Ask the Author: chash

Interviews by Fans
Title:	Ask the Author: chash
Interviewer:
Interviewee:	chash
Date(s):	January 9, 2009
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	Supernatural
External Links:	interview and comments are here, Archived version
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chash was interviewed for Supernatural Roundtable.

Some Excerpts

I have been in fandom for a depressingly long time--my first fandom was Gargoyles when I was, like, nine or something and my brother told me people wrote stories about Elisa and Goliath on the internets. I started writing my own fanfic when I was twelve and living in England and had no friends. As one does! So if you ever want to read a ton of poorly written Babylon 5 fanfic with horrible Mary Sues, uh. Don't actually ask me. I'm hoping it's been purged from the internet. I was introduced to slash around 2001 with Gundam Wing and have been reading and writing it ever since. Supernatural I only got into pretty late in the game. I was never that interested in it given: 1. I am a total wuss and 2. I thought the guys were more funny-looking than hot.

The only real trick I'll use is that--especially when I'm first starting in on a character/fandom--if the character has an actor or real voice, I'll proof everything I read and make sure I can hear them saying it in my head. A lot of the time I'll also end up with a few words or phrases that I really associate with someone or can hear them saying really clearly. For example, if I'm writing Jensen and having trouble getting into the groove of his voice, I'll replay him yelling "Silence!" from the season two rock-paper-scissors blooper. (Actually, the vast majority of my Jensen phrases are from the s2 bloopers. Weird.) I have no idea why this is my go-to phrase for Jensen, but it is! That's why Jensen will tend to say "Silence," in my fic more than is perhaps accurate. The other thing that I've found has helped me with dialogue is that while I wasn't in any particular fandoms for a few years, I was still doing fandom roleplaying, of the LJ-comment conversation style instead of the third-person descriptive style. Pretty much in there we use very few action tags (as few as possible, for me) and just let the dialogue + icons get meaning across. So I got pretty used to focusing on dialogue there. Favorite characters to write...Well, clearly, J2 and Sam and Dean are big for me now--generally I prefer doing Jensen POVs, but like Jared's dialogue better. Aside for that, I really like writing straight-forward girls. I used to roleplay Anya from Buffy, and she was always tons of fun for that, and Bones fits in that category too. This is also possibly why I am increasingly embracing Parker from Leverage. I also really someday planning on doing more with the Supernatural girls--I absolutely love Ellen and Jo in particular, but I never end up with ideas that involve them so much. I love the way I am all about the Winchesters, but sometimes I wish I was less all about the Winchesters, you know.