interview.

[omona_shi]

Fourth Rose - Please click on the cut below for the interview.

1. Please introduce yourself as an author.

 
Hi, I'm Rose. I wrote fics in the Harry Potter fandom for four years before I switched fandoms two years ago and started writing Bones fic. Besides Harry Potter and Bones, I've written a few crossover parodies that included Discworld, Buffy/Angel, and Twilight. My favorite HP pairing is Harry/Draco, although I've written a few other pairings (both het and slash) as well; with Bones, I write Booth/Brennan almost exclusively. Most of my fics can be found on several fanfic archives (links are in the sidebar of my LJ) under the nick Fourth Rose, but I always post my stories to LJ first. A master list of all my fics on LJ is here.

1. What is writing to you? Is it a medium to express your feelings and vent frustrations, purely a hobby or something to pass time with?

 
I write a lot of non-fiction in my job, but writing fiction is just something I enjoy, so I'd say it's purely a hobby for me. I don't think I would ever want to do it professionally because that would mean I'd have to tailor my writing to the demands of the publishing industry, and I prefer the freedom of writing for fun. I guess the way a writer feels at the time is always going to influence one's writing, but I don't consciously write to express feelings or to work through issues that trouble me. Sometimes, when I reread old fics of mine, I can see how something that was going on in my life at the time influenced my writing, but like I said, it's not something I do deliberately when I'm writing.

1. Were you always good at writing? A lot of aspiring writers worry about this the most- if they have enough talent.

 
I've lived with stories in my head since I can remember; I used to tell them to myself (still do), so at some point it seemed pretty natural to start writing them down, and I was in my early teens when I first started writing fiction. Since I grew up in the pre-internet age, the question whether I should share my stories with a wider audience never came up. I'm honestly grateful for that today because writing, like every other skill, gets better with practice, and I'm pretty glad that nobody ever got to read my earliest attempts. Since I mostly wrote for myself for a long time, I never even asked myself whether I was good at it or not - I enjoyed doing it, and that was enough. I didn't discover online fanfiction until much later in my life, and even though I was intrigued, it took me a while until I felt ready to write stories for a huge audience of strangers - not so much because I was worried whether I had enough talent, but because English isn't my first language, and I had never tried writing fiction in a foreign language before. At some point, though, the "this looks like fun, I want to try this" impulse won out. Whether I'm good at it or not is for my readers to decide.

1. What are your opinions on beta-ing? Have you considered beta reading for others?

 
A good beta is a godsend, and can improve the quality of one's writing like nothing else. Ideally, a beta challenges you - not only by pointing out mistakes, but also by asking questions, by making you think about the way a story is constructed, about characterization and so on without imposing their own ideas on you. To me, the best beta is someone who wants to help me tell the best story I have to tell, not the story they might like to see. I've been lucky enough to have several wonderful betas, and I've learned a lot from them, so they influenced a lot more than just the specific stories they betaed. I've done a bit of beta-reading, but not very much; recently, an author whose writing I like very much has asked me to beta for an upcoming story of theirs, and I'm looking forward to it because I'm pretty sure I'm going to learn a lot in the process as well.

1. What do you normally look for in a good fanfiction you'd like to sit down and read? Or, on the other hand, what would completely turn you off from a fanfic?

 
I prefer character-driven stories, so I guess the main question is whether characterization works for me. I'm willing to accept pretty outlandish scenarios (and I love AUs) as long as I recognize the canon characters. Therefore, OOCness is a huge turnoff for me - I'm aware that much of it is subjective, but as a reader, I'm egocentric that way: if something doesn't work for me, I stop reading. Another issue is whether the storytelling feels genuine to me or whether I feel that the author's main goal is to awe me with their mad skillz. Again, this is entirely subjective, but the moment I feel like I'm supposed to care more about the brilliance of the writer than about the story, it's over. My favorite authors are those who make me care about the characters, but leave it up to me how I feel when I read the story. I also love it when an author has a sense of humor, not only in funny stories, but in their general approach to storytelling as well.

1. Just a quick yes/no question- do you normally give critique? Either in the form of reviews, PMs, blogging, etc.

 
Only if I know the author so that I can be 100% certain they actually want to receive critique. I know that many authors say they welcome concrit, but I've been in fandom for a while now, so I've seen how that turns out sometimes. Besides, serious critique is a lot of work, and I prefer not to waste that on someone who might not actually want it.

1. What can you tell us about your writing style? Do you tend to focus on the dialogue, emotion, or description?

 
Writing dialogue is what comes most naturally to me, so most of my stories tend to be dialogue-heavy. I've lately experimented a bit with a different style that has little to no dialogue, but most of the time, my characters talk a lot - either to someone else or to themselves. Third person limited is my preferred POV, so there's usually quite a bit of internal monologue as well. I'm usually looking at the story through the POV character's eyes, so the way that character would think or feel decides my take on the story. Therefore, emotion is important to me, but it's something that I think should be woven into the narrative instead of presented as a separate issue - if I have to tell my readers how a character feels, i. e. if it didn't already come across in the way the character thinks and acts, I didn't do my job as a writer. Description is definitely my weak point, and I guess it's the reason why I prefer to write character-driven stories instead of plot-heavy action.

1. What do you base your writing on? Pure fiction, or your own experiences?

 
Like I said above, a writer's personal background will always influence their writing, but it's not something I do consciously most of the time. I used background settings I'm familiar with for a few stories, but other than that, I can only think of one of my stories that was a direct result of personal experience - and I only wrote that because it fit the prompt in a fic challenge.

1. What do you think is the problem that writers nowadays have most? If you had that problem, how would you try to solve it?

 
If we're talking fanfic, I guess the biggest issue is usually reader response, i.e. feedback/reviews. I assume it's safe to say that it's something every author wants, because we wouldn't post or stories on the net if we didn't want people to read them, and the dialogue with the readers is one of the main perks of online publishing for me. On the other hand, if the number of reviews is all a writer worries about, it becomes extremely limiting because there will always be genres, pairings, or fandoms that are more popular than others, and in order to maximize the size of your readership you'll have to cater to "mainstream" tastes instead of going wherever your fancy takes you. My personal solution is to write the stories I want to write and to treasure the reviews I get without worrying about their number - for example, I guess I have about a tenth of the readership I had with Harry Potter in the Bones fandom, simply because the fandom is much smaller, but I wouldn't let that stop me from playing in the sandbox that's most appealing to me at the moment.

1. How do you become inspired?

 
I think inspiration is a general state of mind, not something that you can force or switch on when you need it. The stories inside my head are there all the time; it's just a matter of picking one of them and starting to develop it in writing. That decision can be influenced by a lot of things - a fic prompt, a discussion, a canon event that I want to explore further, but I honestly couldn't say how it happens because it's not something I do consciously. Once an idea takes hold, it's like the story is knocking on the inside of my head and demanding to be let out, and at some point, I usually do ;-)

1. How do you begin your stories? What do you think an opening should achieve?

 
The opening of a story should make the reader want to keep reading, so ideally, a story opens with something that piques the reader's curiosity. I think that delving right into the story is therefore the better approach; there's time for background information later, although one has to be careful to avoid the dreaded info dump halfway through the first chapter.

1. What techniques to you use to develop your character/make it believable/move others?

 
The POV character sets the tone, and I try to tell the story in the way that character would see it. I don't think there's a technique I use besides that - I try to stay in character, to keep things true to the character's background, belief system, and general personality, but that's about it; everything that goes further than that would feel forced and presumptuous to me. As a reader, I hate it when I get the impression that the writer is trying to manipulate me into feeling a certain way, so it's not something I would ever want to do as a writer. Storytelling is a dialogue - the writer supplies the story, but the response, emotional or otherwise, is entirely up to the reader. Therefore, I think that a writer's focus should be on the story, not on the way the readers might react to it.

1. How do you write an ending/epilogue? What do you try to do?

 
I usually write the ending first - I need to know where I'm headed before I start a journey, and to me, the same principle applies to storytelling. Each story keeps developing during the writing process, and sometimes it takes unexpected turns, but the ending is always decided before I start writing the rest. I'm a little wary of epilogues because to me, an epilogue should merely close the story that has been told, not sum up a sequel that the author couldn't be bothered to write (JKR, I'm looking at you.) I'm fine with epilogues that give a tiny glimpse into the immediate future because I generally like to keep things a little open-ended, but I've always hated the 'X years later' kind of epilogue because it feels both lazy and conceited to me. Once a story is told, you should let go of it - you shouldn't try to force the readers to imagine the future the way you want them to. One of my betas once told me that one of the most important skills an author can have is to know when to stop writing a story, and it's something I try to live by.

1. What do you think makes a good plot, or how do you develop your own plots?

 
Plot is my biggest weakness, so I don't think I'm the best person to answer this question. To me, the plot is merely the background to the characters' development, which may be a little ironic given that I now write fanfic for a crime procedural (but then, Bones has always been more about the characters than the cases too). If we're talking about the technical aspects, I usually have a pretty detailed outline for my longer stories - one I decide to write a story, I sit down and jot down everything that comes to my mind; then I put things in order and go from there. After deciding on the kind of ending I want, I usually write longer fics in chronological order, and whenever something comes up in a chapter that needs to be revisited or resolved later, it goes into the outline, so the outline tends to be very detailed toward the end.

1. What advice would you give to people with a writer's block in the middle of a lengthy story, or lose interest halfway through?

 
If you seriously lose interest, my advice would be to stop. Writing is something I enjoy, I would never want it to become a chore, and I think it shows in the writing if you force yourself to write something you don't feel anymore. Sometimes it helps to just take a break, but if you still look at the story and go "meh" after that, I'd say let it go. Writer's block, on the other hand, is something I'm struggling with frequently, and I don't think there's a general solution to it. For me, it sometimes helps to just sit down and try writing something, no matter whether it will go into the finished story or not; sometimes I also end up writing a couple of unrelated one-shots that interest me more at the time than the WIP I have going. It's a fine line to walk between giving yourself time to get in the mood again and procrastinating forever, and like I said, I wish I had the perfect solution to that, but unfortunately I don't.

1. Any general tips for the either the newly budding writer or just someone aiming to improve their writing?

 
Read as much as you can, write as much as you like, put your best effort into it but don't ever take it too seriously, and enjoy yourself :-)

-Fin-