The Meagan Brothers Interview: On X-Files Fandom, Fairy Godfathers, and the “Positive Chaos” of YA

 

Last week I reviewed the terrific new YA novel WEIRD GIRL AND WHAT’S HIS NAME—a funny, poignant, and hopeful book about the complex platonic bond between two teen X-Files fanatics. This week I’m thrilled to interview the equally terrific author, Meagan Brothers. In this revealing chat, Meagan opens up about her writing process for this unusual book, the allure and value of fandom, representation of sexual identity, and the all-important question: shipper or noromo? Don’t miss the X-Files Lightning Round at the end of the interview (just slip on your hazmat suit if you’re allergic to geek).

 

JL: When you write a fandom-themed novel, you’re faced with a tough choice: do I make up a TV show/movie/book series for my characters to swoon over, or do I use a real-life fandom? What went into your decision to use X-Files fandom in this book (a choice I loved, obviously)? Did you ever consider using a fictional show instead?

MB: Definitely when I was in the middle of getting a lot of rejections, and some of the comments were editors saying “but nobody watches The X-Files anymore” (and, clearly, these editors are not on Tumblr), I considered making up a show. But, ultimately, I don’t know if it was me being lazy or contrary, I just never felt fully motivated to go in and take The X-Files out of this book. I was very conscious of writing it in such a way that the show wouldn’t overwhelm the story, so that even if you had never seen it, you would still get the book. But it was such a catalyst for this book even existing, and I’m such a huge fan in real life. I felt like I had to honor it, in a way. Pay tribute.

 

JL: I’m so glad you did. Can you talk a little about why each of your narrators values X-Files fandom so much? Does it perform a similar function for Lula and Rory, or do they obsess for different reasons?

MB: I think the friendship that Mulder and Scully have, that intense devotion in the face of a somewhat dark world that doesn’t seem to have much regard for you, speaks to both of them. But they do have slightly different takeaways – for Rory, his mom is really checked out, so he’s got this whole parental fantasy with Mulder and Scully. Even though they’re both sort of dysfunctional in their own ways – Mulder doesn’t even own a bed until season six – Rory looks at them and sees two sober, rational adults, and it’s oddly comforting for him. And Lula basically just wants to be Scully, full stop. She’s desperate for a real-life female role model, but in fiction, Scully is it for her.

 

JL: I gotta ask: Did you do an XF rewatch in the name of research before you wrote this, or did you have all those dialogue bits and references at your fingertips?

MB: Yeah, when I decided to take this from a short story to a full-length novel, I realized I needed to do a full re-watch, since it’d been seven or eight years since I’d watched the show at all. The mythology had gotten extremely hazy in my memory. But it was great because I could spend a day bingeing on X-Files and call it research! I was surprised, though, at how many lines of dialogue and plotlines and things were embedded in my brain. Like Rory’s internet handle being SpookyKid – I wrote that pre-rewatch, and I thought I’d just made it up, but it turned out that it’s a line I’d forgotten from ‘Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man,’ where an agent refers to Mulder as “that spooky kid who re-opened the X-Files.” Good job, subconscious!

JL: Ha, that’s awesome! I really need to do a rewatch soon; the mythology is super-hazy for me too (though I remember it being pretty damn hazy the first time around, too, ’cause I think Chris Carter was just pulling plot points from his dreams after a certain point).

So I really loved the excerpts from the fan forum—XF was my first Internet-enabled fandom, and it just rang so true. Were you a regular on boards like those back in the day?

MB: Oh, definitely! My Friday night routine was basically X-Files, then Homicide: Life On The Street, then down to the basement to get online and talk about X-Files. (Obviously, I was extremely popular in high school.)

 

JL: Dude, we so would’ve been friends. Was it a tough decision to separate Lula and Rory for so much of the book? Had you mapped out their separate journeys from the start, or was the rupture in their friendship something that popped up unexpectedly?

MB: I think I knew they would have a falling out, I just didn’t realize the shape it was going to take.  Because it started as a short story – it was initially a shorter version of  Rory’s half of the book, and it ended right after Rory goes to Mrs. Lidell’s house – I hadn’t fully planned out what had happened to Lula until I sat down to write her half.

JL: Tell me more about Walter, Lula’s stepfather—he quickly became one of my favorite characters in the book. His warmth and decency just radiated from the page, and I wished I could know him for real. Was he based on someone in your own life?

MB: I wish I knew Walter, too! My own granddads and my dad were more like Leo – ultimately very loving guys, but you had to get past the gruff exterior. I think I came up with Walter because I felt like Lula was surrounded by people who weren’t very tender towards her, and I wanted to give her a fairy godfather.

 

JL: I really related to Lula’s struggle to understand and label her sexual identity. I hear a lot of YA readers calling for more characters to explicitly identify their sexuality in novels, because it helps young people when they see themselves represented in the books they read. Do you think authors of LGBTQ+ fiction should be conscious of this idea as they write, or should the individual characters dictate the decision to label or not?

MB: Well, I understand the desire for representation, and I agree that it’s important, but I think that it’s also important to acknowledge that we aren’t all fully baked at 15, 16 years old. Some people do figure it out really early and know they’re gay or trans or asexual, and they come out as early as junior high, or even elementary school. And then other people are late bloomers, socially or sexually, and maybe they’ve got a little bit more work to do to figure things out. So I guess it depends on the kind of story you’re telling as to whether or not your characters are ready for a label or not. Personally, I think the cool thing about writing YA is being able to go back to that time when your life is still a work in progress.  There’s chaos and drama, but hopefully it’s all positive chaos, like a volcano erupting and making a new island, because you’re in the process of becoming yourself.

 

JL: Agreed, and I love that metaphor. I think it’s so important to reflect authentic teen experience in all its complexity and uncertainty.

I loved your first two novels, but this one is like, supercharged or something. Would you call this one the book of your heart? What was the writing process for this one like, compared to your other two?

MB: Aw, thank you! I think the difference with this one was that I was aware from the start that I was writing YA. The first book, I thought I was writing a comedic coming-of-age story, and I hadn’t really thought of marketing it as YA until I met my agent. And then I kind of painted myself into a corner with Supergirl Mixtapes because my initial concept of Maria’s whole backstory was very dark and very adult. Since it was a prequel, though, I felt like I kind of had to match the tone of the first book and make it less dark, and it was just really tough to do.

This one was a lot more fun to write. The initial short story was a throwaway thing, or so I thought – I’d just seen the second X-Files movie and I came home and starting writing this, basically the week after. I was just getting my geek on, nerding out on all this X-Files stuff. I didn’t know if anyone would ever read it. And then when I started seriously working on it as a book, I tried to keep that spirit as much as I could. A lot of the characters’ passions are mine, as well – X-Files, Guided by Voices – and it’s always fun to write about the things you love. So, yeah. Definitely a book of my heart.

 

JL: [MILD SPOILERS AHEAD] There’s a pivotal scene where Lula rips down all her posters and stares at the blank wall she’s left behind. It was an important moment for her, character-wise, but I have to say I was really glad to see fandom reaffirmed at the end of the book. Was that ending always planned, or did you wrestle with that decision to have them circle back to XF-love?

MB: I definitely wanted them to come back to their X-Files-watching selves. My only worry about the ending was that it would be too cornball, which it may be! [It is so not.—JL] But I wanted to have Lula have a moment, too, where she takes down the posters because, all along, she’s been trying to find her identity in other people’s identities. Trying to be like her mom, or Janet, or Sam. In my mind she had to tear it down to rebuild it – so she could say, ‘alright, my Scully Worship is one thing I’m keeping, because I want to join the FBI someday, and that’s my dream, not my mom’s, or Janet and Leo’s, or Rory’s. That’s me.’ And also, it was a cornerstone of her friendship with Rory. So, coming back to the fandom was coming back to their friendship. A lot of things changed between them, but the fandom was one thing that would remain. Their constant, as it were. Their touchstone.

 

JL: Now: How about a SUPER-NERDY XF FANGIRL LIGHTNING ROUND?

MB: Ooh, yay! Bring it on!

 

JL: Because you and I are the same person, basically.

MB: We are. It’s kind of scary, actually. Orphan Black might be real.

 

JL: Battle of the Darin-Morgan-Penned X-Files Episodes: “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose” or “Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space'”?

MB: Ahhhh, already I’m Mulder’s mom and I can’t choose between my children! Okay, as much as I love Charles Nelson Reilly, not to mention Blaine Faulkner and Lord Kinbote, I think I have to go with Clyde Bruckman. Because it’s sad and lovely and we find out that Scully’s immortal. And because Queequeg!

 

JL: X or Marita Covarrubias?

MB: X, because he’s such a tremendous badass. But I have to mention that Laurie Holden may be even more of a real-life badass – are you aware that she helped bring down an actual sex trafficking ring? True story!

JL: I did not, but I just looked it up and holy shit, that’s amazing and indeed TRULY BADASS. I now feel like my 1997-2001 crush on Laurie Holden is evidence of my impeccable taste.

Preferred slash pairing: Krycek/Mulder or Mulder/Skinner?

MB: Gotta go with a write-in candidate on this one: Scully/Reyes.

 

JL: Ooh, intriguing. On a related note—Doggett and Reyes: unmitigated disaster, or possibly okay if they’d had their own series?

MB: Okay, I have a lot of thoughts on this, so prepare yourself to wish you hadn’t asked.  Not an unmitigated disaster – Doggett was particularly good for the show at the time – but I don’t know that their own series would have worked.  Or, I don’t know that X-Files with them would have worked. Not because they aren’t good actors, or the characters aren’t good, but the characters are so different that the show, intrinsically, would’ve had to change.

XF, for all its cinematic qualities and its fringe-y plots, was basically a police procedural that followed a generally standard structure wherein Mulder, slightly impetuous and full of paranormal/occult knowledge, runs around investigating, usually following his hunches, while Scully goes to the lab/morgue and processes the scientific data. (Then one of them has to save the other from a train car that may or may not be on fire.) Doggett was basically a streetwise cop, who had Scully’s “strict rationalism,” but not her medical expertise, and Reyes was an agent with a masters in “ritualistic crime,” which is not quite the same as an all-consuming obsession with UFOs and finding your abducted sister. So, it was a totally different dynamic, though not a terrible dynamic. But, like, on just a basic plot level, which one goes to the morgue to examine the body while the other one meets up with Deep Throat in a parking garage? A different show with them might have worked, but not X-Files as we knew and loved it. That said, I’d like to see both of them in the new episodes.  Preferably somehow involving whale songs.

 

JL: Favorite monster of the week (assuming Flukeman isn’t a given)?

MB: There are so many good ones!  The two that are duking it out in my head for supremacy, though, are Modell from ‘Pusher’ and Tooms.

 

JL: Jesus. Tooms. YES, still so creepy.

XF episode you always skip on a rewatch (assuming you don’t adhere to Lula & Rory’s “no skips” policy)?

MB: Teso dos Bichos.  That’s a rough one.

 

JL: And finally: were you a shipper, a noromo, or a finishipper, and did your feelings change as the series progressed?

MB: Okay, here comes another long answer to a short question. I’m a shipper, but with an asterisk. Like, obviously Mulder and Scully are MFEO, but I used to hate those teasers that Fox would do before an episode like ‘Small Potatoes’ or ‘Millennium,” where the portentous voice-over would go: “IT’S THE MOMENT THE FANS HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR FOR FIVE YEARS,” and then show them almost-kissing. I hated the assumption that the only reason we’re watching this show is to see these two people make out. Or that the only way to show affection for someone is through the typically touchy-feely-kissy-sexy stuff. I mean, it’s way more romantic when, like, Scully’s holding Mulder as he slowly bleeds to death from a gunshot wound in ‘Monday,’ right? Or maybe I’m just being weird….

 

JL: If you’re weird, then I am too, because I probably would’ve answered that question the exact same way. Further proof that You are Me. (And we didn’t even touch on our mutual Fleetwood Mac obsession. I guess that’s a topic for another interview…and maybe another book?)

 

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Thanks so much to Meagan for stopping by and being such an all-around fantastic interview. If you love fandom-themed YA, books about family and identity, or just plain good writing, check out WEIRD GIRL AND WHAT’S HIS NAME. It’s available now:

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