Under the Influence
Jan. 23rd, 2004 01:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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katlinel asked about Under the Influence. This is a B7 story which appeared in the zine Star Four. Star Four is still in print, so I won’t post the story publicly here. Under the Influence was written for a B7 mailing list birthday party. I can’t remember what the theme of the party was now – the story had existed in my head in some shape or form for some time, and I was lucky that I able to use it for the purposes of the party. It’s a piece from the point of view of the individual conducting Blake’s interrogation after his first arrest. Blake is tortured and broken, but it seems he has had an effect on the interrogator...
A relatively straight-forward story, and one often told. Specifically, there are two influences on the piece. Firstly, the B5 episode Intersections in Real Time gives the piece its structure (focusing around three interrogation scenes). It also provides most of the detail of the interrogation (noise, light, starvation, repetition of questions, etc.).
The other influence is a short story by Ursula Le Guin, ‘The Diary of the Rose’, in her collection The Compass Rose. ‘The Diary of the Rose’ is about a naïve young doctor working in a psychiatric ward who starts to realize that the madness she is treating can turn out to sanity in the context of the totalitarian society in which she lives. As you can see, when I say this short story influenced mine it would be more honest to say it’s a retelling.
It’s quite strange to go back and look at this story now. It’s one of the earliest pieces I wrote – I think this is something like the fourth or fifth piece of writing I ever did. It’s fairly clunky in places and also very sparse – I really hadn’t got the hang of description yet, although I think in a way that serves the story. Chance, of course, rather than design. It’s also one of a few stories I wrote around this time that dealt with ambiguities of Blake’s character and situation. I do believe that Blake has a remarkable capacity for self-delusion, and that while he was indeed right to fight, that doesn’t mean I have to like him much.
I think the other thing I wonder about when I reread this is what exactly the compulsion is for me in writing characters like the interrogator in this piece. Not long after writing this story I discovered DS9, and the questionable charms of one Elim Garak. Most of Garak’s philosophical disquisitions on the nature of interrogation are safely tucked away on my hard drive, part of a long story about him and Bashir that may or may not be finished one day. He does have quite a lot to say about professional persuading to Ezri Dax (a therapist) in my story Closure. Ezri, to give her her due, has a lot to say back.
Sublimation of my baser instincts, no doubt. Don’t use your talents for evil – or, at least, if you are playing with people’s heads, be subtle about it.
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Date: 2004-01-23 02:42 pm (UTC)This sentence starts off Bashir, and ends Garak. I love it.
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Date: 2004-01-23 04:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-23 04:51 pm (UTC)PS They are the flipside of each other, of course... ;-)
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Date: 2004-01-23 04:53 pm (UTC)Very disconcerting ;)
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Date: 2004-01-23 04:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-23 05:16 pm (UTC)I don't remember the theme offhand, but if I can get hold of the BoT's old laptop (wot I was using for email at the time), it might be on there somewhere. I'll have a look when I get home.
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Date: 2004-01-23 05:23 pm (UTC)Don't go to loads of trouble to track down the theme, I just wondered if you could remember it off the top of your head.
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Date: 2004-01-23 07:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-23 07:45 pm (UTC)Hee, I found all sorts of stuff, including my comment to the List on that story, asking for my shoes back :)
Don't go to loads of trouble to track down the theme...
No worries, I think I've found it! If I'm right, it was "Something New", and was a combined birthday/christening for the neonate Freedom City. C posted Remembering at about the same time, presumably also for that party.
And I found a copy of that Servalan piece (Chrysalis) that I wrote for the same party. I remember being very pleased with it at the time, but it was a bit cringe-making after five years. Even after five years of not writing anything better.
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Date: 2004-01-23 08:01 pm (UTC)Also: I had it in my head that gur vagreebtngbe jnf oynxr (rot13, decode here if you don't have any other means). Or was that something left up to the individual reader?
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Date: 2004-01-23 08:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-23 10:26 pm (UTC)That rings a bell. Also 'The First Time'.
I remember Chrysalis, that was a good story.
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Date: 2004-01-23 10:27 pm (UTC)Gosh, I hadn't intended that at all!
There was some discussion of whether the interrogator was a man or a woman. I remember Jarriet remarking that she had imagined the interrogator as a very short red-haired woman.
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Date: 2004-01-23 10:36 pm (UTC)Hmm, I wonder where it came from, then! Maybe some other story that I read around the same time.
a very short red-haired woman.
Can't think why ;)
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Date: 2004-01-23 10:58 pm (UTC)Yeah, I think it was a combined theme as well.
I remember Chrysalis, that was a good story.
Thanks *blush*
I wonder why it made me wince when I read it tonight - it's not as if I've developed my style in any way in the meantime. Ah, well, it was only a small wince.
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Date: 2004-01-23 11:02 pm (UTC)Right, time for bed!