Hello and welcome to the Immeritus Fandom Blacklight! This feature puts the Blacklight on the giants of the Harry Potter fandom. These are the people who have written the best fanfics, created superior fanart and composed the finest fanpoetry—and we're finding out more about what makes them tick. In our interviews, we ask for their views on the Harry Potter books and the fandom and learn what inspires their creativity. We're interested in their methods of working and their favourite characters. And then, we ask a few more questions! So onto our September interview...

This month, we are proud to feature puppyshipper extraordinaire, shaggydogstail! She is 35 and lives in England, where she plots her Sirius adventures and renowned crack!fic humor.

I: Which (real-life) authors and/or artists do you most admire?
S: My favourite author is George Orwell, who I've adored since I read Animal Farm when I was thirteen. I'm also a huge fan of Isabelle Allende, who I only discovered a couple of years ago when I compulsively read everything of hers that I could get my hands on over the course of several months. There's masses of other authors I love as well and I like to read quite a variety of different things.

I: Have they inspired your own style in any way?
S: Probably not in any noticeable way, though I'm always conscious of Orwell's advice about the benefits of simplicity in writing. I try to be straightforward and unpretentious.

I think my writing style is very much in keeping with the traditions of British comedy writing and you can tell, when reading my stories, that I've watched Blackadder and read things like PG Wodehouse, Three Men in a Boat, and 1066 And All That.

I: What advice would you give to novices wanting to start writing/drawing?
S: Read a lot and write a lot. Think about what you're doing, but not to the point that it scares you. Have fun.

I: Why did you read your first Harry Potter book?
S: My daughter liked them, and I read a bit of GoF to her when she was sick. I was dying to find out what happened after the chapter I'd read to her, so I carried on until the end of the book. I read OotP immediately after that, and then went back and read the whole series from the start.

I: Which is your favourite HP book and why?
S: Prisoner of Azkaban just beats Goblet of Fire by a whisker. The whole sequence in the Shrieking Shack is just fantastic—that's my favourite part of the entire series. I love the drama of it and the fact that if you try to explain to someone everything that happens in the scene, it sounds ridiculous, but when you read it in the book it all makes perfect sense.

I: What do you like most about the Harry Potter series?
S:The incredible range of characters is probably my favourite thing—there are so many interesting and varied characters in the books, often which such fascinating backstories and motivations. I really like that.

I also love the humour. I'm not actually a huge fan of the fantasy genre, really, except when it's funny.

I: What do you like the least?
S: There's odd bits and pieces of storyline that I'm not so keen on, but that's inevitable with a story of this length. Overall I think the books could do with a bit of tighter editing, but there's nothing I really loathe about them.

I: Who's your favourite canon character to read about and why?
S: Sirius is SO my favourite. Initially the thing that impressed me the most was his devotion to Harry—Harry had never experienced that kind of unconditional love before and I thought the way Sirius and Harry developed such a close bond despite the tremendous obstacles they faced was very moving.

I find the strength of Sirius' convictions very admirable. He's the only character we've ever seen in canon who has completely rejected the prejudices he was brought up with, with no apparent benefit to himself. Sirius didn't do himself any favours by rejecting his parents' pure-blood fanaticism—indeed, that sort of ideology would have served him very well—but he did it anyway, because he believed it was the right thing to do.

Perfect characters bore me, so I like the fact that Sirius is flawed and does bad things sometimes. It makes him so much more real.

I: What would you most like to see in the final book?
S: I want to be surprised. Ideally I want to be reading the seventh book and have my jaw drop in amazement because I never saw that happening! A selfish part of me wants all my own pet theories born out in canon, but really I'd rather read something that completely blows me away.

I: What would you say to someone who referred to the HP books as childrens' books?
S: Nothing. They are children's books, and I think it's a bit silly to pretend otherwise.

I: How do you view the gender divide in the HP series? Do you find the female characters as engaging, well-rounded and strong as the male characters? If not, why not?
S: I think it's unfortunate that fandom debates about women in HP tends to revolve around the presence or absence of 'strong female characters.' There are undoubtedly strong female characters, but I do think there are some shortcomings in the way women are depicted in canon. There's a real lack of stuff about women's relationships with each other, be it as friends, family or enemies, which is a shame because the relationships male characters have with each other are so wonderfully drawn in so many ways—it would be nice to see more of that for the women as well.

I: When did you first discover the HP fandom and fanfics/fanart?
S: Around about October 2004. I was looking for an on-line Sorting Hat game I'd heard mentioned on a TV programme when I stumbled across CoS forums. There were any number of discussion threads that I was dying to have my say on, so I registered straight away. I was hooked in no time!

It took me a few more months to discover fanfiction and art as, though they do feature on CoS, it's mostly a discussion forum. I only really got hooked on fanfic when I found FictionAlley, as up until then an awful lot of what I'd read on sites like FF.Net had been of dubious quality, to put it mildly.

I: How would you say your work has improved since you first started out in the fandom and how instrumental has feedback been to that?
S: My work has improved immeasurably, in just about every way I can think of. One of the things that helped me most was having my first submission to FictionAlley rejected—I can't say how ashamed I was by that, but it did me the world of good because I went away and learnt things like how to format dialogue properly and I've never made the same mistakes again.

I've also found that the content of my work has improved a lot from using beta-readers, especially for longer, plottier stories. A good beta—and I've been lucky enough to have a few—will stop me being lazy and taking shortcuts in my stories by saying things like 'why is this character doing this?'

I: Are there any topics which you think are taboo or out of bounds for the HP fandom? Are there any subjects that you personally would not address in your fanwork? Would you censor your work depending on who you thought your audience would be?
S: Nothing is taboo in HP fandom, absolutely nothing. It's a real free-for-all.

There's a number of things that I personally don't care to write about. I'd never write anything that I consider to be abusive, so non-con, parent-child incest, and sexual relationships between teachers and students are all out. (Though I do love a spot of schoolboy flirting with McGonagall!) There's quite a few pairings that I refuse to write because I just don't like them.

I don't censor my work as such, but I do sometimes write to order. If I'm writing something for a fic-exchange or as a gift for a friend I'm very conscious that it should be something they want to read, so I won't add in elements that I think will annoy or squick them. That would just be rude.

I: What genres have you worked in? Are there any genres you would avoid and if so, why?
S: I mostly write slash, though I've also written het, femmeslash and gen. The majority of my work is comedy, usually romantic comedy, though I've dabbled in angst and more serious, dramatic fic.
I enjoy experimenting and playing around with different styles a lot, so I don't think there's any genre I'd absolutely avoid—if the bunnies bite hard enough, I'll write almost anything.

I: Have you noticed a bias towards male slash in the HP fandom? If so, has this affected the kind of work you've produced (e.g. by making you less likely to write about/draw het or femmeslash)? What are your thoughts on the reasons for a mainly female fandom writing/depicting a lot of male slash?
S: There is a lot of m/m slash in the HP fandom, but because this fandom is so huge it really isn't difficult to find a lot of good het, femmeslash and gen fic as well. I've never felt under any pressure to write slash as opposed to other genres and writing other genres hasn't done me any harm—one of my most popular stories was gen and I've got good feedback for het as well.
I'm afraid I have very little patience for the whole 'why women write slash' debate, because it tends to produce the most dreadful cod-psychological witterings. I just write what I like, and most of the other authors I know do the same.

I: Do you keep your fandom life separate from your 'real' life e.g. do friends and family know that you write? Why do you think so many people keep that divide - is fandom something people are ashamed of, in your opinion?
S: My husband and my best friend know about my fandom life and that's it. I'd never tell most of the people I know about my fandom activities because they'd think I was a complete freak. Given that I write gay porn about characters in children's books, I think they'd have a point. It looks pretty weird to outsiders.

I: Who are your favourite fanartists/authors/poets?
S: There are so many writers and artists I admire, I couldn't even begin to tell you them all. My favourite author is Sheafrotherdon—I am quite literally in awe of her talent. My favourite artists are Linnpuzzle, who produces the most adorable Remus/Sirius pictures imaginable, and Celestial Soda. (Her Sirius makes me go all weak at the knees. Gah.)

I: What do you like best about the fandom?
S: The sense of community. I've recieved a lot of support from other people in fandom and enjoyed a lot of good laughs with them as well.

I: What prompted you to start creating your own fanworks?
S: I used to do a lot of creative writing—all original fiction—when I was younger, but that sort of dried up in my early twenties. Reading fanfiction gave me the impetus to have a go at it myself and I'm so glad that it did. Doing something creative makes me a much happier person.

I: What preparation do you have to do to create your fanworks? How essential is it to muse on canon characters and storylines before putting forward your interpretation?
S: Preparation is hugely important to me. Before I wrote a single word of fanfiction I read and re-read every scene I could find with the characters I was writing about in, to make sure I nailed the characterisation and captured their voices as best I could. I spend a lot of time thinking about the characters, their motivations and their personalities before I write about them. A lot of my writing is informed by the fact that I spent a long time in discussion forums before I started writing fanfic and I still write and read meta as well as fiction. For me personally, analysing the characters in this way helps with my writing a great deal.
I'm a bit of a research junkie and something of a canon-whore, so I'm pretty obsessive about checking canon facts before I start writing, to make sure everything adds up. I do all sorts of extra research as well. For example, I recently wrote a story about Lily getting her Hogwarts letter, which mentions her playing with Sindy dolls, so I looked for a Sindy fansite on the internet to check which dolls would have been available when she was a little girl. Getting those little details right means a great deal to me.

I: How would you describe your approach to writing? Do you sit down and plot out an entire story before writing, write in stages as scenes develop, or just sit and write, for example?
S: I rarely write out an actual storyline on paper, but I always know how my story will start, how it will end, and how I'm going to get there before I begin. Quite often the story will grow and occasionally veer off at tangents as I'm writing, but the backbone of the story is always there. For longer stories I'll sometimes make a few notes to ensure consistency or to work out what order events should take place in, but since I mainly write one-shots that doesn't happen often.

I: Who's your favourite canon character to write about and why?
S: Sirius, without a doubt. There's just so much you can do with Sirius because he has all these extremes to his personality, which makes him very flexible. As an author, it's very easy to manipulate Sirius, because it takes only the slightest provocation to make him to the most wonderful, or the most terrible things. There's also masses of interesting back story with Sirius, about his family, his friendships, 'The Prank' and the Order which we know enough about to make for enticing story possibilities, but not so much that authors are constrained in the way we write about him.

I: Of all your work, which is your favourite piece and why?
S: Far and away, my favourite is Teenage Kicks. I'm incredibly proud of that story. It started off as more or less a joke, because I thought it would be funny to write about Sirius having an embarrassing teenage crush on a rock star and grew into a much more involved story coming-of-age story about Sirius.

I like the fact that it is an unusual story. One of the elements that I feel is missing slightly in canon is music, which is mentioned only infrequently, though for me and most people I know music was a huge part of my teenage years. I've read stories in which the Marauders are into Muggle music, but I've never been keen on using Muggle culture in my stories, so I invented a lot of stuff about the Hobgoblins and the magical music scene, which was enormous fun to do. I also like the fact that it deals with Sirius realising that he's gay and coming out, without it being about him having a relationship with another character, because I haven't seen that done before.
It's my most popular story by a long chalk as well. I think this is partly because it is fairly unusual in terms of fanfic, but also because there is a sort of universal appeal in a story about a teenager with a crush on a rock star. Most of us have been there at some point, which makes it very easy for readers to identify with Sirius.

I: You've mentioned that puppyshipping is now growing a bit stale for you. What originally attracted you to Sirius/Remus? What other ships interest you and which haven't you tried that you're now considering? What appeals to you about these other ships?
S: I liked the fact that Remus/Sirius is, if not actually canon, close enough to canon to be easily believable. I was hugely impressed with the quality of a lot of the Remus/Sirius stories I read when I first got into reading fanfic and I like the fact that there are so many interesting takes on their relationship. I am still interested in the pairing and it'll be a long time before I abandon it completely, if ever.

I've written a whole load of other Sirius pairings over the past few months and one of the things I like about doing that is that I can play on aspects of Sirius' character that perhaps don't come out so well in Remus/Sirius stories—or, at least, they don't the way I write them. I like Sirius/Lily for the exact opposite reason why I like Remus/Sirius. It's not remotely compatible with canon and the very fact that it's just so wrong makes it a lot of fun. Plus, it's hot.

There's a lot of other pairings that I've written as one-offs or write only infrequently. Generally speaking, my shipping preferences are based on my character preferences, so my favourite ships are mostly Sirius-centric, because he's my favourite. Basically, the more I like other characters the better a chance they've got of getting it on with Sirius (it's like a reward for me liking them). If Sirius isn't involved, I always ship two characters I like and, in most cases, who like each other in canon together.
I also like Lily/James, Ginny/Hermione, and Fleur/Tonks. My favourite themes in shippy fic are friendship and loyalty, so I particularly like ships that can incorporate those ideas, although I also like a hint of forbidden love.

I: In your five part AU fic, Though the Heavens May Fall, Sirius and Peter are put on trial by the Ministry for their parts in the events of 31 October 1981. What was your inspiration for altering the canon events and what did you enjoy most about writing this fic?
S: I work in the law, so the magical legal system has always been interesting to me. I'd wanted to write an AU story for a long time before I started Though The Heavens May Fall, and there was a huge element of fangirlish wish-fulfilment about it—I wanted a better outcome for Sirius.

The story was originally written for a Christmas fic exchange and my recipient wanted Remus/Sirius, specifying that she liked plot and, when I looked at her livejournal, I saw that she liked AU. I've read a lot of excellent AU stories about this era, though the majority of them tend to focus on the Remus/Sirius relationship. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to indulge my interest in the machinations of the Ministry of Magic by writing a story that focused on how difficult it actually might have been for Remus to help clear Sirius' name, even when he knew the truth about what had happened.

Writing the story was hard work—it's probably the hardest story I've ever written—but it was very rewarding. I'd never created OCs before and was horribly nervous about doing it, but once I'd started I grew immensely fond of them. I really liked writing Alastor Moody (I literally jumped for joy when it hit me that his patronus should be a bull dog, because it just felt perfect) and Dumbledore was a lot of fun as well.

I: In Though the Heavens May Fall, it was interesting to see a muggle mother and her witch daughter deal with a full wizard trial. How do you feel Judith (the mother) coped with it all? Do you think your readers were expecting her to be more aggressively protective of Cassie, her daughter, or did the situation demand that Judith, as a muggle, be overwhelmed by everything?
S: Poor Judith, I think she was in shock throughout the whole thing. As a parent myself, I've always had a bit of an interest in how the parents of Muggle-born witches and wizards cope, though I really don't know how I'd withstand everything I put her through! The plot demanded that she had to agree to allow Cassie to testify, which I did have concerns about when I was writing it because I could see this being difficult for her. In the end, I made it so that she barely had time to think about anything; one day she finds out her daughter's a witch, the next morning she's in front of the Wizengamot. She was just swept along with the course of events but, at the same time, she's a very good person and I think she realised how important what Cassie did was. She's very proud of her daughter.

I: You've won an award for your writing. How does it feel to be recognized and honoured by others in fandom?
S: I was terribly excited by it and I'm always delighted by any form of recognition.

I: Your recent crackfic, Pistachio, about Sirius' fetish for Remus' moustache created quite the squicky buzz. Were you surprised at the reaction? How much, if at all, do you think your readers had David Thewlis' decidedly dodgy moustache in mind and that this added to their dismay? How do you respond when readers react negatively to a plot point, despite the obvious humour or dramatic intentions behind the work?
S: I'm surprised that anyone's still speaking to me after it, really! Pistachio was a tribute, of sorts, to David Thewlis' moustache, so I certainly hope it was at the forefront of readers' minds when they read it. Well, either than or what they ate for dinner, because it really was disgusting.
I'm lucky that I've never received any really negative responses to my stories—well, except when I've more or less openly invited them by being deliberately squicky! I've had a few reviews that have made me do a bit of a double-take, usually vaguely anti-slash comments, but nothing really nasty.

I: Finally, could you complete the following sentence?: Sirius is ______.
S: More sinned against than sinning. Sirius is brave, brilliant, passionate, affectionate fantastically loyal. He's also headstrong, impulsive, angry, and just a little bit mental. I wouldn't have him any other way.

We hope you've enjoyed reading the September issue as much as we did! If we piqued your interest, you can find shaggydogstail's livejournal here. Please pay attention to warnings and ratings as it may contain adult content. If you want to comment on the interview please follow this link.