WRFA - The Wolverine and Rogue Fanfiction Archive

Author Interviews - MollyTM

Email: XvChloeSullivan@aol.com


Question: We'd like to get to know you...is there anything you'd like to tell us about yourself? (i.e. where you live, professional aspirations, hobbies, interests, etc.)
Answer: Currently, I live in Los Angeles, because I’m studying filmic writing in college. I’m thinking that’s where I’ll probably end up living after I graduate, if I actually want to get a job in the field that I’m getting my degree in. But I’m originally from Chicago, so I spend a lot of time there, too.

Hobbies? God, I’m so boring, all I ever do anymore is write. Between fics and schoolwork, I sort of have to spend a hell of a lot of time on it. I’m not complaining, though, because it’s something I love to do. Other than that, I read a lot - I work in a bookstore during the summers, which is nice because I’m never without books that way. The bookshelf in my room is kind of scary at this point.

My friends can testify that I watch too much TV. I’m really, really addicted to The O.C. - it’s mending the gaping hole that Buffy left in my heart. I’ve been acting since I was five, and it’s something that I’d like to pursue in the future, if I ever, you know, lose twenty pounds and get a nose job. Which I won’t, so there you go. I’m addicted to buying CDs, comic books, and knit scarves. I want to learn how to surf and play the drums, but I’m not actually very hopeful about either of those, given that I have no upper body strength and no sense of rhythm.

I’m a huge fan of Neil Gaiman, the Counting Crows, Rufus Wainwright, Jennifer Connolly, The O.C., Thai food, Amber Benson, Lord of the Rings, Tori Amos, Josh Schwartz, Fables comics, Benjamin McKenzie’s eyes, Sports Night, Jolly Ranchers, Joss Whedon, and Eliza Dushku, even though it’s not enough to get me to watch Tru Calling. And there you have me.

Question: There are many reasons why people write fan fiction--i.e. to fix things they feel are wrong, fill-in missing scenes, bring together a couple that isn't canon, continue storylines beyond the source material, etc., why do *you* write it and how long have you been doing so?
Answer: I’ve been writing fic for almost four years, starting with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I just kind of ended up branching out beyond that. With X-Men, I think I’ve mostly written continuations of the source material. This is a fandom where that type of fic just comes more easily to me - I have more post X2 ideas than anything else, I have more things I think I can work with.

The kind of fic I write is more specific to the fandom than anything else. I write what I have ideas for, and it changes depending on the characters and the current storyline.

Question: What draws you to a particular fandom, character or couple? Is there anything in particular, or any common threads that explain your fannish/fic devotion?
Answer: My best friend dubbed me "MollyTM, the Patron Saint of Lost Causes", because whenever I fall hard for a fandom couple, they are either A, completely doomed, B, never going to get together, ever, or C, going to break up and make me cry. Seriously, this dates back to my obsession with 90210 in seventh grade when Brandon and Kelly called off their wedding. I stomped around my house for weeks insisting that I was going to sue FOX for false advertising.

Those are the kind couples that grab me by the gut, though - the impossible ones. It makes it twice as rewarding if they *do* end up beating the odds and coming together, and more than that, I love seeing a couple *earn* their romance. Jean and Scott are sweet, but they bore the hell out of me because they’re so predictable. Logan and Rogue would be a lot of things, but ‘predictable’ would never be one of them. They would fight and yell and piss each other off and beat the crap out of each other in the Danger Room, but they’d still love each other. For me, that’s just more fun to watch.

I was drawn to Logan/Rogue from the moment Logan reached out to get her to warm her hands on the heater in the first X-Men. The way she drew back from him and the way he said, "I’m not gonna hurt you, kid,", clearly thinking that she’d been abused before…yeah. I’m a sucker, and that was when they had me. Plus, I’m a big fan of verbal banter, and this pairing has that in spades.

Question: You've only been writing (or at least posting) Logan/Rogue fic since the release of X2 and most, if not all, your stories are set after X2. How were you introduced to this fandom and what compelled you to join it as a writer?
Answer: My friend Smurfy is entirely to blame. I saw X-Men and liked it, I saw X2 and it blew my mind, but this was a fandom that I was going to leave entirely alone. I wasn’t going to write anything for it. Period. Then Smurfy pointed me over to wolverineandrogue.com, and started sending me links to her favorite fics, and nagging and nagging and nagging until finally, I wrote "Back To Sanity" just to make her leave me alone. Hee. And once I got started, I had this issues with stopping. Sort of like eating Pringles, really.

Question: Were you a Logan/Rogue fan before this? And if not, what finally drew you to them as a couple/characters to write fan fic for?
Answer: Comicsverse, not so much. X-Men isn’t one of the comics that I read on a regular basis, apart from Emma Frost - love me some Emma Frost - but from the few issues I’ve read, I’m a Rogue/Gambit girl. Um, sorry about that. But movieverse, I was always Logan/Rogue.

Question: Where do you write best?
Answer: Well, as of late, I’d have to say my dorm room. Honestly, I can pretty much write anywhere as long as I have a computer - when I handwrite stories, they come out complete crap. The bulk of my writing usually gets done late at night/in the wee hours of the morning because that’s when I get my best ideas. I’m sure my roommate deeply appreciates that.

Question: What does it take to get from the beginning of a story to the end and then post it? What stumbling blocks arise in the process and how do you get by them?
Answer: Good question. It sort of depends on the story. Sometimes, I’ll get an idea that I’m really keen to run with. I can sit down and get those stories done in a couple of hours, just because I can’t make myself stop writing them, although usually, those are the shorter pieces. The longer stories, like ‘Butterfly Net’, take much longer, and it really varies, depending on if I know where the story is going. When I finish a story, I wait about a day, then come back to reread it with a fresh perspective so I can add in or take out sections as necessary. Then I do the coding and get it posted.

As far as stumbling blocks go, those are inevitable. If I don’t know how to take the story in the right direction, or if I don’t like where it’s going, I’ll typically just step away from it for as long as I need to. I’ll come back to edit the parts I’ve already written, and eventually, I figure out where to go again.

Question: What things inspire you the most and can spark a new story?
Answer: Man, anything, really. Half the time when I come up with a story, I have no clue where the idea came from. Something that came up in discussion with one of my friends, or something I’ve just kind of been kicking around in my head to see if I can pull a whole fic out of it. Sometimes, I’ll be reading a really, really good Logan/Rogue fic and think, "Okay, it’s time to write another one," and I’ll just start writing and see what happens. There’s no real method to the madness of me.

Question: Which POV do you write in the most and why?
Answer: When I first started out writing, I found that it was easier for me to write in first person. The more that I wrote, though, the more I started switching over to third person. I think I prefer that in general, because you can tell more sides to the story that way. You can let the reader in on things that the characters themselves aren’t quite in on yet. That’s especially helpful with Logan and Rogue, considering Logan’s propensity towards getting the communication wires crossed. But I’d really love to writing something from a Rogue first person POV sometime.

Question: You've written several stories from Logan's POV. What is it about him that draws you to write from his perspective so often?
Answer: I’ve got to be the worst interview ever, because honestly? I don’t know. It always kind of comes as a surprise to me when I realize that I’m writing from Logan’s POV, because I always told myself, "Pssssh, you’ll never be able to get into his head." And then suddenly, I was in his head, and I didn’t get to leave. I think Logan is one of those characters that I get, for whatever inexplicable reason.

Question: Obviously, people in the Logan/Rogue fandom believe the two belong together. Yet in four of your stories, "Back to Sanity", "Exception to the Rule", "Worth Waiting" and "Scrap Metal" you have her paired with Bobby. What are your thoughts about the Rogue/Bobby vs. Rogue/Logan relationships?
Answer: I see Rogue/Bobby as a stepping stone to Rogue/Logan in the future. For the most part, Bobby is the kind of guy that Rogue really needs right now. He’s young, he’s a little naïve, a little inexperienced, but he’s sweet and attentive, and he really cares about her. He’s the best first boyfriend a girl could have. The thing is, she needs that kind of love before anything else - the innocent kind, the high school relationship. She needs to do some growing up on her own before anything else, and dating somebody like Bobby is part of that. If she’s going to be with Logan, I want them to last, and I don’t see how they could if she missed out on all those other life experiences first. Bobby’s the boy you grow out of, Logan’s the man you grow into.

Question: "Exeption to the Rule" and "Worth Waiting" are companion stories, one from Bobby's POV and one from Logan's. Was it difficult to give the same events a different, but appropriate, twist for each POV?
Answer: Not really, because I’d always planned to do it that way. It was just fun for me to be able to show two sides to the same story. I especially loved writing in the little things that showed off how Logan and Bobby think of each other -- for example, Bobby thinks that Xavier probably forced Logan to chaperone, but when we see the story from Logan’s perspective, the reader learns that he actually just gave into Storm giving him the puppy eyes.

Question: Will you be writing a Rogue POV companion story, or do you find it hard to get into her head for some reason?
Answer: I don’t find it hard to get into Rogue’s head - which is weird, because I’m realizing that I’ve never actually finished any of the fics I’ve started from Rogue’s perspective. But no, I don’t plan to do a Rogue companion piece. It’s not really a story about Rogue, which sounds funny, considering she’s the main focus of both Logan and Bobby in these fics. It’s about Logan and Bobby feeling out their boundaries, trying to sort out who has what place in Rogue’s life and coming to terms with the other’s unique relationship with her.

Question: "Scrap Metal" is a wonderful title that captures/encompasses both the literal (battered & tarnished tags vs. shiny & new necklace) and symbolic (old & jaded Logan vs. young & innocent Bobby) theme of the story. From where do you get your ideas for your story titles?
Answer: Oh, God. Titles. I’m so unbelievably terrible with titles. Sometimes, I get lucky and a title idea just hits me - ‘Scrap Metal’ was actually one of those. Other times, I use song titles, or pluck out pieces of lyrics from songs that I think fit. And as a last resort, I’ll start IMing everyone on my buddy list and begging them to give me a title, any title that they can possibly think of.

Question: Do you try to use titles and summaries to draw people into reading the story (i.e. television promos or movie trailers), or are they pretty much straight forward descriptions of the story?
Answer: A little bit of both, really. The most important thing you can really do with a summary is…well, you know, summarize. The reader decides from there whether or not its something they’re interested in. All the writer really does is let them know what they’re getting into.

Question: Where did you get the title "Butterfly Net" and how does it relate to the plot of the story?
Answer: ‘Butterfly Net’ comes from the song Anna Begins, by the Counting Crows, which was sort of the song that I based this whole fic around. The song is about a man who doesn’t believe he can handle being in love until his lover leaves him, which, of course, is when he realizes that he was in love with her the whole time. That’s essentially what ‘Butterfly Net’ was about. Logan finally sees that the only thing he was running from was himself, and now there’s a very real chance that it’s too late for him to fix it.

Question: You've "fanwanked" a few details/scenes from X2 in your stories, such as the skimpy nightgown in "Back to Sanity" and the return of the dogtag in, "Scrap Metal". What are your thoughts on following canon in fan fic stories--adhere to strictly, use as guideline to be expanded on, or twisted completely to suit a story?
Answer: My thoughts on canon are "Do whatever the hell you want to do with it, because that’s what fanfiction is for." Again, it depends on what I need to do for the story. I try to never throw canon completely out the window, but sometimes, I’ll throw a different spin on it, like I did for the returning of the tags in ‘Scrap Metal’.

Question: In "Do Not Disturb" and its companion, "For the Moment", you delve into a Scott/Rogue friendship and even hint at a semi-attraction between the two. Is Scott one of your favorite characters, or did he just work best for this situation/plot?
Answer: I love Scott. I couldn’t tell you why, either, it’s just one of those things. I did these fics mostly because I wanted to write Scott, and because I thought it would be fun to do Scott/Rogue. I really struggled with how to end "For the Moment", too - I very nearly *did* have them go through with it. I don’t know why I see the little spark between Scott and Rogue, either. Probably because of the whole Logan/Jean thing. If those two are going to be doing their Dance of Angst, Scotty and Rogue shouldn’t have to be quietly waiting at home for them to make up their damn minds.

I write movieverse, and Scott’s kind of a blank slate in the movies. We know he’s the ‘Fearless Leader’, we know he loves Jean, we know he’s kind of uptight, we know he shoots bigass laser beams out of his eyes…and that’s about all we know. It gives you a little bit of room to play around with him, which I like.

Also, I’ll ‘fess up right now that Victoria P’s "The Best Laid Plans" is what my whole secret Scott/Rogue craving was born from. Besides, a jealous Logan is a sexy Logan. As is an angry Logan. And a cocky Logan. And a hungry Logan. And, you know what, just Logan in general is sexy. Moving on.

Question: What part of writing do you enjoy most, least and why?
Answer: I absolutely hate beginnings and endings, because I never have any damn clue how to write them in a way that I’m completely satisfied with. Beginnings drive me nuts because a blank page is scary. There’s a quote from Aaron Sorkin, the man who created Sports Night and The West Wing, where he said, "The page is awfully white and it says, 'You may have fooled some of the people some of the time but those days are over, giftless. I'm not your agent and I'm not your mommy, I'm a white piece of paper, you wanna dance with me?' and I really, really don't." That sums it up pretty neatly - nothing in the world is more intimidating than blank paper.

I’m not a fan of my endings, because they always feel so awkward and stilted to me. In my head, all the characters are whining, "That’s it? Seriously? Are you kidding? Wait, Molls, you’re really ending it here? Well, that bites." Really, it’s not the endings that bug me, it’s mostly the lines that I choose to end on, and that’s something I’m working on.

The middle of the story is what I really love, because that’s where all the fun stuff happens. When I get my ideas for stories, those are the parts I really think of. The beginning is how you set everything up, and sometimes, I’m impatient and just want to skip to the actual event itself.

Question: Do you find there is any difference between writing fan fic for a movie (one time, static, standalone) and for a current television show (ongoing, ever changing and evolving)?
Answer: Well, I don’t know if X-Men is really the best example to use for that, because, hey, sequels. Preferably lots of them. The biggest difference I can see is that you have a lot less canon to play with when you’re writing for a movie…but again, with X-Men, you can always bring in a little bit of the comics canon if you’d like to, or if you need to. There’s a whole load of backstory out there that you’re free to use or ignore at your will, and that gives you a lot of freedon.

X-Men is the only movie fic I’ve written (except for a single unfortunate League of Extraordinary Gentlemen fic, but we’re not going to discuss that), and I find that it’s not very different from most TV shows. Mainly because this is a fandom where you’re always getting coming new to work in, since it’s sort of a hybrid fandom of comics and movies, anyway. Best of both worlds.

Question: Do you use beta readers? If so, how do they help you the most?
Answer: I’ve used a beta a few times, but never for X-Men. Mostly, they tell me what works and what doesn’t - grammatical things, I’m usually okay about catching on my own. When I use betas, it’s usually because I’m wondering how I’ve built up the plot, or if I’ve pushed anybody radically far out of character.

Question: How often do you end up deleting a whole bunch of already-written stuff on their advice, and how hard is it to let that stuff go?
Answer: It’s not actually all that hard for me, since I don’t let it go. Hee. If they suggest that I scrap something, I’ll remove it from the story if I agree, but I’ll save it as another file on my computer, in case I find someplace where I can use it later. I have a huge Word file on my laptop that’s about fifteen pages long, full of paragraphs and one liners and other little pieces of fic from various fandoms.

Question: Which Logan/Rogue story do you consider your best and why?
Answer: ‘Butterfly Net’ is probably my favorite. It took me a really long time to write, and sometimes, I got really fed up with it because there was no ending in sight, but when it was finally finished, I was completely happy with it. I got to use snippets from each member of the X-Men’s perspective, which I really liked doing. Also, I really think it’s one of my best characterizations of Logan.

I was pretty hesitant about the ending at first, but after awhile, I decided that there really wasn’t any other way that I *could* end it. It didn’t feel like a copout to me, it felt really natural - sometimes, things don’t end with a happily ever after. Sometimes, they just end, and there isn’t any real way to make things go back to the way that they were. The ending is actually one of my favorite parts, because it feels very honest to me, and that’s what I was going for.

Question: You've written a couple of companion/sequel sets of stories. Was it always planned that way or did feedback for the first sway you into writing the second?
Answer: You know, I don’t think I’ve ever actually planned to do a sequel in my life. And honestly, it’s not something that feedback played into, either - it was more that the particular storyline just refused to get out of my head, and I wanted to play with it a little more.

"Exception to the Rule" and "Worth Waiting" would probably be the counterpoint to that, though. I actually started out writing that entirely from Logan’s perspective, but I was talking to my friend Kate about it in our photography class one day (can you tell we had a huge work ethic there?), and I gave her some things to read over, and she said that she thought it would work better from Bobby’s eyes. And when I looked at it again, I saw that she was right.

I couldn’t make myself completely scrap some of the more Loganesque sections, though. So I saved those, and after I finished "Exception to the Rule", "Worth Waiting" was one of those things that I couldn’t not write, since I already had the entire thing worked out in my head.

Question: If you could ask Logan and/or Rogue one question, what would it be?
Answer: Why, oh why, oh why can’t you just admit that you’re crazily in love with each other?

Question: You came to writing Logan/Rogue fan fiction relatively recently. What advice would you give new writers just starting out in a/this fandom?
Answer: Get to know a little bit of the history before you jump right in. Familiarize yourself with the characters and the setting, because it’ll make it much easier for yourself in the long run. And make sure you’re having fun with it.