Varnish errors, yep. I keep thinking I should just bow to the inevitable and move this to DW. But there aren't that many people there who follow TXF. So here we sit.
I'm interested in what makes a casefile story work. I think it's important to have a case/mystery/bad guy character that is compelling, but for me it's just as important to learn something about the characters we already know, to see how this individual case affects them, or to feel their voices throughout. I liked the story of the killer and the nod toward Mulder as profiler. (I want to say Ophelia was a Thomas Harris fan, but I can't remember how I know that--maybe I sent feedback back in the day. I think Fragile definitely has an early Thomas Harris vibe. She mentions John Douglas's memoirs in her author's notes, heh. His books do seem to be the fanfic writer's guide to serial killers. (They're also wildly popular with Criminal Minds fanfic writers, but admittedly that's a show about profiling and in which characters are loosely based on Douglas and his coworkers in the early days of profiling.))
I think the most compelling sections of this are those told from the POV of the man who defiled the dead body. He was seriously twisted. I can see the influence of John Douglas and Tom Harris, for sure. For a casefile to work, you have to create suspense and if possible, a sense of foreboding. It's like you want to find out what happens so you keep reading but you dread it, too. If you can make the readers believe someone awful might happen to Mulder and/orScully, so much the better.
Absolutely, Ophelia's dialog was excellent, overall.
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winterfish
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Date: 2013-01-23 07:28 pm (UTC)I'm interested in what makes a casefile story work. I think it's important to have a case/mystery/bad guy character that is compelling, but for me it's just as important to learn something about the characters we already know, to see how this individual case affects them, or to feel their voices throughout. I liked the story of the killer and the nod toward Mulder as profiler. (I want to say Ophelia was a Thomas Harris fan, but I can't remember how I know that--maybe I sent feedback back in the day. I think Fragile definitely has an early Thomas Harris vibe. She mentions John Douglas's memoirs in her author's notes, heh. His books do seem to be the fanfic writer's guide to serial killers. (They're also wildly popular with Criminal Minds fanfic writers, but admittedly that's a show about profiling and in which characters are loosely based on Douglas and his coworkers in the early days of profiling.))
I think the most compelling sections of this are those told from the POV of the man who defiled the dead body. He was seriously twisted. I can see the influence of John Douglas and Tom Harris, for sure. For a casefile to work, you have to create suspense and if possible, a sense of foreboding. It's like you want to find out what happens so you keep reading but you dread it, too. If you can make the readers believe someone awful might happen to Mulder and/orScully, so much the better.
Absolutely, Ophelia's dialog was excellent, overall.
Thank you for reccing this.