Santana Lopez is a publicist in New York trying to rein in the biggest ego the city's ever seen. Brittany Pierce is attempting to create the next big thing in Seattle. They're 2859 miles apart, but one wrong number just might change everything.
Rated: Fiction M
Genre: Romance/Humor
Pairing: Brittany P., Santana L.
Status: Complete
Chapters: 21
Words: 63,404
Updated: Nov 7, 2012
Published: Oct 3, 2012
2859: The Merry Miles Edition
By Halfrobotchicken
Santana and Brittany do Christmas with their families. Three-Shot.
Rated: M
Genre: Romance/Humor
Pairing: Brittany P., Santana L.
Status: Complete
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,695
Published: Dec 16, 2012
Updated: Dec 23, 2012
2859: Triple Threat
By Halfrobotchicken
Brittany and Santana are welcoming a new addition, but Santana isn't so welcoming of the additional company that comes with it. Five-shot.
Rated: Fiction T
Genre: Humor/Romance
Pairing: Brittany P., Santana L.
Status: Complete
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,546
Published: May 4, 2013
Updated: May 19, 2013
2859: The Fearsome Foursome
By Halfrobotchicken
Brittany and Santana attend a very important wedding.
We assume everyone is familiar with what is arguably the greatest Brittana fanfiction rom-com to happen EVER (2859, DUH) so we are thrilled to bring you Haflrobotchicken’s hilarious Author Interview! Thanks again for taking the time to answer these questions and to the fandom for sending them in!
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)
I've been told I write decent dialogue. I hope that I captured Brittany and Santana's voices in there somewhere. While actually writing 2859, I thought every chapter was crappier than the one before. Reading it again a year or so later, I realized that there were some pretty sparkly moments. (Sparkly = moderately funny.)
I wish that I had done soooo many things better. I wish the story had been a little tighter. I wish I had a beta for the first half of it. I wish I had written with a bit more emotional depth. I wish the ending had been not quite so abrupt. I wish the sequels had been planned a little more. I wish I had come up with a better title!!
To answer the question more generally, though, I wish I wrote details and nuances better.
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)
I'm not sure about anything specifically, but I always tried to pepper Brittany with a bit of whimsy. I think that's the best way to describe her in both canon and fanon. I took a lot of liberties with Brittany because sometimes Glee writers dumbed her down so much that she was basically a wind-up doll. I wanted her to be an actual thinking, functioning person, so my Brittany probably differs a lot from the actual character. I weaved in a lot of classic Brittany-isms to try and maintain what everyone loves about her: comic relief and authenticity.
Santana is complex and I tried my best to write her as such. There's a delicate balance of snark and heart that is sometimes hard to reconcile. I think within Glee and 2859, Santana starts all venom and hard edges and the audience gets to see her mellow and the edges smooth a little.
3) 2859 is the all-star romantic comedy of the Brittana fandom. How do you write humor? How do you write humor so well? These are my questions. But more specifically, there's a cadence to your dialogue that makes your character's quips come alive. When writing how do you balance the dialogue with the details to keep the tone light enough for humor? (Submitted by Gnome)
That's a very hard question for me to answer because I never know something's funny until someone tells me it is. Sometimes I get lucky and it works. I just try to trust my instincts and hope for the best.
I do have a couple of tricks for dialogue that tend to work for me. 1. Read it out loud. If it sounds okay out loud, it probably reads okay, too. 2. Don't cliche the hell out of it. People rarely speak in cliches, or entire sentences, or often make a lot of sense at all. (Maybe that's just me.) Also, don't over-explain. People tend to pick up what you're laying down without a map drawn to it with huge arrows. If you let the reader get there on their own, they're not only appreciative that you trusted them to do that, but they feel accomplished as well. 3. Picture the scene. If I can't picture a particular conversation happening, then I can't really invest in it.
All writing has a rhythm. In fact, I think all writers have a specific rhythm. Mine is snappy and upbeat, which makes it easy to be dialogue-heavy. I play to my strengths. For me specifically, it's very important to land whatever joke I'm aiming to make so the details are pretty much squeezed in for the effect of timing.
4) Is there something you do to get into the zone to write funny things? (Submitted by Gnome)
Yes.
Danger Zone - Kenny Loggins. Aviators. Goose. A younger Meg Ryan.
All kidding aside, I find I'm funnier while wearing no pants and nobody's around to hear me talking to myself.
That might be too much information.
5) Dialogue strikes me as perhaps the hardest thing to get right in a story, because it requires some next level understanding of characterization, but all your dialogue comes out sounding just exactly like how I imagine Brittana would speak (if they weren't crippled by inadequate writers, barely able to remain coherent for the length of a show that is) I love your dialogue. Live for it. Can't get enough of it. Am taken on a train ride to jubilation station and deposited at the depot of delight by it. Do you find it difficult to be so witty, or are you just naturally this good? (Submitted by createdforogc)
I just purchased my ticket for a plane trip to FlatteryWillGetYouEverywhereVille, meet you at Terminal HighFiveYou'reMyNewFavorite.
I wish I had a better answer than "no."
Dialogue comes very easily for me for some reason. Ninety percent of the time, I stumble upon a funny line and just build everything around the "joke." It's luck or natural timing or probably a bit of both.
Everything else about writing, I have to work at, though. I'm very jealous of those that can kick out beautiful melodic prose-adjacent paragraphs that make the audience feel like they're right on top of the characters in the scene.
6) In 2859 Quinn and Santana used to be a thing (which I loved). I'm curious about why you chose to have that particular history between them and if you thought it brought something particular to the overall storyline? (Submitted by Gnome)
I had envisioned Santana as a very serious, closed off, all business type of lady to kick the story off and asked myself how she would have gotten that way. Having a best friend that became a girlfriend then dumped her and immediately married a man seemed like a pretty good reason she would let Rachel sort of take over her life. Quinn just sort of fell into that role. Originally, Quinn was supposed to be a lot more present and sort of serve as a sounding board for Santana. Kurt ended up taking over that particular spot because I felt like I hit a pretty good groove in the Santana/Kurt/Rachel scenes and didn't want to waste words by factoring Quinn back in. I was glad that the backdrop was there, though. It got explored a little more later in the sequel. Plus, it gave me my personal favorite line from all of 2859verse which was something about lesbian deep sea divers.
7) Have Brittany and Santana ever organized a competitive, bracket based air hockey competition, and will we ever see Brittany playing air hockey with her babies in your 2859!verse? (Submitted by createdforogc tumblr)
See attached.
Hopefully!! :)
I think Brittany probably helps Charlie play against Max for the little guy's "practice" round before the serious Lopez Family Thanksgiving Air Hockey Tournament begins every year. There's a twenty dollar buy-in, but Rachel unknowingly pays everyone's $20.
Do you have any good fanfiction recommendations? Brittana, Karmy, any good stories about queer girls. And yes I have read HNITS, stayed up all night to devour it :)
Oh lord, are you kidding? There are so many!
JJ has a great list of some Brittana writers (make sure you read her stuff too). I also love halfrobotchicken's 2859 (seriously so fucking funny) and Cora's STWOF (Lake Hope, too, for that matter). Sadie's currently working on an adorable figure skating AU.
(Brittana friends--who/what am I forgetting? Seriously, we could fill up 85 bibles with excellent Brittana fic.)
