In Their Own Words
28 November 2001
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 feature, with past Authors' Picks being
archived on a page called "From
the Desk of..."
So,
let us begin...
This week, we have the very talented Pete Milan, author
of such excellent Willow/Xander fic as the epic "Wisdom of
the Fool, Folly of the Wise." Scroll down to see what Pete
has to say...
Click on the name of the story within the text below if you'd like
to read it.
Pete says...
Okay. Let's make with the horn-tooting.
I think Good
Old World is worth a look despite being what Mighty Big
TV calls a "passport scene." (In "Who Are You," Faith-as-Buffy was
in the airport and apparently there was an uproar on the forums
about where she got one. It was eventually decided that she already
had one and we didn't need to see the hour or so that went into
getting it. Hence, "passport scene.") We know Angel and Cordelia
must have had some sort of remembrance for poor ol' Doyle, but we
didn't need to see it. Well, I thought we did, but anyway... on
this one, I enjoyed throwing in bits of Irish culture (I am, in
fact, Irish-American--my great-grandparents were right off the boat),
and Doyle intrigued me enough to write about him. I also like the
fact that very few people catch the cameos by John Constantine and
the cast of Preacher. In-jokes are a terrible habit of mine... Finally,
I got to reuse Doyle in...
The
Embers That Still Burn. This one's pretty good, though I
think some of the Willow-Xander stuff was overwrought. I'm going
to assume that people reading this page haven't read the stories,
so I'll simply say that it was a kick to reuse one of BtVS' less
famous villains. (Yeah, that Lyle Gorch story is comin' right along.)
Lonely
Christmas. I admit it. I love to fuck with Oz. Make the
little creep suffer, that's what I say. Sure, call me irrational...deranged,
psychotic, they all fit...but the continued affection people have
for this character drives me right up the wall. Then again, I'm
not well.
Wisdom
of the Fool, Folly of the Wise. I have no idea how this
happened, I really don't. I set out to write one tiny little W/X
post-Restless fic, and I ended up with an epic. Blame Mary Chapin
Carpenter. I started listening to her around the same time as I
began these stories, and as you can see, her songs continue to serve
as inspiration. (I really have to write a Warren Zevon-influenced
series one of these days.) In fact, Moving Day and Role Models will
be renamed after MCC songs once the series is finished. So. Let's
go through what we've got here...
Only
A Dream. What kind of writer uses the phrase "sleep finally
claimed him" twice in the same story? Damn, I need an editor.
Moving
Day. We're sowing the seeds, baby, sowing the seeds. Another
lame in-joke; Buffy and Willow rent the house from Annette Bening's
American Beauty character.
Role
Models. It's Laura Smith's fault. She got me started with
her Dawson's Creek fanfics. They intrigued me enough to watch the
last few episodes of Season 4. Xander's reactions to that goofy-ass
show are pretty much mine verbatim. (Of course, in the wake of season
5, the whole Xander-as-Pacey-Willow-as-Joey analogy kinda breaks
down.)
Where
Time Stands Still. Songfics kinda give me the squick, yet
I've been motivated to write two of them now. I think this song
perfectly fits the W/X relationship, at least as it stands to somebody
looking back and wondering what went wrong. "There's a place in
my head where it's always October" may be my favorite sentence that
I've written. Prophetic, too. I met my own personal Willow last
October.
Naked
To The Eye. After four straight oh-my-heart-the-pangs-the-pangs
stories, I needed to write some comedy. The idea of a really stupid
villain arranging a hit on a male strip club fits the bill nicely.
It was nice to write the adult characters, too. Originally, the
scene where Willow realizes Xander's feelings wasn't going to be
in this story, but it fit. (Lame in-joke alert: at the bookstore,
Giles asks Willow for Tobin's Spirit Guide, a tome oft-referenced
in Ghostbusters. Someday, I'd like to have a scene where somebody
says "Willow Rosenberg, everybody, the heart of the Ghostbusters.")
Walking
Through Fire. A lot of things that needed to be said get
said in this story. This is where I worked out a good deal of my
frustration with Joss and his criminal gang, and the fight between
Willow and Xander was quite cathartic. I'm proud of the fact that
I don't make Tara a cardboard villain, which would have been easy.
And tempting, since my loathing for the character knows no bounds.
(Sometimes I daydream of writing a story called "Tara and Anya Are
Devoured By Wild Boars.")
Dreamland.
We needed a little Willow-focus, and this story was supposed to
mirror Where Time Stood Still, but I don't know how successful it
was. I do like the last scene between Willow and Tara, though.
Heroes
and Heroines. From ethnic comedy to tragic action in one
swoop, kids. Tara gets a bit of her own back, Willow outs herself
to the folks, and Xander and his dad go toe to toe. I like this
story a lot, and I'm very proud of the last scene. Making Rory a
possibility for Xander's parentage was a last-minute inspiration.
Just
Because. Of all the theories about Tara (pre-Family, natch),
the one I liked best was that she was a goddess, the daughter of
Thespia. I did a whole lot of research on Thespia, and there isn't
a whole lot of information to be found, but what I could find is
there. Gratuitous Willow nudity. (Look, I've got Xander in a strip
club for half this series. I'm not made of stone, people.) The last
scene of part 3--Xander, beaten nearly to death, makes it to his
goal--was directly inspired by the end of Die Hard. That is, I think,
the key to Xander's character. He's not the strongest. He's not
the smartest. He's just the guy who refuses to quit. As a wise man
once said, "I'm just too stupid--an' ugly--to know when ta quit."
(Okay, okay, it was the Thing from the Fantastic Four.)
*** PETE MEILINGER HERE: And I'm pretty sure it
was in Marvel Two-In-One Annual #7. One of the best goddamned action
stories ever told in any medium. ***
Sudden
Gift of Fate. This is still in progress, and I'll finish
it eventually. You may be laboring under the impression that one
of the characters is named "Romulus Ledbetter." This is, of course,
completely insane. Romulus Ledbetter is the main character of George
Dawes Green's novel The Caveman's Valentine, as well as the film
adaptation of same starring Samuel L. Jackson, which was released
around the time I was writing this. After all, no one would intentionally
swipe a character name from a movie he'd just seen, would he? I
mean, you'd have to be really, really dim to do that.
Aaaaanyway. It's all about torturing Oz. I can't torture
Tara or Anya without feeling like a bully, but I have no such compunction
about picking on Oz. This one also features cameos from fic writers
Laura Smith and Tracy Girlie. What happens to Rory in this story
actually happened to a friend of mine. (More lame in-jokes: Spike
is the only one who realizes that Rory is the spitting image of
Bruce Campbell. The punk band's name, the Badass Perpetrators, comes
from Die Hard: "You add it up, I don't know what the fuck it means,
but you got some badass perpetrators and they're here to stay."
~~*~~
So there you have it — Pete
Milan, in his own words...
~~*~~
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