Last week when we ran an interview with EZRocksAngel and Angstgoddess003 one of our readers, Olga NYC, said that she would love to see an interview between Sebastien Robichaud and Snowqueens Icedragon. Well, we aim to please at Southern Fan Fiction Review. This interview is for you Olga NYC - and for all our faithful readers. Enjoy...
From here on out Snowqueens Icedragon will be in Bright Blue and Sebastien Robichaud will be in Black. For the first part of the interview Snowqueens Icedragon will be asking the questions:
I love the air of mystery that surrounds you and I deeply respect that you are a private, gentle soul – so thank you for agreeing to do this with me. I think we are polar opposites – you are quiet and considered and reticent… and I tend to over share and am rather loud and shouty! So I would like to start by asking a few questions about you… hopefully not too intrusive. You’ll have to forgive me if you’ve answered these before, elsewhere – but since all I do these days is fritter (my new word for this ridiculous social networking tool that I have unfortunately become addicted to) and write MOTU and occasionally try and catch up with the daunting MOTU thread… I don’t have much time for much else. So here goes:
Are you Canadian born and bred? Yes, I was born in Canada.
Is the hobbit hole a house or an apartment? An Apartment.
Where and when do you write and on what? Are you a longhand person or straight on the computer – PC or Mac, Laptop? I write on a PC but some scenes and the outline are written longhand. I write on the dining room table, or on my desk in the study.
You are well travelled – have you lived abroad at all? Yes, on the Continent and short stints in the UK.
How many languages do you speak? 3 - English, French, German. I read a 4Th (Latin) and am learning a 5Th (Italian). I tried to learn to read Arabic once but didn't get very far (6th). Ditto for Ancient Greek (7th).
From UoEM one has a real sense of the hierarchy and petty politics of academia… is this something you feel strongly about and are subjected to? In TV the hierarchy is very blurred… it’s still there… but not as rigid… Which leads me to also ask – do you enjoy your work? I enjoy my work very much, which is why I'm trying to protect it.
I have a sense that you keep your real life very much separate from your FF life - are you afraid your colleagues will find about your fan fiction fetish? Yes.
What would they say? "You're fired."
In UoEM you go to town on your designer labels and descriptions of clothing etc… is this something close to your heart? Not really. But I am a bit of a snob when it comes to quality. I'm like Edward - I'm impatient with mediocrity. So in some cases this means I would rather do without than have something cheap. Are you a fashionista? No. But it is important to me to dress well and appear both professional and presentable, while living on a modest income. Cleanliness is also something that is extremely important to me. Hence all of the showers taking place in my story. Do you love designer labels? More for the quality than anything else and I tend to favour European design as an aesthetic preference, particularly Italian.
UoEM
You will have to forgive me on this… I know that on your marvellous thread there are theories and mysteries to unravel etc etc… I read UoEM because for me, it’s a rollicking good yarn well told. I will feel whatever you want me to feel and go whatever direction you will take me – and I hope in time all the little clues and questions will be answered – but I am crap at analysis – which is probably why I am not a historian… and you are! (Even though I do have a degree in history…)
I know you write academic articles, but is this the first crack that you’ve had at fiction? Apart from writing contests and a general weakness for weaving a yarn in a pub or over dinner, yes.
How did you come up with your storyline? It dropped almost fully formed into my head after I got over the disappointment of learning that my favourite FF "In the land of Milk and Honey" was unceremoniously (but perhaps justifiably?) pulled.
Do you have the whole thing mapped out – chapter by chapter – and therefore how many chapters are left to go? The outline is complete and as such puts the number around 40. But we'll see. My chapters rival Homer's epics so really, at some point enough will be enough.
I love how you weave canon into your narrative. Is this deliberate or do you find your fans pointing out things that you never intended and their interpretation is that you are following canon? (Happens to me a lot – sometimes I am… and maybe sometimes I’m doing it on an unconscious level) My story deliberately includes canon, especially for the characters. This is so because UOEM is my intentional re-writing of the Twilight narrative for an adult audience in a human universe.
Has the path you’ve chosen for you characters changed at all from the feedback and reviews you’ve been getting? No. The major plot points are fixed. Minor things could be changed if someone gave me a good suggestion. So for example, Miss JAustenlover suggested I include Edward's lecture. I balked at this initially, for I thought no one would care to read it. I have been surprised and pleased at how many people wrote to me to say how much they enjoyed it. Who knew?
I have never seen any UoEM haters… do you have any? Of course. And if you do how do you deal? Some of them, (I am told) congregate on certain websites, which I don't frequent. So avoidance has always been a very promising strategy. Some of them write reviews. If a review is well written and cogent, I will consider it. But, if the individual can't even get the plot straight or (truthfully) if a native English speaker butchers the English language, it affects how I receive the negative review. I am, of course, much more patient with my non-native English correspondents. And some of my readers address me in French, which I encourage.
I am the author and I know where the plot is going. Like any (semi?) omniscient narrator, I know things the reader doesn't know. Nevertheless, this doesn't stop some people from telling me that I wrote the story incorrectly, which is incredibly hubristic on their part. Alternatively, some people write and say they didn't like a certain thing. Those reviews I understand. I don't like everything in all novels either, so of course some aspects of my story or even the whole story itself will not be liked by everyone. But really, if they don't like my Bella or my Edward at chapter 19, I question their reasoning process. Why continue to read something that irks you? If they don't like B and E at Ch. 19 they won't like them at ch. 40 and they will have wasted their time.
However, as a human being of a certain age with reasonable intelligence and reasonable empathy, I know a thing about human behaviour and what is realistic or not. Much of my story (sadly) has been drawn from real life (not necessarily mine). So if it seems unrealistic or overly angsty or dramatic or whatever adjective one chooses to hurl, I will say the following: Be thankful your life is not angsty and dramatic, but be aware that other's lives are. And be compassionate and realize that some human beings do weep and heave over certain memories, not because they are weak, but because they have been abused. What are you doing in the world to lessen abuse so that the number of human beings who are this way diminishes? (end rant, cue music, "We are the World")
Writing
I love, love, love how seamlessly you move from POV to POV… do your characters ever run away from you doing something you don’t expect, taking you somewhere you didn’t want to be?
Not usually. But it does take time for some dialogue to emerge. I write by sound, which means I (oddly) hear the voices in my head. Sadly, they don't speak to me directly and I do, on occasion, get somewhat put out at being constantly ignored.
You told me once that you write obscure articles on historical figures in medieval times… have you ever thought of doing a medieval E & B… or is Dante and Beatrice as medieval as you want to go? I haven't thought about a Medieval E and B, but now that you mention it ....
You also told me that you wanted to do your own vampyric fic as you were dissatisfied with SM’s mythology… will this be your next project? If so will you use your own characters and attempt to get published? Still germinating on this one. Not sure whether FF or maybe a different audience might be best. Must finish UOEM first. Truthfully, would love to have a literary agent and write fiction professionally and be published, while still enjoying my anonymity and living in my hobbit hole.
Do you feel, as I do with my writing, that your writing has improved with each chapter? I hope so. I hope my writing improves over my lifetime. I have a few more good years left in me.
What advice would you give to anyone wanting to start writing? Just write. Write what you know or what you don't, but write and then have a trusted friend read. Let them give you suggestions for improvement. Correct your work, and then put your work out there. FF is a great venue. I've never shared my fiction with anyone since the last writing contest I ended. So this venue is very encouraging and very easy to enter.
How do you deal with overenthusiastic fans? -Hm. No one has invaded my privacy, so so far so good. However, it has always been my experience that kindness is never wasted. So in all I do, I try to be kind and I hope that people will be kind back to me.
Ok, Now we are going to switch gears a little and Sebastien Robichaud will ask questions of Snowqueens Icedragon. They will stay in the same coloring and font.
Quesitons for Snowqueens Icedragon from Sebastien Robichaud:
-How did you learn about Fan Fiction? Christmas 2008 NEW (my hubs and beta) bought me the Twilight saga – I’d seen the film in November 08 – and I sat down and read them in 5 days, non-stop, and fell in love with Edward Cullen & the boy… I used to stalk internet sites about the boy. It was on Rpattz Daily on Live Journal that I saw two people chatting about Wide Awake – I was on holiday in Spain at the time (my Aunt has an apartment in Marbella on the South Coast) and so I found Wide Awake and couldn’t stop reading it. I spent £60 on mobile phone bills downloading it. I read it on Live Journal – and after that discovered Twilighted and Fan Fiction.
-What inspired you to pen MOTU? I read some BDSM stories and wanted to know why people got into it and actually see the paperwork. So I started researching. It was always my aim to publish a contract pertaining to a BDSM relationship – so I went from there. I didn’t set out to write a BDSM story… I know nothing about BDSM other than what I have learnt on FF and the research I’ve had to do for this story (some of which has been great fun, let me tell you… sorry TMI – but then I told you I suffered from that) – Fundamentally I set out to write a love story – because that’s what interests me with BDSM as a back-drop.
-Describe your writing process This is a really hard question. I have a time-line of events and that’s what I follow. How the characters react to each event and each other is the story. I did have an ending, but the story has gone in a completely different way than what I imagined, so I’ve had to think of a new ending.
-You have a personal relationship with NEW, your Beta. Does this make your writing process easier or more difficult? NEW corrects my grammar – and I do bounce ideas off him, and he’s a fantastic sounding board. He’s also a gifted writer and understands the process. He’s completely freaked that I don’t have an overall story arc set down because that’s not the way he works. But in terms of my writing process, it’s handy that he’s here and I can talk to him whenever I need to about it, but that’s the extent of his involvement. He doesn’t want to know how the story finishes – he finds out what happens to the characters as he betas each chapter. Depending on how tired I am, the beta’ing process takes about 45 mins to an hour, each chapter. We do row but we’ve been married a wee while so we’re used to it!
-Do you have any plans to publish and if so, what? I’d like to. MOTU is the 4th novel I’ve written in a year. After my Twilight and the boy obsession, I sat down and just wrote a novel – I’d always wanted to do it and the time was right. I was exceptionally miserable at work so I escaped into my first novel, which I started last January and finished in April. Looking back it was a fan fic – but I didn’t know fan fiction existed at the time. I plan to publish it on FF when I finish MOTU – I think – but it will needs to be re-written. It’s quite a hard thing to pull off… and interestingly it’s written from two POVs… so I am going to have to think about that. My second novel isn’t finished… that’s the one I have high hopes for and I would like to re-write. NEW has a literary agent, and the field that I work in puts me in touch with many agents – so… who knows?
-Are you surprised by all of the attention your story has gotten? Yes – surprised doesn’t quite cover it. I am in awe… and I don’t really understand why. I was aiming for 5K reviews, not 37k+. After I wrote Safe Haven – which I did in three weeks – I thought that the high review counts were for fics that were published over a long period of time, but Motu has been relatively short – so that’s blown that theory. I think the draw is Fifty.
-What does NEW think about the FF universe? And will he write a story for us? I think he has his own fan club on Twitter and Twilighted. He thinks it’s an amazing resource and a wellspring of hidden creativity. He thinks it’s the way the Web should go. It’s the future of the internet where people come together to create and enjoy stories. It never occurred to NEW to write a fan fic until you asked the question, SR… he’s quite interested as he’s read canon but A) he’s too busy writing for money and B) he’d be terrified that people didn’t like his fic as much as mine!
-How do you handle negative reviews/blog postings ? Not well. Anonymous nasty reviews I just delete and it gives me an extraordinary amount of pleasure to do so. I have to learn to avoid blog postings, but I am a masochist at heart so I do look. I was reading one recently and I was astounded at the kicking the fic got from people who have never read it… which is rude quite frankly. They seemed to be especially peeved at the review count – according to someone on that blog, ‘1000 is the new 100 everyone!’ What upset me more was that an author whom I really respected dissed it – though she’s never read it… I have to say she’s slipped hugely in my estimation since then.
-Anything you would like your readers to know about you or your stories that they don't know already? I over-share – they know everything there is to know already.
-Is there anything in MOTU that you would have done differently if you were starting it tomorrow? Just the contraception. And I’d make it very clear that Bella goes to the Vancouver campus of WSU. If I could have a dollar for everyone who’s told me that WSU is based in Pullman! (WSU is a tri-site university… and proudly so…)
-Will you please write a scene (or an outtake) in which your Bella gives Mrs Robinson a serious ass-kicking and in which Bella emerges entirely satisfied and unscathed? I'm asking nicely. For you SR… anything.
Sebastien Robichaud would like to thank her beta, Jennde for all her hard work She not only fixes my errors but she gives me substantial advice in terms of structure and narrative.
Ok - so there you have it. What did you think? Do you LIKE having author interviews? Who would you like to see interviewed on Southern Fan Fiction Review? Leave me a comment and who knows, maybe I'll be able to get them to make a special appearance. Thanks for reading!
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