Filing off the serial numbers - from fanfic to novel (part 1)
Last November, I was contacted by a publisher regarding turning my Sherlock fanfiction story, Northwest Passage, into a romance novel. This is my experience and my opinion. I’m positive that other people have done it differently, with more or less success.
“Look. You can tell I’m not a hostage negotiator, but I am a mother. I know what your mother did to you when you were little, what she was, what she made you watch, what she let men do to you, and it makes me so… It’s just not fair. And no one can make that better, I wish I could, I do, but if I could somehow go back there, you know, and make what was happening to you stop, I could just pick you up and just tell you it’ll all be okay. That’s what moms are supposed to do. They’re not supposed to be the cause of your pain, they’re supposed to make it go away. They’re supposed to hold you and tell you everything is going to be alright. They’re supposed to tell you that thunder is angels bowling. And that it’s okay to be afraid of the dark, and it isn’t silly to think there might be monsters in your closet. And that it’s okay if you want to climb into bed with them just this once because it’s scary in the room all alone… They’re supposed to say it’s okay to be afraid, and not be the thing you’re afraid of. But most importantly, they’re supposed to love you no matter what. What happened to you, it isn’t fair, it isn’t right. I’m supposed to empathize with you… sympathize… understand… but I can’t. That… that would be a lie. The truth is I don’t understand what you’ve done, I don’t sympathize with you killing people all these years, and I especially don’t understand you taking Ellie. What I can do is tell you what a mother should tell you, that you can’t take away your pain by hurting someone else, that it doesn’t make all the nights you had to hide scared and alone any better if you scare someone the way you’re scaring Ellie. What happened to you… it isn’t fair, but what you’re doing to her isn’t fair either. And if anyone should understand what that feels like, it’s you. You have the power, you can do what you want to do, but for once you can choose to use that power to do for Ellie what should have been done for you. You can choose letting her go. You can choose teaching her that, yes, there are monsters, and it’s okay to be afraid of them. But it’s not okay to let them win, and it’s not okay to be one.”
—— JJ, Criminal Minds (“The Longest Night”)
Her speech made me tear up. :c