Writing the Whedon Way
Filed under: Writer Profile, Writing
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Writing has never been easy for twenty-two-year-old Emma Rawlin, but inspired by her hero Joss Whedon, she is making a name for herself in the realm of fan fiction. Since 2007, Emma has been one of the writers on the ambitious Buffy Between the Lines.
As Emma describes it, “Buffy Between the Lines is an audio drama based around the show Buffy The Vampire Slayer and is set between seasons of the series. It’s non-profit, fan created and tries to stay as true to the show as possible.”
Emma’s involvement started early in the project when lead producer Tabitha Grace Smith announced it on her Live Journal page. Tabitha had read some of Emma’s fan fiction and was pleased to have her as part of the writing team. As the series began to take shape, the writing team mapped out season one including details about where each episode would begin and end, what key events had to take place, and which characters would be highlighted. This framework gave the writers an opportunity to explore the story space on their own and inject their particular talents into the project.
One of the challenges lies in getting the characters to “sound” right. Emma has been a fan of the original Buffy since the age of thirteen, so the voices often come naturally. When they don’t, she finds an episode that features the particular character she’s struggling with, and watches it again. Some characters, though, come to her more easily than others.
“Being the only British writer on Buffy Between the Lines, I perhaps feel more comfortable with Giles’ and Spike’s voices than others.”
For the upcoming second season, Emma notes that the stories outlines are more detailed and more writers have joined the project. It’s also taking place at a different point in the Buffy-verse.
“It’ll be set in between season 2 and 3; we realised that there were a lot of potential stories there to tell. There are a lot of characters you might not expect to see, and that perhaps didn’t get much screen time in the show. And, we actually have Buffy in this season too.”
Although Buffy Between the Lines was Emma’s first audio project, she’d already written quite a bit of
fiction; both prose and scripts, original and fan fiction. Writing for Buffy has helped develop her skills.
“I think my dialogue has gotten stronger, and my storytelling has gotten tighter – all my scenes tend to have a purpose or at least get to the point quicker. I think it’s also given me some confidence in my writing ability that I didn’t have before.”
That’s no small statement for Emma who as diagnosed with severe dyslexia at age eight.
“I had a private tutor,” she says, “not because my family were rich – because I was that bad.”
This disability gave her an unusual history as a writer. The dyslexia kept her from reading many novels before the age of eighteen; although she’s always loved stories.
“I watched a lot of TV, and begged relatives to read to me and my happiest times at school (not many of those) were when the teacher would read stories to us.”
Finding Joss Whedon was something of a revelation to her.
“I know … how very fangirl of me … but his characters, his dialogue, his stories … I loved them so much I wanted to do that too. I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery after all,” she says.
Determined to learn to write, she studied, finding Anne Lamott’s advice in Bird by Bird, to be particularly useful. Based on what’s she’s learned, Emma offers this advice to other aspiring writers, “You’re probably not going to be good at it straight away, but just keep going. Also, read a lot, and read a lot on writing from other writers. Write a lot and remember you can never know enough about writing.”
Following her own advice, Emma is hard at work on season two including co-authoring the season two finale with Executive Producer, Tabitha Smith.
Tags: buffy, Buffy Between the Lines, buffy the vampire slayer, joss, joss whedon, Writing, writing fanfic