How Will It End? Interview with Anjou

Interviews by Fans
Title:	How Will It End? Interview with Anjou
Interviewer:	How Will It End?
Interviewee:	Anjou
Date(s):	2002?
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	X-Files
External Links:	full interview is here, Archived version
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Anjou was interviewed for the X-Files website How Will It End?.

It is part of a series. See How Will It End? Interview Series.

Some Excerpts

The genesis of my fic writing (or publishing) really is in reading X-Files fic. I'd been involved in soap opera and Star Trek discussion forums for years, either as an interested lurker (ST) or as an involved discussion participant (soaps), but I'd really never had much to do with fanfic. In fact, I had a very negative opinion of fic in general, since it had been such a divisive topic on the Star Trek forums on USENET, not to mention the fact that the quality of writing that I saw in the soap fandoms was, quite frankly, very poor. In a general discussion on a soap forum, I explained what I thought should happen with a specific storyline, as opposed to what was happening, and I was pressed by several participants to write a fic. I kept demurring, and finally, my true opinion came out. One of my defenders on the thread was Dianora, who defended me with the caveat that all fanfic wasn't poorly written, and that in her primary fandom, the X-Files, fanfic was of very high quality. Since I'd been a viewer from the first episode, that piqued my interest. So, I started reading in mid-season 5.

I'll be honest and say that the events of Seasons 8 and 9 were so acutely disappointing to me that it really crushed my inspiration for a long time. I'm one of those fans who wanted to see a resolution to the mytharc that was believable, and I felt like that story just became so completely addled and layered that it was literally non-sense. Plus the image of Mulder and Scully alone against the world, friendless, family-less, resource-less and separated from their child was very distressing to me. Even with the caveat of Mulder believing that there was hope, I felt a distinct sense of despair with the lack of resolution of so many storylines, so many dropped threads. I wrote Ghosts because of that, because I needed some way to rationalize to myself (and for a few of my friends), that Mulder and Scully would rally again, and that they were not friendless and without resources. As for the mytharc resolution, that is really what the Speechless series was about for me. The first four stories were about establishing the rubric for the resolution: uniting Mulder and Scully in a complete partnership, solidifying their trust in each other, picking up on the urgency of what happened mid-season 6 after the events at El Rico and extending that story a bit further. To me, even now looking back on it, S6 was the time, storyline-wise, to resolve the mytharc. That didn't preclude new conspiracies, new collaborators, and other outside danger to the world. There was a way to end Mulder and Scully's role in the X-Files and hand off a new conspiracy (the SuperSoldiers, for example) to new partners.

That's a really tough question, in part because I fear that it will make me sound egotistical and mostly because my first thought was to think of the story that I'm least happy with. In any case, I really love "Aquinnah" because I got to share my love for Martha's Vineyard and weave the myths and stories about its creation through Mulder and Scully's stories -- that was very enjoyable for me. In fact, I don't think I've ever had a writing experience that was more pleasurable than Aquinnah. The story just poured out of me, once I had assembled all of the bits of story logic in my mind. However, I think my favorite story works on some of the same levels, but has a quieter, less intense flow to it. From the first idea that I had for Aquinnah, it had this very set structure to it, a cadence that limited the way the story could be told. It was an experiment of sorts for me, but one that I think paid off well in terms of the end result. Well, mostly. There are a couple of things that I would change. In my favorite story however, the structure is more straight narrative. Well, as straight as it gets for me, anyway, since I do enjoy taking the long way to tell a story. I also really enjoy mythology in all of its forms -- legends, lore, the arcane of dead faiths, but I have a special fondness for fairy tales. For that reason, I love Salt, because it incorporates a beloved book from my own childhood with a story about Mulder and Scully. I also feel that the meter and measure of the story builds really well, that I let the story unfold in such a way that it isn't until the very end that all of the bits of it become braided together, that you can see the trail of salt that has led Scully to Mulder for what it is. I read that story and it strikes me as well-done.