The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive Interview with darkstar

Interviews by Fans
Title:	The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive Interview with darkstar
Interviewer:	The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Interviewee:	darkstar
Date(s):	September 11, 2001
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	X-Men
External Links:	interview is here, Archived version
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The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive Interview with darkstar was conducted in 2001.

Other Interviews in the Series

See The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive Interview Series.

Some Excerpts

When I first started writing fan fic, it was because I needed the release. My first dabblings in fan fiction were in the X-files universe, a show that is well known for it's twists and cliff hangers. After a while I started to feel that I was going to go insane with the lack of resolution in this episode, or that episode, and so I sat down and started writing my own resolutions. It was bad at first. Very bad. I'm ashamed to even remember my earlier stories-- all of which have found their way into the garbage-- but for some reason or another I kept at it; I had always loved writing anyway, and fan fiction gave me a fascinating new perspective. As time passed, my motivation for writing fan fiction became more and more focused on the craft of writing itself. When I wanted to see if I could write a novel, I wrote a fan fic novel or when I wanted to develop my poetry skills, I wrote fan poetry. The nature of fan fic allows you to hone your writing skill because you don't have to spend time and energy creating a universe. You get to work with prexisting characters in a pre-existing setting and this lets you focus on things like style, plot, and character interpretation. And that, in turn, strengthens your ability to create your own universe when you branch out into regular fiction. So I suppose I write now for the experience. I try to use every story or poem I write as an exploration of something I didn't know before, or didn't know as well.

If I had to pick my two top fields of inspiration, I would say that they are music and literature/film. Certain melodies or phrases or scenes in movies just seem to set the Muse on fire. For example, Save The Last Dance For Me was influenced by the song Run To The Water (by Live) and also by the movies Schindler's List, and Romeo + Juliet. A weird combination, I know, but then again, they're usually pretty weird. Other fanfic inspires me quite frequently, usually more for poetry than for prose. My most recent poem "Sister, Go Home" was inspired by "A Rougher Ride", a story which was part of Terri's Alter-Eighteen series. But at the same time, almost every story or poem is influenced to a degree by something I've seen, or talked about, or dreamed. I guess you could compare it to a mosiac. One fragment of tile might be from a song, one might be from a book, one might be from a sign I saw on the way to school. They all come to together in a new way to form inspiration for a story.

My poetry, I think, sharpens my prose because in poetry you have to be so much more intense and focused than regular prose writing demands. Every word has to mean something, and not just anything, one perfect meaning that will convey exactly what you want to say. Over the years, I have tried to transfer this to my prose. So that's a similarity-- both require exact words and descriptions. They are also similar, at least for me, in that good poetry and good prose will both present life at an angle you haven't seen it before, in a way you haven't heard before. It doesn't have to be a brilliant, huge revelation. It's more about changing the way people look at common, everyday things. The differences lie mainly in scope. Prose allows for more complexity of plot and character development; it's a bigger canvas to paint on. Poetry is more about character exploration and examination of crucial moments within plots. And the writing style itself is different. Even poetic prose is more sparse and economical than poetry. That's the danger of being both a poet and a prose writer-- I have to make sure my writing doesn't start to sound melodramatic and over-poetic. Overall, however, the distinctions between the two aren't as clear as they once were in literature. Thanks to the advent of free verse and other modern poetry forms, we have poetry that reflects prose and in turn prose that reflects poetry.