"Why isn't There More...": A Specialist's View on the Matter
by Princess Xavier

My name is Princess Xavier. I have written slash in 'Biker Mice from Mars', 'F/X: the Series', 'BUGS' and other rare fandoms, I am ListMum of RareSlash, LitSlash and some 4 or 5 other, smaller slashlists, and I maintain the RSA. And I like to natter. So naturally, after reading Lucy's columns 'Why isn't there more/Why is there so much', I started thinking, and then I started typing, and before I knew it, I had two columns of my own on my hands. This is the first one, trying to determine why some of the most slashable fandoms are still virtually slash-virginal.

All for the sake of information of the masses, I did done some research, going through OneList's archives for RareSlash and Litslash, and Slash and Britslash and a handful of other lists. And I made a little list of fandoms that are totally, utterly slashable, yet totally, utterly slash-free. And then, list in hand, I wandered out onto the Web, looking for general fanfic for these fandoms, determined to find out why these writers wrote only gen or het. Only these writers didn't exist. 'Hm,' I thought, 'Interesting.' And I dug further.

And I looked at my little list, and checked which shows or movies I knew, and asked myself why I hadn't ever written any slash for them. And I almost immediately answered: "Because they're too difficult to write!" 'Aha!' I thought, 'Jackpot!'

If you think about it, the reason why there's so little movieslash, is that movies are finished stories in and of themselves. That makes it hard to think of plot bunnies, and that makes it hard to write in this fandom. This is proved by the fact that the few movies that do have a large fanfic following, are open-ended ones, like Star Wars et al. "Ah," you say, "But what about 'The Matrix'? That's open-ended, but not quite prolifically fanficced." But do you know what a damn hard fandom that is to master? If you want to write in it, you have to know what the Matrix is, understand the characters at least a bit, and you have to think about what the hell sex or romance or love actually is outside of the Matrix! Is your mind boggling yet?

And bookslash is another unexplored terrain. 'Good Omens'. 'The Dark Tower'. 'I, Robot'. The hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy'. All of them slashy as hell, but are we slashing them? No, and not just because we have something against bookslash as a concept. Proof of this is that LitSlash has 60+ members now, but no fic has come of it yet. Problem is, if you want to stay even remotely close to the original writing style and characterization, a bookslash story will cost you lost of blood, sweat and tears. And apparently, to most of us, that just isn't worth it.

Lastly, let me take a look at some 'slash-free' television shows. 'Red Dwarf' is not just slashy, it's also funny as hell, and that humour is bloody hard to recreate in a story. 'Homicide: Life on the Streets' has practically no stories, at least compared to the number of actual eps, because the real writers of this show put so much of their heart in the dialogue, the plot lines, the characters, that there's just no need for fanfic to 'spackle the holes' in canon. 'Space: Above and Beyond', 'Suddenly Susan', 'Friends', just about any sitcom or humourous show, any shows with good plots and characterizations are hard to write. Ergo, they don't get written, ergo, there's no slash for them.