Sorry to interrupt the Connor festival, but do any of you have any thoughts on fan fiction?

Oh, we've a whole thread or two on that here.

I have started reading some of it lately and it leaves me with an uneasy feeling. Not because a lot of it is x-rated, but because I question my own motives for doing so. Isn't it just weakness to read alternative versions of how things turn out just because I can't live with some of the things the writers do with characters I'm very fond of.

Well, depends on what you're reading, really.

I can't really speak as a reader anymore. I'm too much of a writer to do so, and writing informs all my opinions on the subject.

I guess what I'm getting at is: isn't reading fan fiction just a way of hiding from and avoiding what you regard as unpleasant "truth''

Not really, for me. Again, I speak as a writer, not a reader. I like to think of the possibilities, the roads not taken. What a given character would do in a given situation that may or may not ever be explored in canon, given the constraints of budget and network TV. I've done missing scenes (filling in after fade to blacks), character studies (which don't really stray far from the text, and are often just snapshots of where you think a character is mentally at a certain time), full-on AUs (what if Giles had died in Becoming II? what if the battle wasn't won? what if Spike had killed and vamped Xander while under the power of the First?), you name it.

I couldn't really be happier with S4 AtS, but that didn't stop me from writing a lot of S4 AtS fic. I'm just so invested in the world that it's fun to take the knowledge of the fictional universe and play in it myself from time to time. (Okay, often.)

Your Fanfic May Vary.

But not all fanfiction involves "alternative versions," does it? It can equally be about filling in gaps, telling the stories that aren't told, giving sidelined characters or relationships a vocie. From a theoretical point of view I find it really interesting.

Or, what Angus said.

I summed up my views in LJ a couple days ago, and repost them now because I am LAZY.

World view of Min's [editorial comment: Writing 'nym is Minim Calibre, not to be mistaken with our absent Buffista Min P.] the first: all fanfic is AU, but some fanfic is more AU than others.

World view of Min's the second: unless specifically disclaimed/rejected by the universe in which the story lives, canon events still happened.

For example, a S7 Willow/Spike wouldn't have Willow claiming she'd never been with a man before unless, for some reason, this was an AU where everything was essentially the same, but it was Willow dating Cordy and Xander dating Oz instead.

I don't personally really go for "this is how it SHOULD HAVE GONE!!!" fanfic, because there's often an agenda, and I'm not very fond of those, because they're so very obvious that they clutter the writing and lead to lazy and poor plotting. It suffers from a lot of "rewrite history the way I want it" basically.

The best of it feels like an extension of the lives of the characters I already know. In that respect, it reminds me of fairy tales told at the French Court, which would take too long to explain properly, but suffice it for now to say that it's all about taking a familiar cast and telling a story where you know the familiar cast, they're who they are, but the story still feels fresh and new. It's a challenge as a writer to make your reader believe that the story you are telling could happen in this world that they're already familiar with. And it's thrilling when you succeed.

Or, what Angus said.

Except with actual knowledge!

Except with actual knowledge!

This is the advantage of having no life to speak of, the other one being that I save a bundle on all the genre fiction I no longer feel an urge to purchase.

Hrrm, going back to the NZ v. Australia thing, wasn't Sunline NZ bred? And I'm fairly certain Happyanunoit was also a Kiwi.

Not, you know, that I totally base my opinions on your countries on the horseflesh you produce. Except when I do, of course.

Yes, and (Phar Lap apart of course) there was also Kiwi, Melbourne Cup winner 1983, which I only know because it was the only year I ever won a Cup Sweep!

Right, for some reason, I'm now Googling for Kingston Rule.

I'm seriously worried about the effect of shuttle stallions on your stock about two or three gens down the line.

Previously, we were able to count on influxes of stamina and soundness from down there, with horses like Noholme. However, the recent influx of less-than-sound speedsters from the NH going there for the winter to cover insanely large books means we're all screwed for the future.

Right. I'm NOT following racing anymore. I'm on a break.

Jesus, make my brain forget it knows this shit, okay?

Previously, we were able to count on influxes of stamina and soundness from down there, with horses like Noholme. However, the recent influx of less-than-sound speedsters from the NH going there for the winter to cover insanely large books means we're all screwed for the future.

Yeah, that's just what I'm always saying...

Yeah, that's just what I'm always saying...

Well, y'would be if you were into that sort of thing.

Really, it's almost like playing the chalk to make such statements. (Obvious and low risk, without much payoff.)

Sorry to interrupt the Connor festival, but do any of you have any thoughts on fan fiction? I have started reading some of it lately and it leaves me with an uneasy feeling. Not because a lot of it is x-rated, but because I question my own motives for doing so. Isn't it just weakness to read alternative versions of how things turn out just because I can't live with some of the things the writers do with characters I'm very fond of.

I'm liable to reiterate what Plei just said, but what the hell. Some fanfic tries to 'fix' canon, because the writer isn't happy with the canonical choices. Don't know that I've read any of that myself, and it isn't something that appeals all that much to me - certainly on BtVS or AtS. But I've bought a fair number of spinoff books from shows or movies over the years - I've always enjoyed engaging with texts in different media.

I started out reading fanfic after the end of BtVS Season 5, because I was so damned hooked on the show and the prospect of all those months with no new MEverse narrative was rather hideous. And then I found out about fanfic, and initially was all 'Nah, that's just going to be embarrassingly awful', and then got pointed to some good stuff. And lo, it was good. (Let me point you to Rheanna's site Palimpsest for some very lovely AtS fiction that reads like episodes of the show and slips neatly into canon at the time of writing.)

As a writer the appeal for me is often the loose ends and grey edges - I like playing around with what ifs and trying to paper over cracks (for example, Peasant wrote a gem of a wee story that accounted beautifully for the Who-is-Angel's-sire retcon, drawing upon canon to make both canonical versions true. Spike inadvertantly makes a wish, a la The Wish, and so changes reality - because he's so damned pissed off at Angel that he wishes the bloke weren't his Sire.)

I like the challenge of trying to explore pieces of canon to fit a particular premise (be it Faith fancying Buffy or Spike getting questioned by Wolfram and Hart after the events of In the Dark) without doing violence to canon. I also like AUs in which the road not taken is explored, where the challenge is making the characters recognisably themselves (see Doyle Investigations where the universe from the episode The Wish is explored in a logical manner, positing what might have happened had that Universe continued on its parallel course with Angel and Buffy and co dead - it's Angel with no Angel, putting Doyle and Faith and Wesley in LA fighting the good fight, and exploring their characters as they might have been in those AU circumstances).

There's a long, long history of shared narrative. Within comicbook lore there are hosts of parallel canons and AUs stretched across different media. Even within Buffy there's the One True Canon of the show itself and then there's the parallel (and sometimes contradictory canons) of comic books and novels and the source movie. Fanfic is all about taking the source material and running with it - beyond that it means different things to different people, and some are more invested in the fic part of the equation, concentrating upon writerly stuff, whilst others are more invested upon the fan part of the equation, concentrating upon wish-fulfilment/canon 'fixing'. And of course there's erotica (which is a whole other conversation), and 100-word drabbles in which haiku-like intensity is the whole point, and whopping great big epic novels, and there's writing challenges - it's a whole big universe of interlocking interests and agendas. I like it. YMMV.

Isn't it just weakness to read alternative versions of how things turn out just because I can't live with some of the things the writers do with characters I'm very fond of.

Nope. It's fun. It's only like reading The Iliad, and then reading Chaucer's Troilus and Cresyde (which I can't spell and amn't looking up, I'm afraid - do forgive me) and then Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, and then watching the movie of Troy.

t Insert predictable mention of mainstream fanfic like Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead (Hamlet) and Jean Rhys's Dark Sargasso Sea (Jane Eyre)

Playing with a known set of characters and situation is fun, and it's challenging. It's not like Bowdlerising Shakespeare to make it more pallatable. (And, again, my own fanfic reading is not about 'fixing' canon. Or mostly not. Er. [...well, maybe with Smallville. But that's fair enough - the fanfic is SO much better than the show itself.) Certainly not in a "can't live with what they've done" way - sometimes in a "ooh, that was a bit ropey, let's see if we can't round it out and make it flow more smoothly" way.)

I also like slash, btw. fwiw. But that's a whole 'nother conversation.

(see Doyle Investigations where the universe from the episode The Wish is explored in a logical manner

AND written by some of the best in this non-paying biz.

(Like, say, the other insanely talented foamy Yorkshire lass in my fandom, Roseveare.)

DI is great.

The talent in some of this...

Roseveare blows me away on a regular basis. She's... hell, she's been exploring the Birthdayverse, and she looks at every little thing, every possible point that needs to be addressed to see how the characters in "Birthday" got to where they were. Why Angel's crazy, why Wes has one arm and is so very, very bitter. And she NAILS so much.

It's a one-ep AU, but one I want to know more about.

Wishverse fic? Same thing. When Buffy's in Ohio, who's her watcher? (There was a great flashfic about that.) How was Willow vamped? Xander?

There's so much there that you know will never be explored on screen, but then, that's what fic is for.