Bonus Features: Author Interview

FF: We'd like to welcome the author of Crumbs in the Butter, Brumeier, who has generously agreed to come here today and answer some questions for us.

B: No trouble at all. Hi out there, all my faithful Fan Fic reviewers and readers! ::waves::

FF: Brumeier, what first drew you to the world of fan fiction?

B: It all started with Hatter, of course! I'd watched Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland and loved Johnny Depp's take on the Mad Hatter. While Googling pictures and other information, I stumbled across and found the Alice in Wonderland stories. It was love at first read.

FF: How did you go from Tim Burton's Hatter to Syfy Channel's Hatter?

B: It was my husband's fault, honestly. He brought the Syfy Channel's Alice DVD home from Blockbuster one day. I took one look at the box and dismissed it as being way too weird and silly. But my then-six year old wanted to watch it and so I watched it too. And by the end I was hooked. I loved the romance of it, and Andrew-Lee Potts is absolutely adorable!

FF: It's well-known that you are a big fan of this particular film. I understand you've made your own Hatter t-shirts, and even got a Hatter tattoo. Is that right?

B: Yes, that's all correct. Hatter has made his way on to several scrapbook pages as well. I'll admit I've become fairly obsessed. And not just with Syfy's Alice, but also with the BBC's Primeval. Andrew-Lee Potts plays the character of Connor on that show, so it was a no-brainer that I'd become a fan of that as well.

FF: But your fan fiction is all Hatter-centric.

B: Yes. The science of Primeval has put me off, as far as writing a compelling story for those characters. I'm not a big fan of research. I do read a ton of it, though. ::grins:: I felt much more comfortable writing for Alice. My first major story was actually a novelization of the film from Hatter's perspective.

FF: That helped you build up a good-sized fan base, did it not?

B: Oh, absolutely. I wasn't sure anyone would care to read it – I mean, we've all seen the movie. But everyone who read it and reviewed it seemed to think it was good. And it was no hardship for me to watch the movie over and over again, getting the dialogue just right. ::laughs::

FF: You went from the novelization to a series of more original Hatter and Alice stories.

B: Yes. The Happy in the Ever After, which is a series of one-shots taking place after the kiss at the end of the movie. I love those little stories! It will eventually show an entire year in Hatter and Alice's life, culminating in their wedding. The other story, Crumbs in the Butter, is based on an idea that came to me just as I got into bed one night. I was thinking about Hatter getting sick, but sick with something that couldn't be cured in the Oyster world. The story grew from there.

FF: Crumbs in the Butter has been very popular with your readers. I've looked at your reviews and they're incredibly flattering.

B: My reviewers are the best. ::waves:: Sometimes I'm not quite sure I wrote a scene well enough, or that the story is going in the right direction, but then I get all these great reviews. It's really improved my writing confidence.

FF: Can you share what your writing experience was like for this story?

B: It wasn't completely linear, that's for sure! ::laughs:: I had the basic idea to start from, and did a bit of reading into the original book to find ways to tie the dialogue from the original Hatter in to this Hatter, via his spells of madness. I wrote each chapter in order, for the most part, but then as I got ideas for some of the more exciting sequences, I wrote them out and saved them to work in later. Before I was halfway through writing, I'd already written a version of the ending, a version of Alice's torture scene, and a version of the big rescue. They all had to be changed, of course, to reflect things that I added to earlier chapters. And occasionally a chapter would take a turn that even I wasn't expecting!

FF: Now that Crumbs in the Butter is finished, what's next for Hatter and Alice?

B: Well, I don't want to give anything away just yet, but I will tell you that when The Happy in the Ever After comes to a close – with a surprising twist that I'm hoping my fans like! - it's going to spin Hatter and Alice off into a whole new series of adventures. I'm also working on a novelization of the movie from Alice's POV, which is much harder because she's often so unlikeable in the movie; I'm working hard at making her more sympathetic.

FF: Sounds like you have your hands full. Well, we wish you the best of luck with your writing and look forward to reading all of your future stories.

B: Thanks so much! And thanks, faithful readers! I love you guys! ::blows kisses::