Ask the Author: indysaur
| Interviews by Fans | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Ask the Author: indysaur |
| Interviewer: | |
| Interviewee: | indysaur |
| Date(s): | March 9, 2010 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom(s): | Supernatural |
| External Links: | interview and comments are here, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
indysaur was interviewed for Supernatural Roundtable.
Some Excerpts
Supernatural/CWRPS is my first real fandom. I found fanfiction in high school and devoured a lot of Roswell and Felicity fic. In another, less-technology-enabled life I was the girl who stashed romance novels under her mattress and read them under cover of darkness by, I don't know, candlelight. Though that sounds dangerous. Anyway! I didn't attempt writing or participating as more than a lurker until SPN. I'm not super great at fandom in general, but I feel incredibly blessed and privileged to be a participating member of this one, warts and all--it's passionate and creative and surprisingly diverse. In a lot of ways, I'm here for the fandom even more than the show itself.I've dabbled a little in Friday Night Lights fiction, and written a few SPN stories, but J2 RPS is definitely my wheelhouse. My first story in this fandom was a college AU, called "Everyone Experiments in College" that I posted in chapters as I wrote it, which was a little insane but which also led to a sprawling story that I've never been able to match in word count.
The last few stories I've written have all been for challenges. I don't think I'm necessarily a super prolific author; I've found that having a set date by which I need to have an end product helps me a lot! Apparently, I respond well to the whip being cracked.
J2 is definitely my favorite. Haha, I have a secret yen for Jeff fic sometimes, though, but that's between you and me. Umm. I think I do like to write sort of fantastic premises! I wouldn't necessarily have always thought that, but almost all of my recent fic has been an extreme AU, like the zombie remix one, for example. Part of that though is the source material I'm working with due to challenges I'm participating in. Other than pairing, I don't know if I usually aim for a specific tone or kind of story at the beginning. The Monsters, Inc. AU I actually did start off by wanting to write something fluffy and fun, but that quickly changed as I got into the story.That's actually probably a pretty good example of how I write. I think I tend to create certain checkpoints in my mind to work towards. Like, I started writing the Monsters Inc story with the thought that, 'Okay, I'm going to write something fluffy and fun to counteract the achiness of Keepsake/Zombies.' But then writer's block set in, and for me, writer's block is almost always sparked by boredom. Like, I'm just not invested in the story enough to continue to write it. So I changed my checkpoint to, 'Okay, I want to write about how weird it would be to date across worlds, you know? Where someone you're starting to love can be so foreign to you.'
And a lot of this comes out of talking for days with people I'm lucky enough to call my friends and collaborators. Like, kittyzams has sat through boring conversation after boring conversation of where I think a story might be going and what I want to write, and that actually is so huge for me, b/c it helps me to mark out the lines of the story. I usually have people reading it in-process, too, and hearing their questions about the story and what's interesting them helps me, too. Like, deirdre_c read an early draft and said she felt like she really needed to see their first date b/c they'd had their relationship in the bubble of Jared's room and this was Jensen's first time outside in Jared's world and that felt so important. Which was a huge observation that spun me off into thinking about, yeah, the culture-shock of their relationship should factor into the story.
I do usually start writing to a certain endpoint once I feel the story wrapping up. I like to have the vague idea of how something's going to end; with Monsters, once I decided to write the Jared viewpoint, I knew I wanted to end with Jared meeting Sully, and that does happen, but it's also based on my gut more than anything, probably. Scenes end when I feel like they should end, and I do the same for stories in general, I need a sense of closure for myself and that sometimes doesn't correspond to the end I'd planned out.