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Post by cilantro on Sept 21, 2019 20:01:04 GMT -5
I've been thinking about this a lot and also think it would just be interesting to know: for any writers on here, how have you incorporated devness into your writings?Have you directly spoken about it or is it something intrinsic in your characters? Here are two recent examples from my own work that side step around this quality of devness:
1. I am currently writing a play where a man shares his final thoughts as he falls from space. We later find out that the character is actually a young boy playing his favorite game, astronaut, but in his version he is only ever falling through space. In it I want to explore the idea of non-normative enjoyment of narratives (or rather just enjoying the "wrong" part of a story).
2. My writing partner and I are writing a musical about the last mortal living in a world of immortals. In it, an immortal girl becomes infatuated with the immortal based, at first, on the fact of his mortality. In the show, the attraction is based on the meaning she finds in his limited time, and the importance that being a part of his life will give to her's. Yet, I can't help but feel I snuck some devness under my collaborator's nose.
Tell me about some of your dev characters. What reactions have non-dev people had to them? How else have you used writing to navigate/explore/question/understand your devness. Let's discuss.
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Post by Amee on Sept 22, 2019 2:07:57 GMT -5
Great thread idea!  Both your writing projects sound very interesting! I'm not sure I understand in what way you think devness might play a part in the first one - is it just the "non-normative" part? For your musical project I certainly get what you mean about sneaking some devness under your writing partner's nose  Being a mortal among immortals could definitely be described as a "disability" in a sense. At the same time, the meaning that limited time gives to life is quite a common "theme" and philosophical thought. An immortal being attracted to a mortal for that reason would probably not seem odd, even to non-devs? I'm really curious if you think your devness comes through in the way you write these characters - beyond just the concept of the story? Personally, I've written a lot in my early twenties and it started primarily as an outlet for my devness. I couldn't talk about it with anyone, I didn't allow myself to explore it in any real way (not even signing up on here at the time  ), so writing was the only way I could do that. Like most dev writers on here, I wrote stories with male PWD characters. I actually consciously did not write my female characters as devs and I'm just now wondering why that was (I think it's more complicated than just the guilt/shame). I'll ponder this some more and come back to this thread |
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Post by cilantro on Sept 22, 2019 7:43:41 GMT -5
Great thread idea! Both your writing projects sound very interesting! I'm not sure I understand in what way you think devness might play a part in the first one - is it just the "non-normative" part? For your musical project I certainly get what you mean about sneaking some devness under your writing partner's nose Being a mortal among immortals could definitely be described as a "disability" in a sense. At the same time, the meaning that limited time gives to life is quite a common "theme" and philosophical thought. An immortal being attracted to a mortal for that reason would probably not seem odd, even to non-devs? I'm really curious if you think your devness comes through in the way you write these characters - beyond just the concept of the story? Personally, I've written a lot in my early twenties and it started primarily as an outlet for my devness. I couldn't talk about it with anyone, I didn't allow myself to explore it in any real way (not even signing up on here at the time ), so writing was the only way I could do that. Like most dev writers on here, I wrote stories with male PWD characters. I actually consciously did not write my female characters as devs and I'm just now wondering why that was (I think it's more complicated than just the guilt/shame). I'll ponder this some more and come back to this thread Hi Amee! I think definitely yes, I'm writing them from my own experience of life and attraction, and maybe I'm just self-concious, but I tend to think these things shine through (for those in the know, at least). I think because I want the plays to have a univeral appeal and I'm not "out" I've been explaining the devy qualities in a way that people who don't know about devs and everything won't find suspect. So yes, loving the mortal because his life is endowed with meaning is something that I was able to sell to my writing partner and he was like, "I get it," but I think that a dev would see the devness in that character. Does that make sense? I don't know. The first one I spoke about is only half written so I don't actually know how devy it will end up being, but I think while writing him, the personal experience I'm drawing from is enjoying the "wrong" part of a story. So watching a movie that everyone else loves for one main stream reason, but I'm actually watching it for this random PWD side-character. I think it's so interesting, especially since my background is in theatre. We see this type of stuff a lot with early gay playwrights. They wrote a lot of characters that we now acknowledge as queer, but at the time it was coded so that only people in that community would see it. And sometimes it wasn't about a single character, but a general queerness of a play that was still allowed to be mainstream because the queerness wasn't overt. So some gay theatre goer could watch it and enjoy seeing their experience reflected in the work, and a straight person could go to the same show and have a completely diff exp (though they were still secretly being snuck a diet of GAY). Anyway, sorry for that actual RANT. I need to stop being so overly verbose, but I'm excited to hear about why you were avoiding writing devs!!! |
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Post by devogirl on Sept 22, 2019 8:16:59 GMT -5
I was a creative writing major in college and struggled to find inspiration to write. I desperately wanted to write bad SF but my prof kept pushing me to write bad Amy Tan knock offs. UGH. Even though I was dating a super hot blind guy at the time I was a closeted dev and had no idea how to talk about it, let alone write anything. So I stopped writing altogether. Then I had an epiphany sometime in my late 30s when I realized, hey, all the novels I am reading with PWD characters really suck, and I can do better. Since then I have written nothing that is not overtly, intentionally devvy. When I published my first novel, in reading an early draft Annabelle was like “I don’t see why the heroine falls in love with the hero unless she’s a dev.” She was right but in that story I felt the dev factor would be a distraction so I didn’t make it overt. The way the main character acts is totally like a dev but whatever!
Anyway it’s totally ok to write whatever you want, go ahead and be as devvy as you can!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2019 14:12:14 GMT -5
I like to write but I'm an amateur and it's really just a hobby of mine. English is not my native language, I'm not professionally trained in writing or anything so I'm just basically teaching myself and learning as I go. I know my earlier stories need to be looked at again and re-edited.
For me, writing romance involving devs and PWD started when my devness first bubbled up to the surface about ten years ago. I know now that devness has always been inside of me but it lay dormant for many years for several reasons, one of them being that I didn't know I was a dev. I knew there was something inside of me, I just didn't have a name nor an explanation for it.
When I first found out about being a dev, I was overwhelmed with it all. It was very difficult for me and it was very rough and painful. My instinct then was to write to somehow process what was in my head, I needed an outlet. At the time of my discovery I was literally completely on my own with this and it was very hard. I had no one to talk to about this. Pages and pages in spiral notebooks were filled, it was spewing out of me and onto the paper. Sometimes I cried while writing.
With this phase of my writing, my female characters have always been devs and not only underlying but right out devs and in my stories devness is always a topic.
I also loved to write a lot as a teenager and I wrote diaries for many years as well. After my dev discovery I looked at my writing from my teenage years (I am 48 now) and now I can totally see why I wrote back then. I can see devness coming through in all the stories and also some of my diary entries. I just didn't have a word nor an expression for it but from the story lines and the characters, it made me realize that I have always been a dev.
Once I became an adult, my writing faded into the background, life happened with all its challenges and I didn't write for many years until my discovery ten years ago.
I will always write, I have a lot of different things written and it's my outlet and my hobby. I love learning more about writing and teaching myself. Writing about devs and PWD has also been edcuational for me, it has taught me a lot about myself and disabilty or dev related things.
I also dabble in some specific fetish writing and I enjoy that as well. This has nothing to do with being a dev.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2019 14:16:08 GMT -5
Oh, and as for non devs...I don't think non devs have read my stuff. My three besties know about my writing but they don't show lots of interest, they are not devs. I don't expect them to read it and I know they probably wouldn't understand. They barely understand when we talk about it, so I don't expect them to read about it.
I haven't published anything so my audience is merely readers of the Fiction Blog which I assume have some kind of relation to being a dev or are interested in PWD/dev romance.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2019 14:37:52 GMT -5
I also have a question...when you say "play" or "musical" writing, is this something that will be acted out on stage eventually?
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Post by cilantro on Sept 22, 2019 14:42:35 GMT -5
I also have a question...when you say "play" or "musical" writing, is this something that will be acted out on stage eventually? Yup! I mean, that's the hope. |
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Post by annabelle on Sept 22, 2019 20:08:01 GMT -5
I wrote multiple stories from as young as age 10 or 11 that featured primary characters in wheelchairs. I obviously had no idea I was a dev back then. That was actually how I figured it out. I was lying in my bed one night at age 20, thinking through the plot of the story I was writing, and I suddenly realized how turned on I was. I looked on the internet later and was like, “OH, there’s a name for it!”
Of course, there was very little on the Internet back then, and that’s part of why I wanted to create a body of work that was what I fantasized about.
Like other people are saying though, it made me self-conscious to actually write from the point of view of a devotee.
Right now, I’m trying to be seen as a serious writer, and I’m struggling a lot because of my devotee inclinations and fan base. I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching lately to decide if I want to write more main stream stuff, or stick with my roots and stay true to myself. I think my greatest hesitation is that I imagine my non-devotee friends reading my books and thinking, “what a weirdo.“
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Post by Deleted on Sept 23, 2019 15:24:59 GMT -5
I think with specific dev romance the reader audience is just not very huge, on the contrary, probably very small.
There is tons of general romance out there. It's like everyone and their sister can publish nowadays, I feel the market is oversaturated with "books" in this age of self publishing.
So to find something actually good and worth reading is rare, at least not online. Non Fiction maybe, but Fiction is different, one has to look for something good.
To get anything out of writing and publishing in actually making money, the book/story has to be different and stand out.
I would not want to write just to please and get readers but to actually have fun and enjoy writing. If the writer puts their own emotions and connections into the story, I believe the reader will feel it and enjoy the story.
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rebeca
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Post by rebeca on Sept 23, 2019 21:04:44 GMT -5
I know that this isn't in any way what you were looking for in your OP. I'm just adding this here for diversity of viewpoints: I'm a dev and a writer and I have never ever written something with either a dev or PWD, and I don't think I ever will.
It's interesting to see that in myself and see so many of the devs here who are primarily writer of dev romances..
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rebeca
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Post by rebeca on Sept 23, 2019 22:29:02 GMT -5
Right now, I’m trying to be seen as a serious writer, and I’m struggling a lot because of my devotee inclinations and fan base. I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching lately to decide if I want to write more main stream stuff, or stick with my roots and stay true to myself. I think my greatest hesitation is that I imagine my non-devotee friends reading my books and thinking, “what a weirdo.“ Hey Annabelle, just wanted to ask, when you say you want to be seen as a serious writer, does that mean you're changing over to literary fiction or you'd like to be more of mainstream romance author? what kind of challenges are you facing? Do you have an agent? |
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Post by annabelle on Sept 24, 2019 20:15:49 GMT -5
Right now, I’m trying to be seen as a serious writer, and I’m struggling a lot because of my devotee inclinations and fan base. I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching lately to decide if I want to write more main stream stuff, or stick with my roots and stay true to myself. I think my greatest hesitation is that I imagine my non-devotee friends reading my books and thinking, “what a weirdo.“ Hey Annabelle, just wanted to ask, when you say you want to be seen as a serious writer, does that mean you're changing over to literary fiction or you'd like to be more of mainstream romance author? what kind of challenges are you facing? Do you have an agent? Oh no, definitely not literary fiction! I guess I just mean that I don’t want to be somebody who is slapping together a bunch of things that I published online so that people can have them in handy book form. I want to be known as an author of romance and chick lit that markets to ALL women, not just devs. I don’t have an agent and I’m not looking for one. I went that route years ago, and the agent didn’t do much for me. I feel like I can handle it on my own. Right now, my biggest challenge is writing stuff that I feel like is fresh and new within the genre. |
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rebeca
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Post by rebeca on Sept 24, 2019 20:45:50 GMT -5
Yeah, romance is a pretty crowded market. It's hard to stand out,from what I understand. I have only one friend who writes romance, but she's been at it for a very long time. At the end of the day, good, authentic writing always shines through-- no matter how crowded the marketplace is or the genre. Best of luck to you! Perseverance is half the game eh |
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Post by laur on Sept 24, 2019 22:39:49 GMT -5
This is fascinating to read! I’m not a published writer, but have always liked writing fiction as a hobby. Like annabelle, I started when I was young in elementary school. I always have been inclined to write any stories involving romance with a PWD as the male main character, but think that’s mainly because of that being how I always envisioned my “dream guy”. I never really make being a dev a main part of the female lead, but I do incorporate those attributes into some of those characters. I write a decent amount of non-dev related stuff too, but it typically strays more away from romance in those cases. |
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Being a mortal among immortals could definitely be described as a "disability" in a sense. At the same time, the meaning that limited time gives to life is quite a common "theme" and philosophical thought. An immortal being attracted to a mortal for that reason would probably not seem odd, even to non-devs?
), so writing was the only way I could do that.
