Reading/Writing The X-Files
Jennifer Ahern
Duke University
Goals
In this five week class project, students analyze elements of the show
including audience, show popularity, fan fiction websites, and favorite
class episodes; research pertinent show mythology, science, and previous
story lines; work in small writing teams to create future X-Files'
episodes; and publish their stories in a class anthology.
Students combine their skills as writers, readers, researchers, and editors
to read The X-Files television show as text, and, further, to create
their own texts that would appeal to an X-Files' audience.
Description
Students work in writing groups/teams of between 4-5 people to write a short story (6-8 pages in length) that could be turned into an X-Files episode. Students in writing groups are responsible for researching all relevant technological/biological/alien data to make sure their story line is as accurate as possible. It also has to be plausible--to fit within the preexisting story line of all the characters as we know them. I recommend students read fan-fiction websites to stay current on fan conversation threads. Two supplemental texts that are helpful: The Science of the X-Files and X-Treme Possibilities.
While student writers work collaboratively in writing teams, they also are in a second group for the production side of the class anthology. Students choose from the following committees: layout and design, editing, financial, author interviews, foreword/after word/title. Each person has to submit to me a resume and letter of interest for each position he/she would like to apply for. For competitive positions, the applicants make a presentation in front of the class, and the class decides.
Reading/Writing Activities
As a class we discuss writing teams and collaboration, read articles about guest writers like Stephen King and William Gibson, and have "team meetings" (with the entire class) once a week to discuss story ideas, facts, relevant science, ways to research as a team; discuss "good writing" for an X-Files episode: what fans want, what Chris Carter will give them, what's fresh and quirky too. Writing groups exchange drafts of story ideas throughout the process; edit each other's stories toward the end. In addition, writers provide a weekly update of their story research to contextualize their draft within overall series and with current scientific or supernatural modes of thought.
Schedule
Week One
Students select writing teams; committee applications and selection process; each committee submits a prospectus; begin X-Files audience analysis discussion; collaborative writing discussion; brainstorm story ideas
Week Two
Story drafts due from each writing team (two story ideas per team); entire class meets to discuss ideas and offer suggestions; discuss issues of plausibility (scientific accuracy; audience believability); review fan-fiction web sites; read about X-Files writers: "Southern Gothic" by Steve Hockensmith and "Novel Ideas" by Chandra Palermo.
Week Three
Second story draft due from writing teams; entire class meets to discuss ideas; committees give status reports; read "X-Files and Ingestion: Or, How to Become a Vegetarian in Twelve Easy Episodes"; discuss subtexts within episodes; layering meaning
Week Four
Final drafts due from writing teams--each team photocopies and distributes to other class members; discuss issues of quality, censorship, "good writing"; as a general X-Files' audience, discuss whether storeis pulling them in, bore them with a used-up story line or confusing science; consider issues of race, class, gender, neighborhood, religion, background, and other identity factors. Then, read for next class period, select best to be front class reads texts and selects best story to be the lead story in class anthology. Discuss issues of design and publication. Committees finalize activities: collect money from class members, get class approval for title, foreword, after word, author interview/pages, etc. All stories are submitted on disk to layout and design committee.
Week Five
Rough draft of class anthology due from layout and design committee; each group edits one story section and resubmits to editing committee; each writer discusses the work she/he did in overall project and evaluates the quality of anthology and individual stories in a process memo; financial committee takes final draft to copy center, prints copies for class, and distributes.
Comments
Typically, it's the best writing of the semester because writers feel a sense of critical responsibility and accountability for the final text; while reading this popular media text, they hotly debate issues of audience and negotiate writer-reader differences and publication demands. Even those writers who are burned out on the X-Files tend to be invested because they have creative outlets for their apathy: they can kill off Mulder, Scully, or write a series ending show.
Class Readings
Cavelos, Jeanne. The Science of The X-Files. New York: Berkley Boulevard Books, 1998.
Cornell, Paul, et al. X-Treme Possibilities: A Comprehensively Expanded Rummage Through Five Years of The X-Files. London: Virgin Publishing, 1998.
Hockensmith, Steve. "Southern Gothic." Cinescape. 24-29.
Palermo, Chandra. "Novel Ideas: Authors Stephen King and William Gibson Lend Their Writing Expertise to The X-Files' fifth season." Cinescape: The X-Files Yearbook 1998. 14-15.
Wilcox, Rhonda. "The X-Files and Ingestion: Or, How to Becomea Vegetarian in Twelve Easy Episodes." Studies in Popular Culture 19.3: 11-22.