Sylar - Gabriel Gray

30 – Do you have a favorite fic you've written? What makes it your favorite? And don't forget to give us a link!
Going out with a bang here. Here is a list of some of my favorite fics that I've done over the years. There's a lot of Heroes since that's been my dominant Fandom for the past 4 years. This LJ will be 4 in September. I've also included the fic I wrote yesterday for Auggie Anderson from Covert Affairs, because I really like it.

( The Best of Me IMHO )

26 – What is the oddest (or funnest) thing you've had to research for a fic?

I am a research junkie. I love digging into every single nook and cranny of a subject. I’m sure most of you think my answer will be about blood splatter or something else to do with murder, but I can get that stuff watching Forensic Files and Investigation Discovery.

The weirdest thing for me was investigating what you have to do to become a Catholic priest, which I did for writing Caleb. I wanted to make sure that I had all those little details in place like the educational requirements, how old he should be at a certain point in his life, and what sort of duties he’d be performing along the way. It was really quite fascinating, and I’ve since used that knowledge other places.

27 – Where is your favorite place to write, and do you write by hand or on the computer?

I can barely sign my name anymore without my hand cramping up. I don’t remember the last time I wrote anything long hand. I carry blank notebooks with me to jot down ideas, but lately I’ve been using my phone for those. Also if I’m someplace where a plotbunny might strike, I usually have my laptop with me. Did you know Starbucks is full of bunnies? Tru fact.

23 – When you post, where do you post to? Just your journal? Just an archive? Your own personal site?

I post in my muses’ journals, my fanfic library fanficbylee, and I crosspost to the applicable fandom comms on LJ. I also post links on Twitter and on Get Glue. I have a ff.net account, but I always forget that it’s there. I used fanlib tons, and I was sad to see it shut down.

24 – Betaing – How many betas do you like to use to make sure there aren't any major flaws in your fic? Do you have a Beta horror story or dream story?

Anyone who reads my posts when they first hit knows that I don’t have a beta. I write. I post, and then I see the errors that I didn’t see before I post and scramble to fix them. I have enough people betaing my real writing, and I want to just enjoy writing fic without that kind of pressure.

PS: Freelance job is pretty much done, and the muses are chattering. I should finally get some fic up soon.

20 –Do you ever get bunnied from other people's stories or art in the same fandom?

I don’t really read other peoples’ fic. I’m sorry guys, but I’ve always been pretty upfront about that. I do not want to be bunnied from someone else’s work. I don’t want to take the chance of stealing a story idea. It’s hard enough to write unique fanfic if you try to stay as true to character as possible. I’m sure there have been plenty of times when I’ve used the same lines as another fic writer, but at least I can honestly say that I didn’t read it someplace else. I read fic from a handful of people, and that is it.

21 – Sequels – Have you ever written a sequel to a fic you wrote, and if so, why, and if not, how do you feel about sequels?

I’ve had one shots that won’t die, had ‘verses spawned in one fic that need to keep going. I don’t write a lot of big fic. I prefer to explore the characters in 2K or less, but once in a Blue Moon, I do write something that is in multiple parts. That’s not exactly a sequel, but it’s as close as I get.

I think sequels are great, but like the movies, books and television there comes a point when it’s time to let the character/world go. I don’t want people to ever read my fic or my real writing out of obligation or morbid curiosity like so many people I know keep buying LKH’s Anita Blake books. They know they suck. They know Anita should have been retired around book 9, but they keep buying them.

I never want to be the writer that can sell a bag of puke because my name is on it. I’d rather be the writer that sells because my story is good, not because my name is big. I think that’s why when it was time to retire Caleb, it wasn’t hard to let him go. Someday I’ll have to retire Sylar, and eventually I’ll have to retire my original characters too.

This is taking too long, so I'm lumping together short answer days.

15 – Warnings – What do you feel it most important to warn for, and what's the strangest thing you've warned for in a fic?

I warn about gore, character death and if I think something might be a trigger, but I don’t use them often. Since I write from the villain’s POV in 90% of my fanfic, I don’t really feel the need to warn. It’s pretty much a given that bad stuff is going to happen when you click on that LJ-cut. If you're expecting fluffy bunnies and unicorns with rainbows coming out their asses, you're reading the wrong person's fic.

16 – Summaries – Do you like them or hate them? How do you come up with them, if you use them?

I don’t write summaries. I will occasionally add an author’s note to establish an AU situation, or to link to something I was inspired by. But I think summaries are a waste of time.

17 – Titles – Are they the bane of your existence, or the easiest part of the fic? Also, if you do chaptered fic, do you give each chapter a title, or not?

I actually like coming up with titles although usually what happens is I’ll title the fic, then I go to write something clever in the LJ-Cut and swap them out. I come up with a lot of titles for my RP threads too. Song titles always work if you’re having a brain fart.

I don’t give multipart fics their own titles anymore than I title the chapters in my novels.

13 – Do you prefer canon or fanon when you write? Has writing fanfic for a fandom changed the way you see some or even all of the original source material?

I much prefer canon for all of my fandoms. I enjoy filling in the missing scenes and such in my fics for specific episodes and situations for the characters. I can be a canon Nazi. I hate reading fic where the facts were ignored, or they’re done wrong. My need for a solid canon is probably why writing LOST fell to the wayside. It was too nebulous for me to play in that sandbox for long.

I’m the same way with my real writing. I research the history of the area or era. I make sure that I know as much as I possibly can before I tweak the world to make it mine. Nothing ruins a book like making a huge error like someone working on a 57 Mustang. The Mustang was introduced in 1964. Yes, it’s an awesome car, but don’t mess that up.

As for fanon – I think if you’ve changed something so much that it’s barely canon based anymore, you may as well write original fiction.

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10 – Pairings – Have you ever gone outside your comfort zone and written a pairing you liked, but found you couldn't write, or a pairing you didn't like, and found you could?

If I don’t like a pairing, I will not attempt to write for them. Also pairing up characters is the last thing on my mind when I’m writing a fic. If the characters have chemistry together, I might explore some shipping, but I do not write to ship. I write to write.

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8 – Do you write OCs? And if so, what do you do to make certain they're not Mary Sues, and if not, explain your thoughts on OCs.

I do not write OCs in Fanfic other than minor characters. They can be filler and canon fodder. They cannot be a major part of the story. It’s too hard to keep them from coming across as Mary Sues, and it’s not that hard to write a good fic using canon characters. If your fandom doesn’t have what you need, try a little crossover action to get the story you want.

I save my OCs for my real writing, where it’s also a battle to avoid Mary Sues. Sadly a great many novels in my genre, Urban Fantasy, feature Mary Sues. In some it’s taken them a few books to get there from power upgrades and sex with gods, but in others, especially YA books, it seems to be a requirement for the lead to be a Sue to begin with. That is something that I do not want in either my fanfic or real fiction.

( the other questions )

6 – When you write, do you prefer writing male or female characters?
It’s pretty obvious that I prefer to write and RP male characters. I can write a few females, but they have to be tough bitches that will hurt you like Faith, Aeryn Sun and the Huntress.

I started RPing males in our real life game because I was bored with RPing females, and the gender of a character does have an influence on game play. But the biggest reason was because the geeky guys I RPed with couldn’t handle encounters with female NPCs. The boys would freeze up the second they had to talk to a hot chick. They could never shut off who they were in real life to become their characters, and for me that is so easy. So by default my boys would end up being the Alpha Males in the party, which you know is kind of sad since I’m not a guy.

Then there’s Jace Winters. When I mentioned Denver running Jace out of her book, I realized it was because I suck at writing women. I have since scrapped two novels where Jace was female, and Jace is now Jason Winters. Jace as a male nearly writes himself, and his personality is strong enough to stand up to Denver. They are doing the buddy thing so well in my new project that it makes me smile.

And yeah, there’s a lot of slash potential there.

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Note - I am currently working on another chapter of Fire & Ice, but I probably won't have time to finish it until next week.

4 – Do you have a "muse" character, that speaks to you more than others, or that tries to push their way in, even when the fic isn't about them? Who are they, and why did that character became your muse?

Let’s talk about my boys. I’m not sure who owns who. My Muses are more than a bit cat like. They want attention. They want control, and it’s really just easier to let them have it. I also let them each have their own LJs. It seems to help keep the peace if they have their own space, and since I tend to RP them as well that's a requirement.

In the Buffy fandom I was writing a bit here and there for Faith or Giles, and then there was Caleb firsts_chosen_1. Caleb was the chosen one of the First Evil at the very end of Season 7. Nathan Fillion got my total attention with the incredibly evil son of a bitch. I loved Caleb before I let myself care about Mal since Firefly had already been canceled, and I hadn’t been bitten by the Browncoat Virus yet.

I had so much fun exploring what made Caleb who he was. I joined joss100, and I completed all 100 prompts in a 4 year period. I RP’d him a lot too, although most comms freaked out a bit at how evil he truly was. He’s retired now, but once in awhile he’ll still pester me for a drabble or crossover.

Mal cptmalreynolds was a muse for a couple of years. He was so much more complicated than anyone knew. We only had 14 episodes of Firefly and then Serenity, and I wanted to know more about him. His lazy drawl and moral convictions led to some pretty good fic. I’m only bummed that I never got to really RP him. Any game we ever joined or created died, although he did have a lot of fun with a Kara Thrace a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

And then there’s Sylar thewatchmaker. He devoured me. He devoured all the other little minor muses that were in my head. Even now when a new character inspires me they have to fight against the Watchmaker. I’ve written more fic for him than any other character. I’ve been RPing him for almost 4 years straight too in one game or another, and for the past two on my own rp_shadesofgray.

I adore his complexity and his intelligence. I love exploring the shades of gray in his soul, and how he’s not completely evil. Somewhere inside of him, Gabriel Gray still exists, and studying Gabriel has been a frequently painful experience. I’ve had quite a few people ask me why Gabriel never gets happy fics, and I think that’s just the way it is. His life pretty much sucked ass. I write for Sylar and Gabriel Gray gabrielisgray, and they are so different that they each get their own LJ.

Peter Petrelli italianeaglesct was never supposed to be in my head. He’s a good guy. He will die to protect other people, and you have to admit that’s quite a bit different than my other boys. Mal will die for you, but he’s got to care about you and your cause. Peter doesn’t seem to be that selective.

It took until season 4 Peter to get to me. Before that he was too much the happy puppy, and it took Nathan’s death to make him into a character with enough balls to interest me. I suppose that’s why I also take a turn at writing and RPing Future Peter tarnishedhero, because that boy is totally fucked up.

I'd love to list Spock iam_spock and Castiel thursdaysangel, but they are fickle bastards.

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