TM gets reamed with Questions! (EQFSWR)

Date: 08/01/2001
From: SL4ever

"No, you must stay for the Big Funny Party Hat Jubilee. We let off our special fireworks and then we do let loose with the giant streamers!"

Eleven Questions for Sliders Writers

Ep 1 starring Thomas Malthus

Thomas Malthus is one of the most productive Sliders Fan Fiction writers I’ve encountered. Despite his level of output his work is always thought provoking, amusing, and entertaining. He recently agreed to do an interview and here now are eleven questions for him to answer. No dodging the tough ones!

1) How the hell are you?

2) Do you write directly into the post window or do you write several drafts into a word program before posting? Do you write an outline first?

3) Is there any story that you’d be embarrassed for one of the actors to read because of something that happens to their character?

4) I love the restaurant scene in “Gilded Mirror,” it was amusing while giving the world texture, always a good combination. What gave you the idea of forced feeding? (as a writer I know how impossible it is to answer general “where do you get your ideas?” questions but sometimes we can answer specific ones)

5) Your journal entry for “Spirit of the Times” was hysterical. What was it like collaborating with the Earth 71999 Season Six team and how much input did they have on the final product? (both the journal entry and the story itself)

6) Your Earth 2013 three word ep synopses remind me of the opening of the Space 1999 episodes where they showed quick, intriguing snap shots from the upcoming ep. Where did you get the idea to do this and how long does it take you to boil down an entire ep into three words?

7) In “Prelude at the Nexus” you say “Wishing to escape this place early, as any sensible human would, he unknowingly doomed himself to an eternity here.” about the Quinn trapped on CastAway world. What happened to his timer that was different than Quinn taking everyone away from Ice World in the Pilot?

8) Your sense of humor is apparent throughout your writings, from the opening sequence of “I am Lesion” to the countless celebrity and political jokes (Cher and Haley Joel Osmet having hot SEXENGS??? :-O!!!!!) to the foibles and interactions of the main characters. Which main character do you find the most comedic inspiration from? Are there hidden inside jokes that most readers won’t catch?

9) I won’t ask “what is your favorite story” because to a writer that is akin to asking a mother “which child is your favorite?” Instead, which world that you’ve visited in your writings is your favorite?

10) Have you written any Buffy fan fiction? Is there any chance of a crossover with Sliders?

11) Besides Earth 2013, is there any other Sliders fiction on the backburner to look forward to?

Vote for who you would most like to see interviewed next! Also, are there any other questions you have for TM?

"We have to go to the bathroom."

Great Idea!

Date: 08/01/2001
From: Slider_Quinn21

Nice idea, SL4Ever! I look forward to TM's answers and the next episodes...

And I have a question for Mr. Malthus...

-As a fanfic writer myself, I sometimes have trouble coming up with ideas. However, I sometimes get a flurry of ideas at the same time. How do you come up with the ideas for your fanfics? What's your inspiration?

The next writer I would like to see interviewed is Chaser9, because in my eyes, he started the fanfic revolution, if you will...

Hoping I'm eventually chosen ;-)
Quinn
http://slidersweb.net/otherworlds/214
http://slidersweb.net/eustislider/fanfic/rebirth/rebirth_index.htm

:-p

I agreed to this????

Date: 08/01/2001
From: ThomasMalthus

Seriously, SL, I'm extremely flattered. Of course I'll answer your questions.

1. Fine. Wonderful actually. Wednesday is one of my two days off. I just paid my tuition for college next semester and I did Wednesday night Bible study for our church. So I'm in a very good place right now. Plus I'm doing this interview. Yay for me! Also, I'm feeling very talkative. You'll be able to tell.

2. At first I used to write it directly into the post window, with only the outline of it in my head to guide me. Lately I've been writing it the night before I post and then checking for errors. There were a couple of big errors in "It Also Sets" and "I Am Lesion", both of which I noticed before anyone else (I think), but that made me decide to write it beforehand. That, and the fact that I usually write it very late at night now when my eyes are blurry and I'm not thinking clearly. (P.S. Please don't go looking for the glaring error in "I Am Lesion". I'm fixing it in the story after "An Infinite Number", "The Charm", in an interesting way, I swear. Except for the interesting part.)

3. I don't think Jerry would like to read some of the stuff I wrote for Quinn to do in "Rome Alone", "Suspicion" or "I Am Lesion". He comes off really wimpy. Also, Cleavant's part would be pretty small compared to some of the stuff he did in the last two seasons. But I think JRD and Sabrina would love their parts.

4. Well, I stole it from the Greeks. The Greeks aren't big on selection and they pretty much just serve you what they have and if you don't like it, too bad, so sad. Which is why the Greeks are famously plump-bodied. I like that in a culture.

5. Basically QBall79 pestered me til I did it. It's good he did, because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to finish. Before I started Earth 2013, I almost never finished what I started writing. I really don't like writing for the Season Five team, so I did my best with what I had. Which was to make a contrived time-travel story involving the original four sliders and treat Diana and Mallory like they were nonexistant. Then QBall asked me, 'Hey, other people did this Inside Slide thing, could you do it too?' and I said OK. QBall was also the one who came up with the awesomely appropriate title. Everything else (for my ep at least) was all me. QBall79 is a great guy, very creative and very cool.

6. Ask Blinker. He's the one who does it. I love his three-word synopses almost as much as I do his visuals that accompany my eps. And that's quite a lot. I think I like Alamo. Pregnancy. Shaman. (which was what he wrote for Stigmatic) best, because that would confuse the heck out of people so much that they would just have to read it. At least in theory.

7. That's a good question. I never really fleshed that out in my head. It seems like he would have escaped to another world, like our sliders did. I guess he must have missed the slide for some reason. Like he was attacked by an enterprising badger who came to the island using a primitive, yet cozy bamboo raft. Yeah, that's what happened.

8. I find comedic inspiration from all the characters in different ways. Well, not so much Wade. I've made her kind of serious. One of these days she will mellow out though. I like to play against type with Quinn by making him into a bit of a bumbling fool. And Remmy's good for the complaining. Arturo, of course, is a comedic font of inspiration and one of my favorite characters to boot. Sadly, I had to cut the 'Arturo gets booted' scene from "I Am Lesion" due to the fact that it was a blatant "Simpsons" ripoff. Not that that's stopped me before.

Inside jokes. One of the scientists in Arturo's lab on Azure Gate Bridge World is named Keith Mitchell. Keith was the star in a Sliders fanfic I ditched a long time ago where he was a doctor in a Kromagg breeding camp who rescued (and then slid with) Wade, but I never finished it. I found a way to bring him back to life and he will be back. Another one's last name was Evans because of Dr. Evans, a history professor at WVSC who I've never particularly cared for. Arturo's opinions of television as they've been expressed throughout various fics have all been mine and will continue to be. In "I Am Lesion", the name of the music hall where they see 'Das Rheingold' is the Florence Foster Jenkins Opera Hall. Florence Foster Jenkins is renowned as the worst opera singer in history. She, in fact, built up a following because she was so bad. I didn't really expect anybody to get that one, I just did it to amuse myself. Also, for those of you who didn't see the last season of "The Larry Sanders Show", the threat of Jon Stewart taking over Larry's late night spot was a source of constant frustration for Larry and crew. Stewart did end up replacing him, thus ending the series (as was implied in "Azure").

9. Mekkan (or Lesion) world, simply because I was working with a blank slate. I wasn't creating a parallel human society, I was making a whole new world. So it was a bigger challenge, and I don't know if I succeeded entirely in creating such an extremely foreign culture. Also, the world with all the free ice cream. You didn't see that one, because I didn't want to share.

10. Yes. The first fic I wrote was a short story based on "The Wish" which was not all that well-done and was pretty pointless. Then I started one when I was a Xander-Willow shipper (for the Buffy language impaired, that means I liked Xander and Willow as a couple) and finished it like a year later when I wasn't. A really long story where Xander becomes a vampire. It's actually kind of interesting, but long. My favorite one I wrote is Letters to a Certain Inmate in Los Angeles because I think I got the feel of Season Four and the lingo of each character down. I thought about doing a Buffy/Sliders fanfic but my very very favorite Buffy fanfic writer (who is the only one I will read with few exceptions) does that basically all the time. Mediancat writes parallel universe Buffy stories where Quinn Mallory/Sliders is sometimes referenced. In one story, I believe Buffy says "That's how I know it was her and not some other vampire me making like Quinn Mallory." I would forever be an imitation Mediancat and that's just not for me (though there is one story based on a throwaway alternate universe of Mediancat's that I would love to do).

11. Hmmm, no. There's a Buffy/Angel story I want to do called "I Left My Heart in Seoul" and there's this original fiction series I might try if I could ever think of where to put it. Basically every Sliders idea I have I try to incorporate into Earth 2013. I do already have the basic plot planned for three twenty-two episode seasons of Earth 2013, as well as the entire story arc planned for next season and every episode more-or-less plotted for this season. After I finish all of that I'll go from there and see if I want to do more. Or if I'm still alive then. I think I'll check that first.

Now I have some questions for you:

1. Are you sorry you chose to interview me?

2. No, I mean really.

3. Could you interview Blinker, QBall79 and Recall317 next? They rock!

4. Could you let someone guest host so they can interview you? You are quite the scribe, ya know. I'm thinking CoolSlider, coz he did such a good job with TWIWTA. Not that anybody could replace you of course. Still, if Jon Stewart...I mean CoolSlider is not available, I'm sure someone else could do it.

5. Is anyone still reading at this point?

6. Did anyone get anything out of this?

7. Does anybody have any other questions to ask me? Nothing longer than an oration by Cicero this time, I swear.

ThomasMalthus

SQ21: Like all good writers, I...

Date: 08/01/2001
From: ThomasMalthus

...steal them. You mean you actually come up with your own ideas? Sucker. ;)

I come up with an idea for a story that I would like to write. Something that entertains me. I will not write a story if I can't read it and enjoy it. I try to write on topics that "Sliders" never handled or never dealt with to my liking and then I try to combine that with a plausible alternate history.

ThomasMalthus