1. How did you become a Harry Potter fan? What is your personal relationship with the series and the fandom at large?
Like many people, the movies drew me into the fandom. I was a child when the films were coming out and grew up with them. Because of my severe dyslexia, it wasn’t until recently that I was able to read the books in their entirety as, before then, they’d been inaccessible to me. After finishing the books and re-watching the movies I felt this hole in my chest where the series used to be. I wanted more, but the Fantastic Beasts movies didn’t feel the same, and the controversies surrounding J. K. Rowling had put a sour taste in my mouth regarding the original series. I found myself in this odd place where I loved the world of Harry Potter, but I didn’t feel the same enthusiasm for the new content, and the old magic was stained with the views I now knew J. K. Rowling held. On the one hand, there’s a deep connection between me and the magic of Harry Potter, which gave me such joy in dark times, but also a tie between that joy and ideas that actively harm me and many other people, ideas that J. K. Rowling herself has expressed. It left me not quite knowing what to do.
2. Describe your interest in fanfiction. Did you always want to write, or did you start as a reader? Is this your first published fanfiction?
I’ve always wanted to write, and I’ve been writing as long as I can remember. I love stories and I love consuming stories, but the mainstream media has never provided the fantastical stories I wanted with the representation I wanted to see. As a child I drafted stories any chance I could in the back of my work books, sketching miniature comics, designing characters and plotlines, you know, all the things a lot of children did. As I grew up, the need to write became a constant obsession, and I’m known amongst my friends as a ‘writing machine’ who can happily churn out six full-length book drafts a year alongside full-time study/work. Bagsy Beetlehorn is not my first book series that I’ve written, nor even the first one that I’ve put online, but it is my first fanfiction. Before Bagsy, I’d only dabbled in writing original works with original settings and characters. Much of that originality can be found in Bagsy Beetlehorn, which only shares the setting of Harry Potter, but contains all knew characters, magic, potions, creatures, mysteries, spells, and much more. As I said, I felt a hole inside of my chest where Harry Potter used to be, and decided that if I wanted more Harry Potter, if I wanted something to fill it, but this time with better representation, then I’d need to do it myself.
3. Can you provide a brief overview of the premise of "The Bagsy Chronicles" for our readers?
"The Bagsy Chronicles" is a seven-book fanfiction sequel series to Harry Potter. It follows Bagsy Beetlehorn, an incredibly timid witch who can’t cast spells, and so invents her way around problems, alongside her best friend Mezrielda, an arrogant and ambitious prodigy, as they discover the friendships, conspiracies, betrayals and injustices of the wizarding world. The series explores their development as Bagsy tries to make sense of a world where her own magic doesn’t work like everyone else’s, and Mezrielda tries to fight back against a world that tramples on those it deems unworthy. Bubbling in the background, the magical world approaches a tipping point as its mistreatment of magical creatures brings to boil its own downfall.
In the first book, “Bagsy Beetlehorn and the Thorned Gauntlet”, Bagsy’s problems may be fixed when she hears of an item hidden behind riddles that lies somewhere in Hogwarts and can grant one wish. The only trouble is, Bagsy has already agreed to help Mezrielda find it, and she will have to choose between staying true to her promise, or taking the Thorned Gauntlet for herself.
On a larger scope, the series with cover over-arching themes of love, equality, identity, determinism, forgiveness, trust, control and freedom. Themes will vary book to book, with some focussing more heavily on one theme or another, but all will slowly build towards the climax of the seven-book series. Just as with the original Harry Potter series, the tone and style of the books develops alongside the characters, with the first book being the shortest and most light-hearted, and with the story spiralling on from there.
4. How did "The Bagsy Chronicles" get started? Where did the idea come from originally, and what were the first steps?
Originally, I planned on writing a short 40,000 word one-shot about two professors, Professor Bagsy Beetlehorn and Professor Mezrielda Glint, and the shenanigans their Professor-rivalry caused at Hogwarts. As I was writing it I had this itch to just… reset the clock, go back in time, and explore what the story would be like if it was about their time as students at the school instead. I had a moment where I leant back in my chair as I was writing and thought ‘Am I really going to do this? Am I really going to write a seven-book sequel series? Because that is a lot of words and will take a lot of time.’ And then I sort of thought ‘screw it,’ and did just that. (It only took around three years in the end.) From there I just wrote and wrote and wrote until the seven books were done, had beta-readers give me some truly invaluable feedback, made plenty of edits, and then started to release them.
5. Can you describe your process for crafting this story? Do you take many notes, do any research, plan far ahead, etc.?
When I write I always have a rough idea for a least one book ahead of where I am, but the details only fall into place once I’ve written it out. In that way, I make it up as I go along, even if I may have rough ideas for the very end of the series when I begin it. However, because I write so quickly, and I write as a hobby and so am free from deadlines, I have the luxury of being able to fully draft every single book before even one sentence of the first book is released online, so by the time the first chapters of the first book are being published, I’ve already finished the final ones and can go back and make any changes I want depending on how the story has developed/changed along the journey. If anyone were to re-read the Bagsy series they may be surprised by just how many sneaky foreshadowing moments there are, or cheeky winks at future plot points that are hiding within seemingly innocuous lines.
I do take lots of notes whether it be in physical journals or an incredibly long-winded and messy online document that is a crammed mess of all the characters, potions, spells, etc that I’ve come up with throughout the series, as well as a detailed timetable I created for each book detailing every characters’ timetables. (Those took a whiiiiile). As for research, I am lucky to be writing within the Harry Potter fandom because the lore is so well documented and stored that it is ridiculously easy to look up whatever I may need to for the story, including, hypothetically, the specific year a certain shop in Diagon Alley was opened, and therefore how long it would have been around for during the events of the third Bagsy book.
6. Please describe your experience creating original characters. What has it been like to bring them to life? Do you have a favorite?
There is little I love more than creating characters. I think of myself as a character-based writer. As much as I love to write fantasy, action/adventure and mystery, I always find the characters are my favourite part. I particularly love to take very niche character traits and extrapolate those into a whole character. Bagsy started with the idea of ‘what if the main character was really, really bad at casting spells?’ I thought such a character might explore alternative options, and become a bit of an artificer/alchemist, perhaps being very reserved, locking themselves away in their study for days on end tinkering away at their latest project. Maybe they’d grow shy and find social interaction difficult, always hiding behind others and seeming timid but, when their friends are in trouble, doing what needs to be done to save the day, in their own magic-lacking and cowardly way. The idea of a main character who was timid and cowardly but still ultimately a hero was very interesting to me.
My favourite character, Mezrielda, was created by allowing myself to write all my personal favourite types of characters into one. She’s highly intelligent and very well education, with great competency in magic, strategy and verbal wit, and she knows it, too. Her arrogance is perhaps the greatest in all of the roster and it’s a miracle her ego can fit into the castle. But her arrogance is entirely justified. She’d probably say, ‘Is it arrogance if it’s accurate?’ Seeing an arrogant character like this develop and slowly ‘melt’ into someone slightly softer, where you catch tiny glimpses of their true, heart-of-gold emotions underneath, are a joy to me. Yet, at the same time as being so highly competent and skilled, she is cold and calculating, hiding her emotions and keeping those around her away with sharp words and insults. Her character flaws come from her own personal ideas of grandeur which lead to the cutting way in which she speaks to others, as well as an overconfidence in herself and her own abilities. She’s so used to being good at everything right away that and always succeeding that, unlike Bagsy, she struggles to work hard at something or sit down to work for long periods of time, and if she ever were to take a true hit to her ego, if she ever really were to be shown as weaker than someone else, it would be a deep wound, indeed. I imagine a grudge formed from that kind of an experience would stick with her for a long time.
7. What do you find to be the most challenging aspect of writing "The Bagsy Chronicles"?
The fact that I’ve finished writing the seven books. Remember that hole in my chest I spoke about earlier? Yeah. It’s back again, and much worse than before. I’ve moved away from writing Bagsy for the time being to write my own entirely original works with the intention of getting them published, and whilst I am now growing attached to that new world and its new characters, I can’t deny how much I miss the experience of writing Bagsy. What else am I going to imagine whilst I listen to music now? It feels like I’ve lost an entire group of friends. I don’t imagine it will be too long before I find myself giving in and writing more stories based around "The Bagsy Chronicles."
8. Some say that Pottermania is waning. What do you think? What would you say is the future of this fandom?
I do believe it is waning, and I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. As people grow and generations come and go the interests of the mainstream media will shift. It’s a natural part of life, and, hopefully, other magical media will fill the void. (I’m hoping the Grishaverse will keep rising in prominence as I am a huge fan of it and all of Leigh Bardugo’s work). However, I do see an opportunity for the fandom to be bolstered through either new content or expansive reboots of the original Harry Potter books. (As amazing as the movies are, I’d love to see a high-quality, animated series based on the stories, similar to the fantastic artistry we saw with the recent Netflix series ‘Arcane’). Or, failing that, a new story of seven years at Hogwarts that does something new and fresh with the Harry Potter formula. I recommend a new seven-year story not because I’ve written Bagsy but, instead, I wrote Bagsy because I think a new seven-year story would be the most interesting. That view point was the reason for "The Bagsy Chronicles", after all, not the other way around.
9. Why should MuggleNet followers check out "The Bagsy Chronicles"? What do you hope to bring to your readers through this story?
If, like me, they’ve felt a gap that the Harry Potter stories used to fill and want a new take on spending seven years at Hogwarts, with all original characters, spells, mysteries and magical creatures, but with the same familiar flavour of the magical world, then they need look no further than "The Bagsy Chronicles. "(Or Alexandra Quick by Inverarity, which I can’t recommend enough, though I did have to stop reading it until I’d finished Bagsy to avoid accidentally copying ideas.) I especially recommend "The Bagsy Chronicles" for readers looking to enjoy the Harry Potter world but with better representation.
My main goal with "The Bagsy Chronicles" is to provide an adventure through the seven-years at Hogwarts which holds the same magical feeling the original books had, addresses some of the storylines the original never did, like the mistreatment of magical creatures, and shows the kind of representation I want to see in the mainstream media. I view "The Bagsy Chronicles" as a series of stories that don’t copy Harry Potter beat for beat but instead, rhymes with it.
10. Can you provide a hint of what’s to come in your next installment?
Book one is called ‘Bagsy Beetlehorn and the Thorned Gauntlet’, book two ‘Bagsy Beetlehorn and the Corvid Trials’ and book three ‘Bagsy Beetlehorn and the Inferno Conscription’. I can now reveal that, when it starts to be released, book four will be called ‘Bagsy Beetlehorn and the Vampire Affairs’ and will involve puppet masters, an acting troupe, a vampire ball, a floating castle on a bed of clouds, doppelgangers, a queen of corvids, a missing sister, and the breathing blight. It's looking to be Bagsy's busiest year yet...
