Hatstand Interview with Helen Raven

Interviews by Fans
Title:	Hatstand Interview with Helen Raven
Interviewer:	Metabolick
Interviewee:	Helen Raven
Date(s):	December 2010
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	The Professionals
External Links:	interview is here, Archived version
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

A 2010 interview with Helen Raven is at The Hatstand.

For others in this series, see Hatstand Interview Series.

Some Excerpts

I am Helen Raven, dormant slash writer... [I use the name] Helen Raven, mainly, with my first story under my own name, and my next-to-last story under the name of Wild Horses.....My first story ever was a very short Star Trek story that appeared under my own name, and I've also written Pride and Prejudice and Angel fic.

I'd seen the odd episode here and there when it was first shown on UK TV, but had dismissed it as being far too macho (clearly not aimed at me). Some time after I first formed this impression of Pros I got heavily into Star Trek slash, and I remember walking into a room where "Mixed Doubles" was playing, taking one look at the screen and thinking, "I know exactly what is going on between those two," (because the slashiness was unmistakable), but the CI5 setup just wasn't something I was interested in. A few years after that, in about 1983, when I was still heavily into Trek, I saw an ad in a newsletter from a fan a few miles away from me in London who was selling her Trek slash zines. I cycled over that Saturday morning on the off-chance that she was in (I needed those zines), and it turned out that one of the reasons she was selling the zines was that she was getting out of Trek and into Pros (she was Rob, BTW, of "Waiting to Fall"). A fannish friend who was visiting her that weekend insisted that I read some of the Circuit stories, which I did to humour her, thinking, "Oh, for goodness sake. I'm not interested in these guys. I don't ever know which one is which." However, by the end of Meg Wright's "That Little Twinkle" I was definitely interested, and I spent the next few months cycling back and forth between Balham and Dulwich with the contents of Rob's Pros library in my panniers (and steadily losing interest in those Trek zines that I had spent so much of my student grant on).

It's been a while since there have been any stories pestering me to write them. In the past, my inspiration probably came mostly from other fans, either in conversation or via their writing. "Tailor-Made" grew from a throw-away remark from a friend about the "fatal attraction" that Bodie held for other men. And "Heat-Trace" was a two-year effort to get Frankie's "Brother's Keeper" out of my head.

"The Cook and the Warehouseman" is the story that I've re-read most often, but that's partly because it's the easiest read, i.e. the least demanding emotionally. I do find it very entertaining and satisfying and there are some lines that still make me giggle to myself over ten years later ("As my uncle says, 'There's nothing so strange it won't pay good money to try a new kind of jam.'"), but really it's a piece of fluff, and I feel I should be speaking up for something that's more...ambitious.

My favourite writer is Sebastian, though I'm reluctant to choose a single favourite story of hers. Her characterisation of them and their interaction is so real and raw (and male) that it can make my skin tingle with a kind of social discomfort. I don't have what it takes to write them that vividly or honestly, and I know my boys are a smoothed off and simplified version.

About the effect that the internet and changes in fannish use of the internet have had on the writing process. I've mentioned that I've had to go back to writing longhand because I can't deal with the distractions that the internet offers, but I've also found that the internet can make you feel rather lonely if you're plugging away for months or years at a long story -- all the while watching your friendslist bonding like crazy over the drabbles they've been writing for each other. The effort of writing the novel is the same as it was in the days of print fandom, but back then you couldn't see just how many parties were going on without you.

[Regarding someone else rewriting an ending or doing a sequel, unauthorized or with permission of one of my stories]: I'm the last person who could get snotty about this, since I've done it three times (twice with permission and once without). If someone did it to me I'd probably feel both flattered and apprehensive, and would need to remind myself at least once that I have no right at all to attempt to control how people react to my work once I release it -- as long as they don't try to present my work as their own. I'd probably be cautious about reading the story, and would ask friends who had read it whether or not I should risk it. I think it would have the potential to be upsetting and to take over my thoughts for days, and I'm under no obligation to open myself up to that -- just as the other writer would be under no obligation to refrain from writing her story just because I might not be thrilled with it.