Ask the Author: not refined
| Interviews by Fans | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Ask the Author: not refined |
| Interviewer: | |
| Interviewee: | not refined (Rose) |
| Date(s): | September 8, 2008 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom(s): | Supernatural |
| External Links: | interview and comments are here, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
not refined was interviewed for Supernatural Roundtable.
Some Excerpts
I first started watching Supernatural when it aired in the UK (January 2006, I think) and I thought it was too frightening for my girly self, but soon fell utterly in love with the dynamic between the brothers... and that, as they say, was that. I’d been writing fanfiction – Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed mainly – for about three years at that point, but they got unceremoniously dumped as soon as I penned my first SPN fic, the slashy AU Mine (which I still haven’t managed to post on LJ because it needs much improvement, but it will happen!).What can I say? There’s something about those Winchester boys, they bring out the best words I have. Since then I’ve written about 140 complete stories in the Supernatural fandom (56 of them being J2, the rest are all about our fair Winchesters), some of them are seriously short and some of them are ludicrously long. I guess you could call me a romance writer because ninety percent of my stories have a heavy emphasis on romantic love... but I’m honestly most fascinated with the human mind, and I think that’s reflected a lot. So I really have no clue where to place myself on the fandom bookshelf (maybe in Cult Fiction or something, haha). I came to the RPS side of things pretty late, in summer 2007 when I wrote Jawbreaker, which I enjoyed a whole lot. But it took me another few months before I wrote Dinner At Home (which is a deathfic, but I’m so, so proud of it) and that kind of opened the gateway for a lot more J2 love. My personal favourite multi-chaptered story that I’ve ever written has got to be Somersault, because the writing of it was the most intense experience I have ever had as an author and I made myself cry with it, which is always a good thing. But a close second is Innocence and Feathers, for pure random, unadulterated fun. As far as my many Wincesty oneshots go, I still read Jade, Shattered fondly because I worked very hard on making sure every word had its place. And it’s very much an ‘oh Dean!’ story – who doesn’t love hurting his beautiful soul?
Currently I’m focusing on my in-progress multi-chaptered pieces, Jensen Inside (J2) and Us (Wincest and Mpreg), as well as the ongoing series of oneshots collectively known as The Quiet 'Verse (AU J2). I am in passionate love with all of these, I think this is my best year in fandom thus far, writing-wise, because I’m allowing myself to experiment a bit more. Right now, I’d try and write anything!
My approach towards Wincest and RPS is quite different. With Wincest there is so much canon already there and I love writing to try and meet at least some of the aspects of canon characterization. Even while writing Innocence and Feathers I took what I saw to be the strongest character traits of John, Sam and Dean and took them to their extremes.With Wincest I try to write what I feel are the missing pieces on the show, or stuff I’d like to see, or imagine happens or COULD happen. With RPS it’s ALMOST like writing original fiction. Everyone’s perception of the boys is vastly different that I tend to write to my own personal canon for each story.
I thought RPS was sort of weird, but then I thought that if someone was writing that shit about me? I’d just be damn amused and it wouldn’t really bother me. So I gave into the dark side! I try to write respectfully, though, because all my stories are made out of love, and I don’t want to put anything offensive or hurtful out there into the universe.
Strangely enough, the incest thing has never bothered me. I’m a pretty open minded person and I believe that love’s love, as long as you’re not hurting anybody else you shouldn’t have to explain yourself or your heart to anyone. <nowikik>*g*</nowiki> I do love that you found parts of Somersault hot. But, no, I don’t have a set way I think the Wincest happened – it does alter from story to story.
Hmm... do you know, I’m an incredibly nurturing person. I always want to give everyone lots of hugs. I think that my fics mostly revolve around nurturing and caring because of that. Honestly, in every relationship one person is going to be more nurturing, so even in my stories when a character doesn’t have an obvious hurt, the caring aspect always worms its way in heavily. Subtle or overt, I just love it.
Character is why I write. The main thing that got me interested in Supernatural was how layered the characters were – I felt like I could tell stories about them forever. I enjoy all aspects of character and I kind of love exploring the dark parts the most (one of my most favourite moments in anything I’ve written was the section early on in Still Life where Sam dreams of smothering his brother). But I really adore writing anything where someone is struggling with their emotions. The battles we do with ourselves are endlessly intriguing to me. Hence why most of my stories are very character-orientated without loads of outside interference.
Ha, what sends me off writing can be ANYTHING. Mostly it’s music. Lots of my stories are inspired by songs. And I very rarely have a plan as to how things will go. If the story’s any good it takes on a life of its own and I can’t control it anymore, so why even try? I like to have a very rough outline, and a vague idea of how things will end, but that’s about it. Mostly I just start out with one character, or one small situation or image, and wait for the story to tell itself to me.
Ohhh gosh, I don’t have enough time to read much fanfiction, which makes me terribly sad because I really want to but whenever I sit down I start writing... I have no discipline! Also, when I read some of the other brilliantly talented writers in fandom it makes my heart ache a little and wish to be better myself, which saddens me, and I can’t write unless I’m actually ecstatically happy.