I had never heard of fan fiction before I “discovered” Richard Armitage in the summer of 2012. Suffice it to say, I had no idea what I was missing! I became an avid RA fan fiction reader, hunting down stories about any and all ChaRActers on fanfiction.net, Wattpad, Tumblr, LiveJournal and finally Dreamer Fiction and an Archive of Our Own (If I’m missing any, please do tell!) . There is a massive variety of stories from fluffy and sentimental to seriously sexy to downright raunchy. (here’s another caveat for you…caveat lector – Let the reader beware – My personal policy: Don’t like? Don’t read.)
In retrospect, this was no great leap for me really, since I have been a consumer of “romance novels” for decades. I was in 6th grade, frantically trying to scrub the images of Steinbeck’s The Red Pony from my brain when a classmate slipped me a purloined copy of Rosemary Roger’s Sweet Savage Love.
The purple prose, the bodice rippery, crinolines, cravats, the eventual happy ending for the handsome hero and beautiful heroine, …I was hooked. I was also eleven, so my interest in what my mother, to this day calls “smut books,” had to be kept on the Q.T. Looking back, I know that at the time I didn’t understand most of the excessively euphemistic sex scenes, or the scenes of rape and abuse, but I became addicted to the formula.
Fast forward a bit. The added incentive of stories about characters played by the oh so delicious leading man Richard Armitage was irresistible. About six months after my entrance into Armitage World, I decided to take a stab at writing a fan fiction of my own – a “one off” in fan fic lingo, about John Porter in a life after Strikeback. I’ve written reams of academic papers, and for the past decade I’ve spent an enormous amount of time correcting other people’s writing. Consequently, I’m a pretty strong writer in terms of mechanics, but I’d never attempted creative writing. I guess that I just need the right inspiRAtion! Over the past few months, I’ve tapped into my inner storyteller, and as it turns out, she has a lot to say and she is often not G-rated. 🙂
John Porter – Strikeback S1.5
Courtesy of richardarmitagenet.com
So then, why do I warn, Caveat scriptor (Latin for “Let the writer beware!”)? It all started with “The Longest Night,” my story about John Porter and an original character named Lindsey Tate. I won’t give the details away in case you’d like to read it for yourself, but suffice it to say that sexy times ensued between Porter and Lindsey. When it was finished, I gave it to my husband to look over for general readability. I guess I did a pretty good job with sex scene in the story since I’ve had to beat him off with a stick since he read it… “I had no idea,” he says 😉 So, if you’re considering taking the plunge into writing RAcy fan fiction, Caveat scriptor: you may want to make a little room in your schedule before letting your significant other in on your new hobby!
Ancient Armitage 