alt.tv.x-files.creative Interview with Deslea R. Judd

Interviews by Fans
Title:	not specifically titled as such
Interviewer:	Dee
Interviewee:	Deslea R. Judd
Date(s):	November 29, 2000
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	The X-Files
External Links:	original post is here
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In 2000, a fan named Dee asked fanfic writers about their thoughts about writing, specifically feedback.

The excerpts below are from that series of answers.

The original post:

I'd like to direct this questions to fanfic writers: What motivates you to write a story? Do you write a fic because you have a story to tell? Would you write a story for yourself? for an intended audience? Would you write a fic if you didn't think anyone else would read it? The reason I am asking these questions is because I am puzzled by the strong reactions to reader's comments. Does it really matter? Unless you are accused of something horrible, like plagiarism, do the negative/unfavourable comments really matter? I am posting this not incite a riot, I am genuinely interested in what motivates a fic writer to write.

Some of Deslea R. Judd's Responses

What motivates you to write a story? Fascination with and a genuine affection for the characters. As others have mentioned for themselves, I have often been motivated by a desire to work out or explain the gaps in the canon (most of my fanfic is what I call deuterocanonical - expanding on and additional to the canon); but I am not inspired to translate that into a story without that character empathy. I have quite a few thoughts on Mulder's history, for instance; but I've never written them because I just don't relate to Mulder, and in the seven plus years I've been watching, I never have. (I am growing in interest in Diana, however, so that may be on the agenda when I finish with the Not My Lover universe; but I'd have to do it from Diana's POV). I am intrigued by Skinner and Scully, but I have pretty much explored them as much as I want to over the years, so now I'm onto the supporting characters - Krycek, Marita, WMM, the Samantha clones, Deep Throat and Diana.

Would you write a fic if you didn't think anyone else would read it? I would and I do. I doubted anyone would read Not My Lover - Krycek/Marita is treated in the same realm as CSM/Frohike on the ick scale, even among many Krycek fans - and a few did, and I got good feedback; but I know I'm not getting anywhere near the audience I got with Scully/Skinner. I was doing Scully/Skinner back in 1996, when people were going, "You're kidding, right?" to that pairing (the only earlier stories I am aware of were written by Sally Bradstreet, whereas now it's almost respectable!) My second story, On The Outside (1996), was even more obscure - it was a deuterocanonical story featuring a lesbian relationship between Colony!Samantha and a Colony!Samantha clone. I honestly thought people would read the header and flee, and it wound up a Spooky finalist that year. There's no predicting the readership, and I think it can be subject to idiosyncratic factors like how busy the newsgroup is, too. I do think, though, that the readership has, in general, gotten more set in its preferences over the years. I used to get feedback that said, "I'm a shipper/slasher/skipper, but I glanced at this out of curiosity and wound up reading it..." - I don't get a lot of that now. I think there's been a lot of closing of the ranks, so to speak, and I'm not sure why - perhaps because of the sheer volume of fic now, which is a hell of a lot higher than it was when I came on the scene in 1996. I challenged people on one list once to each volunteer to read one story in a genre they disliked the idea of, just as a broadening-of-the-horizons exercise (and that others who did like those genres could recommend very good ones) - several did so, but others said, basically, "No, there's too much fic I *want* to read that I don't have time for, I'm not going to devote any to pairings I *don't* like," and that was fair enough; though I do think they missed out on something, because for instance I really, really dislike the Mulder/Krycek pairing, but had I not been open to extreme possibilities I would never have found the wonderful Shock The Monkey by Kassandra, which remains one of my favourite stories to this day.

The majority of my stories are around the 60,000 word mark finished. That's longer than some published novels. Most were written intensively (Someone I Trusted being the notable exception, which would be why it's currently languishing). That means that for two or three months of my life, I lived and breathed these stories. They dominated my thoughts from the moment I got up, horrendously early to work on them, til I went to bed, horrendously late. I researched science and politics and computing and genetics and the XF timeline and watched episodes to get the details right. I took my laptop to work and worked on them in my lunch hour, I worked on them over dinner, I worked on them with my son crawling in my lap. I made accompanying graphics and, more recently, music videos. It's total immersion - that's just how I produce. The universe sits in my head and it stays there until the story is done. That's as powerful as the first, heady months of a new relationship. Ever done that thing where someone criticises your new boyfriend/girlfriend, and the criticism is totally fair, but you wind up having a raging fight over it? I haven't, but I've been on the receiving end of the fallout, and I think it's very similar. My motto in these matters is, "Constructive criticism hated by my inner child but gratefully received by my outer adult", and I think that probably goes for many of us.

The other thing is that people write feedback a lot less now than they did in my early days. Other writers have touched on this. It could be that my story quality has deteriorated, hence the reduction in feedback, but I don't really think so, both on reading my work (it's improved IMO) and on hearing other writers I respect say the same thing. The feedback I have, I cherish, and it is worth no less because there is less of it (actually it's worth more). But I have definitely noticed a reduction. So when that criticism comes, I imagine it can seem disproportionate (though admittedly I can't comment too much on this side of things, because I haven't had a lot of criticism, and most of what I get is contextualised within good feedback, which IMO is a completely different kettle of fish). The only really unreasonable feedback I get is "Eww! Scully/Skinner!" or "Eww! Krycek/Marita!", which I pretty much ignore, because they were warned in the headers. It used to bug me until one day I was sending feedback to someone - I've got a feeling it might have been Parrotfish - where I said basically, "Mulder and Scully aren't my cup of tea, but this story really spoke to me anyway..." - it was a compliment, because she'd touched me despite using a pairing I personally didn't relate to - and I sort of realised then that it isn't a bad thing to have tastes different to others, and it's not a valid criticism for someone to make of you, even if *they* think it is. So now I write off that particular type of criticism to bad manners on the part of the sender.

Usually, I have a message or value I want to get across, as well. Not My Lover (2000) was a tale of moral development, in a lot of ways, in which Krycek and Marita moved from an end-justifies-the-means morality to a real desire for something better than that; and it was also a tale about the power of marriage to bring strength and permanence to one's chosen path. Bermuda Fragments (1999) was a modern-day parable of the biblical flight from Egypt. Someone I Trusted (1998-) (which is still in progress, I promise) was less profound that that, but I think it captured a lot of development in Scully in Seasons 3 and 4. Love Will Keep Me Alive, my current WIP, is about coming through the fire and taking control of one's life. For me, fic is not about events enacted by people; it's about people enacting events. There are exceptions, of course; A Teletubby X File just occurred to me when I'd been drinking, and there was nothing deep and meaningful to it, but I wrote it, and it was great fun; Marriage of Convenience and Pregnant Pause were ideas that I played with but didn't want to commit to; Bermuda Fragments and One Endless Night were just exercises that grew into something more meaningful.