In
Their Own Words
26 June 2002
This is the section where some of our favorite authors
will share with us (and you) their favorite stories from among their
own work. The lovely and talented Pix mentioned this idea to me
in an e-mail, saying how she thought it might be an interesting
contrast with the typical recommendations lists so prevalent on
fan fic websites.
I, of course, immediately wondered the same thing,
and so, here we are. This will be a weekly "when Victoria remembers to do it" feature, with past Authors'
Picks being archived on a page called "From
the Desk of..."
So, let us begin...
This week, we have Marguerite, well-known in the X-Files
and West Wing fandoms, and writer of beautifully evocative prose.
Scroll down to see what Marguerite has to say...
Click on the name of the story within the text below if you'd like
to read it.
Marguerite says...
X-Files
Long story - Dance
of the Blessed Spirits
Plotting has never been my long suit. But when I was
plunking my way through a book of soprano arias, I came
across "The Black Swan" from Menotti's "The Medium," and the
entire story just leapt out at me. What if a medium who
knows she's a fake suddenly has a real encounter with the
Great Beyond? (Unlike Menotti's Madame Baba, however,
Dolores Graves really *does* have a truly mystical
experience rather than a mental breakdown.)
Lacy Graves was based on a girl I was teaching at the time,
which made her relatively easy to "draw." Dolores, Eugene,
and Jake (the latter was named for a student I could hardly
stand to be around) were archetypes of the kind of people
I'd been working with that year. Esther Houston came from
someone on a mailing list who was driving everyone crazy, so
she's more than a little over the edge. <g> I wanted to show
a side of southern poverty that hardly anyone sees. CC/1013
tended toward the play-'em-for-laughs portraits and I wanted
to go in the other direction altogether. I chose to portray
the self-sacrifice, the kindness, the familial ties, the
longing for the next generation to have it better.
But the real reason I love this story so much is the
interplay between Scully and Mulder. She's concerned about
his mental state, given the events of "Sein und Zeit" and
"Closure," and when Lacy channels Samantha, Scully wants
nothing more than to grab Mulder and flee before he gets
caught up in a web of self-recrimination again. For his
part, Mulder is almost giddy with the chance to investigate
something so clearly paranormal, irritated that Scully is
once again ignoring the evidence right under her nose, and -
as is his wont - completely wrapped up in Lacy's fate, just
as he always is with the downtrodden young women he
encounters. In the end, what lets them solve the case and
return Lacy to a normal childhood is their relationship -
the times they've brought one another back from the edge.
They leave the scene with a little more self-knowledge than
they'd had when they arrived.
Short story - The
Shadow of His Wings
This came from a line in one of Harold Kushner's books about
Judaism, about people who would rather feel guilty than
helpless. Well, I thought, there's a perfect description of
Mulder if ever I'd heard one. I started pouring out a story
of Mulder's devotion seen through Father McCue's eyes.
The Mulder/Scully dynamic - which to me was the star of the
show, not the mytharc or the key to everything or the
monster of the week - interests me most from someone else's
point of view. What does Skinner see, or Frohike, or any one
of the people they encounter on their cases? Here I decided
to use Father McCue, so briefly glimpsed (this was written
before "All Souls") yet such a big part of Scully's
recovery.
He sees this dark man in his church every week, watches him
hide from Scully even though he yearns for her. Just as
Scully doesn't know Mulder is there, Mulder doesn't know
about the devotional prayers Scully makes for him. Scully
chooses to light candles to St. Joseph not because he's the
patron saint of people who might die suddenly but because,
like Mulder, he believed an impossible story. That summed it
up for both characters, really. The ending, where he leaves
just as she senses "an angel's touch," is how I see their
relationship.
Another reason I'm proud of this story is that Jordan
rescued it from the trash can. Another beta reader had said
it was pretty but pointless, so I was on the verge of
dumping it when Jordan asked to read it. She went over it
with me, line-by-line, in a chat room, and only because of
her endless patience did this story escape the Eternal
Deep-Six.
***
West Wing
Post-Ep - Time and the Fates of Men
(3-story series)
Written
Okay, I'm an angst junkie. I'm never happier than when
someone's completely miserable. <g> And no one suffers like
idealistic, loving, lovely Sam. When CJ sent him to do the
morning shows (and yes, I know he probably did them at the
local affiliates, but I needed him to be in New York so just
bear with me) I started imagining how he must have felt.
Poor man, up all night, worried about his old friend,
worried about the President, worried that CJ would react
badly that he'd saved her life - what would he do to comfort
himself? Sam, man of words, would of course write about
Josh.
The obituary's appearance, piece by piece, was influenced by
the Federico García Lorca poem "La Cogida y La Muerte" (aka
"Llanta por Ignacio Sánchez Méjias"), where the time of
death was repeated as a refrain. The difference with
"Written" is that each iteration adds another portion until
the obituary is nearly complete. When Sam changes his words,
Josh's fate is changed. Or is it the other way around?
Percussion
This was the first of the three stories to be written, and
its second-person present narrative (I went through every
other permutation before landing on that one, which
"clicked" so readily that it was like getting an engraved
inviation to stop sucking) set the tone for the next three.
The revelation in "In the Shadow of Two Gunmen" that Josh's
father was an old friend of Leo's made Leo's anguish even
more palpable. Yet in the middle of disaster, Leo was able
to rally the troops as only he could, using every technique
in his arsenal - avuncular with Donna and CJ, stern but
loving with Sam, practical with Toby, gently playful with
Mrs. Landingham.
Fraternity
Of all the threads that never got knitted into anything in
the shooting arc, the one that I most wanted to address was
how Toby reacted. He'd spent the entire day in a panic about
his brother, then just after getting the news that his
brother was all right, Josh was shot. And not only was Josh
shot, but Toby was the one who found him - and not only
that, but the shooters had a clear view of the Presidential
party because of Toby's memo. That had to be a huge burden
on a man who valued his privacy, who guarded his emotions,
who tried to be gruff but really had the most tender heart
of all the senior staff.
The strained relationship between Toby and his brother,
David, gave the title its double meaning. Toby had "new"
brothers in the workplace; Sam, the baby who loved him and
wanted so much to please him; Josh, buoyant middle child
laid low by something unexpected and horrifying; Leo, older
brother/father figure Toby respected in a distantly loving
way. David's visit put the three relationships in sharp
focus, because both Sam and Josh had warned Toby that he
would never know when he might lose a brother of the flesh -
or one of the soul.
Stand-alone - Vidui
For all the sticks and stones people throw at ABS for his
various sins, let us not forget that he gave us an
incredibly rich, textured Jewish character. After years and
years of dreadful stereotypes, we got Toby Ziegler, and I'll
never be able to thank ABS enough for him. Toby is one of
the most balanced characters on the show - deeply flawed yet
deeply principled, bearing equally heavy burdens of
maintaining discipline and loving justice. He embodies the
words of Micah: "To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk
humbly with thy God."
The fact that he does those three things while maintaining
his prickly facade is what makes him such a marvelous
character.
Even though Vidui
isn't a post-ep, it does tie up some loose ends from S2 - Toby's
destruction of Sam's beautiful speech to the environmentalists,
the complete mishandling of the Ann Stark situation in "The Leadership
Breakfast," his apparent cruelty and coldness about the MS disclosure
in "17 People," the way he stepped over Josh to tell Donna about
the MS, the general snarkiness he exhibited toward Bonnie and Ginger
(not to mention Mrs. Landingham), and of course his lingering guilt
over Josh's shooting and eventual breakdown. Being able to use the
Days of Awe as a connecting device was a remarkable opportunity
to explore all the situations through two filters: Toby's conscience
and his relationships with each of his co-workers.
***
These are the favorite children of a character-driven
writer. Thank you so much for the opportunity to share some
thoughts about them, and thank you even more for reading.
~~*~~
So there you have it — Marguerite, in her
own words...
~~*~~
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