Whenever a new (or in some cases, old) author pops up and generates a lot of buzz, I know that’s my cue to put them in the spotlight. It took me a few months to get around to Madden, I’m slightly ashamed to say, but here she is now.
You may also know her by her real name, Abby, but whatever you call her, it’s safe to say that you’ve probably heard of her story Ten Years And Muses. It’s part of the new wave of Anthem era fic, and definitely worth checking out… after you read her interview, of course!
Why did you start writing hanfic? How long have you been writing?
Um, this is a hard question, actually! I started writing in 10th grade (14 years ago, I was 16) with my best friend, Charlotte. I honestly don’t remember what prompted us to start it up. I remember having a lot of typical teenybopper fangirl Hanson conversations with her that started out like “What if this happened?” and stuff like that. I imagine that’s how Yesterday began because that’s essentially how TYAM began, except that when I came up with the idea to do TYAM, my characters already existed so it wasn’t difficult to imagine. I’d LIKE to say I’ve been writing for 14 consecutive years, but I haven’t. Yesterday was our prequel that never got finished since life got in the way. I started writing a couple more Hanfics since then but my heart just wasn’t in it and I couldn’t commit past more than maybe ten chapters so I abandoned them. I tried one with Grey’s Anatomy, too, but that never was finished, either. I have sort of an addictive personality and I think I was just so stuck on the whole Mel and Drew thing that anything else felt weird to write.
Will you ever post more of Yesterday or are the snippets you’ve posted all of it that will ever see the light of day?
Like I said before, Yesterday was written in high school. And you can TELL!! With Yesterday, Charlotte and I literally had spiral notebooks that we passed back and forth. I wrote Mel and she wrote Drew, all in first person. I think we only maybe let one other person read it. We passed it back and forth for so long that I think we accumulated maybe three notebooks? And then, of course, as we got older, life got in the way and Yesterday sort of just faded away. The story got separated. I have the entire first notebook…I don’t think I have the second one, I think maybe she has the rest. I’ve had several requests to put it online and we’re currently discussing it. I think it might be fun to post, compare the differences. There are definite differences in background because when I discussed backgrounds in TYAM I was already 14 chapters in before I decided to revisit Yesterday and discovered that I’d changed some of the background–and I liked the new stuff better so I kept it. We’ll see. Nothing definite yet! 😉
What are your favorite hanfic stories and authors?
I’ve been a bad, bad girl. I never kept up with Hanfic. Like, ever. I only ALMOST finished Tulsa 71432 right after I started writing TYAM but I never ended up going back to it. Admittedly, I’ve never read any completed works. I’d like to and I probably will once I get TYAM finished up. Right now the ones I’m currently reading are Tiny Dancer Dust by Amber and Secrets by Emily. I know I’m probably about to get in tons of trouble once this is posted but I PROMISE I am going to get up to date on everyone’s Hanfics as soon as possible!! 🙂 As far as favorite authors go, well, unfortunately I haven’t read enough to answer that question. I’m a little OCD when it comes to things like this, I want to read them all eventually. But I have to have a system when I do things. From start to finish to make sure I have all my bases covered. But I will get there and the authors will get my feedback when possible!
What is your writing process like?
Um…my writing process is…well I don’t know! It’s kind of random, maybe? My mind is on it, constantly, always planning my next move. When I started TYAM, the app had just come out and all the Anthem hype was just starting and I literally woke up one morning and was like, “I should totally bring back Drew and Mel!” So I called Charlotte and by the time I called her I already had the opening bar scene completely planned out in my head and she was instantly all over it and was like, “Go for it!” So I did. For the first 14 chapters, I only emailed them to her and that was it. I didn’t start even entertaining putting it online until I saw that Galadriel was writing one as well and that there was still an interest in Hanfic. So I was kind of inspired by her to take the plunge to put it online and I NEVER, in a million years, expected the feedback I got from it. Okay, I’m getting off subject.
Up until chapter 22, I was writing chapter to chapter. I would call Charlotte and be like “Okay, where should I go from here?” and we would brainstorm and then the next thing would come out. By 22, things were getting so involved I had to write out an outline of upcoming events, not necessarily how many chapters it would take to get there! Some of it changed along the way, a lot of it–actually much of the story–is spur of the moment accidents.
In a nutshell, my writing process is get an idea, write it up, Google what needs to be Googled, feverishly reread and edit, email it to Charlotte, get her opinion, and then post it after even more feverish rereading and editing. Lately, though I’ve been getting impatient and posting before she gets a chance to read it. Oops!
I do A LOT of research. For Jason, I spent HOURS UPON HOURS on YouTube researching Jason Momoa. I watched interview after interview and clip after clip of shows and movies of his. The interviews and ComicCon panels were the most helpful. For Hanson, I only prefer their candid stuff, like FUTYs, livestreams, documentaries, and the “fun” interviews. I don’t watch the “serious” or “career-oriented” interviews because they’re useless to me. I needed stuff that showcased the REAL them. I researched the dresses I’ve described, the jewelry, every place they’ve gone I’ve researched. There is no place they’ve gone in the story that I haven’t researched and either used or based things on. I’m actually THINKING of putting a section on my website as sort of a legend showing all of the people and places everything is based on. We’ll see, I’m still thinking on it.
But as a whole, for the most part, I try to feel it when I write it. I submerse myself inside the story and try to pull it from within. I do tend to have a hard time picking up after I’ve dropped a major bombshell (which I’m currently going through) but mostly I just view it in my mind like a movie or soap opera, lay out the scenes and jump in and it’s like I’m writing from INSIDE the story. Most everyone already knows by now, my favorite character in the entire story is Jason. As the author, I am completely head over heels in love with him. So for the last few chapters that I wrote him in, I cried, literally, like a baby. It was like, “type, wipe tears, type, wipe tears.” But ultimately I think he served his purpose and I can only hope that he served his purpose well enough.
Where do your ideas and inspiration come from?
EVERYWHERE!!! When we started Yesterday, I wanted something fun to write. Something not so typical. I was head over heels in love with Isaac at the time but when I sat and thought about it and I thought about what we knew of their personalities, I just HAD to write Taylor, no questions asked. When Taylor and Mel meet (or reunite, rather) for the first time in Yesterday, it starts in a fight. Their entire relationship begins in a fight, which I guess set the mood or whatever of the story. It was constantly up and down with them. The way I THOUGHT Yesterday ended (and I’m probably wrong since I haven’t read it since then and the idea may have never actually made it on paper) helped fuel the premise behind TYAM. I wanted to age them to current ages now (ten years was really just a good round number, timelines don’t need to be over-analyzed in this story) but I wanted to keep everything current. In the first 14 chapters, Taylor still had kids. I had it all written out. But when I decided to put it online I just COULDN’T put his kids in it. My heart would not let me take a father away from his children and I knew that since a lot of readers are mothers now, it couldn’t possibly go over well. So I decided to completely eliminate his kids completely. I’m actually glad I did it!
Most of my ideas and inspiration come from pure emotion. Case in point: Jason. Jason was an accident. He was one hundred and ten thousand percent an accident. And now, as it turns out, he’s one of my most popular characters. I actually have some Team Jason readers, if you can believe it! For chapter 17, I told Charlotte, “I need men. Mel and Drew needs dates for this club scene, who can I use?” I’m not very good at dreaming up character descriptions on my own, so it was easier to base them on real people. So finally, I decided on basing Kevin on Kellan Lutz (by looks only) but I still needed a man for Mel. And I needed someone extremely sexy and extremely intimidating and someone who couldn’t BE more of Taylor’s polar opposite. And then I remembered Jason Momoa and I fell in love with him all over again and then Jason Kamealoha was born. Jason IS Jason Momoa in every sense imaginable. Voice, looks, mannerisms, etc. All of it. Jason was never supposed to make it past chapter 18. Never. But this was one of many instances that AS I sat there and wrote, my mind just kind of went out in left field and I unexpectedly turned him into a PERSON as opposed to the mere man meat he was supposed to be. After that I couldn’t get enough of him and the ideas just started flowing. A lot of my accidents have happened that way. My recent developments with Kate were a result of just going with the accidental flow as well. A vast majority of the major events in the story were spur of the moment.
Which stories are you most proud of having written?
I guess since I haven’t really completed any, the one I’m most proud of is Ten Years And Muses!
Favorite songs to listen to while you write or which inspire your writing?
Music can either be your best friend or your worst enemy. It can either take you where you need to go or it can completely steer you off track and make you do things you never intended to do and that make you say “F**K! What do I do now??”
I mostly write in silence. Most times I don’t need the distraction. My story does have a soundtrack, though the songs I insert aren’t necessarily songs that I listened to while writing. I haven’t inserted any lyrics in my last few chapters but I will when the occasion arises.
There are some specific musical instances, though, that have affected my writing. Sometimes I turn on music because I NEED it. I listened to a lot of Hanson mostly after I was coming down off of my Team Jason high and needed to get back on Team Tay. For Tay and Mel’s first love scene, I had For Your Love on loop. The entire time, it was the only song I listened to. For their major fight scene in chapter 33, I listened to A LOT of Disturbed. The energy from the music helped me fuel the rage in their fight. Roller Coaster Love was also a major inspiration for their second love scene–if you want to call it a love scene! When I wrote Jason beginning to fall in love with Mel, that was an accident due to my having Poisonblack’s Escapextasy album playing as I wrote. COMPLETE accident. It was like, “Oh, it’s too quiet in here. Ooh, I haven’t heard this album in awhile.” And unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on who the reader is invested in in the story) it was like driving my car off a cliff on auto-pilot. Like your pen randomly goes askew or something. Other songs that have inspired my writing have been Bed of Roses by Bon Jovi, High Enough by Damn Yankees, Already Home, and Lost Without You. When I wrote Zac and Drew’s very first dinner scene, Look At You instantly popped into my head and that helped me take the scene where it went. You get certain energies from certain songs if you allow the song to penetrate. Sometimes you just have to lose yourself. For the big reveal on Natalie, I had Tragic Symphony picked out for it for several months already, I just had to get there to write it!!
Lately, though, I have readers now who come to me and say “This song reminds me of this couple” or “This song totally reminds me of TYAM” and normally I can find a few gems in there and I can draw good inspiration from them. I generally tend to either lean toward Hanson or rock. Other people’s pop music or anything too light-hearted doesn’t really fit the mood of my story, so I tend to stay away from the Taylor Swifts or the Ed Sheerans and stuff like that. I feel my music just like I feel my story and though the lyrics might be good, if the song isn’t making me feel what I need to feel to write my story, I won’t have anything to do with it. I’m on a one-track path! I need to stay in the zone and I need to finish it!! 🙂
Thank you, Madden, for being the October spotlight… and happy birthday! 🙂