Team Interviews: taste_is_sweet
Name: taste_is_sweet, also known as Leah
Team: War!
Let's talk about: taste_is_sweet!
1. How long have you been writing fan fiction?
Kind of forever. When I was a little kid, I would end up telling my sister what we called 'superhero stories' for hours on end, all about the characters from our favorite cartoons, specifically G-Force (the Anime, not the Guinea Pigs) and Super Friends (Wondertwin powers activate!).
2. Have you participated or are you participating in any other fandoms?
I got to SGA via Star Trek: Enterprise, believe it or not. That was my first 'official' fandom, where I was part of a Yahoo Group run by the marvelous wpadmirer. Luckily, most of my friends from that show jumped into SGA, so I followed. :)
3. What fanwork are you most proud of? Or, what is your favourite of your fanworks? (links, please!)
Good question. I've actually been thinking about this one for days. There are a lot of SGA fics I've really ended up happy with. I know that my Scruffy AI series has been very well-liked, which never ceases to astonish and thrill me to pieces (scroll down for links to all the stories in the series, if you're interested). But, I'd say the one I'm still the most proud of is The Body Holographic which I wrote with springwoof. We worked wonderfully well together, and the result was something truly excellent. I'm grateful for the opportunity to have had that kind of rapport with another author. In SGA, I also love Down to the Bones because I tried a different style (for me) when I wrote it and I think the result worked well. But my personal favorites are actually kind of cracky: Out of the Blue and Human Enough. They're old, but I still smile when I read them.
I have to admit that the fanfiction stories I'm most proud of in general come from my Enterprise days. They are the two stories Bound, and Grey's Daughter. And I also want to mention that I wrote an Enterprise fic called Insects that has the dubious distinction of being the only fic in the fandom where someone recommended a new rating above NC17, because the story freaked her out so much. I read it over recently--it's really not that bad. :) And there are no insects in the story.
chkc asked me: Your AUs are always very rich in details and realistic world-building. Does it require a lot of research to be able to do this? When you create a world/culture/part of a culture (ex. robots being a common thing), do the consequences come fully visualized in your head? Or do bits and pieces come to you as you write?
Thank you for the compliment. :) Most of my stories require at least some research, either of the show canon itself and/or real-world things (the story links at the bottom of my Scruffy AI fics show a lot of the kind of research I do). When it comes to the culture of an AU world (such as in the Scruffy AI series), what makes me want to write a story in that 'verse in the first place is the potential consequences of the differences from our reality, at least on the small-scale of the Atlantis expedition. For example, I'll start wondering what life would really be like for John if he could turn into a centaur, and then end up writing a whole story about it.
darsynia asked me: Piggybacking on chkc's question, do you tend to come up with the plotty bits [of your stories] and weave the relationship around them, or the other way around? Is your imagination chock full of potential plotty ideas or is it difficult for you to come up with ideas that are worthy of a story?
The relationship almost always comes second to the plot, I'm afraid to say. :) On the other hand, unless your story only has one character in it. your characters always have relationships of one kind or another, and those relationships will push the plot around into different directions. In general, I come up with a scene or a sentence or two or possibly a full-blown idea (like, what if John were an escaped prototype robot?), and then build the plot in my head, which of course has to include the formation or continuation of relationships.
I do get story ideas easily, for which I'm grateful. And if I like an idea enough I'll generally end up writing it, no matter how silly it may sound when I try to tell people about it. ('John is a centaur!' works a lot better written out).
4. As far as creative processes go, what type of writer are you? Do you create an outline/find photo references/make maps, etc., or do you jump in and go with the flow?
Kind of all of the above. I always have at least a tentative outline in my head, though I always make a physical one when I'm collaborating, so we're both on the same page. I've made (very crude) maps, found photo references, re-watched parts of episodes and read transcripts to keep things as accurate to canon as possible.
Related to that, kisahawkin asked me: What is your process when writing? Do you have to have your tea and quiet room? Or do you mix it up, taking your laptop wherever and seeing what hits you?
Most of the time I write in my fuzzy green armchair in the living room, with the sun at my back and a coffee on the coffee table and my laptop--and sometimes a kitty--in my lap. I love it. :)
perspi asked me: How does your collaborative writing work? How did you come to be collaborators in the first place? Do you brainstorm together and then 'divide' the writing work, or does it flow more organically than that? You are so prolific; how do you do it? I'd love to hear whatever you have to say about it!
I started writing with springwoof because she wrote a gen story called Left to Fend. It intrigued the hell out of me, so much so that I emailed her with my thoughts on the story behind the story, things I felt she'd alluded to but hadn't written. I think she suggested I write a fic about those missing elements, and then I asked her if she'd write it with me. That story became The Body Holographic.
The basic plot ideas (like, 'what if the expedition members had super powers?') are mostly mine, but so much shared brainstorming goes on that I really couldn't tell you who came up with what. We make up a list of scenes we figure the plot needs, then divide them between ourselves, sending the fic back and forth as new stuff is added.
I appreciate you saying springwoof and I have been prolific! But really we only wrote three stories together. TBH, Aegis, and Enthrall. I'm currently writing a third story in that particular universe with my sister, squeakyoflight.
almostnever asked me: What attracts you to minor characters from canon like Jack O'Neill's clone and Bill Lee? What inspires you to create OCs like Roy/Cordelia?
Mini!Jack was a natural to use in the Scruffy AI 'verse because I'd set up a universe where even fewer people had the ATA gene than in canon, so I figured the SGC would want as many gene carriers as they could possibly get, to the extent that they'd be willing to use clones. I was only going to leave him as a toss-off mention until I wrote Another Day Older and realized that since I'd set it during "The Pegasus Project", Daniel Jackson would be on Atlantis, and Jonathan O'Neill had to have feelings about that, which to me felt illogical to ignore. Once I'd decided to use the character at all, he started jumping into my head in subsequent stories. Since he needed a team and there weren't any canon characters except Ford who were young enough to be willing to take orders from him, I created his own team of mostly OCs. :) Cordelia and her brother Lindsey just grew organically out of the plots of abused AIs from an AU of the AU. I knew they couldn't stay as robots, so they needed bodies to inhabit which equaled people to become.
What I love about minor characters is that they've very often mostly blank slates, which means you can extrapolate from what canon gives you and make a character out of whole cloth who nontheless feels familiar. I also love speculating on things like who Jonathan O'Neill might be, given his history.
5. Where can interested readers/viewers find more of your work?
I only post original fiction at my taste_is_sweet LJ, but all my SGA fanfiction written as Leah is here. (The link goes to my profile page, which also has links to all my collaborative SGA stories, as well as to all the SGA fanfic I've written as taste_is_sweet.
6. Do you write original fiction?
Yes. I've had short stories published in Canadian sci-fi magazines, and even reprinted in Canadian English text books and used for provincial exams. But I haven't had anything published since 1999.
7. How are you so awesome?
I aspire to awesomeness. I think I can see awesomeness from here. If I squint.
10. Why did you choose to join Team War?
I was originally going to join Team Peace, actually, because my writing often tends towards the angstful and dark and I wanted the challenge of an ostensibly happier theme. But then lavvyan asked me to join Team War, and how could I say no?
12. What are your 'tells'? How can a fic of yours be spotted in the wild?
I always have the same themes driving the story, even if it might not be obvious at first glance. This isn't on purpose; I really can't help myself.
Team: War!
Let's talk about: taste_is_sweet!
1. How long have you been writing fan fiction?
Kind of forever. When I was a little kid, I would end up telling my sister what we called 'superhero stories' for hours on end, all about the characters from our favorite cartoons, specifically G-Force (the Anime, not the Guinea Pigs) and Super Friends (Wondertwin powers activate!).
2. Have you participated or are you participating in any other fandoms?
I got to SGA via Star Trek: Enterprise, believe it or not. That was my first 'official' fandom, where I was part of a Yahoo Group run by the marvelous wpadmirer. Luckily, most of my friends from that show jumped into SGA, so I followed. :)
3. What fanwork are you most proud of? Or, what is your favourite of your fanworks? (links, please!)
Good question. I've actually been thinking about this one for days. There are a lot of SGA fics I've really ended up happy with. I know that my Scruffy AI series has been very well-liked, which never ceases to astonish and thrill me to pieces (scroll down for links to all the stories in the series, if you're interested). But, I'd say the one I'm still the most proud of is The Body Holographic which I wrote with springwoof. We worked wonderfully well together, and the result was something truly excellent. I'm grateful for the opportunity to have had that kind of rapport with another author. In SGA, I also love Down to the Bones because I tried a different style (for me) when I wrote it and I think the result worked well. But my personal favorites are actually kind of cracky: Out of the Blue and Human Enough. They're old, but I still smile when I read them.
I have to admit that the fanfiction stories I'm most proud of in general come from my Enterprise days. They are the two stories Bound, and Grey's Daughter. And I also want to mention that I wrote an Enterprise fic called Insects that has the dubious distinction of being the only fic in the fandom where someone recommended a new rating above NC17, because the story freaked her out so much. I read it over recently--it's really not that bad. :) And there are no insects in the story.
chkc asked me: Your AUs are always very rich in details and realistic world-building. Does it require a lot of research to be able to do this? When you create a world/culture/part of a culture (ex. robots being a common thing), do the consequences come fully visualized in your head? Or do bits and pieces come to you as you write?
Thank you for the compliment. :) Most of my stories require at least some research, either of the show canon itself and/or real-world things (the story links at the bottom of my Scruffy AI fics show a lot of the kind of research I do). When it comes to the culture of an AU world (such as in the Scruffy AI series), what makes me want to write a story in that 'verse in the first place is the potential consequences of the differences from our reality, at least on the small-scale of the Atlantis expedition. For example, I'll start wondering what life would really be like for John if he could turn into a centaur, and then end up writing a whole story about it.
darsynia asked me: Piggybacking on chkc's question, do you tend to come up with the plotty bits [of your stories] and weave the relationship around them, or the other way around? Is your imagination chock full of potential plotty ideas or is it difficult for you to come up with ideas that are worthy of a story?
The relationship almost always comes second to the plot, I'm afraid to say. :) On the other hand, unless your story only has one character in it. your characters always have relationships of one kind or another, and those relationships will push the plot around into different directions. In general, I come up with a scene or a sentence or two or possibly a full-blown idea (like, what if John were an escaped prototype robot?), and then build the plot in my head, which of course has to include the formation or continuation of relationships.
I do get story ideas easily, for which I'm grateful. And if I like an idea enough I'll generally end up writing it, no matter how silly it may sound when I try to tell people about it. ('John is a centaur!' works a lot better written out).
4. As far as creative processes go, what type of writer are you? Do you create an outline/find photo references/make maps, etc., or do you jump in and go with the flow?
Kind of all of the above. I always have at least a tentative outline in my head, though I always make a physical one when I'm collaborating, so we're both on the same page. I've made (very crude) maps, found photo references, re-watched parts of episodes and read transcripts to keep things as accurate to canon as possible.
Related to that, kisahawkin asked me: What is your process when writing? Do you have to have your tea and quiet room? Or do you mix it up, taking your laptop wherever and seeing what hits you?
Most of the time I write in my fuzzy green armchair in the living room, with the sun at my back and a coffee on the coffee table and my laptop--and sometimes a kitty--in my lap. I love it. :)
perspi asked me: How does your collaborative writing work? How did you come to be collaborators in the first place? Do you brainstorm together and then 'divide' the writing work, or does it flow more organically than that? You are so prolific; how do you do it? I'd love to hear whatever you have to say about it!
I started writing with springwoof because she wrote a gen story called Left to Fend. It intrigued the hell out of me, so much so that I emailed her with my thoughts on the story behind the story, things I felt she'd alluded to but hadn't written. I think she suggested I write a fic about those missing elements, and then I asked her if she'd write it with me. That story became The Body Holographic.
The basic plot ideas (like, 'what if the expedition members had super powers?') are mostly mine, but so much shared brainstorming goes on that I really couldn't tell you who came up with what. We make up a list of scenes we figure the plot needs, then divide them between ourselves, sending the fic back and forth as new stuff is added.
I appreciate you saying springwoof and I have been prolific! But really we only wrote three stories together. TBH, Aegis, and Enthrall. I'm currently writing a third story in that particular universe with my sister, squeakyoflight.
almostnever asked me: What attracts you to minor characters from canon like Jack O'Neill's clone and Bill Lee? What inspires you to create OCs like Roy/Cordelia?
Mini!Jack was a natural to use in the Scruffy AI 'verse because I'd set up a universe where even fewer people had the ATA gene than in canon, so I figured the SGC would want as many gene carriers as they could possibly get, to the extent that they'd be willing to use clones. I was only going to leave him as a toss-off mention until I wrote Another Day Older and realized that since I'd set it during "The Pegasus Project", Daniel Jackson would be on Atlantis, and Jonathan O'Neill had to have feelings about that, which to me felt illogical to ignore. Once I'd decided to use the character at all, he started jumping into my head in subsequent stories. Since he needed a team and there weren't any canon characters except Ford who were young enough to be willing to take orders from him, I created his own team of mostly OCs. :) Cordelia and her brother Lindsey just grew organically out of the plots of abused AIs from an AU of the AU. I knew they couldn't stay as robots, so they needed bodies to inhabit which equaled people to become.
What I love about minor characters is that they've very often mostly blank slates, which means you can extrapolate from what canon gives you and make a character out of whole cloth who nontheless feels familiar. I also love speculating on things like who Jonathan O'Neill might be, given his history.
5. Where can interested readers/viewers find more of your work?
I only post original fiction at my taste_is_sweet LJ, but all my SGA fanfiction written as Leah is here. (The link goes to my profile page, which also has links to all my collaborative SGA stories, as well as to all the SGA fanfic I've written as taste_is_sweet.
6. Do you write original fiction?
Yes. I've had short stories published in Canadian sci-fi magazines, and even reprinted in Canadian English text books and used for provincial exams. But I haven't had anything published since 1999.
7. How are you so awesome?
I aspire to awesomeness. I think I can see awesomeness from here. If I squint.
10. Why did you choose to join Team War?
I was originally going to join Team Peace, actually, because my writing often tends towards the angstful and dark and I wanted the challenge of an ostensibly happier theme. But then lavvyan asked me to join Team War, and how could I say no?
12. What are your 'tells'? How can a fic of yours be spotted in the wild?
I always have the same themes driving the story, even if it might not be obvious at first glance. This isn't on purpose; I really can't help myself.