The apocrypha Interview: WaterWitch
| Interviews by Fans | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The apocrypha Interview: WaterWitch |
| Interviewer: | Kitteridge |
| Interviewee: | WaterWitch |
| Date(s): | fall/winter 1997 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom(s): | Law & Order |
| External Links: | apocrypha: author interview, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The apocrypha Interview: WaterWitch is a 1997 interview conducted by Kitteridge for the Law & Order zine apocrypha.
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- The apocrypha Interview: Michelle M. Leslie
- The apocrypha Interview: Susianne Baptiste
- The apocrypha Interview: WaterWitch
Introduction
"McCoy stretched his shoulders, trying to ease the cramp that had developed during the past hour. The cold wasn't helping, and his hands were tingling from the Harley's vibration. One at a time he lifted them from the rubber grips, alternately squeezing them into fists, then releasing. It would have been easier with the gloves off, but it was foolish to ride without them, even more foolish to try and remove them at this speed. After repeating the action several times, he resumed the normal two-handed driving stance."
So begins "...And Sometimes We Remember," WaterWitch's novel-length Law & Order fan fiction. Sending Jack McCoy off into the sunset with his Harley and then back into his difficult past years, WaterWitch has crafted a unique and compelling tale, one which not only gives us some love interest, but also tells a satisfying story. At this point, that novel, a "biography" of Jack McCoy, and her submission to last month's debut of apocrypha, called "Intermezzo," completes her oveure, but there are many good things planned for the future. A former journalist and newspaper editor, WaterWitch seemed like an ideal candidate to approach about writing, and fan fiction in general, for this first apocrypha author interview.
Excerpts
What do you get personally out of writing fanfic?
To be writing anything again - including email - is tremendously satisfying. The words and ideas churn and burn and beg - demand - to be let out. Maybe your use of "drove" explains it best. It's not the attention or the accolades ... for the record not one person emailed me about ASWR after it was completely online, though several asked for the chapters which had not been html'd before that.
...Was it harder to read fanfic after you started writing it?
Harder? I find it physically difficult to read online, so some things I print out to read, others I struggle through. But that's not what you meant, I think. I find myself "arguing" with other authors sometimes, if it's about a character I have defined to my satisfaction. Plagiarism is always a boogeyman ... even unconscious plagiarism. I took some of your physical descriptions (the eighth floor for example), because I knew you had visited the set and believed they came from the show. I learn now that they were your creation and I, in effect, stole them. I care more about that than stealing the characters from Dick Wolf. No, I can't explain it, except we're all stealing from Wolf.
How do you reply to Law & Order Executive Producer and Head Writer Rene Balcer's comment in The New York Times that "some fan fiction...seems to be elaborate fantasies involving them and one of the characters"?
I reply with: "Dear Mr. Balcer - I am functionally illiterate. It wasn't me." Deny as one wants, some of what I've read cannot be defined any way other than Balcer's. So what? TPTB [The Powers That Be] have two choices, I think: leave us alone or make us go away. Letting us continue to write, but monitoring the quality - a third option - seems too silly. "You can steal Mike Logan, but he better not ever get married," kind of thing. So leave us alone (for pleasure not profit) or sue our britches off. And win, of course, because we are a larcenous little lot. "Dear Mr. Balcer - the cat is one hell of a mouser, and the only thing not already attached."