Glad to have made you laugh. I've never finished anything long enough to worry about this from the original fiction writer's point of view -- even the unfinished stuff is all stand-alones, at this point, where what is canon and what isn't feels less threatened to me, because by the time anyone sees the book I'll be done with my part.
*nodsnodsnods* to the licensed ones being restrictive -- I really admire people like kradical and suricattus who can take them on and do them well, but between what they'll let you do and the incredible speed you have to turn it around at... not my cuppa at all.
No, fanfic doesn't follow its own canon as a general rule. We all start from the official canon and go off in our own directions.
There are exceptions -- a series that branches from canon at a particular point will take its own preceeding stories as canon from there, or the very occasional story written as fanfic of another fanfic. Once one of my Buffy co-writers and I took a friend's Angel series as the equivilent of Angel the show to our Buffy the show, so her series was canon for us and vice versa.
And there's something called "fanon", which is stuff that never appeared in canon but has become common in fanfics -- a particular character background or nickname, for example. But it's generally used as pejorative -- considered lazy writing, the equivilent of using stereotypes instead of creating characters -- unless the person is doing something really different with it.
If I wrote a Buffy story -- no, wait, I did -- there was no intent to critique behind the conception of that story; it was purely filling in space between episodes (but two of my favourites, back to back).
Is it up somewhere? May I read it? :)
I wasn't evaluating the show, I wasn't evaluating the form of the show. I was writing a story.
That makes sense, and I think it's the most common form of fanfiction. But there's definitely a category of fix it fic, or fanwank fic, which is the "they screwed something up, from my perspective, and I'm going to rewrite it into something I'm happy with." It's not just a critique, but it starts there.
If someone asked me about the fiction, it wouldn't occur to me that it was part of a larger discourse.
Interesting. Maybe the difference is that I'm writing fanfic in a community context? The same people whose critiques I read, and who read mine, are reading my fic, making requests, I'm reading their fic, the rants turn into debates turn into story ideas turn into rants based on disagreeing with the character interpretations shown in the story etc. They really do all flow one into the other, so it feels like one conversation to me.
Whereas the two book fics I've written were more in isolation. One was a response to a request, but there wasn't the back and forth.
They don't depend on the interpretation of a reader for their existence or the spark of life that drove them.
I get that.
Should I be apologizing for spamming your journal, BTW? I'm really enjoying this discussion, but when all six of my comment notifications are from you I have to wonder if that means I'm monopolizing you too much.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2004-10-20 05:58 pm (UTC)*nodsnodsnods* to the licensed ones being restrictive -- I really admire people like
No, fanfic doesn't follow its own canon as a general rule. We all start from the official canon and go off in our own directions.
There are exceptions -- a series that branches from canon at a particular point will take its own preceeding stories as canon from there, or the very occasional story written as fanfic of another fanfic. Once one of my Buffy co-writers and I took a friend's Angel series as the equivilent of Angel the show to our Buffy the show, so her series was canon for us and vice versa.
And there's something called "fanon", which is stuff that never appeared in canon but has become common in fanfics -- a particular character background or nickname, for example. But it's generally used as pejorative -- considered lazy writing, the equivilent of using stereotypes instead of creating characters -- unless the person is doing something really different with it.
If I wrote a Buffy story -- no, wait, I did -- there was no intent to critique behind the conception of that story; it was purely filling in space between episodes (but two of my favourites, back to back).
Is it up somewhere? May I read it? :)
I wasn't evaluating the show, I wasn't evaluating the form of the show. I was writing a story.
That makes sense, and I think it's the most common form of fanfiction. But there's definitely a category of fix it fic, or fanwank fic, which is the "they screwed something up, from my perspective, and I'm going to rewrite it into something I'm happy with." It's not just a critique, but it starts there.
If someone asked me about the fiction, it wouldn't occur to me that it was part of a larger discourse.
Interesting. Maybe the difference is that I'm writing fanfic in a community context? The same people whose critiques I read, and who read mine, are reading my fic, making requests, I'm reading their fic, the rants turn into debates turn into story ideas turn into rants based on disagreeing with the character interpretations shown in the story etc. They really do all flow one into the other, so it feels like one conversation to me.
Whereas the two book fics I've written were more in isolation. One was a response to a request, but there wasn't the back and forth.
They don't depend on the interpretation of a reader for their existence or the spark of life that drove them.
I get that.
Should I be apologizing for spamming your journal, BTW? I'm really enjoying this discussion, but when all six of my comment notifications are from you I have to wonder if that means I'm monopolizing you too much.