Lore:Thank you so much for being here. Can you please introduce yourself and give me an overview of your previous experience with writing fanfiction, including which fandoms you write for.
Sara:Yeah. So my name is Sara, and I use she/her pronouns, and I have a varied history in kind of reading and writing fanfiction. I've only really actively participated in two different fandoms until this point, kind of delved into a little bit of fanfiction here and there for other things, of course. But the two that I've written for specifically are currently the Stranger Things fandom and going all the way back to my early stages in 2012, which was One Direction, oddly enough.
So I've kind of been in both the fandom side of a show versus the fandom side of something that's real and tangible in our reality. And I think it gives, it can give me a very interesting perspective on how I interact with fandom and fanfiction, especially in how I write it and what I like to write or like to read, so.
Lore:Yeah, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. I can't wait to hear more about that.
Lore:So what inspires you to start writing a fanfiction?
Sara:Honestly, like looking back at the things that I've written and what I'm currently writing, the thing that actually gets me going more often than not is music and themes from the show. So pretty much everything that I've written up to this point has been tied back to a song or an album or an artist in some way, shape or form, which, it makes sense.
Because my first fandom was for, that I wrote for, was One Direction, never wrote to actual One Direction songs. I wrote songs that kind of gave me the feeling or the emotion of, I connect this idea or this song to a character, and the idea kind of spawns from that, and I can kind of flush it out from there.
A lot of times it was, I think one--one fic that I wrote, it was kind of, there was more of a one shot series. It was a one shot series based on a concept album from an artist where I would take the idea that was brought up within the song and then write a fanfiction, just one shot, like 3[000] to 5000 words, just based on the ideas of that song.
Usually something short and sweet and fluffy. But I, the thing that always got me started and interested was: I am emotionally pulled by this song or this music choice, and I need to write it out somehow. Even now, like I have a, like, I have two current works in the process, one of them is based for Stranger Things. One of them is based on just the idea of singing in general or kind of performing, one character performing for another.
But then the other one that I'm working on is, it all has to do with songs that characters never got to hear and how we kind of celebrate those and collect those and remember people through--through music and that aspect. What is something that people like listening to and how do we keep their memory alive, kind of moving forward from there?
So I think music is the thing that really kind of gets me going and connecting it to the characters in particular. And I don't know, it's, it's, it's the thing that inspires me more than anything else. Like, right now, all I have in my brain is to eventually write some sort of fanfic one shot to 'Santa Baby.' And I need it in my life.
Lore:Absolutely yes. I strongly support that. [Laughs.] So my next question for you is, where do you position most of your fanfiction in relation to canon?
Sara:Oh, that is a really good question. So, these, because I exist primarily in two different fandoms, or at least I did, I'm not so active in One Direction fandom anymore, just because it's now ten years later, I am now in a much different brain space back then or than back then, but because they're two completely different ideas where one fandom existed based on real actual people and the other exists on fictional characters--
Sara:--they interact with them with canon very differently. When it came to One Direction fandom and the things that I wrote or the things that I read, it was almost always centered around alternate universes and alternate realities where the characters or the--the--the boys in the band that we wrote about, we use their kind of general character as a persona, as a character, kind of bending them a little bit in the original characters in an aspect, making the stereotypical coffee shop AU [alternate universe], doing, um, one's a teacher and one's the, one's the loving parent of a doting child or they're fellow teachers working in the same school. And so we fell in love with each other.
It was always: remove them from the current reality that they're in or move them out of the idea that they came together in a, in a boy band but still keep them in each other's lives and just create an alternate universe around them. The only canon part in that aspect is taking the parts of their personality that we saw--
Lore:--Mm-hmm [affirmative]--
Sara:--or that we saw within kind of the realm of media--
Sara:--and throwing that into the fanfiction itself to make them recognizable characters from, of the boys we knew and loved.
But I kind of did that more so as a practice to, like, not have such strong parasocial relationships with them.
Sara:Like I even knew that as like 17- or 18-year-old, as a 17- or 18-year-old who is only a year or two removed from the youngest member of the band--
Lore:--Mm-hmm [affirmative]--
Sara:--that these are still humans, like these are human beings with real lives and real wants and needs and desires that I don't know.
And I was so afraid to just project too much onto it, that try to, trying to insert too much into that reality--
Lore:--Mm-hmm [affirmative]--
Sara:that wasn't real and try to make them into a characterization of themselves that wasn't true. I wanted to give them that sense of, like, being a human versus being anything else. And if I were to either write or read fanfiction that was set in a universe where they are One Direction, they really are still a boy band,
but now I'm writing them as a character and kind of everything evolves from there. It felt kind of wrong to do so in that way. It felt like an invasion of their privacy that I, I wasn't particularly comfortable with. There, I think there's only one instance where I made that, I made an effort or [inaudible] effort where kind of broke that rule, and it was for one specific work of fanfiction.
I didn't write it. I read it.
Sara:It was worth reading it for, but I did it at one time and it was the only exception I ever had, kind of as a general other than random things that would pop up. But I more actively chose to say, you know what, we're going to remove myself from the canon of their reality--
Lore:--Mm-hmm [affirmative]--
Sara:--give me all the alternate universes, and let me kind of live out the idea of them as other people, as characters, rather than human--human beings.
Sara:Flipping to Stranger Things. Because Stranger Things is wrapped up entirely in a fictional universe--
Lore:--Uh-huh [affirmative]--
Sara:--I almost I almost exclusively stick within: how do I expand the canon?
Lore:Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Sara:And I think that's where a lot of, like with Stranger Things in particular, it kind of got this big fanfic boost over the summer.
Sara:Whether it was fanfiction or artistry, but the fandom just grew exponentially over the summer because there was so much potential from--
Lore:--Mm-hmm [affirmative]--
Sara:--what the writers of the show either did or didn't do, that we're just like, no, we need to keep certain characters alive, we need to expand on these storylines. We see so much opportunity for growth that just isn't happening on screen.
And we have this internal desire to expand on it. That's why I'm writing my fic of, like, what is life like after the--after the kind of season four, and especially with the speculation of season five possibly being several years into the future?
Sara:It's taking the time to expand on the canon and live within the realm of that and say, no, I see--I see what you've written here.
I want more. I want more. I don't necessarily want to throw these characters into an alternate universe because where kind of is the basis for who they've become up to this point? What's the basis for why certain characters are the way they are without being in the reality of the show itself?
Lore:Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Sara:I still enjoy alternate universes, especially if they're done really well. Right now
I'm really enjoying most of the takes on either Spider-Man Steve or Punk Steve Harrington--
Lore:--Mm-hmm [affirmative]--
Sara:--because they've found, like, especially the really good ones, have found ways to say no, this this this could still very well be valid within the canon of the show because of all the science and magic and kind of everything that's been wrapped up within the show itself.
So and I kind of like the feelings of, like, the internal storylines behind the characters. And I guess that's the other reason, oddly enough, the other reason why I stick with almost canon expansion material with Stranger Things is because of the fact that it is kind of set in this alternate reality alone--
Sara:--that to try and put them into alternate universes, it makes me think more directly of less of the character and more of the people behind the characters.
So that, weirdly enough, feels more like an invasion of the privacy of the actors behind each character to try to put them in an alternate universe--
Sara:--because then I see them in those contexts instead, and I don't want to create that kind of parasocial relationship with them. They already have so much pressure on them as actors, and they grew, they kind of have, all of them have kind of grown up within the show and what the show has done for them,
and it's created amazing careers for them, but I don't want to put pressure on them from like a fandom basis to say, you need to be these people, you need to be this, you need to do this, you need to be the fan service of whatever it is. And, like, the people I feel the most for, probably the person right now, is Joseph Quinn, because he just kind of went through the gamut of it, and especially since the pairing of Eddie Munson and Steve Harrington has grown so exponentially within the fandom base--
Lore:--Mm-hmm [affirmative]--
Sara:--that he has had so much focus put on him all at once,
and he's, people are expecting a lot from him when he's just an actor who's been working in the business and just ended up landing a really good role and doing it really well and everybody fell in love with him. And I'm doing my best to just see, continue to see the human behind him, and my way of doing that while still enjoying the fan base, still enjoying fanfiction
and the show is to just look at the character and expand on the character and love the character that he created and keep that character alive in his own way.
So yeah, I guess my my interaction with the canon of whatever fan base I'm in, it really depends on the context. If it's based on real life people, give me all the alternate universes in the world.
But if it's based on, like, this fictional show, I just really like to expand on the canon. But, of course there are always--always exceptions. Like, I think, like, the one fanfiction I had for One Direction that I really loved. I didn't write it, but I loved it. I read it, made me cry, and then kind of very specific instances of alternate universes that still tie back to the canon, it within Stranger Things.
Lore:Yeah. No, that makes a lot of [digital distortion] well, thank you for sharing. My next question for you then is: why fanfiction? Why do you write these stories through fanfiction and not another platform or medium like fanart, fan videos or other types of fiction-writing?
Sara:Yeah. So I, the reason I kind of lean into fanfiction writing is a lot--it has a lot to do with the access to resources that I have. I am currently, I grew up and I'm currently located in a very small rural town in the central Midwest or in the kind of upper Midwest. Currently, I'm covered or surrounded by a lot of snow [laughs], but I grew up without access to internet in my home.
So the thing I had, I didn't, I had a computer, but my computer was literally a Windows '95 up until I think I was about 15. And so I kind of look at myself through this lens of I am a millennial because of what I grew up with, but I also relate to Gen Z because I have, I [laughs] I rely on my phone a little bit too much for one person, and it's a little bit terrifying.
But I stick to writing fanfiction because that was the thing that I had access to even before I really had access to a computer. I remember when I was little, I would just write stories in notebooks all over my house. I'd bring an old notebook with me all the time through school and just write down all these thoughts and ideas of storylines that I wanted to read or that I wanted to write
Cause I was an avid reader, I, and I wrote down all the things and, like, this, these are the things I want in my stories that I want to see in stories. And if I'm not finding them, I'm going to write them myself.
Lore:Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Sara:So when I finally did get access to the Internet in the lovely summer of 2011, I kind of fell into it headfirst and discovered this wonderful thing of fanfiction.
And it became kind of my first love in that aspect where I--it was the time where fanart was there, but I wasn't particularly pulled to it because I wasn't necessarily the artist. I was the artist through music. I grew up playing music all the time--
Lore:--Uh-huh [affirmative]--
Sara:--and loving music, and I grew up as the reader. And so I wasn't someone who is the artist that could draw well.
And because I think all, even today, all of my figures are chicken scratch. So I'm not the best at kind of drawing things or doing anything along that. But that doesn't mean that I couldn't. It's just not something that I am drawn to doing myself. I love fanart, and I found a more recent love for it and how people expand on it these days, especially within Stranger Things and the upcoming,
like, digital artists who are doing fantastic work, who kind of bring these ideas to life in other ways--
Lore:--Mm-hmm [affirmative]--
Sara:--that I [inaudible] can't like necessarily see right away--
Sara:--if they're, I guess, this kind of an expansion on the last question, if there's a place where I self-indulge into alternate universes within, like, Stranger Things, it's going to be through fanart because it gives me a picture that I can look at rather than kind of like, diving into like a whole world of, like, writing it out and writing 10,000 plus words on something that is more so just an idea.
I love fanart because it, fanart can do that in a very specific way that I--I know myself to be not the capable writer who can do it justice that way. I find comfort more in expanding on that canon and expanding on what exists within the realm of the show and just saying, you know what, we're going to just run with it that way.
Sara:And and kind of the same goes for fan edits and videos. I am not the most technologically savvy. That's where my kind of--grew up in the middle of nowhere with no resources aspect comes in. I, well, while I can probably force myself to edit a video, if someone were to, like, literally hold me hostage, it probably wouldn't be great.
It would be there, but it would be the equivalent of probably what a seventh grader would make in middle school. It'd be fine. It'd be perfect for like a presentation. But is it something that I want to put out into the world and put out into a fan space knowing that it's possibly going to be this kind of heavy subject of critique?
That scares me. Oddly enough, fanfiction itself doesn't scare me as much because I know myself to be a more capable writer, and even though I'm still kind of figuring out my space within fanfiction and writing and sharing words to the world, I am so much more comfortable sharing my thought process through words than I am trying to kind of create a visual representation of that artist or that art itself.
So yeah, I fell in love with words, even from a young age, and it's always been there. And then just access to resources was the thing that said, you know what, we're going to stick with fanfiction, we're going to love fanfiction. And I think it's the easiest one to say, like, if I'm in public and I'm reading, people will ask me, "Oh, what are you doing?"
"Oh, I'm just reading." And I might be reading fanfiction that would make your eyes roll back in your head. But I'm reading, I'm reading. It's fine.
Lore:[Laughs] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you so much for sharing. I feel very much the same way. [Laughs] So then, we're getting, we're past the 15-minute mark, so I'm going to go ahead--
Lore:--with that last question, which is: when you are writing a fanfiction, what elements of your story or narrative do you consider the most? So examples of such elements could be the tense that you're writing in, or the descriptions of the characters, or the narrative--the nar--
Oh my goodness, the narrative--sorry, I'm having a moment—-narrators' perspective, whose POV it is, the plot structure, the characterization, like what--what narrative elements are kind of in your head while you're writing.
Sara:Oh, the reader in me, I think, always goes back to: who is the narrator and what tense am I writing in?
Sara:The thing that will always take me out, like ruin my suspension of disbelief when I'm reading fanfiction or writing fanfiction, is a--is a either constantly shifting point of view or constantly shifting tense. Like, because for me, it, I'm perfectly fine with it, with like reading it and you have to start somewhere and you need practice to do so.
But I think the mark of really great writers across the board are people who can say or who can really stay consistent with--the, either their tense or who they're writing in, their perspective that they're doing. I'm perfectly fine with flipping back and forth between points of view within fanfiction if it's noted--
Lore:--Uh-huh [affirmative]--
Sara:--like saying this is, like, separated out and make it so like we know that this is the different narrator and there's a different voice that we're clearly writing in and we can tell this is a different person--
Sara:--and I'm fine with kind of shifts in that.
But if, if it's kind of flip flopping back and forth, that's the thing that removes me from a fanfiction first.
Lore:Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Sara:And so when I'm writing, it's the thing that I am most wary about because I don't want that experience to--lend someone away from my work and my writing. Now, of course, I'm--I guess, I don't want it to seem like that, like an elitist thing to say.
And that's always my fear of, like, I'm such a stickler for grammar. I just want for this voice to be consistent, and I want the point of view to be consistent, and past tense, everything. But I think it, that it's something that takes work and it's something that takes practice. And I want people to celebrate just any kind of writing that they can do
at the end of the day. For me and myself, I just, I lend to think of that because I'm so afraid of being judged in that similar way--
Sara:--because I don't want this to be an unsafe space for other people. If anything, if nothing else, I think my penchant to say, you know what, I am so focused on, like, the tense of the story and the narrator point of view, everything else will fall into place.
But I'm so focused on it because I want younger writers or newer writers who aren't as sure-footed in their writing style to be able to look at these more experienced writers and say, I want to write like them. I want to eventually get there. I want people to write in such a consistent voice that--
Sara:--you know what, we're just going to celebrate and we're going to go with that.
I want to be kind of that role model in that weird kind of fan--fandom way, where people look up to different writers and say, this is, this is an amazing style. Your work is so consistent and so beautifully well-done that you kind of lose yourself in the story and you're not falling. You're finding yourself on uneven footing with semantics of English and grammar and all that fun stuff.
I'm all about characterization and I'm all about kind of everything else, but I focus on those two because--if the grammar falls, it can kind of fall apart a little bit easier. But that's more so my take. That's just my brain and kind of how I've, that's my perfectionism, I guess in my own way, coming through where I'm so focused on getting all the details right, I'm like, you know what?
Everything else will come into play. It also means I'm a slower writer [laughs]. I'm--I'm good with plot. I can write an outline like no other and I love it. But it's not the thing that I mainly work on. The main thing, the thing that trips me up is making sure that I have some semblance of consistency.
Lore:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.