The Horsemaster

Fanfiction
Title:	The Horsemaster
Author(s):	Charlotte Frost
Date(s):	2003
Length:
Genre:	slash
Fandom:	Starsky & Hutch
External Links:	online here online at AO3
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The Horsemaster is a slash Starsky & Hutch story by Charlotte Frost.

It was printed in Timeless and later online.

Summary

An AU that takes place in 1858 Victorian England.

The Author Comments

I had printed my last SH fanzine (with my own stories) in the summer of 1999. S&H wasn’t a pairing that I cared to associate with AUs, but I always thought if I ever did an AU with them, it would center around horses. I did know of an editor/publisher who intended to do a S&H AU zine, and I filed that fact in the back of my mind (knowing that she’s a person whose projects take a long time to reach fruition).

In the summer of 2000, after I was no longer writing S&H, I suddenly had an idea for a full-fledged AU story. I had the rough draft of the 100+ page story complete within six weeks, which was some kind of record. Granted, I wouldn’t have even bothered, had I not known a zine was in process to give it a home. But I really, really loved writing the story. The AU atmosphere can be so refreshing sometimes, which explains why writers so often go in that direction (which, I think, often puzzles readers who can’t understand why writers just can’t stick to canon and keep repeating the same stuff.)

Thankfully, I come from old-time zine fandoms where one is accustomed to there being a gap between the completion of the story and it seeing print. Turns out, the zine, TIMELESS, that this story appeared in, wasn’t published until the fall of 2003. In the hurry to get it out in time for Zebra Con, the editor neglected to include email addresses for the authors. So, authors had to be dependent on the time-crunched editor to forward any comments.

Turns out, I got two comments forwarded on the story. That was more than I expected, considering few fans give feedback on zines. You know how, when writers complain that a story must not be well-liked because there was hardly any feedback, and readers rush to assure that “just because we didn’t bother giving feedback doesn’t mean we didn’t like it”? Well, “The Horsemaster” turned out to be one case where the lack of feedback truly meant We Didn’t Like It. There was a thread on the dislike of it – and AUs in general – recently on a list.

The whole Victorian British atmosphere was very frustrating. I intended to write it as an American. The zine editor insisted that it was the author’s responsibility to match the culture of the time, so I had to change American spellings to British spellings. Thankfully, I had a good fan friend (multiple friends, in fact) in England, and she was very helpful with that. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of doing “search-and-replace” to change all the “while” American words to “whilst”. What I didn’t realize, until after the zine was printed and sold, was that there were some usages of “while” that didn’t make sense as “whilst”. So, a few of the sentences sound really stupid.

Most of the complaints I’ve heard about the story was that readers couldn’t buy into the Victorian atmosphere. Guess whose fault that was? ;-/

I was really into the idea, after writing “The Horsemaster” in 2000, of doing a sequel that takes place in North Carolina. I thought it would be neat to have a dramatic story, concerning slavery, and harping back to Hutch’s grief at losing his wife because he couldn’t get to the doctor in time (ie, relieving it all over again in order to save an ill Starsky), against the background of the guys raising Morgan horses (the first American equine breed). I was so mentally into the sequel for a while that I even spent time and money on research. I tried starting the story, but since it was going to start with a sex scene, and I was bored with sex scenes, and I write chronologically… well, I never got very far and it has since been lost in a hard drive crash.

I still have my research materials – I’ve never had the heart to discard them – but since I’m certain now that there would be little interest in a sequel, I’m glad I never wasted time on it. Sometimes I think about doing a similar type of story with Jim and Blair. But I’m pretty satisfied with the AUs I’ve already done with them.

By the time I was publishing issue #6 of my Heart and Soul anthologies in 1999, plus two novels, I was running out of situations to write about. Plus, I found SH fandom to be enormously frustrating, because is was so lacking in energy, compared to what I had experienced in K/S. I had some unfinished stories, and irrelevant short stories, that I sent to a fan friend, who would later publish her own zines, and she included some of those short stories. Plus, within a year after HAS 6 was published, one editor announced that she was doing an AU zine. SH and AU didn't go along together particularly well, but I'd had a vague AU idea teasing at the back of my mind. The prospect of an AU zine brought the idea to the forefront and, shortly after announcing I was going to be leaving SH fandom, I was now frantically writing a novella that took place in Victorian England. It would be called "The Horsemaster". Thankfully, I was well accustomed, from my K/S days, to it sometimes taking years for fanzines to be published, the fanzine wasn't actually published until three years later, in 2003. Granted, "The Horsemaster" is probably the single most hated story in SH history, but I love it. I not only love the story for what it is, but I remember what a pleasure it was to write it. It felt so refreshing to use different dialogue, people, places, and circumstances.