I have a bad case of fic!rage at the moment.

[jaina47]

Do you know what makes a good AU?  It's writing characters in a different situation and showing how those characters would react in different circumstances.

Know what it's not?  It's not putting two unrecognizable people, who have not the slightest, vaguest resemblance to the characters that I know and love, and slapping character names on them and putting them in a completely different situation.  

That's why say, a crossover with Harry Potter can work and something as simple as a character choosing left instead of right can be epic fail.

Comments

[joran.livejournal.com]

Genius. Yes.

And, ugh. AU is not the same as non-canon, people.

[infinitlight.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I love AUs, if they're well done (exception: those sucky everyone's in high school things (althought there was a great Criminal-Minds-in-the-O.C. fic in thelittlebang this year)). Sadly, like, 95% of them suck.

[jaina47.livejournal.com]

I try not to write off a particular type of fic. I figure there's an author out there that can make just about anything work if they're a good enough writer, but high school fic is the one exception to the rule. I have never, ever in any fandom seen a good one.

[racethewind10.livejournal.com]

do i detect a shit!fic candidate???

[jaina47.livejournal.com]

Indeed you do. Alas, I'm too chicken to do it. That and when I think about it all that comes out is sounds of inarticulate rage. Doesn't make for a great shit!fic review.

[racethewind10.livejournal.com]

hahaha! wow. I think i need the link. I need to see this

[jaina47.livejournal.com]

You can find it here (http://incandescentfire.com/index.php?showtopic=1940).

It's not so much the grammar/writing of it that's killing me, really. It's the destruction of everything that I love about the characters and their relationship. It's the ludicrous, implausible and out of character way that the idea was executed. It's how there's never any explanation of why a character is doing something that really, really demands an explanation.

I just...damn, I might end up doing this anyway.

Oh, that and it got seventeen comments requesting more. And people wonder why I doubt the quality of my writing when everyone just comments that they love it?

[racethewind10.livejournal.com]

Dooooo it! you know you want to..... *EG*

[racethewind10.livejournal.com]

Especially since I cant' view the fic. I am not a member of whatever that is.

[demoka.livejournal.com]

you know, you saying that and my reading of Red Hope's Sarah/Cameron on FF.Net has made me come to believe that I've been understanding AU as what it is not...

*goes away to think about it more* Or I could just be terrible at categorising, after all, I'm sure there are others who just enter the fanfiction community, but aren't introduced to all the terminology.

[jaina47.livejournal.com]

I don't know. AU can accomplish a lot of things. Anything about the setting that has been changed really. Alternate universe is pretty open. It can be as simple as say Ziva choosing not to stay with NCIS and going back to Israel after one episode or as complex as Ziva and Abby being medieval pirates together, or even Ziva and Abby suddenly attending Hogwarts or something.

The point I was actually trying to make was about characterization. I've seen...well, look I've seen a Guiding Light/Star Wars crossover that works for the most part. But that's because of all the things that changed the characters were still true to themselves and the way that they usually act on the show while they were in the Star Wars universe.

Olivia was still sarcastic, left of the moral center, loves her daughter more than anything, etc. while Natalia is still practically a saint who always has to do the right thing and feels terrible guilt when she doesn't. The settings changed, the characters were still themselves. That's all I was getting at.

[demoka.livejournal.com]

now I'm just scared to write the characters in any fanfiction all wrong.... *but I will perservere and practice!* XP But yes, I can see why you'd get angry about it.

Although I must admit, I think at times, my fics don't always fit the characters as much as the characters fit the fic, if you know what I mean

[jaina47.livejournal.com]

Nah, don't be scared. Fan fiction is supposed to be fun. :D Practice is what it's all about. I still get nervous as hell about what I write, very nearly every time I write something and just the other day both of my betas told me I needed to take something out and fix it because it just was not working. And that's cool. That's why I love betas: because I would rather fix it before I show it to the whole internet and if something is "off" about a story I've written, I'd like to know.

I mean, a story is to some extent your personal view of the characters, their actions and storyline, but at the same time they should also be true to their own natures as established in canon. Heh. But then you could argue that almost all femslash that starts as subtext shouldn't be written, because it's not "true to the characters" as written.

Yeah, and I'd like to emphasize that I wasn't angry at the author. So far as I can tell the author is a perfectly fine person, it's just the fic that has me all in a bother. I happen to be very fond of the characters and their story and I didn't want to see them "ruined" in that way.

[demoka.livejournal.com]

Mmm... that is true! XP But ah, how I love subtext.


and to your last paragraph, oh, okay. I guess everyone just has a certain way of seeing characters and sometimes it doesn't quite mesh with others.