9 questions with violue

This week: @violue talks about the difficulties of writing Supernatural characters beyond Team Free Will; what it means to have solid beta readers, and being thoughtful when writing outside of your own background.

What do you most enjoy about writing fanfiction?

Having an idea and seeing it come together. I’m a slow writer, most of my longfics took months of writing in notebooks during long bus rides into town, then typing the story up, then having betas read through it. So, when the story is finally done, when it’s come together into something cohesive that I’m excited to share with people, fuck, that’s satisfying. I only write the one pairing, Destiel, and creating new universes for them to meet and fall in love brings me something I struggle to find elsewhere in life: contentment.

What aspects of writing do you find difficult when you write fanfiction?

Oh man, everything. Coming up with a coherent plot, worrying about whether the characters are in character, asking my betas if they’re available to read, posting, comparing myself to other authors, everything. Writing brings me contentment, but there’s also a big pile of gnawing anxiety and insecurity that comes along with it. It’s hard, wondering if the things you like about your story will resonate with other people. It’s hard writing endings. It’s hard sitting back and thinking “would this character actually say/do this thing?” I write AUs, but keeping them believable is important to me, I want the readers to be able to see the characters as they read. I’ve gotten fairly comfortable with Castiel, Dean, and Sam, but the rest of the characters… not so much. I don’t “know” Benny or Jo or Mary or Kevin or whoever the way I know the main three. I also sometimes get bogged down in details. I spend too much time worrying about inane details of a scene and it stops me from enjoying what I’m doing. It’s why I stick to domestic AUs, when I try to write something slightly more high-concept, the details get away from me and it feels too difficult, too big. As much as I wish world building were my thing, it’s kinda not.

Have you ever received hateful comments on your fic and how do you deal with it?

Just a couple of times. Some were incomprehensible gibberish, not worth acknowledging let alone “dealing with”, but one incident stuck with me. I wrote a scene where Dean and Castiel’s friends give them a bunch of ideas for dates. One of the ideas was “go to a fair and get henna done”. I didn’t consider the idea that having two white characters use henna for recreation would be cultural appropriation. My betas didn’t either. We’re all American, Americans can be irreverent and thoughtless about other cultures. I got a scathing comment from someone, well two someones, since they sicced their friend on me as well. They implied I was a white devil appropriating cultures, and that I had better not ignore their comment, and just nastiness that in my opinion was unwarranted. I’m not white, so they didn’t actually get that right, and of course I didn’t ignore their comment. I don’t want to offend anyone, and cultural appropriation is a real and persistent issue. I removed the line, changed it to something else. I told them ‘I’m not white, and btw you don’t have to be an asshole, of course I’ll get rid of the line.’ or something like that. Not a big deal, I suppose, in the grand scheme of things… but it did leave a mark on me. When I post things, I’m terrified I’m going to have a repeat of that experience. When I wrote a short AU where Sam was a trans woman, I was so scared that I would mess up, that I’d offend someone and they’d come barreling after me. I was worried my witch!Cas AU would upset practicing witches. I’m an emotional person, and my writing means a lot to me, that kind of shit is hard to stomach.

Conversely: what’s been some of your favorite feedback on your fanfic?

Any feedback means a lot to me. I don’t respond to all my comments, I worry about being repetitive and sometimes I just can’t think of a reply, but I read every comment left on my stories and they always give me the good feelings. Sometimes people tell me something I wrote had an effect on their life. Someone once told me that one of my fics made him finally have a conversation with his boyfriend about moving in together, that was huge. Sometimes people tell me I made their day better, that they’re still thinking about my story days later, that they’ve read it many times. That kind of feedback always kicks my ass, the idea that I had an actual impact on another person through something I created. I think actually my favorite feedback is the feedback I get from my betas. They’re commenting in a GoogleDoc with my story in it, making corrections/suggestions if needed, but also leaving reactions. There are little moments that most readers aren’t going to comment on because they’ve forgotten them by the time they get to the end of the chapter/story, but my betas are commenting on the side of the doc as they go, so the little jokes or references I make in a story, my betas comment on them and it always makes me feel warm and fuzzy and acknowledged.

How do you handle writer’s block?

I don’t. Seriously. When I have writer’s block, I can’t move forward until inspiration makes it pass. I’ve tried to force it and it results in a lot of frustration and agitated tweets. For some people, just writing anything is a great way to combat writer’s block, that’s not my experience. Sometimes I can force-defeat my writer’s block. If something in the story is causing me to stumble, sometimes if I just knock a few blocks down, that helps. Like say I’m on chapter 14 and hating it, but I was really happy with chapter 13, starting over on chapter 14 might help. I had that happen with The Complete Works of Emmanuel Allen. I was in the writing-in-my-notebook stage of penning the story, and I had stopped enjoying it and I couldn’t figure out why until I realized that for whatever reason I just wasn’t feeling the direction I’d taken the story. So I ripped out a good twenty pages and started from the last point I was happy with. The story flowed much better, and I was so much happier.

Which Supernatural fanfic of yours are you most proud of and why?

Gosh, I’m proud of different stories for different reasons. I’m proud of Spirit of Lawrence High for being the first fic I wrote, I’m proud of The Way to a Man’s Heart is Through Chlamydia for being my most popular story, I’m proud of the Carnival Oasis series because I was able to convey the mood I was going for when I wasn’t sure I could. But I guess I’m proudest of The Unwavering Heart of a Winchester. I researched for that story, when usually I’m too lazy. I spent months in a depressing headspace and kept going. It was hard, the whole story’s premise is that Sam is dead, and I missed him so much it was such a damn relief when I moved on to a story where he was alive. And I was proud that my story had humor in it. I don’t like sad stories, despite me writing one that’s thousands of words with Dean grieving. I didn’t want it to just be a wall of unrelenting misery, and going by comments people leave, it wasn’t.

What/who has had the biggest influence on your writing?

There are a lot of people that influence my writing. Writers I enjoy (Scaramouche, Xylodemon, LoversAntiquities, etc), friends that cheerlead me and my writing (Dani, Kris, Lydie, Jojo), people that comment on everything I write… but I think my friend Heather (aka Casfucker) was the biggest influence on my writing. She’s not really in the fandom anymore, but she’s the reason I started writing fic, so everything I’ve written is because of her. She encouraged me to pursue my story idea with The Spirit of Lawrence High, and that was big. For a long time she was always the person that read my stories first, and I honestly don’t know if I would be writing at all now if we hadn’t become friends.

What are you currently working on?

I have several things I started writing but lost interest in. Right now I’m working on one fic that won’t be ready for months, because… slow writer. It’s a Destiel AU, of course, but the start of the story is about Castiel and Claire packing up their lives and moving after Claire comes out as trans. Trans issues are not at all my wheelhouse, so it’s definitely something I’m going to be scared about when it’s time for posting. Claire isn’t the focus of the story, but the beginning is very much centered on what she’s going through, experienced through her father’s POV. As I already mentioned, that angry/offended comment left an impact, and although I’m really enjoying writing this story, I’m so worried I’m going to upset someone. But that’s no reason not to try, and that’s an issue for when the story is actually done. For now I’m just scribbling Destiel fluff in my notebook and having a good time. There’s a timestamp to The Way to a Man’s Heart is Through Chlamydia that I’ve started. I’m calling it “Year of Firsts”. I wrote a list of silly “firsts” in their marriage and I’m kind of going from there. Not too far in that, because I really have not been writing much since the US election, but I’ll get back to it. So far it’s Cas learning that Dean is unbearable when he has a cold.

If you could give one piece of advice to a new and/or struggling writer, what would it be?

Oh shit, I’m the wrong person to give advice about anything. Write a story you would want to read, that’s my advice.

Here be awesome…

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