The Doctor Who Fanfic Review Interview: Samchandler1986

Interviews by Fans
Title:	The Doctor Who Fanfic Review Interview: Samchandler1986
Interviewer:
Interviewee:	Samchandler1986
Date(s):	May 5, 2015
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	Doctor Who
External Links:	Samchandler1986 Part One, Archived version Samchandler1986 Part Two, Archived version
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The Doctor Who Fanfic Review Interview: Samchandler1986 was posted at The Doctor Who Fanfic Review on May 5, 2015.

See: The Doctor Who Fanfic Review Interview Series.

Some Excerpts

TDWFR: Twelve and Clara are intimate in Quintuplet but you haven’t actually written the sex itself. We think your fic is perfect how it is and leaves the reader to imagine much for themselves. It is a lovely, tasteful way of writing. While there is a place for smut, do you think that you will continue to write in the ‘romance’ genre this way?

Samchandler1986: The short answer would be yes, because I find smut very difficult to write well and I’m publishing primarily through fanfiction.net which doesn’t have a MA rating category. I’m aware of my natural tendency to dwell on details obsessively – removing passages of superfluous description and cutting back to the dialogue is always the first edit I carry out on any piece of my work. Writing smut tends to bring out my tendency towards purple prose, or I can go too far the other way and write something that sounds like a mechanical description. It’s a challenge for me as a writer that I’m continuing to grapple with. More specific to the Who fandom; a huge part of the appeal of writing about/from the POV of the Doctor is his alien nature for me. It’s difficult to write intimate scenes and not lose some of that extra-terrestrial strangeness, unless the point of the smut is to explore alien anatomy. A number of clever writers have managed to do it - Levendis’s “Come Back in Two Halves” is an absolutely brilliant example of using smut as a tool to explore how the Doctor’s human appearance is really just a façade, for example. But at the moment, I don’t have a unique perspective to add, which is what would drive me to write something that doesn’t “fade to black” at the appropriate moment. If I do have an idea in the future though, I would happily dip a toe in the smut waters. I’ve got tumblr and A03 to publish on now, and the only way to get better at writing it is to get feedback.

TDWFR: Would you agree that writing fanfic gives us a chance to explore some truly alien worlds and people without the confines of what is possible with the TV series?

Samchandler1986: Oh yes, and Insomnia is absolutely a fanfic designed to do this! It’s a chance to let the characters loose in some scenarios that would be completely beyond the BBC budget. I think the makers of the show do an incredible job in establishing the wonder and strangeness of the Universe with what they have, but the beauty of writing is being completely unfettered in terms of the worlds you can build.

My professional background is archaeology, so I’d extend this to history as well. There’s a tendency to populate the past with people that, given a different haircut and a pair of jeans, would fit right in to the 21st century without much difficulty (Robin Hood - I’m looking at you). For a family orientated TV show that needs to quickly engage the viewer, I can understand why this is. But I’d love to see the characters confront some of the different ways of thinking about and being in the world that the past presents. I really though The Pandorica Opens was going to do this when I first saw the pictures emerge – oh, it gave me chills seeing the Doctor amongst the circle at Stonehenge! But ultimately it was just a nice looking backdrop for something completely unconnected to the real monument, which felt like a missed opportunity. I like to see the past used as more than just set-dressing, and fanfiction writers generally do a much better job of that than the show can.

TDWFR: What tips and encouragement can you give to those who would like to write fanfic but haven’t yet taken the plunge?

Samchandler1986: Dooooo it! Get your ideas out of your head and onto a page. If all you have are little vignettes, don’t worry. Fanfiction is a great vehicle for writing short scenes and honing your technical skill without needing to have a whole novel’s worth of plot planned out.

I started writing fanfiction as a teenager for the Stargate SG1 fandom and was quite nervous about engaging with writing communities on the internet; I avoided it for a long time. Don’t be scared of putting your work out there. The major platforms like fanfiction.net are a good way to connect with readers and other writers and get constructive criticism (and it’s easy to stay safe there and not reveal personal details to the Internet that you don’t want to). Try not to feel too hurt if people don’t like everything you create – it’s a learning experience that will make your next piece even better. Ultimately if you enjoyed imagining it and writing it down, it was absolutely worth doing.