Immeritus Interview with Tarafina

Interviews by Fans
Title:	Immeritus Interview with Tarafina
Interviewer:	Pen and Moon
Interviewee:	Tarafina
Date(s):	February 2007
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	Harry Potter
External Links:	interview is here, Archived version
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In 2007, Tarafina was interviewed for Immeritus by Pen and Moon.

Others in the Series

See Immeritus Interview Series.

Some Excerpts

I was put off by fanfics at first; I had no desire to read them. Then one day I just decided to for no particular reason. I was amazed! Here were incredible writers doing nothing but fiddling around with characters I already knew. I only read some of the stuff posted on Immeritus, then, as I made more friends and got more involved in LJ, I found more and more fanfic.

Oh, god, my first couple of fics are horrendous (as, I'm sure are many of the other things I've written! ;) ). I've been writing nearly my entire life and I had NEVER let anyone read any of it (that wasn't done for a school project!), so I was extremely nervous and I'm certain that showed in my writing. It took a lot of support from many of my friends here to post some of it. Feedback, whether it's positive or negative, has been crucial to my writing. I have been fortunate to have excellent betas at my disposal to help me. I learn from my mistakes in writing. For example, I used to have a huge problem with repeating words and since it was pointed out to me, I make a conscious effort to avoid it now as much as possible. I think any writer putting their work out there is silly if they don't want concrit. It can only advance your writing.

I was sucked into slash! I wasn't into it at all when I first started reading fanfic and then it sort of took hold of me, so yes, I think there's a bias towards it. You don't have to read it or enjoy it, but in this fandom it's completely unavoidable. It's affected the work I produce insomuch as I write slash and never thought I'd even read it, let alone write it. I was never against it, I just am the type of shipper that needs to see canon plausibility behind a pairing (unless it's done from an absurd, cracky point of view) and it took me awhile to see how some of the pairings could fit into canon. I honestly have no clue why there's so much male slash. I'm sure there are all sorts of sociological reasons that I could hash out here, but I have no expertise to. The main thing that springs to mind is something I touched on earlier with the focus on male characters in the series. They're the most developed characters, so they're easiest to work with. (Can you tell I really don't know what I'm talking about?)

Like I mentioned before, I've always been very private about my writing, so I've only shared a couple pieces of my fanfic with people not in fandom. It's easier to have people who you don't have to see face-to-face (on a regular basis, at least!) read it. If I were directly asked, I'd not deny it, but it's not something I openly advertise. The main reason is a lot of people don't understand fandom unless they're involved in a fandom of their own. It's really horrible to try to explain fandom to someone who has no sense of what you're on about. Personally, it's not something I'm ashamed of being involved in, but it's not worth the effort trying to explain it. Most of my friends, family, and co-workers know that I'm “really into” HP and that I attended a conference, but truly, they don't know what that actually means because it's not something they're familiar with. Blank stares abound when trying to explain how you can endlessly discuss a series of books.