Del Floria's Interview with Carabele

Interviews by Fans
Title:	Del Floria's Interview with Carabele
Interviewer:	Del Floria (Live Journal)
Interviewee:	Carabele
Date(s):	September 4, 2011
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	Man from U.N.C.L.E.
External Links:	full interview is here, Archived version
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Del Floria's Interview with Carabele is an interview with a Man from U.N.C.L.E. fan.

It is part of a series at Del Floria's. See Del Floria's Interview Series.

Excerpts

Do you feel as passionate about your creativity now as when you started? Why/why not?

I’ve only been writing MFU fanfiction since 2009, so yes at this point I feel just as passionate about the writing as I did that first time. However, I am, to my own chagrin, often a very slow writer. That frustrates me no end as the ideas are always rushing at breakneck speed through my brain while what I eventually mentally “approve” of those ideas to “put down permanently on paper” (or rather electronic whitespace) is a much more composed “cruise control” process.

I think things through a lot. Tweak concepts, plot-point progressions and language with steady deliberateness. I want all the pieces of a story to fit snugly together into a hopefully seamless whole. The passion is definitely there behind it all, but I always seek to direct it, to make the writing less about a heart-pounding race to the finish than the sometimes meandering journey itself.

What do you say to someone who approaches you about the creative process? Are you encouraging or initially discouraging until you decide his or her level of commitment?

I’m not sure I believe there is a certain level of commitment needed to write fanfiction as a hobby. What is needed though is a certain level of interest; that is, a desire to at least finish one project to see if the hobby is really something you’d enjoy for a longer haul. Half-finished projects won’t get you to that determination in my opinion. However, If the writer shows the level of interest to finish that one initial project, than I say go for it wholeheartedly.

Now that doesn’t mean that I will necessarily like the author’s stuff, and the problem is oftentimes if you’ve said to someone “Go ahead and write it” the author thinks you have a special interest in her story or story concepts. Lots of times that isn’t true. Yet, on the wide world of the internet, there is usually a receptive audience somewhere to an author’s works; the “something for everyone” truism. Just don’t expect that everyone will like what you write, or even that someone you consider a “mentor” or “inspiration” will.

What is the story you “dare not write”?

On an overall level I can’t see myself ever writing a “death fic” for either of the two agents. But more specifically… Okay, there is a concept for a story that I know I will never write, though I have written the synopsis. The tentative title is KEEPING BEAUTIFUL. Rather nervous about sharing this, but the title comes from a saying of Napoleon’s grandmother: “The world of man cannot but verge toward ugliness; thus are we as caring human beings charged with the responsibility of keeping it beautiful.” The gist of the story is that a Thrush maniac becomes obsessed with the idea of destroying Napoleon’s buoyant optimism and romanticized idealism. I won’t go into how the Thrushie ultimately goes about achieving this end, but let’s just say the angst factor of this story would be pretty damn high. At the end though it is pragmatic Illya who makes a personal mental vow he will somehow, some way, return those “crystalline virtues” to his friend’s shattered personality. That, as someone who cares specifically in this case, he has a responsibility to “keep beautiful” the soul of this one particular being in the ugly world of man. Yet the story ends with that determination by Illya. We never know if he succeeds. That decision is left to the reader, but I have to admit the atmosphere of the piece would lead most naturally to the conclusion that he never quite does manage the feat, though he also never quits trying.

Now I know I will never write this story because frankly I don’t want a permanently broken and disillusioned Napoleon. I hate that turn in events when I see it happen to the character in other writers’ stories. I like my charming, confident, idealistic and optimistic American agent. I like Napoleon the way the series’ originators conceived him, and writing that story would in essence destroy what I most value in the character. So the concept will stay forever in my head and never find the permanence of “electronic whitespace”.