On the last weekend of summer, Brittany convinces Santana to come camping with her. For both bad reasons and good, it's a trip neither of them will ever forget.
We’re super excited to share Cora709’s Author Interview today! Best known for her prescient multi-chapter, Set the World on Fire (that frankly did seasons 4 & 5 way better than canon did them), she’s also started a sequel that I don’t think anyone saw coming (check out the first chapter of Matchmakers if you haven’t already) and that makes us even more excited to share her interview questions with you all! Thank you again for sending the questions and thank you Cora709 for taking the time to answer them! ENJOY!
1) What do you think are your particular strengths as a Brittana writer? What do you wish you did better? (Submitted by Lindsey via email)
This is a hard question to answer about your own writing! I think my strengths would probably be characterization, and especially getting characters' voices and rhythms of speech down. At least I hope it is, because that's one of the most important things to me when it comes to fanfiction, that the characters sound authentic and that the story reads almost as though it could be a missing episode from the show. And judging by the reviews, I think comedy is one of my strengths, although I can't honestly say I work hard at that. Scenes just spontaneously unfold in my head and I try to transcribe them. I also think I use the other Glee characters well, because I want them to be people in their own right and not just props or plot devices in Brittana's love story. Friendship is something too many fic writers leave out, in my opinion.
As for doing things better, there's no end to that list! But to point out just a few, I wish I could take the time to make my prose and description better, more precise and literary, less genre fiction-y. The way I write is to essentially write scripts, then go back (usually with time running out) to quickly fill in the description around the edges. As a result I don't pay enough attention to sharpening it up and removing dead weight. I also wish I was better at plotting and pacing. Almost every fic I've written in every fandom has the same shape - I start with a small, simple outline, and the early chapters are short. Then as I get more invested in my imaginary world, the outline bulges with more side plots and the chapters get longer and more unwieldy until they're 40,000 word behemoths. But as the characters come alive, they just want to do more things than the early outline provided for, it's like they get out of my control!
2) What's a short piece of your writing that shows your Brittany is Brittany and your Santana is Santana (even if the circumstances of your fic make them different from canon Brittana)? (Submitted by a Tumblr Anon)
It's not easy for me to think of any "short" pieces of my writing, since even my short scenes tend to be pretty long! I do think my characters are in character most of the time, but it's hard to think of something to specifically illustrate that. This is one smaller piece that came to mind, where Brittany and Santana are ice-skating on their first full day together in NYC.
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At the ice skating rink in Rockefeller Center, Brittany took charge as though she'd been there dozens of times, buying their tickets and selecting their skates, then leading Santana out toward a bench where they could change into them, her face glowing with anticipation.
"You know," she told Santana, lacing up her skates. "When I was a kid, I used to think that glass was just warm ice. And believe me, you do not want to chew up a glasscube. Because it doesn't melt on your tongue, at all."
Santana gave her a disturbed look. "How did you survive childhood?"
"Sometimes I wonder that myself," Brittany admitted. She stood and pulled Santana to her feet, excited. "Come on."
Now that the holidays were over, the rink was only moderately crowded. But the minute Santana stepped onto the ice, she realized this wasn't going to be as easy as she'd thought. She'd been roller skating, plenty of times, and she'd assumed it would be basically the same thing. But it wasn't. Not even close. Immediately, she began to lose her balance and Brittany grabbed her to keep her from falling.
"It's all in the ankles," she told her. "You have to pretend they're made out of steel."
"Steel?" Santana repeated. "I didn't realize you had to be part robot to do this."
"Just hang onto me until you get a feel for it."
They went slowly, Santana clinging to her and feeling ridiculous. But Brittany's enthusiasm was contagious. It was clear how much she was enjoying herself, even though she was moving at a snail's pace and everybody else in the rink was passing them, over and over again. Santana couldn't help laughing at herself and her ineptitude, which was something she almost never did. Gradually, she loosened up a bit and relaxed her stance, though still while keeping a tight grip on Brittany's arm.
"See, it's fun, right?" Brittany urged her.
Before she could answer, a nine or ten year old boy zipped by, calling out to them, "You suuuuuck!"
"Hey!" Santana yelled after him. "Why don't you come back here and say that, you little punk?"
"Ignore him," Brittany said, in her mellow way. "I earned four hundred dollars babysitting last semester, and if there's one thing I learned about kids, it's that the best way to shut them up when they're being annoying is to not pay any attention to them." She reflected. "Of course, sometimes it backfires when they steal the neighbor's car and try to drive themselves to the carnival. I don't think Sam's parents will ever ask me to sit for them again."
Santana decided not to ask for additional details on this troubling story. Instead, she said, "Mr. and Mrs. Nguyen are always trying to get us to watch their grandkids when they visit. But we usually make excuses. I mean, between my temper and Kurt's gay porn and Rachel's hair removal products, the apartment isn't really safe for kids, anyway."
While saying this, she forgot that her ankles were supposed to be made out of steel, and one of them suddenly crumpled under her. Brittany grabbed her with lightning-quick reflexes, and somehow neither of them fell.
"HA HA HA!" intoned the little boy, as he whizzed by them again.
Santana glared after him. "I'm about to go all Lima Heights on that kid."
But Brittany only grinned at her. She turned around and skated backwards, slowly, holding both Santana's hands and pulling her along. "Can I tell you a secret?" she asked. "I like it when I'm better than you at something."
Santana smiled back at her, unable to help herself. "Oh, yeah? And how do you know I'm not faking it to make you feel good about yourself?"
As if to answer this question, Brittany suddenly let go of her hands, and Santana nearly fell again before Brittany grabbed them once more, looking pleased with herself and her little trick. Before Santana could protest the unfairness of this, though, she pulled her in closer for a kiss.
It was nothing much more than a soft, lingering peck - they didn't even completely stop skating - but almost before they'd pulled away from each other, an obese woman in tight purple sweat pants seemed to materialize out of nowhere next to them, looming up like a buffalo. "This is a family place, girls," she told them, managing to sound both resigned and disgusted at the same time.
"Oh, really," Santana said, raising her eyebrows and examining her. "Well then you might want to consider covering up that camel toe, Wynonna Judd, because I'm pretty sure the sight of it has damaged my egg cells and traumatized the kids I haven't even had yet."
"Kiss my ass!" the woman said, abandoning her veneer of civility as she skated past them.
"Which one?" Santana called after her with a pleasant smirk.
Brittany was biting her lip to keep from saying anything. Santana looked at her. "What? Was I supposed to ignore her, too?"
Instead of answering, she said, "Okay, time for lesson two. Bend your knees a little, so you can push yourself forward. You're supposed to be gliding on the ice, not walking on it."
"It's kind of hard to focus on gliding when this place is filled with assholes." But she tried it anyway, and Brittany was right, it made forward motion a lot easier. They skated for a few minutes, increasing in speed until they weren't going too much slower than everyone else in the rink. Santana managed to relax enough to look around her, marveling at the fact that she was actually here, with Brittany. At this precise moment, everything felt just right, the way she'd imagined it would be. It was like the perfect New York City day, with the only person in the world she wanted to spend it with.
So of course, that was the moment that one of her legs seemed to veer off in a direction all its own, without her permission, taking her with it. She clutched at Brittany, but this time, for whatever reason, she wasn't able to keep her balance either, and they both went down in a heap.
It wasn't too bad of a fall, but they sat there, not immediately getting back up. "You okay?" Brittany asked.
"Yeah," she said, embarrassed. They were practically right in the center of the rink, and everyone else continued to skate in wide circles around them. One couple was showing off, doing elaborate maneuvers and figure eights, dipping in and out of the paths of the more leisurely-moving skaters. "Sorry." She rolled her eyes a little. "If it weren't for me, you'd probably be doing that."
But Brittany didn't seem tempted. She looked away from the couple and stared at Santana for a few seconds, then reached over and pushed a stray lock of hair out of her face, saying in a soft voice, "I'd rather be right here."
Returning the look and feeling a surge of emotion that was strong enough to overpower any lingering discomfort she may have felt, she leaned in for another kiss, a real one this time. Screw the rubber-neckers. She closed her eyes, reveling in that particular sensation of kissing someone outside on a winter's day, the coldness of lips compared to the intoxication of the heat lurking just beneath the surface. It took her breath away.
The two of them leaned their foreheads together briefly, recovering from the intensity of the kiss, unwilling to separate just yet. Santana was aware on the periphery of her consciousness of skaters continuing to circle them, and the fact that she could sit here and kiss Brittany in the midst of it all made her heart soar. As cheesy as it sounded, that was actually what it felt like. Soaring.
The elation was short-lived, however. When she finally drew back, she noticed over Brittany's shoulder that the woman in purple sweat pants was on the other side of the low dividing wall, talking in an emphatic way to one of the rink's employees, gesturing over toward the two of them where they still sat in the middle of the ice.
Santana shook her head a little, in disbelief. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me. That cow is trying to get us thrown out of this joint."
Turning to see what she was talking about, Brittany's expression turned glum, with just a hint of bitterness. "I thought people in New York were different."
"They are, mostly," Santana said, hastening to reassure her. "I mean, this is a really touristy spot. Chances are, she's from Ohio. Or someplace even worse, like Texas."
"I guess so," Brittany said. But she still looked disappointed.
And now, as if on cue, the obnoxious little boy was skating toward them again. Apparently having seen their kiss, he was chanting, to the ascending scale of the basketball "Charge" fanfare theme, the words, "Gay gay gay gay, Gay gay gay gay, Gay gay gay gay..." As he neared them, he reached the peak of the melody and sang, "Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-dun, GAYYYY!!!"
Brittany watched him approach with an unreadable expression on her face. "Can I borrow your scarf?" she asked.
Confused, Santana nonetheless took it off and passed it to her. Almost as soon as it was in her hand, Brittany flicked her wrist and sent the scarf streaming out across the ice, just in front of the kid's skates. He hit it and went flying, one hundred percent airborne, then landed on his butt and slid across the ice, finally coming to a stop about thirty feet beyond them.
Santana gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. "Brittany!"
Brittany glanced backwards at the boy, not looking too concerned. She watched him for a few seconds, then said as she turned back around, "He's not bleeding."
Santana gazed at her in awe, stunned. "I am so turned on by you right now."
The corners of Brittany's mouth lifted in a mischievous smile, this information obviously pleasing her.
Having recovered from the initial shock of his unexpected flight and subsequent crash, the kid now opened his mouth and bellowed at an earsplitting volume, "MOOOOOOMMMM!!!"
And of course, who should respond to his call but Mrs. Camel Toe herself, who came out from behind the wall and made a wobbling, flesh-quaking beeline toward him.
"Oh shit," Santana said under her breath, laughing a little.
Looking daunted now, Brittany said, "We should probably go."
She stood and pulled Santana to her feet, and they made their way off the ice as fast as they could, trying to hold in hysterical laughter while they kept checking behind them to see if they were being pursued.
3) Is there anything in Set the World on Fire that you would like to change or add to? (Submitted by MisAtentionSpan on tumblr)
In general it probably needs some good cutting, but I've always been a failure at that - when I go through to cut things out, I only end up adding more instead. I think the last chapter is really the only one I'd change, I was rushing to get it posted before the episode where Santana moved in with Kurt and Rachel. I don't know why exactly, I guess I just needed to feel that my New York story was complete before Glee began their version. As a result, the middle part of the chapter feels first draft-y to me. There was meant to be more to Santana's search for Brittany at the library and then at Millie's place, and since I didn't get it all in, the first section with Kurt, Rachel, and Santana takes up nearly half the chapter. The section between Santana leaving Millie's and then discovering Brittany on the steps was the very last thing I wrote just before uploading, and I think it still needed some work. But most of the final conversation with Brittany had been written for almost a year, so I was getting pretty impatient to get it out there.
I don't agree with a lot of reviewers who feel that it ended too abruptly or needed an epilogue, though - that was always meant to be the end and it's the scene I had in my mind from the very first chapter. It was inspired by the endings of Nora Ephron movies like You've Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle, and also by the Friends finale. ("I got off the plane!") Adding anything else would have felt anticlimactic to me. I think readers always crave more, but sometimes as a writer, you just have to know when to let the curtain close.
4) You stated that STWOF was your vision of what you wanted the Glee spin-off to be. Was it strange for you, then, to see how things played out in Season 4? How they were intended to play out in the finale of Season 5, if not for Naya's absence? (Submitted by createdforogc tumblr)
related/similar question: - why did you write an AU fic of season 4? And thank you for writing it, one of the best fics out there. (Submitted by Mar via email)
First of all, thank you! It's funny how that fic turned out to be an alternate version of Season 4, because as some may remember, it didn't begin that way. I actually started it about midway through Season 3, and I intended to finish it that season, not almost a year later - that was just due to my slowness and not having time to write. At the time I started writing, nobody had any clear idea of what was going to happen to the Glee characters after they graduated. There had been talk of a New York spin-off, but then that was nixed. Ryan had confirmed the characters were in fact going to graduate, but as for where they would go after that or who would stay with the show, it all seemed up in the air. By that point I was beginning to get very discouraged about the prospects of seeing any of them in NYC, so I decided that I would just have to do it myself.
Since the second half of season 2, I had been obsessed with the idea of Kurt, Rachel, and Santana living together (as some of the old Glee Forum gang may recall ;). I'm not really sure why, because at that point Santana had never shared a scene with either of them or spoken to them much beyond insults. But it just clicked in my head for some reason, that their dynamic had the potential to be really great. The idea was always to establish the three of them as a dysfunctional family trio, then to throw Brittany into the mix and see how everything sorted itself out. That way I could explore both the Brittana love story and the friendship dynamic that I doubted we'd ever get to see on screen.
As for whether it was strange watching how things in canon unfolded, it really was! I started to feel like I had psychic powers, due to everything from the general set-up of Kurt, Rachel, and Santana living together in Brooklyn and Brittany not graduating, down to smaller details like Kurt being a TV junkie, Rachel being obsessed with scented candles, Santana dating a girl from work, etc. But in a weird way, and this is hard to explain... it wasn't that enjoyable for me, not at all like I thought it would be when I finally got some of what I'd wanted. Because by that point, I had a very proprietary feeling about those characters in that world, I felt in some sense like they were mine. And then suddenly they were canon and belonged to everybody. And of course it wasn't done very well, like most things on Glee, and Brittany wasn't involved until this year's finale, so that made it hard to watch too. It was ironic that my emotional detachment from the show began when canon started to resemble my story.
5) Prior to reading STWOF, the dynamic between Brittany, Santana, and Rachel wasn't one I'd given much thought. Sure, I loved the few Brittany/Rachel and Santana/Rachel interactions we'd been lucky enough to get on the show (and was disappointed they were so scant), but hadn't reflected much on their potential as a trio. The comedic gold mine that was the three of them together as you wrote them in STWOF changed all that: I enjoyed it immensely. The TLC drunken 90's dance party scene was something I, honestly, never saw coming. How did you come up with that? (Submitted by createdforogc tumblr)
Thank you, and I love this question, because that was one of my favorite dynamics in the story as well. A lot of people don't know this, but unlike many Brittana shippers, I was a hardcore Glee fan right from the airing of the pilot in May 2009. I didn't come to the show for the lesbian ship, I was already there, and it was just a lovely bonus. But I was a Rachel Berry fan first, back when Brittany and Santana were hardly more than background presences. She was such a crazy, unique female character, and Lea brought such hilarious intensity to the role. Then when Santana came out in the hallway scene and Brittana began to be taken seriously as a relationship in late Season 2, my loyalties and interest shifted to them. But I couldn't totally abandon my first love, could I? That's why Rachel tends to play a prominent supporting role in most of my writing.
Regarding the trio, that was something I'd been dying to see on Glee from about the middle of Season 1. There was such a glaring lack of female friendships, really only filled by the occasional Faberry scene. But since I wasn't much of a Quinn fan, it was the Brittany/Rachel and Santana/Rachel dynamic that I thought had the most potential for comedy (in addition to Brittana), although by mid Season 3 I had accepted that it was probably never going to happen, certainly not in any real depth. But my need to see it was so strong, I decided to just create it myself. The tension between Santana's brand new friendship with Rachel and her long-standing friendship and romantic relationship with Brittany when all three of them are suddenly living on top of one another was one of my favorite things to explore.
As for the drunk Valentine's Day rooftop party, that was pure nostalgic indulgence on my part - I grew up listening to almost nothing but 90s R&B girl groups, and once the mental image of the three of them wearing those crazy TLC outfits had entered my imagination, there was no fighting it!
*****Additional Author Specific Questions Submitted*****
6) I'm a total sucker for authors writing the Pierce family, and your version of them in Lake Hope is my favorite (Pierce sisters for the win). How did each family member you created fit in with your concept of who Brittany is? (Submitted by createdforogc tumblr)
Wow, thinking about this makes me realize just how long it's been since I wrote that story. It was the summer after Season 2, so it's three years now. At the time, we had basically two versions of Brittany, the quirky comedic character who uttered bizarre one-liners, and then the version we only started to see toward the end of Season 2, an emotionally mature girl who was 100% comfortable with herself and her sexuality, and yearned for Santana to feel that way too. (At the time we were all so confident that this beautiful relationship would only be deepened and explored in Season 3... can you believe we were ever that innocent?)
But I think I just wanted to create a family environment for Brittany that would explain her unique personality. That's why I gave her kooky and slightly spacey parents who were the type of warm-hearted free spirits who would provide an atmosphere of unconditional love and acceptance. The girl who asked Santana to come on Fondue for 2 so she could invite her to prom was not a girl who would be worried about being judged by her family. Her little sister Ariel was just basically a mini-Brittany, but her older sister Lindsey was especially fun, even if it was just one phone call, because she was supposed to be sort of a combination of Brittany and Santana's personalities - what Santana might have been like if she'd been raised by the Pierces. (Brittany's family is the same in the STWOF canon too, and Lindsey was supposed to visit them in NYC in one of the one-shots, but it's one I still haven't got around to writing.)
But Lake Hope is a fic that feels a bit dated now, since they went so far off the rails with Brittany's characterization in Seasons 3 and 4. I think, given some of that later canon, an argument could be made that she has horrible parents, nothing like Gerald and Bunny.
7) Do you have any plans to write more Brittana? (Submitted by a Tumblr Anon)
I always have plans, it's just that they so rarely seem to be realized! This has been a tough year for me, health-wise, financially, and otherwise. I very rarely have time to write these days and when I do, I don't feel up to it. And compounding the problem is that my interest in Glee has evaporated into nothing. The Brittana stuff this season was beautiful, but it's just a case of too little, too late for me, emotionally. I've been feeling so bad about it though, because I do very much want to finish the Matchmakers one-shot, I've already spent so much time working on it. It's just a matter of getting myself back into that Glee headspace again, something I've been avoiding.
But answering these questions has got me thinking about all these issues again and how much I really do love these characters, despite the Glee writers' valiant attempts to destroy them for me. I feel more motivated than I have in a long time. There is still a definite chance that the fic will see the light of day before this show is over for good.
And on that note, thank you so much for including me in the author questionnaire, it's been a lot of fun, and it's nice to know I haven't been forgotten! The one great thing about a show that doesn't do its characters justice is that it inspires the fans to take matters into their own hands, and I've never seen a fandom with more talented writers and artists than this one. It's very flattering to be included in their ranks. I hope everyone has a blast at the convention, and I wish I could be there!
Personaggi: Santana Lopez, Brittany Pierce, Kurt Hummel, Rachel Berry
Genere: Romantico/Drammatico/Amicizia/Humor
Riassunto della trama: Per sei mesi Santana è vissuta a New York insieme a Kurt e Rachel, ma ora Brittany ha ottenuto il suo diploma e sta finalmente per unirsi a loro. Potranno le nuovi relazioni conciliarsi con le vecchie? E il passato potrà veramente essere ritrovato?
This story is perfect, genius even. And I'm serious, this is what counts as season 4, and now that it's complete I really don't have a need for the show. I actually feel like I've been set free.
Um, lack of story really doesn't qualify as a cliff hanger. But, whatever because this is almost the exact set up for "Set the World on Fire" which is THE BEST CANON BASED COLLEGE FIC EVER!!! This story is far and away better than anything season 4 could possibly hope to be, so, I'm kinda cool with how terrible this episode was. Also, the finchel breakup really eases the pain of how terribly neglected Brittany was this whole season. Doesn't make it go way of course because really wtf, but I feel a sort of satisfied revenge about the whole thing.
For everyone out there who is overjoyed with Pezberry friendship feelings, but knows that the romance is called Brittana I just have one title for you:
Set The World On Fire by Cora709
This is how a spin-off should work out. Rachel, Kurt and Santana living in New York and Brittany joining them. It's about friendships first and how the relationship still fits in. It's also hilarious in terms of humour and then punches you right in the feelings. You don't know Rachel & Kurt until you've read how they try to find new hobbys. And 90s girl bands will never be the same...
The perfect fic to read after "Wanna Dance with Somebody".
