Witness: Tyellas
Creator name (AO3): Tyellas
Creator name (Tumblr): thebyrchentwigges
Link to creator works *https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyellas/works?fandom_id=51060
Q: Why the Mad Max Fandom?
A: I’ve been a fan of postapocalyptic scifi since my teens. But it took me until Fury Road to really fall in love with the world of Mad Max. Living Down Under probably helped.
Q: What do you think are some defining aspects of your work? Do you have a style? Recurrent themes?
A: For Mad Max, my style varies very much based on the character point of view. Max's terseness is very different from a History Person's verbal rambling. Recurrent themes for me...Some of them tie back to canon, like the fragility of Wasteland technology and the quirkiness of human nature. There's a lot of geology and a consistent thread of land-based spirituality - an Antipodean influence, there.
Q: Which of your works was the most fun to create? The most difficult? Which is your most popular? Most successful? Your favourite overall?
A: Most popular overall – Definitely “Gastown Nights.” Max, Furiosa, sexual tension, adventure in a setting with the Wasteland wildness turned up to 11 – what’s not to like? Most fun – Writing fluff is always fun, even if the world’s falling apart around it. “Very Max, Much Wasteland, Such Dog,” my take on Max Gets A Dog, and “If You Give a Pup a Flamethrower” stand out to me. Most difficult – Several of my Miss Giddy stories were harrowing, “Weave a Circle,” “One Way Ride.” At one point writing “Weave a Circle” I glanced in a mirror and was shocked – shocked! – to not be looking at the face of a tattooed 76-year-old.
Q: How do you like your wasteland? Gritty? Hopeful? Campy? Soft? Why?
A: Gritty as, mate, but always with that glimmer of hope. Because that's how it would be.
Q: Walk us through your creative process from idea to finished product. What's your prefered environment for creating? How do you get through rough patches?
A: I may jot down a story’s core idea, then let it ferment a few months. I might think I’m writing something just for myself, then it will take on a life of its own. When the time is right, I’ll think and plan around it, then do an outline. I like Kurt Vonnegut’s advice that a character in a story should want something, “even if it’s just a glass of water.” A glass of water is a big thing in Mad Max! For a writing environment, I’m very lucky – I have a home office, a desk chair, a desk specially set up for writing. If part of a story is giving me trouble, I’ll treat it like the eye of the storm. I’ll write around it, write down to it – I’ll write everything but that part! Once the frame is in place around the difficult part, that helps.
Q: What (if any) music do you listen to for help getting those creative juices flowing?
A: For Mad Max, Ocker rocker classics from the 70s and 80s. Songs by Goanna, Cold Chisel, Dragon, AC/DC. New Zealander Neil Finn's song "Sinner" always makes me think of Max.
Q: What is your biggest challenge as a creator?
A: Finding time when I have inspiration, and finding inspiration when I find time.
Q: How have you grown as a creator through your participation in the Mad Max Fandom? How has your work changed? Have you learned anything about yourself?
A: I've grown so, so much as a writer. Descriptions, plot, research. Getting over myself and putting that crazy idea out there - and learning that it was worthwhile if it found one reader. Personally, I decided I would probably survive an apocalypse, which is always good to know.
Q: Which character do you relate to the most, and how does that affect your approach to that character? Is someone else your favourite to portray? How has your understanding of these characters grown through portraying them?
A: I took the long road around to this one, because it took getting into the Mad Max fandom for it. I'd say I relate the most to...Aunty Entity. She's determined, she's creative, she's femme, and she has excellent taste in henchpeople. Oddly, I've never written about her, for all that I have screeds about Furiosa, the Vuvalini, and the History People. Aunty Entity has aspects of those three. My Furiosa is calculating, fierce, stony, and, after the Fury Road, willing to make terrible decisions for a long-term goal or a greater good. After a mostly Citadel life, she’s used to better living, and both disgusted and horrified/saddened by how others are getting by.
Q: Do you ever self-insert, even accidentally?
A: All the characters we write about are our shards and our reflections. I do have a draft of a piece for a Self-Insert week that never took off, where I hitch a ride in the Nullarbor desert with some Buzzards.
Q: Do you have any favourite relationships to portray? What interests you about them?
A: I've written smut, and in my fics both canon characters and OCs get laid and find love. "Citadel Nights" is a novel-length fic about love and sex in the Mad Max apocalypse. But the most enduring relationship in my fics, one that all characters deal with, is...their own one with the Wasteland. That post-apocalyptic world around them. For some it's chaos and ruined dreams. For some it's horror yet opportunity. And for some of them, it's simply how it is. My story quartet "Wasteland, Seize My Bones" delves into this in all kinds of ways.
Q: How does your work for the fandom change how you look at the source material?
A: For Mad Max, I seek it out and look at it in more detail. Some of it takes some finding. It took me a while to track down the novelization of "Beyond Thunderdome". There were some jaw-dropping interviews with George Miller back in the 80s!
Q: Do you prefer to create in one defined chronology or do your works stand alone? Why or why not?
A: I can't help creating in one defined chronology. That's just how my imagination works. Every Mad Max story of mine fits into a timeline. I've sketched out that timeline over two notebook pages, like the nerd that I am.
Q: To break or not to break canon? Why?
A: For Mad Max, I'm usually in line with canon. Mad Max canon itself is so rich, flexible, and berserk that most of the plots and actions I wanted to write fit right in. Like most fan creators, I did make it gayer.
Q: Share some headcanons.
A: Oh, so many! Have three: - Furiosa wears her keys on the left: Max wears his on the right. - There are two popular headcanons around Miss Giddy: long-term Citadel denizen or Wasteland Survivor Having Adventures. I like the second one better. - Immortan Joe and the Bullet Farmer had a thing going on for a while there.
Q: If you work with OCs walk us through your process for creating them. Who are some of your favourites?
A: There are OCs and there are "characters who had three frames in the movie/outtake." Very often I'll create an OC to fulfil a plot moment and then...they're not done...they tap my shoulder with more stories. I have a list of my Mad Max original characters for reference. I need it because I have *forty-nine* of them. Wretches, War Boys, Milking Mothers, Wastelanders, antagonists. My favorite OCs are the ones I've spent the most time writing about - if an OC of mine has a POV story, you know I liked them. Or somebody else did and made a request!
Q: If you create original works, how do those compare to your fan works?
A: My original works seem positively sybaritic compared to my Mad Max fan works!
Q: Who are some works by other creators inside and outside of the fandom that have influenced your work?
A: There were all these different creative factions – Maxiosa shippers, War Boy lovers, the Gigadumpster focusing on the villains – having fun. That in itself was inspiring. For a while I was unable to read @sacrificethemtothesquid ’s Length and Breadth of Fury Road. Its gravitational field of influence was that strong for me. And I adored the story “The Bullet Farmer’s Daughter” for its ruthless postapocalyptic extremes. For Max and Furiosa and their particular dynamics and madness, I’m influenced by J.G. Ballard – his compelled postapocalyptic wanderers, his cool, in-charge women. For my History People writing, influences include Margaret Atwood, Ursula Le Guin, and Neal Stephenson’s “Anathem”.
Q: What advice can you give someone who is struggling to make their own works more interesting, compelling, cohesive, etc.?
A: The time you spend planning your project helps bring it to life. Thinking, plotting, outlining, deciding your ending and working up to it. If something seems crazy or self-indulgent, but *feels* real or right, there’s emotional truth and weight behind it. Readers will sense that and respond to it. Write it and see what happens. Thanks to our protagonist of few words, Mad Max writers suffer less from verbosity than other fandoms. Still, keep a sentence 20 words or fewer: keep a paragraph 6 – 8 sentences or fewer. Your reader will stay more engaged with your writing.
Q: Have you visited or do you plan to visit Australia, Wasteland Weekend, or other Mad Max place?
A: I'd love to go to Wasteland Weekend sometime, but I live in New Zealand. It's been great to meet up with some fellow Mad Max fans in Australia, and to have Mad Max-like moments when I'm visiting there. Walking down an industrial street, lost, when a gang of masked bikers roar by, disrupting the crows into their own corvid cries...
Q: Tell us about a current WIP or planned project.
A: I've got two Mad Max WIPs that will be done, come hell or high water. I'll share their titles: "In the Heart of the Wasteland Sun" and "A Favourite Has No Friend".
Thank you @thebyrchentwigges