NovaD
| Fan | |
|---|---|
| Name: | D. L. Warner |
| Alias(es): | NovaD |
| Type: | |
| Fandoms: | Star Trek: Voyager, The Sentinel |
| Communities: | |
| Other: | |
| URL: | novad.org/index.html, novad.org |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
NovaD
Some Fanworks
Some 2000 Comments on Writing
From a project called Writers and Writing:
[Why do you write? Who or what inspired you?]:Why do I write? Well, I don't want to sound like a cliche, but I write because I have to. I've had a notebook in my hand since I was very young. I wrote my first "novel" at 12 years old(it was a whole 40 pages). My mind creates people and spins tales in my head. Eventually, I have to write them down. It becomes especially troublesome when particular characters are demanding attention. Writing is what I do when other people are pursuing hobbies. I don't play computer or video games, I don't paint. I have an active social life, but there are times when I resent my real life job and anything else that keeps me from spending time with my characters and their adventures.
I write when I'm in love or when I'm in a dry spell. I write when I'm happy or depressed. I don't have a muse. I just get a notion in my head and eventually, it finds its way into a story. Where fanfic is concerned, I am an extrapolator of storylines and character. I do that with almost everything I look at. I'm a 24 hour Mystery Science Theater 3000 with everything from the news to soap operas. Most of those don't result in stories, but strange references will wind up in the most unusual places in my fanfic. A series would have to really inspire me to write a story around them.
I'm on my way to being able to write for a living. Not that it matters. I'll write even if I'm never paid.
[How does your very first fanfic differ from your latest work? How do you feel about that first attempt?]: I have only been writing fanfic for five years though I've been a writer for over twenty years. I began writing The Secret Logs of Mistress Janeway to overcome writer's block I was experiencing while trying to finish a movie script. I had been advised by a mentor to write anything that interested me at all to keep writing. Eventually, I would get back on track with the script. That worked for me. So, it began as a writing exercise and I suppose that's how I still view it. Fanfic give me an opportunity to experiment with my writing in a way that RL writing does not, because I'm not expecting it to go any further than the web and I don't have to answer to any one else's specs.As I wrote my first logs, my main focus was on getting the characters as close to what I saw on screen as possible while giving them the twisted spin I needed to make the story work. Along with that, I was mainly interested in how to seduce each of the characters into Janeway's circle. I had to construct scenarios that suited their personalities. Then, I was concerned with how to have these personalities interact with each other and still remain true to the characters I saw on screen. From there, I was interested in answering individual episodes or themes during a given season of Voyager. I could play with these characters in a way that wouldn't be allowed if I were trying to sell a script. So I really stretched the stories to absurdity and back. That's been a lot of fun.
Of late, I've been experimenting with voice. The last few logs and the one I'm writing currently are at their heart, exercises in writing in another voice. In the last one, I had to keep even the grammar of the non-dialogue paragraphs in the way that Picard would write.
So while my writing hasn't changed that much since the first story, my focus has and those experiments have helped my RL writing overall.
[How does your very first fanfic differ from your latest work? How do you feel about that first attempt?]: The cannon character I write most about is Captain Kathryn Janeway. It was, in fact, her attitude on screen which made me start writing the Secret Logs in the first place. During the first season she would stand on the Bridge with her hands on her hips growling out orders. In my mind's eye, I could hear some of the crewmen responding with "yes, Mistress." That got my warped little brain thinking and the rest is a web page with over 40 entries.
I'm attracted to her as a character because she's a tiny woman who comes off very strong and powerful in canon. While the show has often shown her vulnerable side, there have only been glimpses of the playful, saucy side. I've followed Kate Mulgrew's work for years and have enjoyed her in interviews long before she came to Voyager. I know there is a very provocative side to her. She could be as sexually compelling as Kirk or Picard and I don't buy the big moral dilemma of a female captain being hesitant to take a lover. Something about how she is all hemmed up and prim and proper galls me. It's as though when a woman becomes a Starfleet Captain, she also becomes a nun. In that situation for all those years, no one in Starfleet would fault her for having a lover amongst the crew. I believe that she would end up in therapy for denying herself. Thus, I have provided them for her in my fiction.
And though it is for the sex that the Secret Logs are known, I actually enjoy giving her a chance to have a sense of humor more. My Janeway is more sardonic and wry than the one on screen. And frankly, I think my Voyager crew is having more fun all around.
[What is it about the pairing you care so much about. State why - especially if it's not a canon pairing - you feel your characters should be in a relationship. Do you feel that TPTB failed/succeeded in developing thatrelationship satisfactorily?]: Although the primary ongoing relationship in the Secret Logs of Mistress Janeway is with Chakotay, she has relationships with the members of her circle of slaves as well. That would be Kim, Paris, Torres and Seven. I'll get to those in a moment.
It's widely agreed that TPTB have dropped the ball with Janeway/Chakotay. The chemistry was there from the beginning of the series. Now it's become that thing that's there that no one wants to talk about like an elephant at a dinner party. I've spent a lot of time adding depth and permanence to their relationship in my stories. I've set it so that no matter what the show does on screen, the relationship plausibly endures in my fiction. It's such a waste because someone in Janeway's position needs the strength and serenity of someone with Chakotay's personality. And how do I have such a loving relationship going on while Janeway is involved with a circle of sex slaves under her command? That's where Chakotay's very wry sense of humor comes in. He allows others to share her body knowing that only he really knows her intimately with all her vulnerabilities and that she will never really leave him.
As for the other pairings in my Logs, I begin with the relationship between Janeway and each crewman that is on screen, then I make it very naughty. With Kim the relationship began as nurturing as the Ensign matured, so did his role with her in the Circle. She eventually trusted him enough to allow him to seduce Seven into the Circle. With Tom, she began and occasionally returns to being a staunch disciplinarian, but otherwise she is very nurturing with him as well. As in the show, the way to Torres was showing her friendship then trusting her with responsibility. Janeway carefully and lovingly seduces her into the Circle then begins to train her as a Mistress. And with Seven, it remains a mix of compassion and support and stern discipline.
There is a lot of fine chemistry amongst the characters on Voyager. If they aren't going to have fun with it, I'm more than glad to.