sarcasm always wins out in the end

Now that Yuletide authors have been revealed, I can tell you my many exciting thoughts about writing on Mary Renault's The Charioteer. This is my favourite novel (of all time, for the teenager in me who still likes to make OMG!Most Favouretest List!s) and I was very pleased to be assigned it. Slightly worried about matching Renault's skill, of course, but after deciding that that would be impossible anyway, I was able to enjoy myself by including some of her stylistic tropes and by arguing with myself about doing things she wouldn't do. In the first group, the most notable thing was semi-colons - if you examine the text closely, you'll see that she employs a huge amount of semi-colons, much more than I would ever allow myself (but I love them also), so I indulged myself by using (almost) as many semi-colons as I liked and justifying them as stylistic references. Another thing Renault does a lot is have Laurie describe an action in one sentence, then follow with Laurie's imaginative/allusive/metaphoric interpretation of it, most often to suggest omg Ralph is so hot! (I've done a detailed analysis of them all in the book; most of my notes read omg Ralph is so hot! This amuses me greatly.) I tried to make use of this feature as well, and I think it works to suggest Laurie's love and desire even when he is otherwise conflicted about their relationship, and even when he doesn't like to think about them out loud. (Which is also what Renault does in the novel - Laurie notices many things about Ralph, interprets them in a way that suggests his desire, and then pointedly doesn't think about what that means. She manages to create a most expressive silence.)

I had a general idea of what I wanted to do with the story from the moment I got the assignment (I have a vivid recollection of walking to catch my train that morning and thinking up the entire plot on the way.), but I wasn't quite sure how to manage external events that would create the crisis point, and engineer the shift in their relationship which Laurie needs to happen, but which he could not ever voice from his own accord. Nor would Mary Renault be so crude as to make them talk about their feelings explicitly and without a struggle.

Due to computer woes I had less time than I'd liked to finish the story and I am not as happy as I could be with the ending, but I think it works more or less. I hope I've done justice to the characters and to the novel. Although I fear my Laurie is slightly too naive and inactive for the Laurie that would have emerged at the end of the book, and my Ralph too confined by the necessities of the plot, but it is what it is and I should probably stop talking about it now...

And so, here is what I did

Andreia for trueriver. Mary Renault's The Charioteer. Ralph/Laurie. PG-13. 3333 words.

After the events of the novel, Ralph and Laurie meet for Christmas.

Andreia is Greek for manly courage. It was a last-minute randomly-occurred idea for a title, and turned out to be more appropriate than I realised.

The best present, of course, is gay porn. Fortunately, we have Yuletide for that. :)

I was particularly lucky this year, as I have received not only a gorgeous fic about Mary Renault's The Charioteer, After The Discharge, but also two Merlin treats, Turn The Tables and Mistletoe. Thank you so much for all of these!

Of course, Yuletide is full of gifts for everyone and I have been gorging myself on stories about everything and anything all day. I am slightly disappointed, though, to see so few Temeraire fics, especially since there were so many requests for Laurence/Granby/Tharkay threesomes in the treats list yesterday. Clearly the world needs more threesome porn. :(