newspaper (Sydsvenska Dagbladet) contacted me for an interview about Swedish fanfic, and some lines from this piece were printed as an example of the genre. :-)
 

THE HERMIAD
This time (my third fanfic project) I decided to try comedy. To my surprise, it was much harder than action and drama. I don’t mean by this that I’m any good at that either, but it was harder work and demanded more rewriting. Excitement comes in many shapes and sizes, but either something is funny or it isn’t.
   My first premise was that a famous historical landmark was to be destroyed. The Colossus was a logical choice:
   - It was spectacular (though in all likelihood not straddling the entrance to the harbour like in this piece and in popular imagination).
   - It was destroyed by an earthquake not long after its completion.
As for the Stymphalian bird, Hercules in mundane myth did fight and kill all of them, but I couldn’t figure out if H:tLJ ever detailed this particular avian so I chose a fairly straightforward mythic version.
   One name in the story deserves special mention. The various master thieves were either named after famous mundane world burglars or weak puns. But in a fit of exaggerated conformity, I shortened the name of (one) ruler of Rhodes from Mithridates to Mithrates. TPTB cut some letters from Vercingetorix (“Vercinix”), so I did the same here to keep with the XWP mood. I soon regretted it, but I’ve decided to keep the short version, if only to remind me that maintaining the mood is one thing - slavish copying is another.
   Anyway, I’m pleased with some of the concepts of The Hermiad, but as a whole it has a patchwork feel. It is much easier for me to write serious stuff, and my respect for those who can write comedy and still keep the Xena feel has deepened. I salute you!
 

WINTER GAMES
Winter Games was my first attempt to write directly in English, rather than in Swedish and then translating it. Maybe that’s why it became more emotional than its predecessors; writing in a foreign language makes you blissfully unaware of many nuances (at the very least), and lets you allow the most insipid sentences.
   For general inspiration, I used three things:
   - Snow and ice as visual components. When I wrote this, I hadn’t seen season 6, so as far as I knew, snow was extremely rare in the series.
   - The emotional charge of the early season 4; the Vision is still very fresh and the extremely strong bond between Xena and Gabrielle is being reassured. And indeed: snow and ice is closely connected with this - the frigid wastes of Adventures in the Sin Trade and the snowy mountain of the crucifixion scene.
   - A quasi-Nordic setting and having the characters speak directly in English for familiarity. Once I had established the time of the piece, I didn’t want to send the characters all the way to circumpolar lands, so the mountains north of Greece would have to do as a winter land.
   This was also a fanfic inspired heavily by speculation on some concepts only hinted at in the series: the nature of Nicklio, Xena’s early feelings about the Vision.
   The character of Anek was inspired by an old Swedish legend about king Ane the Old who sacrificed his sons to Odin in order to live longer. Eventually he had to suckle milk from a horn for sustenance - prompting me to include the horn/trumpet in the story.
   Ceto was based on an old Roleplaying Game monster of mine, even though the name is that of a Greek sea monster (and used by biologists to name the group of mammals that include whales).
   I feel I should say something about the subtext here. I write General Fan Fiction. Sexual subtext is there, but it normally stays at hints. But my earlier fics had been exclusively Xena-and-Gab-are-best-friends. With Winter Games, I took the small but important step to openly mention love in their relationship.
   Am I pleased with the result? Well, yes. I think this fic is OK and I’ve received good feedback. It isn’t perfect, but its faults are within reasonable limits.
 

A CHILL DOWN THE SPINE
I went a lot to the British Museum that year. Sofia studied at the Royal Academy of Music, and when I went to London to see her I had much time to kill during daytime.
   Anyway, I saw a herm there. It was like a bust of a bestial face on top of a pedestal. An Aphrodite statue was positioned next to it. The whole sculpture was called “Aphrodite at a herm of  Bacchus”.
   That was the main inspiration.
   Otherwise, I think of this fic as “Snow II”.
   Since it dealt with mythical concepts of history, I used the Greek concept of different ages of the world corresponding to increasingly base metals. I also used the three quasi-historical tribes that founded Greece: the Ionians, the Dorians, and the Achaians. I called the woman Iona at first, but changed it after some insights from my wife.
   But as usual, I also wanted to tie up a couple of loose ends.
   Now, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun ended in traditional horror style with a hint that Bacchus might not be totally gone. But TPTB never did another Bacchus episode - the artistic horror that is Young Hercules doesn’t count, and was anyway meant to be many years earlier. So I could do what I wanted. For his demeanour here I borrowed a little from the Vamphyri villain of Brian Lumley’s Necroscope.
   The main loose end, however, and something that bothered me for a long time, was what really happened to Gabrielle in that lava hole after season 3. The “explanation” given in A Family Affair was too vague, and the one given in Soul Possession was outright illogical and in any case not available to me when I wrote this). I still think my version is better, and if we assume some lying on Ares’ part it fits perfectly.
   When I read it now, I can see that the fight scenes are still clumsily described in parts, and my English isn’t and never will be perfect, but it’s all right.
   Encouraged by Johanna (of =Xenario=) and my wife, I used this as my first entry for a fanfic competition, and I won a prize. :-)  The theme was supposed to be holidays, but as I recall none of us followed that very much, so, well, there it is.