Quidditch Pitch Interview with Minisinoo
| Interviews by Fans | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Interview with Minisinoo |
| Interviewer: | The Quidditch Pitch |
| Interviewee: | Minisinoo |
| Date(s): | March 2008 |
| Medium: | Online |
| Fandom(s): | Harry Potter |
| External Links: | Interview at TQP (archive link) |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
In 2008, Minisinoo was interviewed for The Quidditch Pitch for her story Nature & Destiny being selected as Editor's Choice for the month of March.
See Quidditch Pitch Interview Series.
Some Excerpts
I backed into [writing fan fiction] with X-Men. I'd been aware of fanfic for a while, but in RL I write what gets labeled "ethnic literary mainstream" -- not a genre that sees a lot of fanfic! What I knew of it came via friends who published in SF/F, and that was largely negative. Of course, even 15 years ago, fanfic was far less mainstream and few pro authors thought well of it. But I stumbled over an X-Files story while hunting information about the conspiracy arc, thought "What the hay ...," and opened it. As luck would have it, I'd found Lydia Bower, then one of the better Mulder/Scully writers. I continued to read X-Files fanfic off and on for several years, but had no desire to write any as enough people were already writing what I wanted to read.In 2000, the X-Men film came out even as X-Files was fading. Fascinated by Cyclops, I went looking for stories -- but for the first time, didn't find what I wanted to read. So in a fit of frustration, I sat down to pen my own -- a novel called Heyoka. It dealt with themes I addressed in my original fiction and included several original characters as well, so I suppose you could say I brought my "security blanket" with me into fanfic. Yet I knew from reading in X-Files that a long story with OCs by an unknown author would be regarded with great suspicion -- and it was. I didn't care; I was frustrated and wanted to get the story out of my head. At the time, I never expected to stick around, much less be writing fanfic 8 years later!
I wrote for X-Men about 6 years, produced 6 novels, 7 novellas, a couple novelettes, and some short stories. Yes, I'm a bit prolix! Being a novelist by trade, the bulk of my word-count in any fandom will be long stories because the plots my brain comes up with take space to work themselves out. In 2005 X-Men 3 killed my love for that fandom; I had no new stories to tell. A few months later, the Goblet of Fire film was released, and I was struck by Amos Diggory's reaction to his son's death. As the mother of an only son myself, the actor's portrayal brought home the parents' grief the book didn't portray well (being written from Harry's POV). Inspired, I wrote "The Best Thing I Ever Did." Yet to do so, I had to think more about Cedric, not just Amos, and began to fall in love with that character.
[Do you think fandom is dying off with the end of the books?:]Slowly, yes. I doubt it'll actually die for many, many years, but it is losing momentum ... although that's probably not noticeable in the more popular pairings. Having watched two fandoms fade before, IME, the place one sees erosion first is "at the edges" -- less popular pairings and characters. They're the "canary in the coal mine," and in HP, several have begun to diminish compared to just a year ago.
So yes, I think it's almost inevitable that it will fade, although to what degree and how rapidly remains to be seen. All good things must come to an end. :(