Ask the Author: winterlive

Interviews by Fans
Title:	Ask the Author: winter live
Interviewer:
Interviewee:	winter live
Date(s):	December 11, 2008
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	Supernatural
External Links:	interview and comments are here, Archived version
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

winter live was interviewed for Supernatural Roundtable.

Some Excerpts

Everybody else doing this started off with how they got into the fandom, so I'll say I got into this fandom at its inception. Like, Yahoo was streaming the pilot in the summer, someone on my flist squeed, so I picked up a copy off Mininova and watched it a dozen times waiting for the series to start airing. I immediately fell in love, and I don't know why because God knows Wendigo wasn't the greatest follow up, but. I'm not really super articulate about that. (It might have had something to do with [these pictures,], which came out around the same time.) But it apparently doesn't matter what fandom drama or writer's strike comes along - this show, these boys, they got me. While I may occasionally break for Superboys, I'm pretty faithful.

I imagine I'm best known for RPF J2, which I really do love. Those two beautiful, hilarious, fantastic idiots are some of my best beloveds. But I'll happily write Sam/Dean, OFCs, gen and pretty much anything else that seems like a good idea at 3AM.

I'm a huge fan of AUs. I feel like they're a test of characterization, to see characters that are still the same old beautiful, hilarious, fantastic idiots, but in a different setting. It helps you figure out what's essential to characterization, and what you might be able to change.

The most extreme AU I have written, and the longest story ever at eighty thousand words, is [Monogatari]. I wrote it for the spn_bigbang, and in extreme summary, it's J2-as-samurai. Most of my AUs begin as a ridiculous, cracked-out idea that I later realize I'm actually interested in; I spent probably fifty hours browbeating Wikipedia and several libraries for information on Kyoto regional and municipal history, modern Japanese cinema, bathing customs (fascinating, you should look into it), food and topography, and the various permutations of the Shinto religion, just to name a few topics. A friend of mine who's been to Japan was not immune; I grilled him on asian racism trends and sumo wrestling. If you add the interview, the concept art I scored out of joosetta, and the time I spent drafting a floor plan for the country house, it was probably closer to seventy hours.

It probably helps that I like to know things. And that I'm way long winded. Um.

Still, it's worth noting that I had no interest in Japan before I wrote that story. I had a lot of fun learning about the place, and developed a persistent addiction to pocky, which I enjoy to this day. You never know what's going to strike you as good to write; even if you don't know the subject, don't let that stop you. Learning is fun! :D

I like writing them equally; once I'm writing a character, I pretty much consider it my own. With canon characters as supporting cast, I feel a little freer with them as far as interpretation goes. If they have a quirk or a particular attribute I'd like to play up for story purposes, I do it and then trust the reader to roll with me and be entertained by it so long as I'm doing the main guys justice. Sometimes I'll let the canon guy's personality fill in a lot of the color for the character; this was especially true for Monogatari as I was making so much of it up. I knew I needed a strong, honorable shogun, but I didn't know he'd have a sense of humor until he was Ken Watanabe. :)

I made Chad Michael Murray a villain in a story one time and it scarred me forever. Almost all of my villains are OCs now, because I can't bring myself to make somebody hateworthy if they're not mine mine mine.

I don't actually write that many OCs, but the ones I do write are almost invariably the other half of Actor/OFC. I love me some hetsecks, bean. But the thing is, the het relationships usually get a whole hell of a lot of screen time, y'know? So I tend to be satisfied with what we see - or dissatisfied with it, but then I lose interest. It's explored, is the point. When I write something, it's usually to explain or clarify or show what if - if it's already up there, there's not much point.

The OC I like best is probably the one in Good Boys Don't, but that's because she is a wretched, wretched, unapologetic Mary Sue. So. :)