Me, myself and my id

Meta
Title:	Me, myself and my id
Creator:	debchan
Date(s):	August 21, 2003
Medium:	journal post
Fandom:
Topic:	Id Vortex, Clean Vidding/Messy Vidding
External Links:	Me, myself and my id, Archived version
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Me, myself and my id is a 2003 essay by debchan.

Excerpts

This morning as I drove to work I was thinking about my id. Specifically, about how there were certain stories I wanted to write that I never would because they weren't so much stories as they were --how to put this delicately?-- uh, rather intimate fantasies. And I have this theory, which has been, in my humble opinion, correct 90 percent of the time, that jerk off scenarios, no matter how hot, do not a story make. Or rather, do not a good story make. Because, you see, the id gets in the way. The id wants what it wants and wants it now, the id does not care that there's no way Character A would ever WANT do THAT to Character B, not even if he was drunk or drugged or whatever. (Yes, there is that ten percent that do work. But you know, I wonder sometimes if they do because they caught me at a point in time when my hormones were running wild, or when there was a dearth of stories with those specific character (so I didn't CARE if they were wildly out of character), or if the story was one of my bullet proof kinks (TM Viridian.))

So then I thought about a story I read yesterday that worked me like a cheap whore. And it was the world's most unlikely scenario: Severus Snape and Harry Potter are turned into seven-year-olds and become best friends. I read this brief synopsis somewhere, rolled my eyes and thought, "Those crazy Harry Potter writers. God bless 'em, they never run out of ideas when MAYBE THEY SHOULD." I moved on, forgot about it, then clicked a link on a rec page and found myself reading a really thoughtful, well written story that turned into, you guessed it, Severus Snape and Harry Potter turning into seven-year-olds and becoming best friends. And it was WONDERFUL. (Okay, maybe a couple typos, and maybe a tiny bit of a workout for my willing suspension of disbelief, but it sucked me in, held me down and made me like it.)

And here's my point. I am squirming having exposed this about myself. (God, now everyone knows I have this particular button. Don' t look at me!) I never understood when people say, "I post a story and feel naked, because this is my story and my story is me and if you don't love my story, you don't love me." Because, uh, NO. My story is not me; my story is a thing I crafted and created and you can love it or hate it. Sure, it might bother me if you think it sucks, but only because it means I failed on some level as a writer. However, if you're writing straight from the id, I can see where you would feel naked and exposed and vulnerable. I get that now. (The closest I have ever come to writing from the id was Deliverance, and that was a deliberate, "Oh yeah? Well, Wesley doesn't need YOU, you fuckers.")

See, I will always choose everything else over emotion. Emotion is not so much a happy accident, but a by-product of plot and characterization. I feel very detached while I write; what's being put on the page is not happening from the gut level, but is more like a transcription of something I see in my mind's eye, all very cool and cerebral and very deliberate. (This, uh, also might explain why sex scenes are very often like torture for me to write.)

And yet, the stories I remember fondly and read over and over again are obviously written from the gut (or id, if you will). There's a reason why Te is well known in whatever fandom she sets her pen to; Te generates an emotional response, because Te writes from the gut. (To quote Te, "I'm naked! Wheeeee! Look at me!") There's a reason why cliche fic, when done well, works; it bypasses our higher functions, goes straight for the id and yells, "Hi, honey, I'm ho-ome! Hey, I missed you too! Let's fuck!" So, all that shit about fic written from the id? I still think it's true, you know. But I think that ten percent is from writers who have the talent and take the time to make each story more than whatever happened to bubble of from the swamp of their backbrain. Maybe it's filtered through the ego. I dunno, like I said, I'm not one of them. But there are times, like this morning, when I wished like hell I knew how they did it.

Comments at the Post

[danielleleigh]:

Very interesting thoughts about the ID and clean versus emotional writing/vidding, thanks for sharing!

[katallison]:

As always with you, Deb, this is very interesting stuff (as well as hilariously put). Like you, I'm still groping for a handle on that clean/messy vidder thing, but transposing it into writing makes it a bit easier to grok.

Talking about my own process, 'cause that's all I really know: every story I write grows out of a core scene that is purely id- or gut-driven. It's the scene that I run over and over in my head when I'm lying in bed at 3 a.m., or riding the bus or whatever. That scene ends up never being more than a small part of the final story, but everything else that's in the story serves (to the best of my ability) to lead up to, justify, deepen, and then show consequences of, that core scene.

One way I think about that clean/messy distinction in writing is the extent to which a writer pays attention to all that scaffolding or framing that surrounds the key scene. Some people, I think, are happy just to get that one scene into words and then throw it out there, blam. And I can really enjoy reading these stories--it's sort of like popping a whole chocolate truffle in one's mouth--but I sometimes also end up feeling a bit dissatisfied, like I also need the appetizers and the vegetables and the bread.

Though I've been tempted at times, I really can't just write the core scene and leave it at that; I need to know what leads up to that scene, and how it fits into the context of everything else going on in these characters' lives, and the only way I can know that stuff is to write out all the framing scenes, which is often a tedious forebrain kind of task with little id involved.

I know some writers, too, who say that they find the original impetus for a story, what I call the core scene, ends up not being what the story is really about after all, and they end up having to cut it, with much wailing and teeth-gnashing. I don't get this, because without the gut-driven nnnnggggghhhh of that core scene, the whole thing becomes a tedious exercise and I lose interest.

[z rayne]:

I knew there was a reason I loved you! You have managed to put into words something that I didn't even really have a gut feeling about, and it's absolutely, perfectly applicable to me. Blinding flash of insight, thank you!

[Laura Shapiro]:

Wow. Fascinating post, and the comments are great too. Lots of flavors to roll around in my mouth.

Regarding the clean/messy thing, at least as it relates to vidding, you'd have to ask Lum for confirmation of the following -- we sort of developed the theory together. But to me, what it means is that a clean vid starts and ends with an intellectual impetus, and (probably) the process is more intellectual, too. That is, the *idea* is the central thing that must be communicated, and that is supported by a fastidious attention to all the technical details. Ideas, in this context, shouldn't be sloppy. They are carefully articulated. They are clean.

Messy vids begin and end with an emotional impetus, and (probably) the process tends to be more organic. The *feeling* is the central thing that must be communicated, and while attention to detail (technical and other sorts of detail) is important, it need not be fastidious -- sloppiness, up to a point, will not impair the vid, because emotion isn't in the details -- clip choices and an inherent rhythm matter more than shaving two extra frames off a clip that might numerically, be too long. Messy vids, being concerned (usually) with big emotional impact, have the freedom to be messy.

And I do think this relates to writing too, as you and others have said. It wasn't until I read your post that I realized that, on some level, I vid the way I write. That is, I'm a messy writer, too. The splort of the chocolate truffle, as opposed to the full five-course balanced meal? That's me all the way. In fact, it was when I tried to write a five-course meal that I got freaked out and stopped writing, for the most part. I'm all about the truffles, baby. (:

And the id exposure! My kinks are all over my work. No one seems to mind.