My friend Alex recently published her first novel, The Coward’s Emblem. It’s a YA fantasy story about a the titular coward coming to terms with their true self and is available on Amazon. It’s a story about duty and danger that asks us look out for others instead of only ourselves.
If you are interested in keeping up with Alex’s work, she’s active on Tumblr and loves to answer fan questions.
Alex is very into the fanfiction community and I know little about that corner of the internet. I wanted to pick her brain a bit and give her a chance to share about her new book. I emailed her a couple of questions and let her express herself. I learned more about fanfiction than I had anticipated and I’m sharing her responses here. She had a lot to say; you can tell by her first response how passionate she is about fanfiction and writing in general.
The amateurism of fanfiction may lead many people to think it is somehow lesser writing not worth reading. What are these people missing out on by turning up their noses to the medium?
Excuse me while I go off right now…
1- I firmly believe that writing fanfiction can help make a writer better at writing. Having set boundaries on characters, having flaws and skills to work within, and being able to put that character through an endless amount of different worlds and situations and still keeping that character recognizable strengthens the idea of the character. They become more and more a real person. If you can’t do that with any characters, including your own, do you really understand that character?
2- There are just so many exciting worlds built by amazing creators, but no person can think of every nuance and outcome and situation. There are a thousand things a creator will never think of to include in their world, and another person brings something new to a world, maybe because they’re queer, or trans, or a POC, or disabled, from a different country of economic background, etc, whatever makes them unique from the original creator. This only enriches something already wonderful. Why not fanfiction every world you’ve ever read about?
3- Lastly, fanfiction exists in “normal” stories already. There are dozens of retellings of Cinderella, like Ever After and Ella Enchanted, that’s a kind of fanfiction. The Bridgerton series on Netflix is all but a fanfiction with all the changes they’ve made so far, especially since one of their main premises is “What if that Queen Charlotte conspiracy theory that she might’ve had a Black ancestor were true?” Every Star Trek series that Gene Roddenberry didn’t help create is basically a fanfiction of his original idea. Maybe people should broaden their idea of what fanfiction means.
How did you initially get involved in the fanfiction community?
My sister actually found it first, and I have no idea how. She wanted more Sailor Moon and Gundam Wing, and boy did she find it. I was absolutely AMAZED that people were out there writing stories where these two shows were combined. And then I found Sailor Moon Dragonball Z crossovers and that was that. I even wrote some! I was maybe 13 at the time and having a GRAND time on fanfiction.net. ( archiveofourown.org is the site to go to these days, though!)
What lessons do you think established authors could learn from fanfiction and what could fanfiction learn from more traditional authors?
(Thanks to my friend for helping me answer this) Aspiring authors shouldn’t be afraid to publish despite similar themes to existing work. There’s always a new take, and there’s always going to be readers to want it.
Fanfiction could learn to be more consistent. There’s a lot of personal formatting, and coming up with personal grammar rules in lieu of just looking it up.
What affect has fanfiction had on your writing of The Coward’s Emblem?
To be completely open, everything about TCE was affected by fanfiction. Firstly, it was a fanfiction at one time. I wanted to write my friend’s favorite ship from her favorite manga into a world based on one of her favorite games as a surprise birthday gift. Because I’d never played the game myself, my friend tried to describe this long series of games without knowing that I was secretly planning this story-gift, which meant she did a VERY BAD JOB at it. Because it was such a bad job, I ended up filling in a lot of blanks with my own imagination.
And this friend? I met her because of fanfiction and she’s my best friend to this day, and now her birthday present is the first novel in a series!
Names are important to world-building; they can help readers differentiate between characters, places, and groups. How do you come up with names unique enough to stand out, but not so unique they become distracting to the story you are telling?
I don’t know if I’m successful about those names not being distracting… but I know I have a great time doing it. I like going deep into the meaning of names. I like finding etymology and considering the phonology. I also think about how the language in my book would work, what changes in spelling, what would makes sense in the culture overall? How do I want my readers to hear the names in their head? It’s not always a perfect system, but it sure is fun for me.
What were some of the themes and big ideas you feel are integral to The Coward’s Emblem and your work going forward?
As cliche as it sounds, the power of friendship is a major one. I believe that characters. need. friends. Lone wolves are boring, give me hectic and loving and chaotic and messy friendships, and how important they are: in positive and negative ways.
Dealing with mental health issues; I like the idea that people aren’t defined by their mental illness, that they can’t cure it, but they can work through it, accept even the worst parts of themselves, and thrive.
The meaning of duty/responsibility is also something directly discussed in the text. When is it time to choose yourself over your duty? When is it selfish and when is it right?
I’m sure there’s more, but I might be too close to this to be critically objective with my own work!
What was the most surprising lesson you learned through the publishing process that you will need to be aware of moving forward in the series?
The editing wasn’t as in-depth as I thought it would be. I have to be a lot more prepared to keep track of my own world, because they won’t always catch where the inconsistencies are.
Watching characters grow throughout a series is one reason people come back for books two, three, and four. Aside from the titular coward Hamasa, which of your characters has the most growth ahead of them?
(And maybe even book 5…) All of them have a great deal of growing to do. I think, of all of them, Valerius’ destination will be the most different from his beginning. However, there are quite a few characters you haven’t met yet. We’ll have to see who wins this race at the end.
To loop back to the first question, do you have any recommendations of exemplary fanfiction that may convince unbelievers?
SO MANY. But I controlled myself. I’ve got seven, and then I narrowed down to four. You’re welcome, but I’ll have you know, my heart is broken.
The first one is Redemption Road, a Supernatural fanfiction series. It’s 600k+ words, written by over a dozen writers, with almost as many artists, who all spent months writing this series that replaces season 7. Just the amount of time and planning these authors put in, in the time of LIVEJOURNAL, is mind-blowing. (Because shipping matters to fanfiction: it’s Dean Winchester/Castiel in the end, but the story is more about the plot than the ship)
The List by silvercistern is the first in a series of post-Hunger Games stories. Every part has a different character’s POV, and it really goes in depth with their trauma, their pain, and how they made their future a happy one despite everything. (Themes of mental illness and health are things I also write in, so it’s near and dear to my heart) (POVs include Peeta, Katniss, and Haymitch, and Effie for an epilogue. Katniss/Peeta)
If you want to see just how amazing the imagination fanfiction-ers, Theory of No Control by greenleaf takes the characters of Teen Wolf (yeah, the mtv one) in Jurassic Park. It’s as exciting and nostalgic as the original movie, and the mutual pining of the main pairing is hilariously delicious. (Stiles Stilinski/Derek Hale)
The last one is one that affected my work personally in a very obvious way (think closely about Valerius’ disability that created the Inciting Incident). Prosopagnosia by misseditallagain is another Supernatural fanfiction, but it’s not “in-verse” like Redemption Road. There’s no monsters. No angels or demons. It’s Castiel, a normal human man, and how he’s dealt with a disability his whole life that most people have no idea exists. He deals with anxiety, panic attacks, and learns, slowly, painfully, how to accept himself totally and be honest to the people he cares about. (Yes, it’s also Dean/Castiel.)
A bit longer than my normal posts, but she had a lot to say and I didn’t need to write it so it’s all gravy to me. Again, if you want to know more about Alex, check out her Tumblr page and go buy The Coward’s Emblem in paperback or ebook from Amazon.
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