Your Opinions Wanted - Subject: Alternate Universe Fics

[catscradle]

Okay, a friend of mine, being a dutiful reader and replying to a fic they thought was well written and entertaining, told a pair of authors that they did a great job with characterization in their fic. The pair of authors - very well known in the GW writing community, wrote back saying that while they appreciated the compliment, any characterization that seemed in character was entirely accidental - because all their fics were AU and by definition, they didn't have to be in character.

Now, I do appreciate the candidness there - but what the hell? Since when did AU imply OOC? AU merely stands, as was my understanding for the past 7 years, for Alternate Universe. This means that characters in the fanfic are found in situations/environments that fall outside of the canon. It doesn't mean, and never has, OOC or Out of Character. In fact, it's always been my opinion that AUs actually need to be in character more so that the readers can identify who the characters are. It should not be by name alone. An AU with OOC characters is an original piece of fiction. It's not fanfic. If nothing is there to reflect the characters or the plot of the show - there is nothing there that a fan would recognize. Authors need to have a little confidence and post that stuff to original fiction sites/list which are found all over the net.

What are the opinions of others on this matter?

While I'm ranting - comedy/humor writers. . . OOCing the characters does not a comedy make. The humor is more appreciated when you nail the characterization. Also, the more plausible the situation, the funnier it is. Few people can get away with out and out slapstick. Great when it's done well, really, really horrid when it's not. 3% of the writing population does slapstick well. Please, please, please, stop.

Today's Send a Hug: A friend of mine is having a horrible few days. Those of you that know her, please send a note of encouragement. *HUG*

Comments

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Huh. On the AU thing – I tend to use AU to mean not only the obvious (Its Star Wars! Except set in 4th century France!) but also when we’re in a version of the canon universe, but it has been changed significantly *as a premise*.

The as a premise part is so that “but I got Bart and Millhouse together, that’s not on the show” does not make it AU, since then everything is and the term becomes meaningless. The significantly part is obviously in the eye of the beholder. OTOH, if in your world Buffy was always a vampire and Angel was the Slayer, that’s AU. To me. Your mileage may vary.

In any case, when it doubt, a few more words will go a long way to clarify. Case in point, Keren and I describe our Spike/Buffy series Strange Bedfellows as taking place in “an alternate Buffyverse that diverges after Crush.” You may not consider that a true alternate universe – I’m not even sure I do -- but it does get the point across. We started with canon, then we took the road less traveled by, and since it’s been a while our timeline looks pretty damned different by now.

As for the Out of Character thing – stretching my benefit of the doubt until it groans in pain -- *maybe* what they’re trying to say is that there’s two ways to do AU. One of them is basically “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”, where the fun is to take a character who is exactly the way we know and love them, and see what they’d make of some other setting or people. But there is another, which is to see what so and so might have turned out like in different circumstances. So there you do get to take a step away from the canon to play out the thought experiment.

Maybe they do option 2? But I wouldn’t call that out of character. You still need to hold the rest of the character constant, and you need to show why *this* person in particular would have reacted this way in particular.

*puzzled*

Mer

[catscradle.livejournal.com]

Word. *g*

Yeah . . . I still say the authors would be a lot better off if they actually thought about what they wrote rather than wrote a fic for every little idea that crossed their minds. Like write now, for instance, I'm noodling over a silly fic idea for placing the Gundam Pilots and the Oz crew as opposing teams in Junk Yard Wars. It was a silly fun thing to think up while riding the bus, but would it work and would people care - that's the question ;)

As for your AU "two ways" comment - I mentioned the same two ways just above. Nope. The comment was that they didn't have to write in character, didn't even want to write in character, because they were writing AUs. It was actually being very arrogant about it - and in my opinion tried to belittle the person that replied to their fic. I know it's hard to believe, I certainly do not understand this, but some people really think that AU means no rules whatsoever. Anything goes. And because they're popular writers, I guess they can get away with it. So I guess that means there's also a big audience for OOC/AU fics - but then, there's also a big audience for bodice ripper romances. Doesn't make them good. *shrug*