 
Sabine C. Bauer has been writing fan fiction for some time. When publisher Fandemonium was looking to launch its new Stargate novel series they approached her to kick off the first story. Now with three books released, Sabine couldn't be happier with her growth as a writer.
GateWorld caught up with the author at this year's Gatecon convention in Vancouver, British Columbia. In our video interview, we discuss Bauer's latest Atlantis work, "Mirror, Mirror." We explore her style of writing, the challenge of moving from SG-1 to Atlantis, and realizing her dream of writing professionally.
Our video interview runs approximately 18 minutes, and requires QuickTime 7.0 or higher. The interview is also available at GateWorld Play!
Don't forget, you can talk with Sabine and other Fandemonium authors directly in GateWorld Forum!
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GateWorld: For GateWorld.net I'm David Read. [Laughter] My name is hilarious, you know it really is -- actually we just cut something off earlier. I'm David Read and I'm talking with Miss Sabine Bauer, author of several Stargate books published by Fandemonium. Thank you for being with us today.
Sabine Bauer: It's a pleasure.
GW: We're at Gatecon 2008, it has just wrapped ... thoughts?
SB: I had a blast, in a nutshell! It was fabulous because it was so relaxed, and it's always fun. Talking to people who love the same thing you do, and obviously I love Stargate, otherwise I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing. It also was, in certain instances, absolutely amazing, because more than one person [is] coming up to me saying "We are here because you are," and I'm like, "Guys, did you look around the room and see who else is here!" [Laughter] What's going on?! It's amazing, it's wonderful to know that the books are appreciated the way they are.
GW: Now, how many titles have you written for Stargate so far?
SB: Three. I wrote the first one out of the box, "Trial by Fire," I wrote the number seven, which was "Survival of the Fittest," and I've just published my very first Atlantis book, "Mirror, Mirror."
GW: "Mirror, Mirror," which I was joking with Darren in a podcast the other day, it's "The Atlantis Variations", instead of the "Daedalus Variations!"
Bauer at the Gatecon 2008 closing ceremonies. | |
SB: I guess so, yes! [Laughter] It came out of, oh God, an idea I had years back about space odyssey, if you will, really taking the structure, or not necessarily the structure, but elements of Homers Odyssey, and transplanting it. Which is not an altogether bizarre choice given the gate system, given what can happen if it malfunctions, and OK, the end product is a lot less close to Homer than I thought it might be, because writing aptitude aside, my stories usually start with word one, and then they go wherever the hell they please to go ... I shouldn't say "hell" should I? Heck! [laughter]
GW: No, that's cool. You don't design a framework?
SB: No, no.
GW: Really? They're completely free?
SB: They are completely free, because basically, I've got the attention span of a gnat, and I know that if I'd start at point A, and have to travel through B, C, D and E to get to F, or however far down the alphabet you want to go, I'd bore myself to tears! And I'd never finish a book, and I know that.
And the most fun in writing, for me, is the fact that if I want to know how the story turns and twists and ends up eventually, I will have to sit down and write it, and let it choose its own way. Because if I don't do that I'll never know. So I suppose that's using my own curiosity.
GW: But you have a general idea of where you want to go right? Where you want the book to end, I would imagine?
SB: I may have a general idea at the onset, but it very rarely coincides with what will be there, in the finished product. My first love, if you will, was directing, and I always refused to be one of those despots, who walks into the rehearsal room with a completely worked out marching plan and then you go and shove the actors around as you think they should be shoved around.
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Bauer's form of writing allows the characters to go just about anywhere they need to solve a problem. |
I always worked sort of [with a] group endeavor. I let them throw ideas at me, and "Let's see where we can take this." And in my writing, to a very large extent, literally the characters have taken the place of the actors, and more often than not the characters will suddenly do very strange things, and I go, "Oh gee, thank you Rodney, that was interesting, let's follow this."
GW: But that comes out of you, nevertheless. You let a little facet of you take over for a minute, and go down a trench, I guess, a sidebar?
SB: Yes! Yes. Obviously, it can be one heck of a dead end and I will have to retrace my steps, and cut huge chunks.
GW: So you've had to rewrite before?
SB: Oh yeah. It doesn't always work, and there will be wrong turns, evidently. But it's also a very, very exciting way of writing. In "Mirror, Mirror" a lot of things happened I didn't expect to happen when I set out writing. That caused certain problems in the process, and God knows sometimes I was frustrated as hell with it, but also it was fascinating where it ended up.
Even the challenge of then, right at the end, having all these strands that needed to be put together again organically was great. It's more or less the same with anything I've ever written. Be it the Fandemonium books, be it fan fiction, I let it run.
What made "Mirror, Mirror" slightly more difficult was the fact that I didn't know the characters as well as I know the Stargate SG-1 gang.
OK, talk about getting what you want, and I'd asked for it quite literally, because when I'd finished "Survival" after what, five years, six years of writing fan fiction and another three of writing "Trial and Survival", it was like, "OK guys, I love you dearly but I do need a break now, go off, have a nice holiday, somewhere in Madagascar or whatever, but I need to do something new." I spoke to Sally who's the Managing Editor of Fandemonium and said, "Look, for the next one, if it's OK, I'd like to try my hand at Atlantis," and she says "OK, cool, go ahead, do it", and yes, then I suddenly realized "Oops! This is a whole new ballgame."
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