Yahtzee

Your stories read like episodes that Joss & Co. would shoot if they had the budget. You've captured the show's tone beautifully, and you write a damn good Buffy. In a fandom where so many authors write alternate-universe or off-canon stories, was this a conscious choice?

Well, I write AU fics as well, but I do find the episodic fics the most challenging, by far. I do try to balance the way-out-there stuff with the very canonical stuff as much as I can.

When you write an AU, you have license to do anything you want. You can justify any act, any relationship, any sequence of events. Who's to say it couldn't happen in an alternate universe? Sometimes this is enjoyable and imaginative, but sometimes I just find myself staring blankly at a story, totally unable to relate the version of Angel or Giles or Cordelia on that page to the Angel or Giles or Cordelia I've seen onscreen. (The worst offender I ever saw was in XF fandom -- someone had written the first part of a story in which Mulder and Scully, instead of being FBI agents, were paired together as a figure-skating duo.) I'm not interested in people who just share names and faces with my favorite characters. I'm interested in the characters themselves, their histories and motivations and individual voices -- all information we get from canon. So even with my AU stories, I try to root the characters very firmly in canon.

Also, trying to write something episodic really requires some discipline -- it makes you stretch. Joss Whedon and Tim Minear and company are truly geniuses at mingling the humor and the horror, the action and the romance, etc. I think trying to create a story that has that same feel to it is both really difficult and really rewarding. The absolute, best feedback you can get, IMHO, is a note that says, "I could imagine this happening on the show."

Finally, I try to write episodic fics because I think they're something pretty much everyone can enjoy. I mean, if we didn't like the framework of ATS or BTVS episodes, we wouldn't be into the shows in the first place, right?

I don't think you've ever heard of plot holes. Every story I've read has been tight, with no loose ends or niggling questions about how action X derived from Source Y. (And I just channelled a weird amalgamate of my high school English and Algebra teachers. Apologies.) How do you plot it out - are you an outliner, a scripter, or do you write it and then clean it up afterwards? Because, frankly, I'm impressed.

My beta readers would tell you that I definitely HAVE heard of plot holes. They save me from myself quite often --

That said, I do plot in advance. I no longer begin anything that has more than one chapter without an outline. I will do a lot of brainstorming and such on a story before the plot is clear, but I don't start writing until I've worked out the kinks. It's easier to do it at the beginning, in outline form, when the fix for any problem is still quick and easy. When you're in the heart of a fic, if you discover a problem, you might have to undo half of what you've done to make it right.

Besides, I've discovered I really enjoy the plotting process. It's a little bit like an Easter egg hunt -- I have the best time planting clues or information to use later on. It feels like this fun little surprise I'm hiding for the reader to find later.

Along the same lines, have you ever had a story go somewhere surprising?

In terms of plot, not after the outline. Now, while I'm outlining and plotting, sometimes stories end up changing dramatically from my original conception. (You do NOT want to know what the first version of "Phoenix Burning" was like.) But I tend to try to set the events pretty firmly before I begin writing.

In terms of characterization or emotion, though, sometimes surprises do happen. I might see parallels between the reactions of two characters that weren't apparent before, or realize that another scene is needed, or that I haven't touched on something important. I really enjoy that aspect of it -- when writing is as much discovery as anything else.

"Phoenix Burning" is filled with original characters; I think pretty much all of them except Buffy and Angel. Was that hard to write, or was it freeing?

It wasn't so much difficult to write as very intimidating. I'm generally not a huge fan of original characters in fic myself, either to write or to read. If somebody said to me, "Try this story that has more original characters than canonical," I'd be really dubious. And certainly I'm not the only person who feels that way. So I knew I was up against that reaction.

Of course, the plot of "Phoenix Burning" demands that the Scooby Gang and the Bat Pack can't be around. So I just tried to make the characters as interesting and individual as possible, and to make sure that Buffy was at the heart of every single scene. In some ways, I think my intimdation worked against me; there were things I figured out about the original characters that I didn't put in the story because I thought nobody would care. But many readers have responded positively to Sumiko, Agatha, etc., and I think I could have fleshed them out a little more without taking focus away from Buffy.

You've written long stories (novella-length, when compared to the standard fanfic) and shorter pieces. Have you found one length harder than the other?

Longer stories carry certain technical challenges that shorter pieces don't -- or, I should say, they share certain challenges that are just more extreme at a longer length. Pacing, plotting, and character development have to be more intricate to sustain interest in a longer story, and it's very easy, in Chapter 21, to forget a tiny contradictory detail you put in Chapter 5. That said -- I think it all boils down to knowing your ending. If you know exactly where you want to go, and how you want to get there, you'll be motivated and focused throughout, whether you're doing a vignette or a novel or anything in between. Then it's going to be easy. If you're very uncertain about your ending or your motivation, it doesn't matter if you're trying to write 100,000 words or 100 -- it's going to be hard.

What is it about BtVS and A:tS that led you to write fanfiction? Have you written for other fandoms? (If so, can I read those stories? I'd love to see what you could do with Harry Potter...)

The voices. The wonderful, individual character voices. I was just so amazed, when I first started watching, how distinctly each individual spoke. They were always themselves, always funny, always very true. I just craved to write some dialogue like that. Since then, I've really fallen in love with a lot of the themes, too -- especially on "Angel" -- but it still does come back to the voices, a lot of the time.

I have written for other fandoms; my first stories, under another pseudonym, were in XF fandom back in 1993. I've done a handful of Trek stories (TOS and VOY), as well as a few SW original-trilogy stories. I quit writing for a couple of years, until "The Phantom Menace" came out and introduced me to slash. I dove back in with the Yahtzee name and wrote six stories in that fandom. Then came ATS and BTVS.

You can read those other stories at (gratuitous plug #1) my new archive, www.thechicagoloop.net/yahtzee. I warn you: A fair amount of the early stuff is not very -- what's the word? -- good. But it's there, along with all the rest of my fic.

I definitely want to write in a couple other fandoms; I have some "West Wing" and "I Spy" stories I'd love to try. And, though I have no definite plans for it, I've always thought a "Harry Potter" story would be terrific fun. I would put an abstract painting on the walls at Hogwarts and have it speak only in zen koans --

Standard question: When you sit down to write, what's on the radio? Straight to computer, or scribbled in a notebook? Coffee? Tea? Boone's Farm?

Absolutely anything might be on the CD player -- I try to find music that matches the mood of what I'm writing. Romantic scenes of late have had "Moulin Rouge" or the love songs of Ray Charles as background. Action sequences might work really well to anything from Holst's "Mars: The God of War" to Madonna's "Like A Prayer." "Phoenix Burning" was almost entirely written to the "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" soundtrack. Right now, I'm writing something very lush and old-fashioned, so I've got a lot of Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald going. I do the vast majority of my work at the computer, but sometimes I do a little initial brainstorming on paper. (And yes, I have been known to get up in the dead of night, scribble an idea down and go back to bed.) I'm generally drinking orange juice or Diet Coke at the keyboard, though I will have a glass of white wine before tackling a love scene -- after all this time, writing the sexy stuff still embarrasses me a little. Sometimes that glass of wine loosens you up juuuust enough --

Who in the Buffy fanfic world inspires you? Favorite stories and/or authors?

In my opinion, the best writer out there right now is Rheanna. We've become friends -- but I was slavishly admiring/being humbled by her fic long before that happened. I live in awe of her insight, her use of language and her flair for dialogue. And my favorite story in this fandom, hands down, is her excellent "Vivere." Pretty much everything else she's ever done ("Blood and Water," "In the Waiting," "For One Night Only") is brilliant as well.

Other stories and writers that really stand out are Gyrus with "Inside," Hth with "28 Days," SpykeRaven with "Tiger Lily," Kita with "Equinox," Michael T with "The Trick Chronicles," HonorH with "Dawn and the Dead," Jennifer Oksana with "Lacerated Sky," Tammy Green with "Going Scully," Harpy with "Buffy's Diary," Annie Sewell-Jennings with "Marking Time With Cigarettes," Perri Smith with "techsupport@demon.com" and LJC with "Glorious." Speaking of LJC, I want to send on my gratitude to everyone who participates in the Angel Fanfic Workshop list she runs. (Gratuitous plug #2) It's a place where ATS writers can send their stories and ideas for group betaing and feedback, and I've found the advice I've received there to be invaluable.