Winterfest Interview with Becky Bain
| Interviews by Fans | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Winterfest Interview with Becky Bain |
| Interviewer: | Winterfest |
| Interviewee: | Becky Bain |
| Date(s): | 2005 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom(s): | Beauty and the Beast |
| External Links: | Becky Bain Interview, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
In 2005, Becky Bain was interviewed for Winterfest.
See Winterfest Interview Series.
Some Excerpts
I saw some of the initial publicity for B&B, but didn't think it was something I would like. There had recently been a series called "The Charmings" which I thought was really trite and poorly-done, and I thought this was just another fairy-tale rip-off. But then my boss at the time mentioned it as a show he and his wife really enjoyed, so I figured I'd give it a try. Fifteen minutes into my first episode, I was entranced! And it really bugs me that I cannot remember which episode this was! Mid-first season, it would have been, but I have no memory at all of any details.
I have always written stories, but it had never occurred to me that I could "borrow" from an established universe. But my imagination was completely drawn into the world of B&B, and I just couldn't seem to help thinking up stories! So I started writing them down, with truly no idea that other people were out there doing the same thing! I had never heard of fan fiction.
I'm a big fan of angst – I love to read it and love to write it! And as a reader, I have little patience for stories that are called, in some circles, PWPs (which stands for Plot? What Plot? – because there isn't one!). So I generally don't write those. Although I think there are a couple out there from long ago! But I like getting my characters into some kind of trouble and then seeing how they get themselves back out of it. I think it's the difficulties that make the stories interesting, and I really like it if someone tells me I made them cry, or that they stayed up too late reading because they had to be sure everything came out okay!
I don't mind making the characters suffer, not because it's character-building for them, but because without them suffering, I have no story! And of course, I do know it'll be okay (on some level) at the end.
Sue and I both lived in the Denver metro area at the time, and became friends after meeting at one of the Denver B&B group's meetings. The pen name is Sue's daughter's middle name – Lee – and my younger daughter's middle name – Kirkland. We weren't sure how the stories in the Where the Rainbow Ends series would be received, so we were protecting our anonymity! <g> We used to have interminable phone conversations, and I'm sure it was during one of these that we started "what if-ing" about how Catherine and Vincent should have a life together. I remember much agonizing about the two younger children's names – naming the older boys after the two grandfathers was pretty simple – but we did finally come up with Evan and Victoria, which we both really liked. We did some things in person, but a lot over the phone, since we lived about twenty miles apart and we both had small children. I grew a lot as a writer during that time, and I credit Sue with helping me do that!
Crossovers happen when you can think of a really good reason for the character(s) in Series A to interact with the character(s) in Series B. By its very nature, Quantum Leap lent itself to crossovers. I credit Sue with the original idea. It was early 1990, Quantum Leap was brand new, and Beauty and the Beast was winding down or perhaps had just finished its abbreviated third season. And Sue said, "Sam should leap into the tunnels." "Good idea," I answered. "Who should he leap into?" And we played with that a while. Mouse was a fun candidate, but really Vincent was the most compelling choice. And… I still can't believe, all these years later, that I said this… I said, "But Vincent can do practically anything, and Sam would have to leap in to do something Vincent couldn't. What couldn't Vincent do?" Remember the time. And Sue said, sounding sort of exasperated (I think she couldn't believe I was this dense!), "Think about it!"
Duh. Vincent couldn't save Catherine.
The QB sequels mostly came about because people wrote us letters saying, "What's Vincent doing in the Waiting Room while Sam's saving Catherine?" and "Wait! What happens after they get back to the tunnels? You can't stop it there!"
Timeless came about because I was newly fascinated with Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, and one of the observations I had was how much Clark and Vincent were alike. And since L&C already had parallel-universe-hopping as part of its canon, that made it easy to send Lois and Clark into the New York City of B&B. I had a lot of fun with that, and in addition to being my last B&B story, it was my first L&C story....
The difficulties in writing crossovers is that now you've got two universes and sets of characters to keep straight and true to the originals. I had a lot of trouble with Clark when writing Timeless because I hadn't written him before, and he kept talking like Vincent. And while I do think the two characters have a lot of similarities, speech patterns aren't one of them! But we did finally work that out (after I backed Clark into a corner and gave him a stern talking-to). The easy part is, you don't have to make as much up, because it's already been done for you!
Some of that was just sheer perverseness, because when I wrote it (1997), some of the "season wars" were still going on, and doggone it, nobody's going to tell me I can or can't write something! Even though I'm Classic at heart, I always liked the character of Diana Bennett. And as I've said, I like angst. And I'm not sure, but there may have been a "well, Vincent might be able to love Diana, but not if Catherine were alive!" thing going on somewhere online, and did I mention I can be perverse? So I decided I wanted to write a "SND but Diana gets the beast anyway" story. And in order to make that happen, I had to try to level the playing field, so Diana had to have Vincent's baby. And then I found out I couldn't make the playing field completely level, because Diana's been with Catherine's son all this time and Catherine hasn't. I am pleased with the way that story turned out (and expected to get hate mail for it, and never did!) even though my personal preference is for a Classic resolution. And I did feel sorry for Vincent, because I think he was terribly torn between the two women he loved, the two mothers of his children!
I didn't really find any difference between writing one season versus another. It's the same world, and the same characters, and I love angst, which 3S has built in.
I decided to post my B&B stories online because the fanzines in which they appeared were out of print, so new fans couldn't get them. I chose the Beauty and the Beast Reading Chamber (aka BBRC ) partly because it is an all-season site, and that's important to me, and partly because I was one of the people urging Jackie Newman, who runs it, to set it up! After all that, I felt morally obliged to submit my stories there. <g> I also act as a general editor for the BBRC, which is sort of loosely based on the Lois & Clark Fanfic Archive, which is truly wonderful because virtually every L&C story ever written can be found there.