TrekGirl Interview with Jane St Clair
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| Interviews by Fans | |
|---|---|
| Title: | TrekGirl Interview with Jane St. Clair |
| Interviewer: | Annie M. |
| Interviewee: | Jane St. Clair |
| Date(s): | November 2000 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom(s): | Star Trek |
| External Links: | interview is here; reference link |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Jane St. Clair was interviewed for the website TrekGirl.
"Author of Softly, Wednesday Morning, 3am, A Kiss on the Body Electric, Iowa, Comme si de rien n'etait and more."
Interview Series
- TrekGirl Interview with D'Alaire
- TrekGirl Interview with DangerMom
- TrekGirl Interview with Dave Rogers
- TrekGirl Interview with J Winter
- TrekGirl Interview with Jane St Clair
- TrekGirl Interview with Jungle Kitty
- TrekGirl Interview with m.c. moose
Excerpts
I wrote my first fanfic story at the age of nine; it was Trek (TNG) and featured a seriously Mary Sue female. Then I stopped and didn't think about fanfic again until late 1997, when the concepts of fandom and fanfic was explained to me by a newly acquired friend in the course of a very long bus ride. I posted my first fanfic piece in January of 1998. Since then, I've written fanfic in TOS and Voyager (and crossovers into TNG), X-Files, Star Wars Ep I, and Velvet Goldmine. I have ideas and fragments of stories for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Highlander, Hard Core Logo, and Lawrence of Arabia (but don't count on 'em ever being finished or anything).
Well, at the moment my preferred fandom is Phantom Menace, but in the Trekverse, it's TOS. Both for pretty much the same reasons. They were the universes of my childhood fantasies, but they also have a very autumnal feel to them, because they represent a "previous" generation, and so everything is coloured with the understanding that "this too shall pass." I think it also gives them a bit of an epic tinge, in that characters who come later in the chronology are aware that these were their larger-than-life fore bearers. Plus I like how easily I can incorporate ritualistic elements into them (Jedi tradition and Spock's Vulcan-ness both lend themselves to that nicely).
[favorite pairings]: Kirk/Spock, because their relationship is tinged with Spock's semi-alien consciousness, and because I can see it as the driving force behind more than a couple of events in the movies. And because they get old. I find that fascinating: usually, fanfic characters are young, or deliberately made younger to please the author and/or audience. I'd rather have them middle-aged or older. And to a lesser extent, Janeway/Seven of Nine, because I'm fascinated by the power issues between them. And because Seven's almost complete lack of socialization makes her a strange being who I think is unlikely to fall into the kind of conventional sexuality that the show's writers keep providing for her.
I know I've found a readable fanfic story when I can't substitute names, change a handful of details, and produce a story in a different fandom.Other than that, I love angst. I'm a total angst-junkie, but not if it's gratuitous. I'd rather have a brilliantly characterized bout of nobody-loves-me than a lengthy but questionable torture piece.
I'll read anything that's extremely well-written, regardless of content.
You'll find angst here and there in my writing, yes. I make no claims as to quality. <g>
[Trek TPTB's lack of dealing with homosexuality on the show]: Only to the extent that it represents a lack of maturity on their part. By not acknowledging that their characters might not be straight, they keep the show in a kind of terminal adolescence, where boys and girls make eyes at each other only. Besides that, they frequently don't do justice to the performances their actors offer. In at least a couple of cases (Julian Bashir on DS9, Seven of Nine on Voyager), the need to push the character into heterosexuality reduces them to two-dimensional cut-outs. I haven't got the faintest idea what might convince TPTB to change their minds, since I haven't got much faith in the American media in general where portrayals of homosexuality are concerned. Sell Trek to Warner, maybe, and let the makers of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' have a got at it. They seem to be doing fairly well.