Ask the Author: hansbekhart
| Interviews by Fans | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Ask the Author: hansbekhart |
| Interviewer: | |
| Interviewee: | hansbekhart |
| Date(s): | August 5, 2008 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom(s): | Supernatural |
| External Links: | interview and comments are here; reference link |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
hansbekhart was interviewed for Supernatural Roundtable.
Some Excerpts
Considering that I’m barely a year out of college, I’ve been writing fanfiction for an embarrassingly long time. My sister and I wrote our first Ronin Warrior slash story at the tender age of 9 and haven’t much looked back. I picked fandom back up during my first year of college, when I first figured out that Remus Lupin and Sirius Black were totally doing it, and have been in various fandoms since then. I wrote some ridiculously long Harry Potter epics and read a whole lot of Lord of the Rings and Full Metal Alchemist. A few weeks before the first season finale, a friend finally bullied me into watching this brother-fucking, ghost-hunting show on the CW, and I was instantly hooked.The biggest attraction to Supernatural was, for me, the weird-ass, grungy, underground world that they inhabited. It’s clearly the CW-version of a non-glamorous lifestyle, but I saw a lot of potential to get down and play with some fucked up characters in a gleefully dirty sort of way (and I don’t mean that in the way you’re thinking. Mostly).
The first Supernatural story that I wrote was something called The Truth About the Tooth Fairy, which is, I believe, the only time I have ever written Dean topping Sam. Clearly I didn't have my characterization worked out yet. It was written as a birthday present for a dear friend and contained a line that I am still very proud of: When you spend your life chasing phantoms and boogymen, sucking your brother’s cock seems less fucked up than it probably should be.
The name - oh lord. I have a terrible time titling stories, absolutely terrible. That's how I end up with a lot of weirdass titles, or I bug my sister to think of one for me. Originally, the title of Beach Blanket Poltergeist was going to be In the Heart, after the book that inspired me on a lot of the mythology of the story, Santa Cruz Is In the Heart. That was the first time that I'd heard about that crazy priest, and just loved it. It also fit because originally, BBP was intended as a Wincest story, that during the course of revisiting an area close to Stanford and dealing with something so horrible, there would be some first time romancing in there somewhere. That's why I think it comes off as pretty subtexty - a lot of that survived the second draft, like the part where Dean walks out in nothing but a towel and Sam sort of covertly checks him out.But the girl who edited BBP, fatale, was the best editor that I could have possibly had (she cut over 8,000 words of the story, actually), and made me realize that I couldn't pack it so full of plot and still cram in the Wincest, so I dropped that plotline and realized how incredibly lame In The Heart was for a title. (A lot of my early files are still titled In the Heart and I cringe every time I see them)
I talked a lot to RL people about BBP while I was writing it, because I knew it was gen and took place where I'm living, so I was talking to the guy who was at that point my fiancee, and we were talking titles, and I said I'd love something really fun, something to do with some of those old teeny bopper surf movies of the 50s, something like that. And he sneeringly suggested Beach Blanket Poltergeist, and I LOVED IT. And nothing he could say about it being a terrible title would talk me out of it. I've seen reviews, actually, that say, "Ignore the title, it's really a good story!" Which is a little O.o;;. But I love it :D.