#<- working title of my 2nd person pov childe character study (the second one)

[fischlcatgirl]

pov i am reacting normally to skirks bad design

[ann-spoon]

Fanfiction Writer Interviews!

I’ve decided to interview writers of Next Generation fanfiction, to see how such an open-ended universe can impact the fans. And whether or not social media or certain fans influence the way we view other characters.

Your Rose Weasley may not be the same as mine basically.

Today I’ve decided to interview Nessie or her ff.net username Nessie-The Pillow Biting Monster. She is also known as @anopheliamiratio

!!SPOILER ALERT!! This interview may contain spoilers for the fanfic so go away if you don’t want to read. Otherwise, the link is down below if you want to read the fic.

Link:https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7585004/1/James-Potter-and-the-New-Marauders

Q. How did you first get this idea of starting a Next Generation fanfiction?

A.That’s a tough one. It has been so long since I started planning this story. I always liked Next Gen fanfics, even in other fandoms. Back in High School, I finished Deathly Hallows and there was the Epilogue… it was screaming “Write a story about what happens next!”, didn’t it? In fact, my writing skills were hardly adequate to write Harry Potter fiction in English back then. So I scribbled down some stuff (let’s say the draft of chapter 1) and then started gathering information.

Q. How would you describe all the characters in 3 words? A. Witty, sneaky, mischievous?

Q. Do you feel as if your portrayal of these characters are different from what people expect? If so, tell me why.

A.I’m not sure. There’s this flawed logic that kicks in when I get to work with so “undefined” characters. There are a few things that “make sense” to happen, so I use them as a base. For example, James was teasing Albus in the Epilogue, so I figured he could be a prankster in general. Of course, readers expect this since it’s been done before. Ron said Rosie got her mother’s brains, so she should be smart. Right? But they told her not to let Scorpius beat her, so how about making Scorpius smart too? I’m sure all this has been said and done before too. I also started out by making Albus somewhat meek and hesitant. Those are things that “should” be done, according to my strange logic, so that I don’t develop people who are “out-of-character”.

A character doesn’t stay the same forever though, especially when you’re dealing with an 11-year-old. That’s just the first impression. People change, they develop. I used those as a base and gave them a twist. Rose is smart, but she’s older than her mother, loves flying, mostly pretends to follow the rules but has few (or no) second thoughts about breaking them. She’s a powerful character, inspiring fear ON PURPOSE to make sure she doesn’t get bullied in a hostile environment. 

Scorpius is smart but he’s better when it comes to theory and potionmaking rather than spellcasting. He’s trapped in his family’s expectations of a “Malfoy” but he also has those ideas about equality slowly growing in his mind. Albus gets more confident at school, where he learns things he’s good at. James gets in trouble from day one, so he has some life-threatening situations to deal with and they keep him from being the easy-going prankster he wants to be. I’m not sure if readers expect that. Perhaps they do. But labels aren’t nice. A character isn’t just smart or just a troublemaker, or anything else. Characters have levels. Hopefully, readers won’t figure all of the levels at once, so that they can be surprised further along ;)

5.Which character are you most fond of, or have a soft spot for?

A. Hmmm, not quite sure. When I started writing the story, I wasn’t alone. It was written by me and another 3 authors, good pals whose writing styles I loved. Each of us picked a different POV, which is why the story shifts from Albus to Rose and Scorpius and James between chapters. Past the 4th chapter I kept writing on my own, but until then I had only Albus’s POV. The rest of them were initially developed by my friends, therefore I tried showing Rose, Scorpius, and James in the light they had shed. Perhaps Albus has a little bit more of me in him because of that? But the character I truly adore is Lily Luna. I can’t wait until she’s old enough to go to Hogwarts so that I can show more of her.

Q. Is your story different from any other fics?

A. I can’t say. I haven’t read that many next-gen fics and the ones I did were… eh… well, they were abandoned after a while and they were mostly listing “slice-of-life” kind of situations. So this answer is going to be even more subjective than what I’ve said so far. The most blatant difference I can see is that I have a new villain in the story. He’s not Voldemort reincarnated, not Voldemort’s secret child, not Voldemort who didn’t really die AGAIN. He’s a new person with strange motives it took me lots and lots of brainstorming to figure out. He’s working in the shadows, plotting, setting his plan in motion. James is caught in between all along, but he can’t ask for help, not in his current situation. Everyone is disoriented by the way Timothy (the villain) has turned things upside down, and they don’t even realize it’s him – or anyone in general – that’s done anything strange at the moment.

I am well aware of the fact that I am following plenty of cliches. !Spoilers ahead! I know Albus and Rose and Scorpius got sorted into Slytherin. I’ve been intending to explain this all along and it will happen later in the story. Personally, I think they’re more of Ravenclaw material *cough cough* Not Slytherin *cough* I’ll leave it at that for now ;)

Also, I got some professors to retire. Did anyone ever consider most of those people taught the first generation, the second and fought in two wizarding wars? They NEED to take some time off. It’s not like I wouldn’t love to use the professors who were already perfectly developed by Mrs. Rowling, but it didn’t feel very logical. Since I got in the trouble of doing that, I tried giving a more… multicultural twist to the new staff, including the headmistress. This will lead to student exchange programs and other stuff that will probably be pretty fun to write about (and hopefully will be pretty original). Especially with all of the new school information released on Pottermore last year, I have even more canon facts to work with (I wanted to do this since before Rowling mentioned those, so when she did I was ecstatic).

Q. Do you feel as if the differences you’ve made was a daring decision that paid off? Especially regarding James Potter as the main character of this and the whole multiple points of views.

A. Yes, I think it has paid off. The story needs a plot to keep the readers hooked, not just to show how smoothly and awesomely the next generation excelled during their Hogwarts years. Children will be children and they’ll mess up multiple times. James is actually the perfect example of that. He’s not a model student, but he’s not stupid either. He’s a smart kid with a mindset on things totally unrelated to his studies. He’ll get in trouble along the way and he’ll have to accept the consequences.

The multiple points of views are kind of the remains of the original co-authored story. I switched the story to 3rd person and only left them there to indicate whom each chapter focuses on. I love juggling with four characters instead of just one though because each of them can have their own personal drama every now and then, or separate friends and stuff. I hope it gives the readers more insight into each character’s personal thoughts and personalities and breaks the monotony.

I should probably mention that the story’s title is also a little deceiving. I liked Rowling’s titling pattern, where she said: Harry Potter and … (something important for each book’s plot), so I wanted to have my titles along the same lines. All four of the kids are equally important to the plot, it’s just that James gets in the gravest situations, so his name goes first. “The New Marauders” encases perfectly Albus, Rose, and Scorpius so I let it so :) (!Another spoiler ahead! The New Marauders is due to the fact they’re trying to become animagi like the original Marauders).

Q. How does it feel to have such a wide universe to play around with? A. 

Wonderful. I LOVE playing around in another person's playground and the Harry Potter universe is so vast! There's an endless supply of pre-existing characters to pick from and there's plenty of room to create more when you need them. Especially since James Potter and the New Marauders is a next-gen fic, the freedom I get is tenfold one of the people writing about the first or second generations.

It's still a bit of a pain because there are a lot of things to take into consideration: We're in 2017 when Albus, Rose, and Scorpius go to school. 2017? Wait, it's 2017 just NOW, since this January! So everyone writing next gen fics so far might not have even considered what would be accurate or at least expected of the Muggle and/or the Wizarding world in 2017. As said, some professors need to leave the school. New students need to come. A whole new student body, consisting of 4 different houses and 7 different years! I have an excel file where I have all of the new characters' information written down to keep track of all the kids I've made. There's no other way, or things get super messy. And those kids (and professors) need to be well-developed or readers will get confused or bored pretty soon.

 love digging up canon details of the next gen that Rowling has shared and I'm obviously using them. (I should say I don't consider the Cursed Child completely canon so I used only what I liked from this one). The kids of the next gen mentioned by JK exist in my story and some of them are important and some are not. For example Lorcan and Lysander Scamander, the kids of Luna and Newt's grandson? Of course, they've gotta exist. Same goes for many other children. And also if JK has said what became of certain 2nd generation characters (eg: Ginny's career as a Quidditch player and then a sports reporter) I stick to this information. But there also need to be some originals, because unless the characters from the books multiply like bunnies, we can't have enough students for all of Hogwarts by just using their kids. In general, I have a love-hate relationship with these kinds of things. I love developing, but often get lost in it, or feel like I need to straighten out details and hold back from writing because of that. It's a toughie if you want to be accurate at least.

Q.. Choose a song that's the theme song of your whole fic. A. Rock Paper Scissors by Katzenjammer

Q. Would you say that your writing has improved during this duration you've been writing this fic?

A. Yep, most probably it has. As I already said, I conceived the idea when I was pretty younger and my English skills were very very undeveloped yet. There have been tremendous changes since the first chapters, although they might not be so obvious anymore because the first chapters have been heavily re-edited since I got back to the story last summer. 

10. Last but not least, what advice would you have for fic writers wanting to write a Next Gen story? Writing Next Gen stories is a great idea. There can be a million stories that look nothing like each other, so they're one of the awesomest categories you can pick, especially if you get discouraged when you see a story with a similar plot to yours. But there are some things I'd keep in mind if I were you: The timeline. Albus, Rose and Scorpius go to Hogwarts in 2017. What has changed until then in the world? Has perhaps the development of the technology affected wizards? Has it not? The plot. Why are you writing? Is there a kind of situation your characters will deal with or are they just studying witchcraft and wizardry in Hogwarts, making friends and excelling (or failing) in their studies? The romance. Oh dear lord, please pay attention to this! The kids are 11 when they go to school, PLEASE, it makes NO sense for them to have anything stronger than a childish crush before year 3! And also… You can develop dozens of convincing OCs, so don't have everyone pair up with their relatives (one or two cliché pairings are ok, like ScorpiusxRose or LilyxScorpius or something, but that's IT). The sorting of the Next Gen. Anything is possible, as long as you explain it properly. Albus can be Hufflepuff if that's where you want him and Scorpius can be Gryffindor or whatever. There's no right or wrong. Just give your readers a good reason for it ;)