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edenfallingI have been skimming over summaries in my assigned remixee's fanfiction archive, and I noticed quite a lot of Remus/Sirius stories. This isn't particularly surprising -- it's a very popular pairing in HP fandom -- but it brought home to me that I have never written Remus Lupin in a fic. Ever. Oh, he exists in some of them, and he might even be mentioned in a whole paragraph, but he never actually appears 'on-screen,' so to speak, and he certainly doesn't have dialogue.
Sirius, at least, made it into a story as a major, speaking character ("Sir Ron and the Green Knight") and got an actual monologue to himself ("Blind Spots").
It's more than just ignoring Remus, actually -- I don't write the Marauders. I have written James and Lily exactly once, and that's in an unfinished AU that spends equal time focusing on the Dursleys, Harry, the Evanses, and two OC siblings Harry might have acquired if his parents had lived. (Lily is also a palpable 'off-screen' presence in my two Petunia stories, but that's because Petunia clings to her past.) I have written Peter three times -- two monologues ("Trust," "Rats and Ships"), and as an incidental character with a minor speaking role (in the unfinished "Lord Voldemort: An Introduction for Muggles").
I don't write the teachers. I wrote McGonagall and Snape in "Restoration," and all the CoS teachers appear as supporting characters in "Secrets," but beyond that they don't seem to enter my imagination.
The only adult HP character I'm actually interested in writing -- the one who lives and breathes in my imagination -- is, oddly enough, Petunia Dursley. I wrote the two aforementioned stories about her ("Family" and "Falls the Shadow"), she's the driving force behind that unfinished AU story, and she sneaked into a Harry character study ("Into the Fire") and stole the first third of it out from under me. Sirius and Peter only got monologues because I was trying to work out problems I had with PoA, GoF, and OotP, and their other appearances are mostly a matter of convenience -- though, I grant you, Sirius brought some unexpected and highly welcome resonance to "Sir Ron and the Green Knight."
I find this interesting, since I've heard a lot of other adult writers say they don't care much about the children in the series; they're more interested in the adults. I find that I'm most interested in the world. Secondarily, I'm interested in the main characters -- the children -- partly because I like them, and probably also because children have the most potential to develop and to explore. The adults have settled into their roles and personalities. The children haven't.
But there are lots of things to explore in the adults' pasts, and their futures could change quite drastically as a result of Voldemort's second rising. I also like a number of them, either as people or as characters. (To clarify, I like Remus as a person and as a character. I only like Snape as a character; I'd despise him in real life.) So why don't I write about them? Why don't they catch my imagination?
...
I dunno. It's not that I think this is, in any way, a bad thing. It's just interesting, and it's not something I ever consciously noticed before.
Sirius, at least, made it into a story as a major, speaking character ("Sir Ron and the Green Knight") and got an actual monologue to himself ("Blind Spots").
It's more than just ignoring Remus, actually -- I don't write the Marauders. I have written James and Lily exactly once, and that's in an unfinished AU that spends equal time focusing on the Dursleys, Harry, the Evanses, and two OC siblings Harry might have acquired if his parents had lived. (Lily is also a palpable 'off-screen' presence in my two Petunia stories, but that's because Petunia clings to her past.) I have written Peter three times -- two monologues ("Trust," "Rats and Ships"), and as an incidental character with a minor speaking role (in the unfinished "Lord Voldemort: An Introduction for Muggles").
I don't write the teachers. I wrote McGonagall and Snape in "Restoration," and all the CoS teachers appear as supporting characters in "Secrets," but beyond that they don't seem to enter my imagination.
The only adult HP character I'm actually interested in writing -- the one who lives and breathes in my imagination -- is, oddly enough, Petunia Dursley. I wrote the two aforementioned stories about her ("Family" and "Falls the Shadow"), she's the driving force behind that unfinished AU story, and she sneaked into a Harry character study ("Into the Fire") and stole the first third of it out from under me. Sirius and Peter only got monologues because I was trying to work out problems I had with PoA, GoF, and OotP, and their other appearances are mostly a matter of convenience -- though, I grant you, Sirius brought some unexpected and highly welcome resonance to "Sir Ron and the Green Knight."
I find this interesting, since I've heard a lot of other adult writers say they don't care much about the children in the series; they're more interested in the adults. I find that I'm most interested in the world. Secondarily, I'm interested in the main characters -- the children -- partly because I like them, and probably also because children have the most potential to develop and to explore. The adults have settled into their roles and personalities. The children haven't.
But there are lots of things to explore in the adults' pasts, and their futures could change quite drastically as a result of Voldemort's second rising. I also like a number of them, either as people or as characters. (To clarify, I like Remus as a person and as a character. I only like Snape as a character; I'd despise him in real life.) So why don't I write about them? Why don't they catch my imagination?
...
I dunno. It's not that I think this is, in any way, a bad thing. It's just interesting, and it's not something I ever consciously noticed before.
