“Hey, girl… why don’t you tell us about yourself?”
Who am I?
I’m Julie, and I’ve been a Backstreet Boys fan since 1998. I discovered fan fiction in the summer of 1999, started writing it a few months later, and debuted my website, Dreamer’s Sanctuary, in April 2000.
I originally wrote mostly drama/romance stories about my favorite Boy, Brian, but over the years, I’ve branched out quite a bit. Although most of my stories still tend to be on the dramatic side, I’ve written in every genre and about every Boy.
So why write slash?
It took me fourteen years to finally “get” the appeal of slash. I have nothing against gay people; in fact, I have gay friends and am a supporter of equality for everyone. That said, I could never understand why fans would want to write stories about straight guys hooking up with each other.
In the summer of 2013, after participating in discussions with slash writers and readers on the Absolute Chaos forums, I decided to try my hand at writing a slash, solely as a challenge to myself, just to see if I could take it seriously. It was definitely a challenge, but by pushing myself, I ended up with the short story Unsuspecting Sunday and the idea for its follow-up novel, Sick as My Secrets. The original short story was surprisingly well-received by both slash- and non-slash readers, and I couldn’t get the idea for the second story out of my head, so I decided to give it a try.
I’ve realized I enjoy writing just about the Boys and their complex relationships with each other. Slash just takes that extra step and complicates things further by adding sexual attraction into the mix, and I find that interesting.
But the Backstreet Boys aren’t gay!
No… as far as we know, they’re not.
“We’re not gay! …Or ARE we?”
That said, the fun of fan fiction is that you get to make up whatever you want. Slash allows me to go beyond the bromance and write the Boys in an even deeper relationship. It allows me to write romance without relying on a female lead, which can be a turn-off to some readers. In a slash story, it can be just about the Boys!
Sure, these storylines may not be the most realistic, but you never know. As they say, there’s one in every boyband!
“Well, we DO like balls!”
