Essential Snarry Reader Interview with Tara Tory

Interviews by Fans
Title:	Essential Snarry Reader Interview with Tara Tory
Interviewer:	Aubrem
Interviewee:	Tara Tory
Date(s):	January 2005
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	Harry Potter
External Links:	interview is here, Archived version
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In 2005, Tara Tory was interviewed for The Essential Snarry Reader by Aubrem.

For others in the series, see Essential Snarry Reader Interview Series.

Some Excerpts

I think I have been writing slash for 26 years and playing in various fannish pools for 31 years. Back when, there was only Trek, and regular science fiction fandom. Eventually I followed friends into Professionals, and then tried a bit of Muncle, Starsky and Hutch, a few others, and ended up in Sentinel for a few years before finding Harry Potter. Some fandoms I mostly read, like Sentinel, and some I write and read. I'm serially monogamous. I usually have only one fandom I write at a time. I'm very linear. It's too confusing to switch about much and when I'm writing in a fandom I sort of have this drive to get the stories out. When the stories have all come out, then another fandom might catch my eye, but as long as the stories nag at me, that's what gets written. There are some things which will rather abruptly terminate my interest in a fandom, which has happened twice. When they kill off one half of your one true pairing, it sort of squashes things. I do hope She doesn't kill off Snape! I worry about him.

I came to HP the way a lot of us did, with the first Tea story. I got imprinted on Snarry there, instantly, and have a hard time trying to write other pairings. Except that Neville story. That just sort of came out of left field one day.

In general, I don't like to come into a fandom that has the source material still being produced. I was happy to find Sentinel just after the show was canceled because you don't have that, "this episode has absolutely wiped out my story idea," moment where you have to decide if you continue it as an AU, or spend time seeing if you can adapt it, or leave it unfinished to die on the hard drive. I can't keep up. In the Potterverse, I find I am stuck in the universe created by the first two books, sometimes the first three. I have these two dozen unfinished stories which started at that point and I keep finishing them as if the following books did not exist, instead of going on and doing stories that incorporate the last three books. Insert heavy sigh here. I'm caught in a time warp which makes my stories increasingly AU.

One of the Things I Have Learned as I have gotten older is that Life is Not Fair. However, I fell prey to the optimism party line as a child and still unfortunately believe that things *should* be fair. Sometimes I think that I write just to whack things into place so that if it is not fair in real life, I can at least have things come out happy ever after in my stories. I tend to have happy ever after endings, if you've noticed. So life is not always fair, but maybe you can give things to the characters that at least compensate. Love and a happy life being one of them.

I also have this negative reaction to the stereotypes that JKR has in her stories. On the whole, she makes her nasty people ugly. Then she defines ugly in a way that I don't agree with. I wonder if she knows how much harm she does? I'm not saying she should make everybody beautiful, but does she worry about what overweight kids feel when part of Dudley's bad character is described in terms of weight? Goyle and Crabbe, too. (Not sure where Hagrid fits in here). The short squat Umbridge and the occasional round references to Fudge sort of make a pattern that leaves me uncomfortable.

Snape, too, is described as ugly. Her description of a man with a large nose, black eyes, yellow teeth, and terrible hair as unattractive is her judgment call, of course. Hey, I thought Spock was sexy, I'm sort of imprinted on the nose, here. Except for the teeth, which a wizard ought to be able to fix with a flick of a wand, ditto the greasy hair, what makes him ugly? Did she make him ugly to represent the bad things in his past? I dunno. Why is Harry's wild hair cute and Snape's lank greasy hair a sign of something bad? If Snape looks as he does, what is the reason for it?

Fan Comments

[aliciamasters]: Tara Tory is one of my all-time favorite writers, whose stories always grab me with their nuances. I've read Loving Potions, Hall of the Mountain Kings, and Love in a Bottle multiple times, and every time I enjoy it more. Thanks for the interview, Aubrem!

[auxelle]: Ah, my favourite section of snarry-reader is back! Interesting interview indeed. Thank you Aubrem, and Tara, welcome to LJ!

[dementordelta]:Fabulous interview as always, and it's so nice to see one of my favorite authors on LJ at last!

[aubrem]: LJ is like the borg. Eventually all will be assimilated. : )