Before we talk about Elizabeth the writer, can you give us a peek at Elizabeth the person-i.e. where you live, profession, hobbies, interests, etc.?
Well, basically, I'm pretty damn boring. I'm your average 9-5 wage slave, I try to avoid all housework, and I spend way too much money on books.
When did you start writing fan fiction and what do you personally get out of the experience?
I started writing fan fiction in 1999. I'd been lurking in the Buffy fandom for a couple of years--I started watching the summer after season two ended, and was a Buffy and Spike fan from the get go. At the beginning of season four, Entertainment Weekly ran an article in which Joss Whedon was quoted as saying that nothing would ever happen between Buffy and Spike. I thought "@#^$^#$! Nothing? Is the man insane?" and wrote a story ("Achilles Heel") because I figured if Joss wasn't ever going to do something with Buffy and Spike, I could at least write the story I'd like to see for them.
So, in my extremely long-winded way, I started writing fan fiction because I wanted to tell stories that I didn't think I'd ever get to see happen, and it still plays a pretty large role in why I write and what I get out of the experience. For me, writing fan fiction is a way of playing 'what if.'
What is it about X-Men that you find appealing?
I can't really place my finger on it--all I know is that the moment I first saw Logan and Rogue together I started thinking fic thoughts. They just screamed 'fic me! fic me!', you know?
If pushed, I'd have to say I think the reason I was so drawn to writing XMM fic is that the themes of the first movie really resonated with me and the characters had so many possibilities.
What drew you to writing about the Logan and Rogue characters? Was there some particular or missing aspect of their relationship that you needed to fill-in or explore?
Well, like I said above, I pretty much started thinking fic thoughts about them as I was watching the first movie for the first time. It's the only time that's ever happened to me--I have written other movie fic, but only after repeat viewings. I think that while I was definitely moved by the characters and what they went through, a large part of what hooked me was the chemistry between Anna Paquin and Hugh Jackman. Their scenes together were just amazing.
Logan and Rogue's inability to express their feelings is one of the themes/topics you deal with in the story, "Little Things." What would you say are some of the other recurring themes that surface in your stories?
Logan's past and how his inability to fully recover it has shaped him. Rogue dealing with her inability to touch anyone. The feeling of being 'other'--how being a mutant makes one feel, how non-mutants view mutants and what happens because of that. How we shape ourselves--the stories we tell ourselves in order to believe that we are x, y, or z; what we can and will see about ourselves--as well as what we won't. Love, and how it isn't always a simple, easy, beautiful thing--it's a complicated emotion, and it can be painful and messy.
How long does it usually take you to write a story and what is the process you go through?
It depends--short stories I can sometimes get out in a few days or weeks. Longer stories can take months.
As far as process goes, if I can see a story through from beginning to end and not question any of it -- (for instance, if I think of an idea, but don't believe the plot/ending/etc., I won't do anything with it because if I don't believe it, how can I expect others to?)--that's usually a sign that I have something worth writing. Once I've got an idea--and sometimes they are incredibly vague, just a beginning and a haze of an ending that click -- I'll do an outline if it's a longer story. If it's a shorter one, I just start writing.
I tend to do a fair number of drafts as well--I do more now than I did when I was writing XMM fic, but even then I don't think anything I wrote went through fewer than three drafts.
We know beta readers can be very important to a writer. Do you use a beta reader and if so, what type of help do you expect from them?
I do use a beta reader and can't imagine posting a story without one. I know there are some writers who can but I am not one of them--I'm just not skilled enough! Basically the process I go through is this:
a. I get an idea. I think about it for a while and decide ok, I can get a story out of this. I run the idea by my best friend, who I trust to tell me if I've thought of something that's screwy but workable or screwy and beyond all hope.
b. I write. I tend to not flash my drafts around while I'm writing because I'm a horribly messy writer who does things like write "and then something happens here."
c. I finish a draft. I send it to a few people to read over to find out if they think the story works.
d. I rewrite, based on suggestions from readers.
e. I send the story out again. More rewriting, if necessary. Then I print the whole thing out and line edit it. This doesn't help that much as I have a tendency to miss all my typos. But I figure I owe my beta as clean a story as possible.
f. I send the story to my beta. She reads through the story, makes plot/characterization comments, and also does line edits. Then she sends the story back. We talk about stuff, I make changes, and then I send the file back to her. This usually happens at least twice.
g. Finally the story seems ready to go. I print it out and read it one last time, then code it and try to forget I ever wrote it.
What is the biggest/funniest mistake you've ever made while writing fan fiction? Did your beta catch it before the story was posted?
Oh man. The biggest mistake--and the funniest, IMO--I ever made when writing fan fic happened when I was writing Roswell fic. I had a character leave in a car that magically appeared out of nowhere (she'd walked to where she was and then all of a sudden boom! she had a car). I still cringe/laugh at my own stupidity when I think about it. Fortunately, my then beta caught the mistake and very nicely pointed it out to me and I was able to fix it before I posted.
Do you have a particular POV that you like to write in? Or do you experiment?
I know a lot of writers who have really great ideas about POV and really fascinating reasons why they choose to write the POV that they do in a particular story. I wish I could claim that I have some sort of process for picking POV but the truth is that I don't. When I start writing, the story comes out in the POV it wants to.
I know that sounds screwy, but it's the truth. I let the story guide me. Sometimes a story wants to be told in first person, sometimes in third. Once in a while, I'll get something that wants to be told in second. I used to try and fight it occasionally--I know there are readers who don't like first (and even more who abhor second) but when I did, the story would just turn into a big mess. So now I always write in whatever POV comes out when I start typing and don't worry about it. I figure if a character wants to talk in the "I" voice, more power to him/her, you know?
In the stories, "Lament" and "Quarter 'Till" you write about mutants (Rogue and Logan) in the context of the wider world of human beings. What's your take in general, and/or Rogue and Logan's take specifically, on how mutants view non-mutants, view their place in the world of humans and are viewed *by* non-mutants?
Well, in general, I think how mutants view humans depends on the mutant, and I think how humans view mutants depend on the human, which is one of the reasons why I think stories about human/mutant interaction are so fascinating. You've got a whole range of responses that are possible.
As for Rogue and Logan's take on humans--hmmm.
Rogue still remembers humanity and the first movie did a great job of conveying the total loss that mutation can bestow. So I suspect on some level she not only misses being human, but sometimes longs to be--especially in light of her particular mutation.
Logan, on the other hand, is angry at humans, I think, but then I think he's angry at just about everyone. I think he blames humanity for what's been done to him, but, at the same time, I think he sees them as being about the same as mutants--let's face it, esp. in the first movie, it's not like the mutant community was one he trusted either. I think he views everyone with an overly healthy dose of anger/skepticism. And based on what he's been through, who could blame him? The interesting thing about him is that in spite of all his issues and his anger, he's still capable of caring for people. His scene with Rogue towards the end of the first movie, when they are on top of the Statue of Liberty--oh, just thinking about it gives me goosebumps.
You've written several stories from Rogue's POV, such as "In Dreams" and "Living Ever After" in which she deals with her mutation, the voices in her head, etc. What is it about this character that appeals to you as a writer and how do you get into Rogue's head so well?
First, thank you for the compliment! I'm glad you think I write Rogue well. What I find appealing about her is that here you have this girl--and she is very much a girl in the first movie--who suddenly loses everything she knows and is thrust into this incredibly complicated and very dangerous world where what she can do--which is what she's running from--makes her a target. And so she's stuck dealing with that--with who she has become--along with everything else. Plus there's the whole Logan thing. *g*
Do ideas come in little tiny pinpricks and the get expanded, or do they start out big and scopy and then get refined?
It depends. Sometimes I'll get a whole idea in pretty good detail and other times I just get a few hazy snippets that I'll fiddle with in order to see if there's more there.
Most of your stories have an angsty tone to them, with the characters dealing with emotional, mental or physical issues. Is that a fair assessment and is it done deliberately?
I think the term 'angst' has a lot of negative connotations these days, as some readers seem to feel it implies making characters suffer for no reason other than that the author can make them suffer. I'm not a big fan of that--making a character suffer for no reason--because there's no point to it, you know? I do, however, like stories that I feel deal with issues that would crop up for the characters and a lot of times they are complicated issues, issues without easy answers, and I do tend to write those kind of stories because that's what I'm interested in. So if that's angst, then I guess I do write that and yes, it is deliberate.
In your opinion, is it even possible to write Logan and Rogue (whether together or separately) without at least a hint of angst and still maintain their identities?
I'm sure it's possible to write a happy Rogue story that would maintain her identity. I mean, she is young and--as of the second movie--relatively safe (Xavier's school is a haven for mutants, after all)--and so it makes sense that there would be times when she's actually completely happy. For Logan--hmmm. I'm not so sure. He has so many issues and so much anger that I'm not sure I can ever see him as blissful. But I'm sure there are writers out there who can and have pulled it off!
What is your favorite scene from either of the X-Men movies? From one of your stories?
My favorite scene from the X-Men movies is from the first one, and it's the moment when Rogue and Logan talk after he finds her on the train. I love their conversation, I love the way they look at each other--I love the whole thing!
From one of my stories---hmm. I guess it would be this scene from "Living Ever After":
"They never tell you that every end comes attached to a beginning, but she knows it now. Lying in the medlab, voices in her head, she thought to herself; I'm safe, I lived. It's over.
Then she had to actually get up and start living.
It turned out to be a lot harder than she thought it would be. Eventually it got easier--especially once she started thinking of her mind as a filing cabinet. But that came later. At first there was pity and self-pity, endless streams of it. Jean wanted her in therapy, wanted Rogue talking her feelings out, explaining herself. She pushed the sticky fingers of her mind against Rogue's, a soft voice earnestly asking 'Are you ok?'
That was simple enough to take care of. Logan did it for her. A hand on Jean's wrist--tiny bones, and he knew just how to press, hard enough for Jean to notice, soft enough for her to feel--and a stare. Leaning in, brushing his--but it had to be hers because he was long gone by then, wasn't he?--mouth against her neck, saying only a few words. They were enough though. Jean blushed crimson, pulled away, and the only voices in her mind then were those she was almost familiar with.
The Professor was harder. He was softer inside her mind and gentler. Logan didn't mind him, found him ridiculous but safe. Erik wasn't like Logan, wasn't all rush to the surface, wasn't all attack. He waited. He was good at it. He waited till Charles felt secure, reassured. She sat in his office and told him she thought she was getting better, that she was able to sleep at night, that she was able to think a thought and not have it mulled over by many different voices. She left out the sometimes.
She was playing with a paperweight--a shiny steel globe--moving it from hand to hand. She couldn't make it stick to paperclips anymore and she almost missed that. Maybe that was her mistake. Erik woke inside her, and smiled. Charles only (Jean added the "only"-- insisted that Rogue use it, probably thought it would make her feel better) needed five stitches, a thin line dancing across his head. She only needed a sedative when she came back to herself in his office, cradling metal in her hand and laughing while tears ran down her face. There was blood under her fingernails and she forgot all about it till she went to bite a nail and a copper taste, dry and brittle and yet somehow still fresh, slid over her tongue.
It took Erik a while to shut up then. He talked and talked for days until she screamed what he told her to. Charles sat white-faced; mouth compressed into a strained line, and listened. At the end, when Erik was done, he took her hand and said that he'd never meant to break his promises, but that he couldn't go on without hope, that he had to believe in a world with a future, a real future. She kissed the top of his head, heard him inhale when she moved her mouth down to his ear. He rolled back, a little, and the yearning in his eyes hurt her. Her, still there-- inside, and lonely. Almost gone and it wasn't her eyes Charles wanted to see at all.
Logan helped with that some. He didn't actually mind her, liked her as much as he liked anyone. Didn't want her to leave every time he came out, didn't mind her voice mingling with his, sometimes. He showed her how to tell when a storm was coming, taught her how to change sparkplugs in under ten minutes. She passed her mechanics class easily and he liked the way Scott tensed up every time she said "One-Eye." He even showed her how to read the stars, gave her his memories of clear nights and the trail of the Milky Way gleaming brightly and almost hotly under the light of the moon. She would go to the roof of the school late at night and put his memories overtop the blaze of the suburban Westchester sky, watch the stars come into focus. He would name the constellations for her and she'd fold her gloved hands together, picture his bigger hands pointing up at the sky.
But most of the time there was Jean to keep Logan busy. He had memories, scattered, indistinct, mostly centered around things she closed her eyes to, and he was perfectly happy to think of attaching Jean to some of those memories. She was never going to have the memories that kept him tied to humanity--flesh meeting flesh, a mouth running down a stomach and up over again. He could remember what the inside of an elbow tasted like and she looked at her own, cloth-covered, and was sorry she'd open her eyes even partway. Logan felt bad, a little, that he needed to remember and that it hurt her but that was how he was, who he was, and he wasn't going to change. Once in a while, when things got really noisy with him, she'd go find Jean and stare at her mouth till Jean would move away, almost-pity and maybe a little wonder in her eyes."
Could you explain the title "The Magic of Belief?" What does the title say about the story and when and where in the concept of the story did it become the title?
The title comes from something I've always thought about belief, which is that having someone believe in you is an amazing thing, and when/if it does happen, there's a kind of magic in it. Someone believing in you can help you learn to believe in yourself and if two people believe in each other, they can form an amazing connection.
Wow, that sounds *really* hokey, doesn't it?
Anyway. For the story, it was always the title for a couple of reasons. I thought Logan's chances of believing anything like what I just said would be about 0% but I also felt that in the story I had plotted out, he and Rogue would come to that place together--I felt they would find each other and that they would click in a way no one else would really understand or maybe even accept but in a way that *they* knew was right. A way that they could and would believe in.
What do you consider an Alternate Universe story?
I think an AU story is one where not just the setting but the characters are different (though, of course, they have to retain their essential character traits). That is, a story set in the 1920s where Rogue is a singer and Logan is a gangster would be, in my mind, an AU (and the trick would be to keep both of them who they are even though they no longer are who they are, if that makes any sense). Then you have what I think of as AR, which is where the characters are the same--Rogue is still Rogue and Logan is still Logan--but the situation--the reality they live in--is different.
"Two Solitudes" is a story about how things *could* have happened if Logan and Rogue had met under slightly different circumstances-in this case, Logan working for Magneto and kidnapping Rogue for him. Tell us how and why the characters are different, and/or the same, in this story as compared to their movie canon versions.
I consider 'Two Solitudes' to be an AR, or Alternate Reality story, more than I consider it an AU. I think both Logan and Rogue are essentially the same as they are in the first movie, except that the story looks at how Logan might be/act if Magneto had gotten to him before Xavier did and looks at a Rogue who had to deal with finding her way to Xavier's on her own. They are both--I don't want to say harder. More brittle, maybe. Less likely to trust but I like to think the story deals with that, and sets up a connection between them that is similar to the one they shared in the first movie.
Because of his personality, past bad experiences and obsession with finding answers about his past, Logan has always seemed to me to be teetering on the edge between good and bad, as illustrated in "Two Solitudes." How have you dealt with his good and bad tendencies in your various stories…is he a hard character to write?
I *loved* writing Logan. To me, the fact that he's so volatile and such a mix of light and dark made him fascinating to write. He wasn't--and isn't--your standard white knight hero and that's what I love about him. He's flawed, he's complicated--he's utterly, entirely human. And yet he's a mutant. How can you not love that?
What's more important to you--the plot, the characters, the grammar, the dialogue, etc.-and why?
Honestly, I think everything that you just mentioned is important in a story. You have to have a good plot, and it has to be one you believe in because otherwise no one else will believe it. You have to write the characters not as how you want them to be but as how they are, even if how they are takes them (and you) to places you're not sure you want to go. Grammar is really important and I hope one day to be at least semi-competent in that area. Dialogue is also really important--you can have a story that's compelling and well written, but if your characters don't sound like themselves when they open their mouths, the story will never work for readers.
Which story did you enjoy working on the most and which was the most challenging to write?
The story I most enjoyed writing was the last XMM fic I wrote, "Skinless." The one that was hardest for me to write was "Little Things" because I had a lot I wanted to say and was pretty sure I wasn't doing a very good job of saying it.
Looking back, is there anything you'd want to change about any particular story now?
I would not have posted any of "Two Solitudes" until I'd finished the whole thing--it was a mistake for me to post a WIP and I haven't done it since. Other than that, I'm sure every single story I've written could stand a thorough edit and possible rewrite (or twelve).
We haven't seen any X-Men stories from you in a while. Are you writing fan fic at all, and if so, do you think you might finish "Two Solitudes" sometime?
I am still writing fan fiction, though I don't write as much media fic as I used to. As for "Two Solitudes," I'm afraid it will remain unfinished, which I feel really guilty about. But I know if I went back and finished it now, I wouldn't be able to do justice to the characters and so I think the story is better off as it is.
I often see "Safety In Numbers" recced on people's sites or see people mentioning it as a favorite or what got them hooked on the fandom. What inspired this story and what did you enjoy most about writing it?
What inspired the story was my desire to see some Logan/Rogue interaction. There had been a few fics about them, but not that many focusing on them in a romantic sense. I know that sounds crazy, what with the six million L/R stories out there now, but when I wrote "Safety in Numbers" there wasn't that much fic about the two as a pairing out there. I remember I got the idea, talked it over with Kate Andrews, who was very active in the fandom when it first started, and decided to write it.
I didn't enjoy writing it at all--I was terrified people were going to find the idea of Logan and Rogue interacting as a couple horrifying, and getting the sex scene out of my head and onto the page was very difficult. I didn't even have a title for the story until about thirty seconds before I posted--I'd tried all sorts of things and no one of them worked and then, when I was reading over the story again and thinking, "Do I really want to post this? Really?" I noticed the numbers at the beginning and the end of the story and what Rogue was thinking about them and thought "Huh, safety in numbers. Oh! Safety in Numbers!"
How do you feel when people/sites recommend one of your stories? Do you look at it as another form of feedback?
I love being rec'ed! Is there anyone out there who doesn't like it? Having someone else like something you've written enough to want to discuss it/mention it to others is amazing and whenever I stumble across a rec for anything I've done I always feel incredibly giddy.
As for whether it's feedback or not--I used to not consider it feedback unless the rec'er (I think I may have just made up a word there) had sent me a note about the story as well (I was of the old-fashioned 'email is feedback!' school) but with the advent of the blog/LJ explosion, I now totally count recs as feedback. Of course, in all honesty, I have to say I do this because if I didn't, there would be plenty of stories I've written where I've gotten very little feedback. And I am a feedback whore.
What fanfic authors influenced your early work, and how do you feel your writing has developed over the course of your fic career?
Fan fic authors who influenced my early stories include Dare (BtVS), Shana (Roswell), and Molly (XMM fic). As far as development--I think my grammar skills have improved some, and that I can write slightly better dialogue than I used to. I've also gotten a little more confident about writing long stories.