IReen H Chats About Everything High Fidelity

Imagine my excitement when I approached IReen H about interviewing her and she got more excited than I already was! She talks about everything High Fidelity, human faults, and redemption in this Author-to-Author interview!

DH78: Where did the inspiration for High Fidelity come from?

IRH: Okay, so let me preface this whole interview by first saying that High Fidelity is the second story I’ve ever written.  I started it as an exercise, maybe thinking I could turn an experience I had where I was falsely accused of hitting someone in the parking lot of my building into a clever little one-shot.  We’ve all heard that expression – “Write what you know,”  - and that is what I was trying to do when I started this story.  Bella was, at first, to a huge extent, me.  I work for a realtor, I cater on the weekends, I jog to Ace of Spades by Motorhead.  I grew up in the California Bay Area and my mom and I went to tons of concerts together.  I have a deep love for Huskies.

So, my inspiration for HiFi really came to me in pieces.  I got up to like 8k words or so and had no idea where I was going to take this story.  I put it on hold for a bit and thought about this Bella and this Edward… and why is he such a dick… and why is Bella alone?  Who are they?  At first the story was just a rehash of something I had experienced, just written… for the heck of it.  To see if I could, and then the whole thing bloomed.  I saw the gist of the whole story. I sketched out a rough outline of how the story would go. I went back and reworked what I had written and then posted the first three chapters.  

I sort of agonized a little about making Bella a breast cancer survivor.  I didn’t know if people would want to read that story… and then I realized, I wanted to write it.  I wanted to write a sexy story about someone real.  I wanted to show that just because she isn't a “perfect apple,” to use a HiFi analogy, she can still be somebody's best bite ever.  That her damaged envelope is not who she is and not why a man will ultimately fall in love with her.  I find the atypical very sexy, and I wanted to create a heroine who, I think, a lot of women can relate to.  We all have times when we feel like we aren’t good enough because we aren’t what society says is beautiful.  Eff that.  I’m so sick of what society says. Bella is sexy, she is worthy of love for HERSELF, like we all are.

DH78: What made you want to start writing ff?

IRH: Actually, I remember several times where I was reading fic and just shaking my head, marveling at the talent, the time, the passion that authors were putting into their stories.  I distinctly *knew* I could never write a story.  I can barely make it through four page essay about business ethics. I can barely make it through a 140 character tweet without second guessing myself.

Then one of my favorite authors tweeted about the Age of Edward contest and a plot bunny twitched it’s little nose at me.  I decided to TRY to write a story.  I decided that I had nothing to lose if it sucked.  I decided that my husband is not a very good pre-reader.  I gave him the 13k-word story and when he was done he handed it back and told me it was “good.”  I said fuck it.  I am going to enter.  I did.  I think my story was the fourth submission to the contest.  By the time it closed there were so many, with so many reviews, I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to win anything, but it did!  Two judges choice awards, bestowed by RoGlows and TLammy, and even though I can't read it without seeing all the places I struggled, I am still incredibly proud of it.

DH78: If you had to convince someone to read your story, how would you describe the plot (w/o giving away obvious spoilers, of course)?

IRH: Oh boy.  Um.  Let’s see if I can get tagline-y about it.  She is a hardworking survivor with a positive attitude, he is a damaged individual filling his life up with work and meaningless sex and liquor.  What happens when her insecurities preclude his plans?  

This Bella and Edward are two sides of the same scarred coin.  The thing about a coin is, when one side is showing, the other side is down.  The coin needs to be balanced precariously on its edge for both sides to be seen.  That is High Fidelity, all the failed attempts to balance this coin on its edge.

DH78: Do you have a set writing plan? Outline? Do you write organically, or is everything perfectly planned?

Everything is not perfectly planned.  I guess I am an organic writer.  Yeah, you could call it that.  I call it chaotictastic flailage.  Honestly, I don’t even know if the notebook I have full of my HiFi plot points could even be called an “outline.”  It’s more like a… mess.  A mess of major events, dialogue that comes to me while walking/driving, and music I plan to include.  When I sit down to write I just go.  The characters drive the story where it needs to be.  Sometimes they do and say things where even I sit back and go “Where the French-toast did THAT come from.”

DH78: Who’s your favorite character in your story? Why?

IRH: So, I’ve thought long about this question.  And hard.  Long… and hard.  (Insert joke here)  Anyway.  This is a tough question for me… because I really feel attached to all my characters.  I wrote them out of the love that I have for a lot of people in my real life and that connects me to each of them.  It’s like Edward tells Bella in HiFi, artists paint themselves into everything.  I cannot escape how I view things, and I think, even though I write some less than commendable people, I love and care for all of them.  

That said, there is one character in High Fidelity who I totally, absolutely love, because she is a mirror of someone I miss every day.  That is Sam.  She doesn’t get a lot of face-time, but she is very much made of one of the best friends I’ve ever had.  From her rainbow bangs to her plentiful piercings, her bright shiny attitude and prankster ways.  She is my friend Nicole who died of a drug overdose a couple of years ago.  

DH78: How long have you been in the fandom? 

I first read Twilight last September, I think.  Seriously… I don’t know why I resisted for soooo effing long.  I have this one girlfriend who kept trying to get me to read it, and I kept adamantly telling her that my vampire-werewolf needs are more than satisfied by my Buffy The Vampire Slayer collection.  I was way wrong.  I lost so much fandom time!

The thing is, I enjoyed Twilight; but as much as I did, I have enjoyed the fic and the fandom far more. Edward and Bella, as fun as they were to hang out with, have been substantially improved within the fandom by authors whose talent blows my fucking mind.  MIND = BLOWN.  

DH78: What was the first ff you ever read? 

IRH: No way.  It’s embarrassing.  Suffice to say, I came into the fandom to find Jacob/Renesmee stories… I know.  I know.  I know.  I just really felt like he deserved his HEA and not with a fucking child.

I think the first GOOD story I read was one of Kharizzmatick’s.  Not Emancipation Proclamation, that had already been pulled.  It was one of her others, Numb, or Schism.  I remember banging my head on the wall wondering how I find more stories like that.  I didn’t know that TLS or TwiFic or IndieFicPimp or any of those websites even existed!  I was literally stumbling around on FF.net looking for descriptions that appeared interesting.  I happened upon one of EBT’s stories and she rec’d some good ones in her fic that really got the ball rolling for me. That was how I found Beyond Time by TKegl, which I absolutely loved.  I don’t remember how I found PattyRosa but after getting over my hesitancy regarding an all-human Edward, I gobbled up all of her fic.

I am still way behind.  I haven’t read 99% of the quality fic out there.  

DH78: Are you reading any ff right now? If so? Wanna rec something you’re loving so far?

IRH: Okay – here is the deal with that.  I have to be really careful with what and how I read.  I am a new author, new to writing entirely, and I find that exceptional stories either, A: affect the voice I write in, or B: makes me want to flounce myself forever.

I am slowly reading In The Debris by BelieveItOrNot and so far it’s really got me, emotionally.  I have to pace myself so that I don’t screw myself in the ass.  The last fic I read was The Blessing and The Curse and that was like… the worst-best-idea ever.  I reopened HiFi and all I saw was mulepuke.  So, needless to say, my TBR list just grows.  After I finish HiFi I am going to have a huge fic-fest before I start my next story.  

DH78: HiFi is special in that it features a very cold, unfeeling, and crass Edward. He’s a very complex character-- certainly, very different from the usual Edwards in other fics. Somehow, you’re able to turn this horribly cold person into someone deeper, who is worthy of redemption. In turn, you feature a marred and imperfect Bella. She’s physically different than most Bella’s I’ve encountered, but seeing the reactions of the readers, they identify with her so well and she’s highly likable. Both these characters have been through so, so much in their own lives, and yet they’ve handled it completely different. How did these characters come about, and was it planned all along? Organic? Did they evolve?

IRH: I feel like such a hack answering this question.  They really evolved.  I had no original plan.   Like I said… this story started as an exercise to see if I could even write anything else.  

That said… I knew early on who they both were.  When I broke from the initial exercise to evaluate where the story was going, I felt that it was going to be very character driven.  If I could get that right, I could write the whole thing without too much contrivance.  I don’t know exactly how successful I’ve been at that, but honestly, these people write themselves half the time.  I don’t have to force them into the situations I know they are headed towards, they lead me.

DH78: Is there anything you can give away about Edward’s past that will wet readers’ appetites?

IRH: Edward has been drifting through life since he was little.  He is very much a conglomeration of three men I’ve known.  My husband, my ex, and my uncle.  My husband is a good man who had a LOT of anger when I first met him, and we had to fight through an incredible amount of shit to be together.  We will NEVER take each other for granted because of it.   Forever, for us,  isn’t nearly long enough, but it’s a start.

My ex is a complete douchebag who is not redeemable.  No, really.

My uncle was, according to my mother, a tender-hearted and sensitive boy.  He played Barbie with his sisters, he listened to music and grew his hair out long.  To his parents this made him a sissy.  He was continually hounded to find more masculine activities.  He grew up a barely controlled, very angry man who self-medicates with drugs and food.  I honestly don’t know if he is fixable… but HiFi Edward… is another story.

Thank you, IReen H for taking the time to chat with me!

-DH78