Ninety percent of successful fanfic, I have found, comes from thinking differently. The very memorable stories, for me, are always the ones that approach an issue or idea in a new way, twisting cliches and assumptions around in order to make me regard the show in a new way. I'm always looking out for the freshest, most unique stories I can find, hoping to read something new and exciting every time I hit 'reload' at Ephemeral.
This is also why I always look forward to Sunday nights and new episodes, as I'm always excited by the prospect of a new story unfolding before me. And afterwards, there's usually a good half-hour or so when I can think of nothing else but what just aired, whether the episode was "Memento Mori" or "Fight Club."
During that time, I often think about post-episode stories.
Mainly, I try to guess what someone else is already slamming down onto paper - that gushy romantic scene that never made it on screen, that long musing upon the moral and social implications of the episode's events. It's fun to guess and be right. But it's also fun to guess and be wrong.
As readers and writers of fanfic, we are all heavily invested in this series. Closely examining one episode out of the mix, and judging for yourself how it affects the rest of the series, is an interesting way to come up with an idea for a story. This article should, at the least, help you to think through what kind of story you want to tell.
Correcting Mistakes
Let's all face it - The X-Files, as a show, is not infallible. In fact, 1013 occasionally will spit in the face of continuity and characterization. However, an interesting approach to writing a post-ep is to fix a mistake made by a careless episode.
Remember Mulder's infamous "Well, I'm no psychologist..." blunder during "Terms of Endearment"? It was undoubtedly the slip of a careless writer, but you could find some way to explain it within the body of a "Terms of Endearment" post-ep. Maybe Mulder could muse over his feelings of impotence due to being kicked off The X-Files, and how he doesn't even think of himself as a psychologist anymore. Or maybe there could be a scene where Mulder explains to a deputy how an undergraduate degree in psychology (even one from Oxford) doesn't make you a certified psychologist.
Also, there have been a few quiet continuity misses - such as the wedding ring David Duchovny wore in "Travelers" and "Unusual Suspects," the two episodes set before the beginning of The X-Files. Many writers have speculated on why that wedding ring was there - Mish's "Mature Indiscretions" being an excellent example.
In forming your solutions, be creative - find some way to tie the episode into the entire series. Make a mistake have a greater impact upon the show as you see it. For what is fanfic for, but to make sense of this crazy show within our own minds?
A REAL Ending
Sometimes, we all feel dissatisfied with the ending of an episode. We want Mulder to finish the closing line of "Never Again." We want to see Scully confront Diana before the end of "The Beginning." And for the love of little green men, who wants to wait until fall to figure out how Mulder got out of that boxcar?
Such frustration is unhealthy, pointless, and just plain silly. So thank goodness for fanfic.
Ever since I started writing fanfic, four years ago, I have always made a point of opening up a fresh word processing document after every season finale and jotting down any scene that comes to mind. Some of these have developed into stories that were decent enough to post. Some of these haven't. However, writing the ending you wanted to see is a great exercise that gets you thinking about the episode and its implications for the series. It's fun to put into words what 1013 didn't get on screen, and if you've got something decent, send it off to a friendly band of betas and see what they think.
Remember, it's therapeutic. All in the name of sound mental health.
Sometimes, writing a more concrete ending can also be in the name of good storytelling. CazQ's "The Road North" dealt with one of the most dramatically unsettling series developments by showing Mulder's post-"Closure" attempt to obtain some real closure. I have to admit to beta-bias, but in the story, she treated the issue with care and sensitivity, and in the process, gave "Closure" greater credibility.
To quote Marasmus: "Fanfic allows Mulder and Scully time for emotional resolution. In a show that can go from the life-changing horror of Orison to the fun but frothy Amazing Maleeni, that's needed."
From Another Perspective
The third-person POV story is a genre unto itself within fan fiction - many writers find it rewarding to examine the characters we know so well through a new pair of eyes. But within the post-ep realm, it has special applications. Viewing the events of a particular episode through one of the characters featured offers a unique perspective, and also allows those characters some extra development the show might not have had time for.
Many excellent examples of this exist, most especially David Hearne's "Hartwell," which gave Sheriff Hartwell his chance to explain what REALLY happened during the rather schizophrenic "Bad Blood." Also, in her post-ep for "Tithonus," "Lucky Man," Meredith explored the character of Peyton Ritter, giving him depth beyond the ambitious agent with an itchy trigger finger.
Also, creating original characters for a post-episode viewpoint is an interesting approach, especially given the nature of the episode in question. Several post-"X-Cops" stories focused on the cameramen and editors behind the scenes of the show, inventing new personas to look at the footage with an outside perspective. One of my original characters, Bobbie Collins, arose out of a hysterical post-"Requiem" realization that "it's all just straight out of the tabloids!" It was not long before a tabloid reporter down on her luck was born.
Using your original character to commentate on the show is an age-old device for quietly making fun of "The X-Files." If you ever do feel that a particular episode was just too ridiculous for anything but parody, don't hesitate to slam down a few snarky scenes, if only for your own amusement. Let me say once again - 1013 is not infallible. And it's unhealthy to repress what you would have liked to see onscreen.
Filling In the Gaps
The secret to good screenwriting, it is said, is to begin a scene as late into the action as possible, and to exit as early as possible. This makes for cleaner, simpler storytelling - but it does, however, leave a lot of space for a creative mind to explore. Technically, missing scene stories aren't post-eps, but as stories relating to a specific episode, they fall under the same umbrella. And their popularity is just as large.
Fanfic has been used for years now to attach greater significance to small moments during the show, especially in the context of character relationships. We need to spend more than two seconds thinking about that brief holding of hands, or that meaningful glance, or that quickly executed peck on the cheek. Fans of all possible pairings have found ways to justify their favorite relationships, and although the show has recently made a bolder step towards actual romance between Mulder and Scully, it doesn't mean that a well-written story exploring another option is invalid now.
It is usually the same few moments of various episodes that attract the most attention, truth be told. More than a few writers this year explored two of the biggest story gaps of last season - what happened during Scully's night at Mulder's apartment in "all things", and how Mulder ended up with Scully's cross at the end of "Requiem." Eventually, though, many of these stories started to run together, due to many similar scenarios being imagined. It is missing scene stories like Susanne Barringer's "Shadow Dancing," which takes a different view on the implications of the "all things" teaser, or Alanna's "Forecast of Rain" and its heartbreaking 20/20 hindsight, that stick out in our memories.
Do you think that the M/S interaction in an episode is off-balance or awkward for some reason? Look at the episodes preceding it, and imagine a scene inserted into the episode that deals with not only the strange interaction, but previous events within the series. During the sixth season of the show, many authors took interesting slants on the events of "Agua Mala" in reaction to the previous episode, "One Son," or let Scully deal emotionally with digging up baby corpses in "Terms of Endearment." Marguerite spun together her post-ep for "Agua Mala", "Limpier," out of threads from all three episodes, justifying decisions and bringing up mistakes within one story, to stunning effect.
It is very true that the airing order of episodes or a writer's failure to acknowledge past episodes is the reason these issues remain unexplored on-screen. But as this is fan fiction, we have carte blanche to create our own continuity.
The more we read and write, the more developed the world of the show becomes in our own minds. It becomes easier to see our heroes and villains as fleshed-out characters, to whom tragic and magic things happen, with all sorts of repercussions. Every episode aired offers you a chance to explore these repercussions, and how they affect the characters we know so well, if only in your own head, but hopefully on the page also.
I have in no way covered all the different directions post-eps can take - there are many other categories and genres that I've probably managed to omit. Remember that creativity is your friend - that if you can achieve something uncategorizable, you have not necessarily done a Bad Thing.
In this essay, I use the word "maybe" a good deal. This is because for me, "maybe" represents possibilities - different avenues not set in stone by the show. When you choose to write a post-ep, you're taking a trip down one of those avenues, adding your own thoughts and ideas as an enhancement of the episode in question. In the long run, this is what good fan fiction is all about - taking someone's story, and looking at it a whole other way.
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