Interview with Jess M.
By Nicola Simpson (interviewed October 20-26)

Jess M. first posted a story (her second), "Goblins and Ghosts" to ATXC in the summer of 1999. [Embarrassed by the "naughty stuff" in her first story, "Conversation Pieces," she held back on sending it until later.] Since then she has written an astonishing 41 XF stories.

What's your favorite of your own work? Your least favorite?

Oooo. For angsty stuff, I like "Ship Building" the best. It's just the best thing I've written, fic-wise. One of the best things I've written, period. For humor, "Bombardier Boy" always kills me.

My least favorite would be "Hog Heaven 2". Not because it's a bad story, but because I should never have written a sequel to the first one. It's just not as good, period.

It's always wonderful and strange to me that people think of my writing as "humorous", because I don't really think of myself as a funny person. I was never class clown, and while I can occasionally make people laugh, it isn't something that I'm particularly conscious of in my everyday life. But while I don't think of myself as funny, I am very, very aware of trying to *be* funny, all the damn time.

When I sit down to write a story, I can't honestly say that I'm thinking: "My God, this thing is going to be hysterical!" It all depends on mood, and humor is actually the most difficult thing to write consistently, as I have to be in just the right state of mind for it to flow naturally and not sound forced. This is why I tend to write one funny story, followed by a half-dozen angst-fests. There was a period, when I wrote "Ship Building", "The 36th" and "Grand Seven" one right after another, when I wouldn't have known funny had it walked up and smacked me on the ass. I just wasn't in a humorous mood, for about six months. I sort of picture myself sitting in a darkened room and glaring a lot.

Even when everything's working, funny stories can take weeks for me to write. When I was working, and writing a lot on the side (which may be why I'm no longer working, but that's another story), I started on "Poconos" and it took me nearly two months to finish it. Work kept intruding and just sucking all the humor out of my day... On the other hand, I wrote "Butt, Montana" in a day, because I was feeling frisky and it flowed.

"Untitled Case File" is the quintessential example to me of my "funny" stories, both because of how well it turned out, and in terms of the effort it took to get it that way. It started out as a dream that was so vivid and so monumentally self-absorbed that I actually woke myself up laughing. I sat down in the morning determined to capture that mood and banged out about three pages. Which I then reread and decided were total, absolute crap and not even remotely humorous. One of those moments where you find yourself thinking: "How on earth did I become so egotistical as to think anyone would want to read one of my *dreams*?" However, I'm just self-aware enough to recognize that I'm not always on target about my own work, so I sent it in to the folks on YesVirginia and asked for their opinion. They all stated that it was quite silly, and I should keep going. It took another two weeks to get through it, one scene at a time, writing a bit and then stopping the second the Muse departed. When I stop maniacally giggling to myself over something I've just written, it's time to call it quits. Writing an angsty piece, if a section is difficult, I'll just plow on through to the other side. But with humor, you either have it, or you don't. If it's not there, I quit for the day and come back to it when I'm fresh.

First of all, I should point out that I'm speaking from my own experience, and that I have a lot more of it than many first-time fic writers. I have a Master's degree in this stuff, which means nearly six years of intense, often one-on-one work on my writing and on others' writing. This gives me a great base for looking at my own work and for knowing when something stinks and when it doesn't. Having a degree doesn't make you a great writer, God only knows (remembering some of my fellow MA students and shuddering). But if writing fic is someone's first experience with writing for an audience, they may really need a beta more than I feel I do most of the time.

I use betas when I feel worried about a fic, about its direction or even about my motivation in writing it. Sequels, in particular, need betas for me. I tend to lose steam about half way through a sequel and betas can pull it back together. But often I'll finish a fic and just think: "Yeah, that's it. That's done." This isn't as true for my personal writing, but for fic I don't stress quite as much. It's more for fun and less critically challenging. If I picked all my fics apart, I'd grow tired of the process and this is my "fun" writing. I won't do anything that makes it feel like "work."

That said, learning to recognize when your own work sucks has to do with learning to understand how writing is done, how it progresses and unfolds. You start to learn this, I think, by reading. A lot. And I'm not talking about fic. I grew up with a mother who was completely obsessed by books. Every classic in the universe lived in our house, and I read them early because that's what I had around to read when I was bored. If you love a book, sit down with it and try to figure out what makes it great. What is the timing, the plotting, the characterization like? In the end, I think a lot of this stuff is learned by osmosis, so to speak. By reading and reading and reading until you learn to recognize the cadence of good writing, the structure of it.

Then you have to learn to step back from your own writing. This is something that most people find nearly impossible to do at first, I learned in my workshop classes. Writing is not "your baby". It's not a statement on *you* as a unique soul if someone thinks it's unlikely that Krycek would wear a pink tutu. You have to learn to see criticism for what it is, and to recognize that you *don't* have to take it. That's enormously freeing, I find, and makes it easier to recognize when I should take it.

I spent a lot of time learning to step back from criticism, take a deep breath, and try to see if from the critic's point of view. To view what they've said about my work dispassionately, and to work through *why* it bothers me. I find if I have an immediate, visceral reaction to a piece of constructive crit, then I've probably done something wrong and deep down, I know it. If it hits you in the gut, there's a reason. If it's totally inaccurate, you'll know.

And in the end, you have to learn to hear what people are saying about your work. For example, I'm a *terrible* researcher. I hate it, hate it, hate it. But after a few notes on one of my stories from folks who didn't feel my info was accurate enough, I learned to bite the bullet and just do it to the best of my ability. And I write around it when I haven't learned every little minutia. Learning to recognize your own weaknesses is an important first step. For heaven's sake, if you can't write dialogue, then don't send out an unbetaed telephone conversation. Listen to what the readers of your work say about it, and that'll let you know what you need to watch for, and work on.

I don't think betas are a crutch, when used conservatively. If you wrote a 20-page story and you used 12 betas, you've got self-confidence issues. Let one or two people read a short work, if you want, and that's enough. If you're writing... say... "Arizona Highways", you may want a few more betas, to cover for those who die during the process. J I think it's all about perspective. If you need a little help, then asking for it is a good thing. But not being confident enough to occasionally go it alone means you aren't ready to be publishing something on the Internet.

I think this stuff is learned through experience, like any other craft. People seem to think that good stories spring fully-formed from my head, like Athena. It doesn't work that way. I wrote years and years of *terrible* stories before I started learning what worked and what didn't. Fortunately, I was in school at the time, so I wasn't subjecting thousands of people to my learning process. J Just a few hardy souls... but the process is the same for everyone, regardless of whether they're learning in a classroom, or through experience on the net. I remember reading in an interview, around the time he was working on Hollywood AD, that David had found writing "The Unnatural" to be easy, that it just flowed out of him, whole and complete. I remember thinking "Ooo, buddy, are you in for a let down." An experienced writer knows that it's a rare and beautiful thing when it does happen, when everything is simple and obvious and beautiful. And a very experienced writer learns to recognize the pieces where it clearly hasn't worked that way.

Well, I tend to edit as I go along. A reflection of learning to write in the computer age, I suppose. I can vaguely remember writing on a battered old Smith Corona (it even had it's own stylish mock-tweed case!) when I was a kid, but I try to block those traumatic times out of my mind.

I'll usually write all day, then reread. Then get up the next morning, and reread. Then write some more. Then reread. Then do it all again. And again. Until I can't stand it any longer. Then I'll wait a few hours and reread. J I rarely do formal "drafts" for fic, more editing in progress. For longer works, like my novel, I do drafts of chapters and they often have to be revised as things progress, for plot points that no longer work, character issues, etc.

Sometimes I'll go through a "funny" fic and try to ramp it up, as a second draft.

I wrote two chapters in the middle of my novel from the two main characters' points of view. Then I decided I hated the way they'd turned out, and switched the narrators completely, reversing what I'd just done. With fic I just don't have that much invested. If something isn't working, I'll generally throw it out and start something else instead.

Helped, helped and helped. I was experiencing terrible writer's block. After my grad work, I just felt burned out. I couldn't find any joy in writing anymore, and it felt more like I was writing to justify years of work and expense rather than because I liked it. I finally wrote a screenplay (or rather, did an adaptation), at a friend's urging, nearly four years after I graduated. That helped a bit, but by then all confidence I'd had in my prose had vanished. I couldn't imagine writing a long novel.

I was reading a bit of fic by this point, and very excited about giving it a go. Fic has numerous things going for it that make it easier than writing a completely original work. The characters are already established. The audience knows the story and is eagerly following along with you. You don't have to make them believe in something as wacky as alien abduction and giant human worms, because the show has already done that. You get instant feedback on your stories. And finally, even if your stuff is awful, it's only fic for heaven's sake. It's for fun, not profit. I'm not saying I don't take fic seriously, because I do. But there's a level of seriousness it just never attains for me, since it's free and self-published, so to speak. All that combined meant I could relax writing my first story, just enough to get the prose going again. I based it roughly on the only horror story I'd ever written up to that point. "Goblins and Ghosts" was straight case-file with a bit of UST. I was terribly nervous posting it, sure that everyone would hate it. They didn't, obviously.

Since then I use fic as my "daily" writing, when my novel is bogged down or I'm feeling unenthused by it. Everyone who's ever taken a writing course or read a writing book knows you're supposed to write every day. No matter what. I'm going to let you in on a secret: I don't. Not even every week! But I try to write as often as I'm in the mood for it, and fic is a great "exercise" in writing, while giving me an enormous amount of pleasure.

The only thing I worry about is the fact that like a total doofus, I wrote most of my stories under my full name. Yeah, my real name. This could come back to bite me in the ass when I go to publish, but maybe not. As my husband points out, I have a large ready-made fan base who recognize my name. That's a good thing, right?

Do I? Jeeze. Do we have time for this?

There are two things that have really, really helped me in writing a novel. Neither of these things is unique in any way to a fic writer going for an original novel, but they were so damn helpful, I have to talk about them first.

First of all, I learned how to use screenplay structure exercises to my advantage as a novelist. All novels, pretty much, follow the same pattern. If you divide the story into quarters, there are certain things that generally happen within each quarter. I'll use "Ship Building" as an example, as it's long enough, and fits this exercise.

The first quarter of a story needs to have two things: A Catalyst and the Big Event. The Catalyst is something or someone that sets the story in motion for the main character(s), usually in the first two or three pages, sometimes on page one. In "Ship Building", it would be Mulder's purchase of the model ship for Scully. This act will define how he chooses to resolve issues later on by bringing in a closeness they weren't experiencing before. The Big Event is the moment, usually at the end of the first quarter of the story, when everything shifts and a challenge that will need to be resolved is presented to the characters. In this story, Scully is called away on a case without him, and Mulder begins to suspect something is going on.

The second and third quarters of a story are there for development of the challenge presented in the Big Event. Mulder is given a chance to see a space ship. Scully is drawn more deeply into the murders of the young girls.

The final quarter should begin with a bang. Something I think of as the Moment of Truth. This is the point where the challenge has been developed and elucidated and now the character has to make a choice, for better or for worse, regarding what to do about it. Mulder makes the choice to go to Scully instead of seeing the space ship. Whether this choice is right or wrong, he's committed. The last quarter of the story is how this choice pans out and its ramifications on the character.

Before I write a novel, I sit down with my vague mental meanderings about the plot and characters and I make a chart with this structure as a rough guide. What is my Catalyst? What is the Big Event? What choice is made at the Moment of Truth? Then I sit down and start filling in the blanks in between. What gets the characters from the Big Event to the Moment of Truth? What do they do with the choice they've made? Once I have a reasonable chart, I write it all out longhand, in a paragraph or two, almost like a book report. This allows me to spot more holes, more places where I might want to stick a bit more plot. Finally, I move on to step two!

Step two is a detailed outline, chapter by chapter. A novel is a huge thing, intimidating and frightening. It may take years to write. I've always bogged down on them in the past, but what has allowed me to move forward with this one was the outline. I'd never done one until this project, and I'm so glad I did.

I divided my longhand description of my story into thirds, just to make things less overwhelming. Then I took each third and divided it into logical stopping points, which became distinct chapters. It didn't matter how many I ended up with, per third. Then I typed it all up on a Word document, making chapters different colors depending on who was narrating it and what time period it was set in. Why do this? Because each time I finished a chapter, I could open this document and see what my next "assignment" was. I never had a point where I felt overwhelmed, or lost in the story. I knew what came next, and that was incredibly reassuring. I could watch my progress as I went. I can't begin to tell you how useful this was. I don't think I could have written my novel any other way.

Both of these steps were just guidelines. If something didn't happen at exactly the quarter I laid out above, I didn't worry about it. If I wanted to insert another chapter into my outline halfway through the novel, I did. Nothing's hard and fast. I just liked the structure of it all, the logical approach as opposed to flailing around.

I suppose the hardest thing for a fic writer to do when approaching an original work is to create the original characters. We just don't have to do that as much with fic. The best way to get started is to write a chapter in the character's voice. I usually do this before I go through all the stuff mentioned above, just to see if I can maintain this voice for an entire novel. Is the person interesting enough? Are they fun to write? When you have a great character, the plot is always easier to get through.

I don't know how helpful the above stuff is, in terms of fic to original novel, but they're what got me through the massive project that is a real novel. Oh and betas. Betas really, really help. I have three, all XF people, reading my novel. Two of them are quite detailed, and one just e-mails me and says: "I like it so far". But any encouragement helps.

It was challenging, mainly because I'm not used to writing for a deadline. As it approached, I began to feel forced into writing something, which was ridiculous as I'd had tons of time and frittered it away. But I did it, eventually, and people seemed to like it, so I guess I worked through the frustration.

I didn't temper my voice very much, actually, though I was afraid when I first sent it in that they would ask me to XF it up, if that makes sense. It didn't feel very case-filey. It felt very much like my own work and not like the show. Then I started getting great comments back from the VS8 people, and they all compared it to PMP. I thought... wait, that *is* what it's like. I was thinking of the more serious eps, but it did feel right in the context of a sillier ep. It wasn't "Bad Blood" or anything, but it had some fanciful moments, like PMP. Since that's one of my favorite eps, I was pleased with the analogy.

I don't think I'd want to repeat the experience, though, as if felt too much like writing for someone else's deadline. I just felt the pressure too much and it sucked all the fun out. I anticipate some pressure in my original stuff, but not for fic. Still, I think it turned out well in the end, and I'm glad I did it.

Smut's easy, really. I just need a good location and I'm off and running. Conspiracy/XF/case files are harder, because they're much more heavily plotted. Sometimes it just comes to me, like a gift. I remember playing with an idea, but not having it go anywhere, shortly before "Millennium" aired. After the kiss, I lay in bed that night and the stuff I'd been messing with in my head just came together with the new kiss-related ideas and suddenly there was "Ship Building", whole and complete. I wrote non-stop for three days and that was that. It was rather like Dave's description of writing "The Unnatural". It just flowed and flowed.

Other times it's much harder. I've got about five conspiracy pieces, long ones, sitting on my hard drive unfinished. I just can't be bothered to work them out right now. They're so much harder to get *right* and believable than a little smut!

Well, that's the question, isn't it? I feel like you should ask Fi this after reading "Arizona Highways", which just makes my feeble stabs at the mytharc feel, well, feeble. With a case file, it has to be plotted. I usually spend a few days working on it in my head, you know, when you're in the shower... making dinner... that sort of thing, until I feel like I've got a grasp on all the little plot holes. Then, inevitably, someone will e-mail me after it's over and say: "But what about *this*?" and I think, damn! I *knew* if I put Krycek in that tutu, someone would remember that he said he couldn't dance in episode six...

No really, that's what it's like. Just plotting and replotting and sometimes I have to go back and rewrite the first twelve pages because I realize that Scully can't be immune to the black oil if she...

Then I write a lot of smut to get away from the heavy feeling of plotting. I hate plotting.

Ooo, I think this is one of my pet subjects. I *hate* dialogue that feels unnatural, or forced more than I hate dialogue that's simply bad.

Unfortunately, the XF is rife with examples of terrible dialogue. The exchange at the beginning of the movie is one example. I couldn't find a transcript, but it's their passage about things that are easy referenced. I know they're almost making fun of themselves there, but what does that say? Scully, in particular, often uses lengthy, oblique turns of phrase that are there to make her sound smart, but only make her sound unreal. Ultimately, you have to be able to hear them say it in your head. Say it out loud if you're very unsure. Does it sound like Mulder or Scully? Does it sound like a person? Would you say this to your friends?

Of course we're all going to be hit and miss on this stuff. Writing smut is particularly hard, as in reality it's very unlikely Scully would say something like: "Ooo, I just love your giant tool!" to Mulder, but under the right circumstances... oh, okay, never, but you know what I mean. We don't get to hear them say smutty things to one another in any context on the show. You just have to go with what feels right. I tend to make Scully a bit friskier in my dialogue with Mulder than she is on the show. She can be very... dry.

It's tremendously important to hear it in your head. If you don't do this, then get in the habit of doing it. Listen to your dialogue as you write it. Does it flow? Are the characters talking to one another the way the do on the show?

There are things about the XF dialogue that I hold onto, even though they're very unreal. No one, in real life, calls each other by their names as often as these two do. Every other sentence begins with "Mulder" or "Scully." But it works in the context of fanfic, because it sounds like the characters we know.

All the time. Mulder and Scully have a very televised way of speaking to one another, plus there's the whole "monologue" thing that CC does, which is unnatural to the point of being ridiculous. My husband does a fabulous imitation of Gillian reading a monologue that you have to hear to believe...

Anyway, I think we do an especially good job of giving these characters realistic "inner" voices, particularly when they're narrating a story. Scully is especially in need of this, as the character on the show tends to be terribly uncommunicative when it comes to her emotions. I love a story that somehow "feels" like Mulder or Scully while still bringing out some aspect of the characters that Chris has never envisioned.

It definitely depends on the writer. Something I hear all the time, but have no ability to back up as truth, is that XF fic is some of the best on the Web. I will say that I have read works that make me want to scream, they're so out of character and dripping with "Danas" and "Foxes", but I've also read stuff that I'd swear was written by someone professional. The first fic I really ever read was one of Dawson's, I can't even remember which one... I think "Umbra", and I kept saying to Tom: "This is better than any Tom Clancy I've ever read". Not that I've read a lot of Tom Clancy, but you know what I mean. I just couldn't believe something that well written and serious was on the Internet, written about Mulder and Scully and FREE. Sometimes I'm astonished by how bad the show is compared to the fic it spawns. And don't even get me started on the official novels. I'd rather read fic any day.

They're much more open with each other, much better able to say what they're really thinking and feeling. I can't imagine either "Birthday" or "Anniversary" happening on the show (and not just because of the naked pretzel aspect), because Mulder and Scully actually talk about an issue that bothers them. I tried to lead up to it with lots of avoidance and flirting, but in the end, they had to chat.

I think CC must have realized this, which is why we had the end scene of "all things", where it's clear that Scully has actually told Mulder something intensely personal. I find it completely believable that they hadn't actually had sex before that simply because you have to communicate with someone you love before you sleep with them for the first time. Anyone can fall into bed, but to be able to sustain a relationship, people have to talk to one another.

Hmm, I hadn't really thought about who I loved for *dialogue* as opposed to who I just loved. I'm sure I'll leave a ton of people out, because I'm horrible with names and remembering fics.

Put it this way: I read "Iolokus" two years ago, and *forgot* I'd read it. Think about that.

But, that said...

"Contact High", by Penumbra, is my favorite piece of XF fanfic EVER. Period. Nothing will ever beat it. I just sat there afterward and stared at the screen. Her words made me want to go write. Her dialogue, both spoken and internal, is sharp and funny and true and sexy.

Rachel Howard is just fabulous, period. I like "Dance Card," by Sabine. Or anything by Sabine. Ambress rocks my small fic world. "Make Much of Time" is just... well, perfect. It just *sounds* like Scully, while it's clearly something she would never, ever say. And believe it or not, *you* write damn fine dialogue, woman, and very funny, sexy fic. And I'm not just saying that because you've got that glaring white light focused on my eyes.

I like everyone on YesVirginia, and yes, I know I'm one of them... I love Mustang Sally, though I loathed "Iolokus". I know a lot of people did, and a lot of people didn't. I like Dasha's stuff, and Dawson's, and Terma's. They're the old standards, you know, people you can depend on to write good stuff. There are a ton more, but that's all I can think of for now.

Rhythm is of tremendous importance, both in terms of the over-all story and in the sense of the words themselves. I like a story to flow logically from one section to another, and I'm desperately in love with the whole concept of "bookends", themes at the beginning and end that tie the whole thing together. I use them all the time. "Ship Building", "The 36th", "The Man Who Would be King"... even my original novel.

I think of rhythm more actively when I think about language itself. One of the best things I ever did was to take a class in poetry. I hated poetry when I was younger, mostly I think because we tend to be force-fed huge diets of "Hiawatha" and "Ode to a Grecian Urn" when we're too young to understand them and what makes them great. I honestly don't think you can love a Shakespearean sonnet when you're fourteen. In college I signed up to write poetry, because I had to as part of my degree. I saved it ‘til my senior year in a lame attempt to make it go away. I'm so glad it didn't. The great thing about poetry is that it's generally short. You're forced to focus on words themselves, instead of Themes. I'm big on Themes in my work, but the words were suffering. I loved writing poetry and grew to love reading it because of that. I love the economy of it, the necessity of each word. It's a completely different experience to writing prose, but it informs my prose now. I find myself hearing it in my head as I write, looking for the best word to create that sudden sharp sense in a reader, that moment of: "Ah ha! I had never seen it that way before." I love that experience myself, and I love giving it.

Part Two – Jess talks about writing humor, sexual tension, "Mutual" and season eight.