Citizens Against Bad Slash Interview with Bliss

Interviews by Fans
Title:	Citizens Against Bad Slash Interview with Bliss
Interviewer:
Interviewee:	Bliss
Date(s):	July 12, 2001
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	Professional Wrestling, slash
External Links:	interview is here, Archived version
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Citizens Against Bad Slash Interview with Bliss was posted in 2001.

It is part of a series of interviews posted to Citizens Against Bad Slash in which fans were each asked the same ten questions.

Some Excerpts

I've been blocked for months in the wrestling fandom.

I've dealt with it so far by throwing myself into other fandoms. I suppose that's really just ignoring the problem. Lately, I've been forcing myself to go back and reread some of my unfinished fics. Sometimes if I reread them enough, something will pop out at me and I'll be able to write a couple of paragraphs more.

Well, I can't say what causes it for everyone. Basically, for me, I know I'm blocked because I don't watch wrestling anymore. At first I just didn't have time because of school. Then, when school was over, I gained other interests. I'd like to think that if I started watching again, I'd stop being blocked.

Another thing that seems to work is picking a picture of two wrestlers that looks slashy. Give yourself a half-hour to write something. You'll either come up with something or at least be distracted by the pretty picture.

Spelling and formatting mistakes are the biggest [mistakes]. After that, begging for feedback and posting several very small parts of a story in one day. If you had all of that written, then why not just post it all as one? Also, new writers seem to have a tendency to either copy the plots of older writers or write the same pairings as them. Since there are so many wrestlers out there, there's nearly an infinite amount of pairings. Pair two (or more) wrestlers that you like. Don't write Jeff/Matt just because your favorite author does or because those characters seem to get a lot more feedback.

Wrestling is a fandom that blurs the line between RPS and FPS. Some authors will write, for instance, Hunter as a total bastard. That would be according to the story line. But other authors will write him as insecure or something totally different, which might fit in more with how Paul, who "plays" Hunter is in real life.

So there's very much a duality to characterization in wrestling fic.

The problem comes in when people write Hunter as a nice guy and have the story take place in story line, because in the story line, he's not a nice guy. The author has to decide when they write the story, "is this in story line or not"? And then they have to stick with it. All the way, including the characters' names. If you call Christian "Christian" then call Edge "Edge." Unless you have a good reason for doing otherwise, of course.

The biggest problem that seems to plague wrestling slash more than any other fandom, is "twinking." It doesn't really make sense that Christian (in story line or not) would be some whining, feminine, ditzy slut. There's nothing out there in canon that supports this type of characterization as far as I know. Same with other wrestlers like X-Pac, and Shannon Moore. Just because they're smaller and seen as prettier than other wrestlers does not warrant this type of characterization.

Well, certain writers out there impress me. Some of them really do produce astounding works that I find myself rereading several times.

Which would bring me to why am I rereading fics when there are so many new fics out there? Basically, to be honest, a lot of the new stuff isn't that great. I'm not saying that every new author out there sucks. There's just a problem of new authors trying to copy what they've read. Which is why we end up with so many fics with the same characters and/or plots. There's a lot of repetition in wrestling slash. Not plagiarism, but recycling of the same ideas and pairings.

So yeah, a lot of the fic does make me want to bang my head against the wall.