Be Gentle With Us Interview: Tish
| Interviews by Fans | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Be Gentle With Us Interview: Tish |
| Interviewer: | |
| Interviewee: | Tish |
| Date(s): | 1993 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom(s): | The Professionals, Star Trek: TOS |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Be Gentle With Us Interview: Tish are answers to a questionnaire.
The answers were printed in Be Gentle With Us #8 and #10. It's possible that there were more replies printed in #9, #11, and #12 as well.
The Known Participants
- Be Gentle With Us Interview: Katy Deery
- Be Gentle With Us Interview: Cath Sprale
- Be Gentle With Us Interview: India
- Be Gentle With Us Interview: Ellis Ward
- Be Gentle With Us Interview: Felicity M. Parkinson
- Be Gentle With Us Interview: Tish
Twenty-One Questions
Which of your stories do you like best?
Conversely, any you cringe about now with hindsight?
Are you inspired by external factors, such as music?
How much research do you do?
How many drafts do you write before submitting the story?
What makes you write slash?
How do you react to editor's criticism or reviews of your work?
Do you keep a piece of writing to yourself until it is finished, or would you seek the advice of others at a fairly early stage?
Do you worry about plagiarism?
How do you feel about another writer rewriting the end of your story, or writing a sequel (with or without permission?)
Do you prefer to write about the characters in the CI5 setting or is any universe/time fair game?
Do you keep rigidly to the characterisation used in the aired episodes?
Do you ever deliberately change the characterization, or does it happen unconsciously?
Do you work on more than one story at a time?
Do you write sex scenes to titillate the reader?
How do you go about writing sex scenes? (Resort to strong drink and let your imagination run riot?)
Would you like to be a professional writer?
Were you a writer before you discovered fandom?
If you were a writer before discovering fandom, has the experience of reading fan literature changed your own writing?
Have other writers in fandom or stories that you have read influenced your own work?
Have you been influenced by writers or writing from outside of fandom?
Some Excerpts
What makes you write slash?
I guess because my favourite sorts of story are hurt/comfort ones and there's a lot of love in my stories, slash is just a natural progression from there. My favourite slash stories are 'first time' ones so, if I can incorporate a 'first time' into a hurt/comfort story, I've got the best of worlds.
How do you react to editor's criticism or reviews of your work?
Since there's a lot of myself in my stories (by which I mean I dig deep into myself to get the emotions I want to portray), then I do get hurt by by criticism, I think anyone would. Our stories are like our children, we love them since we created them. Having said that, I hope I can accept fair and just criticism. I know I am not the world's greatest writer and, if someone I admired as a writer, were to give me some pointers, I would actually be honoured. I think one of the biggest critics of my work is myself. A story in point is the Star Trek [story] FULL CIRCLE. A friend of mine rates it as one of her favourites but I can't even read it now, not because I don't like it but because I let myself get talked into rewriting the time scale from three years to a few months just in order to have the story accepted. I would never do that now because I know my original was better. Now, if an editor sent back a story with what I considered to be unjust constraints or criticism, then I would merely send it elsewhere. I usually let my friends read my stories before I type them, just because they are seeing the story through different eyes than my own and I always listen to their comment ... even if I don't act on them.
Do you worry about plagiarism?
Yes, to a point, but I at less worried about people pinching from my ideas than I am about inadvertently copying theirs. There are a lot of what I would call 'obvious stories' out there; stories just begging to be written, sequels, follow-on's from episodes or moments in episodes. Examples are sequels to INVOLVEMENT, FALL GIRL etc. Since I tend to write within the CI5 framework, it's almost inevitable that I will write a story someone else has already written. There is little I can do about it once my story has been published but, if I find 'my' story already in print, I would not dream of publishing my own version if it was too similar. If a story takes the same situation, say, a 'first time' following INVOLVEMENT, then there is room for many variations on a these, but I would never knowingly plagiarise a specific, fan-created scenario.
How do you feel about another writer rewriting the end of your story, or writing a sequel (with or without permission?)
I think I'd be flattered if someone wrote a sequel, so long as I wasn't working on the same idea at the same time! I'd hope that the writer would ask my permission before re-writing the end of a story and, to be honest, I'm not sure I'd give it unless it was a very different ending from ay own. If they just thought they could write the same ending better than me, I'd take that as very personal criticism.
Do you prefer to write about the characters in the CI5 setting or is any universe/time fair game?
Since I am writing about Bodie and Doyle and they are in CI5, then I'd prefer to stick to that setting, however limiting that might be. Actually, since I prefer to write relationship stories rather than adventure stories it's not all that limiting really. If I write out of CI5, I would always
keep them as Bodie and Doyle. To be honest, if I felt I had to take the characters out of CI5 and change their names, I'd have a hard job justifying the story as a B/D. I know A/U is very popular in fandom, but, to me, if they are not Bodie and Doyle, then it's not B&D, it's just another story in which the idea of Bodie and Doyle is plagiarised. (I'm sure I'll get a lot of stick about that but I can't help the way I feel.)
Do you keep rigidly to the characterisation used in the aired episodes?
I had to smile at that question. Let's face it, in the aired episodes, Bodie and Doyle are not lovers any more than Kirk and Spock are lovers in Star Trek, so making them lovers requires more than a little poetic licence! Having said that, I try to keep them in character but push the boundaries
of those characters to bring them into a sexual relationship. I think the love is already there, as it is with Kirk and Spock, they just need a little push to help them realise their potential !!!
Do you work on more than one story at a time?
Depends on how bored I am with the story I'm working on. If a story is flowing off the pen, I'll stick with it till it's finished because I don't want to lose the emotional thread of the story. If I get stuck, or it just won't flow as I want it to, then I'll leave it and start on something else. I left poor Bodie rotting in a jail in Angola for over two years because I couldn't figure out how to get him out! After all, I'm a writer not a merc!
How do you go about writing sex scenes? (Resort to strong drink and let your imagination run riot?)
I drink a very large glass of wine, turn down the lights, put on some very romantic instrumental music, prop a couple of photos of the lads in front of me and pray for inspiration!! If the story has been one long build-up to the sex scene then its a lot easier to write than if I'm going in cold.
Would you like to be a professional writer?
Yes, very much so. I'd get a real kick out of seeing my book on the best seller list, but I know I'm neither good enough nor prolific enough for that. There is no way I can 'turn on' the writing, I have to wait for the inspiration to come to me and I'd be liable to starve myself to death if I had to support myself on inspiration alone.
Were you a writer before you discovered fandom?
I think I'd have to say no. I remember I used to love writing stories at school but only when asked to and I wrote several Man from Uncle stories at school, which I bitterly regret throwing away, but I've never written anything that wasn't media-induced.
Have other writers in fandom or stories that you have read influenced your own work?
Yes, very much so, if I read a story I really like, I look at the way it is written, the words used to describe the scenes/emotions, the sentence construction and lay-out. I try to find out why that story is so good and so much better than any I have written.