Alternative Universes and Rewriting Installments

[author_by_night]

So I saw another fic for a fandom I'm in, and it was an AU for the last installment, which admittedly the fandom almost collectively hated. (I think there's a few people who liked and even loved it.) I'm definitely in the "hated it" camp

Comments

[shimotsuki]

So, I'm a big perpetrator of a wishful-thinking AU scenario, in the sense that I changed a canon detail and have written a series of ficlets set in one consistent universe that follows from that detail being changed.

I was always pretty skeptical of this kind of wishful-thinking AU before. Not that I never read it, but it did feel to me like self-indulgence on the writer's part. I still think that's true to a large extent, and I include my own AU fic in that condemnation, heh.

But here's why I decided to write AU -- keeping the details vague for the sake of discussion (though anyone who's read my fic knows what I'm talking about so it's not a secret, lol). At the very end of a long series, there were many character deaths. The deaths of two specific characters made me sad (and angry) to the extent that writing fic in that fandom was no longer fun, and I didn't want to do it anymore. Even writing fic set during the canon timeline before the character deaths wasn't fun, because I knew what was coming for my favorite characters.

But then it occurred to me to write an AU where the two specific characters survived. This made writing fanfic fun again. And so, even though I acknowledge that I am engaging in self-indulgent wish-fulfillment, I think it's worth it if otherwise I wouldn't be writing in that fandom anymore (or perhaps at all, since that is my main fandom).

Interestingly, the bulk of my fanfic is still set before the character deaths, so it's 100% canon-compliant. But knowing that I have written an AU future for my favorite characters makes even canon-timeline fic more fun to write than if I hadn't created that AU.

Childish? Probably. But in the end, I'm writing fanfic for fun, so I figure I might as well do what it takes for it to be fun for me.

[author_by_night]

First, I hope you don't think I was slighting your fic. I do think there's a difference between taking a concept and making it an AU - i.e. the two characters you mention having survived - and saying that the book never happened.

And I agree with you 100% that those characters being alive makes fic fun when you're invested in them. Because like you, I was very much a writer for them, and I think if I did try writing them if they'd lived, I'd probably enjoy it. I actually thought about doing it. I just had trouble getting out of "but it didn't" mode.

Also, it's not childish. Really. Sorry if that's how I made it sound...

[shimotsuki]

First, I hope you don't think I was slighting your fic.

Oh, not in the least. I was feeling interested in the questions you were raising, because I've had similar thoughts about AUs in general despite actually writing some. And I figured I'd weigh in on the discussion as an actual AU writer, heh.

I just had trouble getting out of "but it didn't" mode.

Me too -- but in the end it made it an intriguing challenge, because I reconciled myself to the "it didn't really happen" qualms by keeping my AU scenario technically compatible with all canon details (though obviously not with JKR's interviews). That was fun to do.

Also, it's not childish. Really. Sorry if that's how I made it sound...

No, no, what I meant was me, heh: the fact that I was too saddened by what are in the end fictional character deaths to keep writing fanfic unless I wrote those characters out of their fates. But if that's how my brain works, there it is!