The Fanfic Maverick: Interview With Fanfiction Writer Storyshark2005

Podcast Episode
The Fanfic Maverick
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Episode Title:	The Fanfic Maverick: Interview With Fanfiction Writer Storyshark2005
Length:	1:24:50
Featured:	Storyshark2005, ChaosBlue
Date:	January, 2021
Focus:	Discussions about themes of love, loss, death, and grief in Storyshark2005's fic 'The Book of Job,' and geeking out over Lawrusso.
Fandom:	The Witcher
External Links:	Episode at The Fanfic Maverick
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

The Fanfic Maverick: Interview With Fanfiction Writer Storyshark2005 is a podcast episode by ChaosBlue.

For others in the series, see The Fanfic Maverick.

Introduction

In this episode I interview fanfiction writer Storyshark2005 about her Cobra Kai fic 'The Book of Job.' She shares her discovery of fanfiction in the old dial-up internet days, her early writing projects on FFN, and her love for the YouTube/Netflix series Cobra Kai. We discuss themes of love, loss, death, and grief in her fic 'The Book of Job,' ruminate on Biblical epigraphs, and geek out over Lawrusso. Storyshark2005 offers some writing advice and shares details about her own amazing fanfiction podcast 'Talkin FanFic.'

Links

Fanworks discussed

• The Book of Job [1] by Storyshark2005 - The main fanfic discussed during the episode
• (No) Mercy for the Midlife Crisis [2] by Storyshark2005 - Storyshark's first Cobra Kai work, frequently discussed during the episode.

Other Links

• Episode and links to fanworks and articles: 3: Interview With Fanfiction Writer Storyshark2005
• Tumblr Promotional Post
• Storyshark2005's podcast, Talkin' Fanfic

Topics Discussed

• Storyshark's fannish history, from their early works on Fanfiction.net through to discovering the Cobra Kai fandom and becoming deeply involved in it.
• Writing about grief, loss, trauma and recovery and writing about characters dealing with deep-rooted issues involving the absence of their fathers.
• Different approaches to writing and working both from an outline and deviating from it.

Excerpts

ChaosBlue: Our special guest author today is Storyshark2005. Storyshark2005 has been a member of AO3 since 2016 and has posted a total of 18 fanfictions, in the following fandoms: Star Trek, Supernatural, Silicon Valley, Jessica Jones, Karate Kid, and Cobra Kai. She grew up in the American Midwest, and describes herself as having a kind of in-between sensibility. Her interest in writing began in middle school, when a teacher told her that her writing was good and inspired her into writing more. So, kudos to that teacher, by the way, because I totally agree. Storyshark2005 discovered Cobra Kai in 2019 and calls that finding her home and passion. Her first multi-chapter Cobra Kai project was '(No) mercy for the midlife crisis', which was co-written with her sister. Storyshark describes that story as the fanfiction that helped her prove to herself that she could finish the large scale project which I think is a huge accomplishment worth celebrating.

ChaosBlue: I want to jump in here right to the interview and I want to start at the very beginning. Can you tell us about the time that you first discovered fanfiction? Do you remember how that felt? And do you remember why you liked it?

Storyshark2005: Yeah, I do. That... it's so funny. Thinking about what year it is and then what year that was... as far as I can remember that was about 1999, because the first fanfiction I remember was for Star Wars when the prequels came out. The Phantom Menace and I was... so I was like nine, which is crazy. I'm 30 now, but there was a book series called Jedi Apprentice. And it was focused on Obi Wan Kenobi as, like, a young student Jedi. So my sister and I just burned through those. And we live in a rural area and we're getting... I think we got dial up internet right about the same time. Um, so it was like slow, you know, it sounded when you logged on... it sounded like a submarine, kind of.

ChaosBlue: I remember those days. The dark days of the Internet, right?

Storyshark2005: Oh my gosh, and I have no idea how I stumbled upon it. But I remember... I don't even think it was fanfiction.net. I think it was some kind of archive it was like, Oh crap, what was it called? The force.net, maybe? Something like that or Oh! Jedi Apprentice fan dimension. That was one. And I remember, yeah, just saying like, 'Oh my gosh, like people are writing about the characters I love and they're writing their own stories'. Like it just blew the back of my head off. I just couldn't believe that this world existed and it was, you know, I'm just a book person and a person that lives in fiction, and I love escapism and imagination. And so it was everything that I was hoping to find.

ChaosBlue: Today we will be talking specifically about your fanfiction story, 'The Book of Job'. If someone who's never read your story before would ask you what The Book of Job is about, how would you describe that to them? Storyshark2005: I would say that it is a story about grief. So, I did I kill a couple characters off in the beginning. I don't think it's a spoiler. I kill off Amanda and Anthony, who I love by the way. So Daniel loses half this family. And then it is a romance between Daniel and Johnny, and Sam and Robbie are the other characters in it. So, it is about loss and grief and healing. And it's a romance and then it's also just about reckoning and I think when I finally finish it... It's terrible, I haven't finished it, it's a work in progress. But the last kind of... the last two or three chapters are going to be more about a kind of reckoning with the past that maybe you thought you had dealt with. The light or the grief that Daniel thinks at that point in the story that he's dealt with, but he hasn't really quite dealt with it. So I don't have a great summary. But yeah, it's about, you know, loss and trying to try to move on from that.