I can hear you already. "What is the POINT," you're saying. "It's FANFIC, right? I mean, my readers KNOW who Krycek is, right?"

Not.

Your readers, assuming they are also viewers of the show (and not all of them are) know who the Krycek they see on-screen is. They don't know who YOUR Krycek is. I mean, there's PsychoticKrycek, SecretGoodGuyKrycek, HomidicalKrycek, SexStarvedKrycek, HurtingKrycek, OverwhelmedByEventsKrycek, LovelornKrycek, AbusiveKrycek. There are dozens of Kryceks. Your job is to let the reader know which one you're writing about.

Is your Mulder a victim or is he completely in charge of his emotions and still very clear about where he's going with his quest?

Is your Pendrell a hopeless geek who couldn't get up the nerve to ask someone out if they were the last two people on the planet, or is he a closet Lothario whose private life would make Erroll Flynn's look sedate?

Before you can tell the reader these things, you have to decide them for yourself. So...decide. Go ahead. I'll wait. . . . . . . . . . Back so soon? That's good. That means you have a fairly clear picture in your head of who you intend to write about.

Of course, you could always start your story with the words,

That's fairly blunt. Right to the point. This Krycek is a killer and he has no guilt about it. It's not very subtle and I usually prefer not to hit the reader over the head with a sixteen-ton weight that way, but it's your choice.

On the other hand, you could try something a bit more subtle. Something that will *lead* the reader to the understanding that this Krycek is a maniac, let them figure it out for themselves.

Okay, that's an improvement. This Alex is a killer. Whether or not he's killed before, he has no problem with doing it THIS time. It's a less absolute portrayal, leaving room in the reader's mind to doubt how far you're going to take this Alex, but still warning them that he could pick up an Uzi and hose down a grocery store some day if they run out of fresh bread in the bakery.

It has the added advantage of helping those readers who don't view the show, or don't view it as obsessively as some of us :-) fill in the blanks about who your Krycek is and what his motivations are in this situation.

The best way to cover both your own personal vision of the characters, and to keep the casual or non-viewer informed about who these people are - is to write as though you're directing the story toward someone who has never met your characters. Any aspect of their personality from the show that's going to be important to your story needs to be introduced before it becomes important, so the reader is prepared to understand it when you use that aspect in a critical moment in your story.

Once again I feel compelled to admit that this may be the RIGHT way to write, but it isn't the way most fanfic authors write. It isn't even the way *I* write. But I excuse myself on the grounds that I ignore canon entirely in my stories so that nothing you see on-screen is at all important to what I write. Like all of these essays, it's just a suggestion and you can take as much or as little of it as seems useful to you, and ignore the rest.

For the most part, it's enough just to be *aware* of these kinds of things. You don't have to make a huge, conscious effort to include them in your stories. If you have a firm grasp on who your characters are, and their motivations, that will take you a long way.