notes from panel speech
At the convention, Doppleganger and D.Taina had both said they couldn't attend the Monday panel on Writing Fanfiction but hoped that someone would tape it and put it on YouTube later. I don't recall anyone taping it, so here's the best I can do for you folks and for anyone else who had to miss it; post my notes on the various topics I covered or planned to cover at the panel. (Actually, you're getting more than the attendees did, since there wasn't time to get to the last four subjects!)
Topics for the Fanfic Writing panel
Honor Thy Dictionary and Spellchecker
Honor thy spellchecker - but use your brain too. (show examples)
--Readers don’t want to work at their reading! If there are too many pauses to correct misspelled words in their heads, the readers will lose interest in the story itself.
Get the first 2-3 pages perfect; get readers hooked on your story, and they’re more forgiving of errors later.
--Punctuation’s important to readability, too: get copy of Eats, Shoots and Leaves
--Readability includes Paragraph structure: reach paragraph should have 1 idea, 4-5 sentences tops. (Lesson I didn’t learn for years! Which anyone can tell by reading my earliest Gargoyles fanfic stories. But shorter paragraphs are easier to read, result: more enjoyable reading)
Basic rule: One speaker/thinker per paragraph. (More on dialogue & POV later)
Self-Editing Tips
Sit on finished story for three days while doing something else. Then open and, before reading, reformat your story: double margins, resize font, radically different font style too. Make it look like someone else copied your story. Your brain will let your eyes see errors that were missed earlier, instead of expecting letters and words to be there.
--If you made significant changes or additions to the plot or any scenes while editing: Lather, rinse, repeat
--If can afford it, print it out and look it over. I always seem to catch more errors on printouts than on the screen.
Beta-reading Tips
Beta-readers are great for giving you a reader’s opinion of your story before it’s posted for everyone to see. They can tell you if your plot’s too contrived, or if you’ve got a flaming Mary Sue, etc.
Where to go looking for a beta: fandom forums, message boards, etc
Or find writer with similar style as yours and ask. Ask before sending story! Dumping the story on them in the same email isn’t asking, it’s expecting, and it’s rude.
--Find a writer better than you think you are, but not too much better. Because the very best writers will probably hold the same high standards for beta-reading your work that they do for their own work, and they will probably demand more rewriting of you than you’re willing to do.
--Use self-editing tips for fixing minor errors in spelling, punctuation etc. before sending your story to a beta-reader! If they’re writers too, then finding and recommending fixes for all your little mistakes will eat into their own writing time, and they may not be inclined to beta-read for you again later. Some beta-readers that see a story loaded with such mistakes will just kick it back and tell you to go elsewhere.
Do Not Suck at Summaries
“I suck at summaries” is common phrase seen at fanfiction.net. People seem to think it’s an apology to the reader, but really it’s just an excuse.
Never begin with an excuse or apology! You lose your credibility with readers before they even get to the story.
--Story description is usually sole advertising for story. Good advertising - more readers
Spent five days writing story? Spend at least five minutes on summary!
Finish Before You Start!
Either finish whole story, or at least finish writing the first half and a full outline of the story before you post the first chapter.
Plot bunnies will not only breed, they’ll mutate while the story is being written!
--Worst case scenario: may write yourself into corner! Story never finished, then forever bugged by readers to finish it. Unfinished story = dissatisfied readers = fewer readers in future
--But what usually happens: you’ll find you need to revise earlier chapters, to go with later chapters.
Harsh fact: Most readers have two views of authors who do multiple repostings of a story:
Keeps revising scenes = writer who can’t make up mind = wuss.
No discernable changes = writer trying to get more attention for story = gloryhound
(Actually, they use a different phrase than gloryhound. But I was told to keep this PG.)
--If I find an error after posting, or I don’t find it and someone else has to point it out to me-yep, it happens to me too--it drives me nuts until I fix it. Which is why I allow myself one re-post per story to fix minor errors. And my rule for the last five years is that I don’t re-post a story after the next one in the series has been posted. But even that one correcting repost ticks some readers off.
--Exception to those two views: Readers will forgive re-posting if story is not only revised but expanded and/or greatly improved.
Example: I own both first edition and second edition (published 15 years later) of Peter David’s story Knight Life.
Over those 15 years between editions, Peter became an even better writer than before, so the second edition is expanded and greatly improved, and I enjoyed every page of it.
But if all he’d done for the new and improved version was fix a few details to bring it forward 15 years, to account for cell phones and such, then I would have been pretty torqued at the money wasted on buying it.
Fanfic is generally free, but readers won’t thank you for the time wasted on reading the same story they read before, when they were expecting something better from you.
Research, Research, RESEARCH!
Flesh out your scenes and story backdrop with details, make them more real
--Remember Broadway’s awe when hearing Macbeth read from Merlin’s scrolls: “You were there!” Make readers feel like they’re there, from your detailed descriptions.
FYI: Huge difference between oral storytelling, the storytelling Broadway was used to, and written stories. Oral stories must focus on action /exciting stuff right away, or lose their audience. Most novels are highly abridged before they’re recorded on tape. The bards of medieval Scotland didn’t/couldn’t go into details.
Different parts of the brain are engaged when reading versus hearing a story. Most people can retain more information from reading it, than they can retain from hearing it told to them. So writers can and should go into more detail, or their stories won’t be as satisfying to read.
Which is better: a fight scene in a featureless room, or a fight scene in a cluttered back alley, in which trash may become obstacles or improvised weapons?
The Best research is experience. If you want to put a real-life event or career or whatever into a story but didn’t experience it yourself, read accounts from folks who did. Even astronauts write memoirs.
--For research, Nonfiction is your friend, fiction is not always. I say that because it’s tempting to use your favorite historical mystery novel or other story set in a different environment, for references when writing fanfic set there and then. But just as we sometimes violate canon for sake of the story, regular writers will alter real details for the sake of their stories. But they won’t always admit it. How will you know which environmental detail is reality and which isn’t?
--Besides RL research, Canon research is important too. Watch specific episodes repeatedly before referring to their people or events in a story. Little details and even major details can be missed or misinterpreted the first time around.
As an example: I started out thinking Yama was a nasty character, as most fanfics had portrayed him before 2001. Decided to write an Ishimuran story about why Sora had ever put up with him and how she finally got rid of him. Started by watching taped copy of Bushido over & over, and discovered Yama wasn’t so bad after all.Result: Yama’s Path.
Warning! Going from PG to R for about sixty seconds:
One can even research sex scenes, when a human is involved. I can usually tell when an explicit sex scene has been written by a virgin.
No, watching porn doesn’t really count as research; the ladies are actors who are paid to look like they’re enjoying it.
If you’ve never had good sex-and I want to stress that’s sex that you actually enjoyed, not just told your friends later was so awesome--and your characters are about to have sex, there is nothing wrong with a discreet fade-out.
For one thing, you’ll find it easier to face your parents later when they inevitably stumble across your stories! Don’t think they won’t ever Google you and discover your pen name!
Cooking Down the Details
All right, you did tons of research for your story. Now whatcha going to do with all that info you collected?
Recipe for Stuffed Olive: Olive-rice stuffing-Quail-bread stuffing-chicken-falafel stuffing-goose-turkey-pig-cow, slow roast all for 3 days over open fire… serve the olive.
For my stories set in New Orleans: I visited New Orleans once, back in the fall of 2002. But I only had six hours in the city, and I knew it wasn’t enough. So for the Mating Games story arc, I also read through:
five different traveler’s guides,
two historical references,
two cookbooks on traditional New Orleans cooking and even a
book on the architecture of old houses in New Orleans.
I visited twenty-seven different official websites for attractions around the city, and
read sixteen different travelogues from people who’d visited there.
I used less than 2% of all that research.
I wanted to write a lot more about it; New Orleans in 1996 was an absolutely fascinating place! But I only wrote about places and events that could be seen through the gargoyles’ eyes, and worked into the story without bogging it down in detail.
When people really want to learn about something or someplace, they’ll look it up in some reference material. They read Gargoyles fanfic to find out what the gargoyles are up to. If you spend over half a page on describing something before your characters interact with it, you’re bogging down your story. Sometimes even more than a paragraph is too much.
Doing lots of research for a story is like having a full spice rack in the kitchen cabinet, you have more options in deciding which environmental detail to add to your story.
Spices add flavor to what you’re cooking up! But they’re meant to be used sparingly.
And when spices are used, they’re usually sprinkled all over the dish, not dumped all in one spot. Spread out your details about the environment, intermix them with character’s actions, and you can tell a lot more without boring your readers.
Who's your Mary Sue?
I highly recommend Merlin Missy’s Mary Sue Litmus Test, and other Mary Sue articles.
--Definitely recommend you read those articles before you create an interesting original character, OR before you accuse anyone else of having a Mary Sue in their stories.
Every writer has or has had a Mary Sue, a self-insertion or idealized character who Saves the Day for the canon folks, though they may not have posted the stories featuring them. It’s an early stage in writing, that unfortunately some writers never grow out of.
--Yes, I had one too-in fact, I had many, in different fandoms. Most of my early Mary-Sue-infested stories were never posted, due to writing before the internet was popular. But yes, I had a Mary Sue for Gargoyles fanfic, though not in my main series, my Life Goes On saga; anyone curious can approach me after the panel’s over to learn more.
Before 2001, I read every gargoyles story as it was posted at the fanfic archives. And I dug into the archives themselves, just going down the list of authors and reading their works, until I’d read just about everything posted there since the archives were begun in 1996. So I’ve read thousands upon thousands of Gargoyles stories.
But in the last few years, I’ve gotten a lot more choosy. Partly due to time constraints; I have a daughter now, and a job that doesn’t allow me access to the Internet on my lunch hours. But also because there’s a lot of stories out there that have one of the two themes:
Brooklyn meets a wonderful new original character, falls in love and lives happily etc.
Demona meets a wonderful new original character, develops relationship with him/her and is ultimately redeemed, or at least is persuaded to stop her war on humanity.
Honestly, it’s gotten to the point where I not only don’t read stories with spelling errors or glaring grammatical errors in the summary; I don’t read stories by new authors where the summary includes “Brooklyn x OC” or “Demona x OC.”
I know I’ve probably missed some excellent stories, as a result of that aversion. But after reading literally thousands of stories, I’m just plain tired of OC’s that are Mary Sue’s.
I once actually made fun of the whole Mary Sue phenomenon where Brooklyn’s concerned, in my 3-part story “Comings and Goings.” I made an original character Rebecca, whom I knew darn well wouldn’t end up with Brooklyn-and if Rebecca ever saves the day, it’ll amaze me too. That girl gets into trouble more than she gets people out of it. Anyway, for that story, I painted Rebecca in flaming Mary Sue colors; she seemingly came out of nowhere-- literally dropping out of the sky onto Brooklyn--and latched onto him like a barnacle on a ship. She spent entire scenes just wrapped all around him, and by the end of the story Brooklyn’s begging Elisa, “Help meeeee!”
And if anyone thinks I just don’t want either Brooklyn or Demona to be happy, let me assure you there are lots of other things done by Mary Sues:
putting an end to the Quarrymen and /or to Tony Dracon’s gang for good,
falling in love with other canon characters and bringing them happiness at last,
saving either Alexander or the whole Xanatos family from Threat-of-the-Week,
putting an end to Thailog’s evil by defeating him,
redeeming Thailog with True Love (that one’s thankfully quite rare),
breaking Oberon’s restrictions so Puck can fly free again,
coming up with ways for gargoyles to stay flesh by day, etc.
and sometimes it’s one from column A, and one or more from column B!
--Original Characters add to the Gargoyles universe. Mary Sues take over the universe. I agree with Merlin Missy; Mary Sues are like baby cuckoos, that push other characters out of nest not to be malicious, just by nature.
--But not every OC is a Mary Sue. My own series is littered with Original Characters, and yes, some of those OC’s are in love with canon characters, including Brooklyn. But I put every one of my OC’s through the MS Litmus Test, before they appear in the series.
--Not even every self-insertion character is a Mary Sue. Lots of authors put tiny cameos of themselves in story, just standing on street corners gawking and going ‘wow, check it out, gargoyles are real!’ Some self-insertions get a little more involved with the canon characters, but still don’t Save the Day or steal scenes or otherwise turn into Mary Sues. Christine Morgan gave me permission to use her character Birdie Yale as a good example of a self-insertion that’s kept under control.
Self-insertion is fun! However, it’s best to avoid deliberate self-insertions; it’s really tempting to make more use of them, to let them interact more and more with the gargoyles… and before you know it, they’ve turned into Mary Sues.
--Not even every MS character has to warp and ruin a story or series. I said earlier that I know I’m probably missing some excellent stories by avoiding reading new fic with OC’s mentioned right in the summaries. I know this because back when I first started reading, I read some damn good stories, with characters who I only much, much later realized could qualify as Mary Sues.
There are series out there with characters that score high on the Mary Sue Litmus Test, but the authors know how to balance their original characters with the canon characters and keep them from stealing all the glory. Instead, those OC’s bring out the best in their companions, sometimes even showing new facets in the canon characters.
Christi Smith Hayden gave me permission to use her Avery series as an example of stories in which a Mary Sue-type character actually works with her companions instead of outshining them. Yes, Avery scores high on the Mary Sue Litmus test; has special background and special abilities, and in her first story she does indeed Save the Day, by saving the life of baby Alexander. But even in that first story the canon characters were not reduced to less than how they were portrayed in canon, to make Avery shine brighter.
I also want to use Christi Smith Hayden and her Avery series as an example of an author who started out in the Mary Sue stage and then evolved past it. The first few stories in that series were about Avery more than about any other character. But as the series continued and Christi grew as a writer, she realized that Avery was hogging the spotlight and deliberately backed her original character away from it, pulling her out of scenes and entire plots to let the canon characters shine.
Christi told me that she’s been tempted more than once to go back and rewrite the series, to decrease Avery’s Mary Sue characteristics right from the start. To make all the stories more balanced and more about the canon characters. But she hasn’t done that, in part because now she’s got so many other irons in the fire when it comes to storytelling.
I’m personally glad that she hasn’t rewritten the Avery series, not just because I like Avery; because then I wouldn’t be able to use those stories as an example of a writer that publicly started out in the Mary Sue stage and then evolved past it.
There have been a lot of fanfic writers who, once they admitted to themselves that their earlier published stories contained Mary Sues, deleted the stories from the fanfic archives. Which is fine, it’s their stories and their right. But it’s not so fine if they then try to pretend those stories never happened, and publicly scorn other Mary Sue creators without admitting that they ever went through that themselves.
I repeat: EVERY writer goes through the Mary Sue stage. Mary Sues are fun, and they’re cathartic! Everyone wants to Save the Day somehow. But not every writer posts their Mary Sue or Gary Stu stories; instead they keep them private on their hard drives, and they work on their craft, practice and learn until they can write well-balanced stories.
--My advice to new writers: Go ahead, write your Mary Sue in all his/her glory. Finish the story. Then go back in and cut out at least 4/5ths of all appearances and references to that Mary Sue! Instead, use canon characters to get things done. …..BUT…..
--Beware the Canon Sue, too. Some new writers who’ve heard of Mary Sues think to themselves “Ha, I’m better than that; I can tell my story with canon characters only!” And they do. But in the process, they turn a canon character into a Mary Sue.
In Gargoyles, Canon Sue is usually Brooklyn or Angela; they’re given a tragic backstory and/or fall into perfectly dreadful current situation, but they ultimately triumph on their own merits, making other clan members look like pikers in the process. And sometimes they even Save the Day as only a Sue or Stu can. It’s not hard to see why they’re the ones usually chosen to become Sues, either:
Angela is the Princess in the Gargoyles universe. She’s the daughter of the clan leader, and ultimately acknowledged as such when gargoyles usually don’t do that. She’s the love interest for one of the Trio, or at least they’re sure all hoping she picks one of them. And just by existing, she’s the best hope for redeeming Demona. She’s treasured by everyone, tends to get her way… Princess. A lot of ladies would like to be just like her.
Brooklyn is the Bravest Knight in the gargoyles universe; their Percival. He’s got a handicap in that he looks the most inhuman of all the winged gargoyles; he’s the one that people are most apt to run screaming from, unless you count Bronx in too. He’s put to the test more than the other gargoyles of his generation; everyone got put in the spotlight for at least one episode, but Brooklyn was in the hot seat for “Temptation,” was chosen as Second-in-Command in “Upgrade”, and then had to step up to the plate as a leader and make some tough decisions in “Kingdoms.” And, very unlike Lancelot but much like Percival in some versions of the Arthurian legend, poor Brooklyn doesn’t even get a chance with the girl. Maggie flat-out rejects him, and in The Journey, Angela is depicted as leaning towards Broadway instead of him. Every guy who sees himself as a ‘Nice Guy Who Finishes Last’ can identify with him.
Bobszy gave me permission to use his stories “The Broken One” and “Unwanted Liaisons” as examples of Brooklyn as a Canon Sue, or Stu. (Stories at fanfiction.net)
In “The Broken One”, Bobszy’s first story, Brooklyn is given a tragic background that no one else in the clan knew about before, and goes through a personal hell that V C Andrews would gasp at. But after many struggles, he ultimately triumphs and ends up Saving the Day in suitable dramatic fashion. (With guns. Gary Stu’s always have guns.)
In the second story “Unwanted Liaisons”, Brooklyn has no tragic backstory. And he doesn’t end up Saving the Day; he just personally triumphs over great adversity. That part’s quite acceptable, and even encouraged in a fanfic. Conflict and Personal Triumph are Good! But the Brooklyn in that story is still a Canon Sue, not because he’s just a touch more noble and great of heart than he was portrayed in canon, but because of what happened to Broadway. In comparison to Brooklyn, Broadway turned into the worst sort of jerk, not just for a moment-let’s face it, everyone has their moments of being a complete jerk-but for the length of the story. That’s one of the trademarks of a Mary Sue or Gary Stu; the canon characters become lesser beings in his or her presence.
Funny thing, though; these two Canon Sue stories were still very interesting stories! Bobszy has real potential, and I told him so. I also gently told him that he’d turned Brooklyn into a Canon Sue, and pointed him towards Merlin Missy’s articles on Sues.
Bobszy agreed he was too fond of Brooklyn, and he’s accepted the challenge of writing stories without Brooklyn in them, to grow past the Mary Sue stage in his writing. I also challenged him to write a story to be called “The Unwanted One;” to find way to redeem the supreme jerk that he turned Broadway into. I’m looking forward to reading that one!
One last word on Mary Sues:
We may get awfully tired of reading about them, but they’re not creatures of scorn and objects of pity, even if it is awfully easy to make fun of them.
They’re the first stages fanfic writers go through when they’re creating stories.
A stage that hopefully the writers will grow past, with practice and with constructive criticism-let me stress that, kindly phrased and constructive criticism-from readers.
Finding the POV
When writing character group interactions, the easiest way to write it is as though you’re watching it on TV. Hovering just above, recording what everyone is saying and/or who threw what punch.
That’s the easiest way, but generally not the best way. When you write, you can do something that’s hard to do in a cartoon; you can get inside a character’s skull, & show the reader what he or she or it is thinking.
Everyone does the get-inside-the-skull bit when it’s time for the story’s main character to go off alone and do some angsting or have a personal flashback. Just don’t lose that POV when the characters gather in pairs or groups.
People identify with characters more than they identify with events. Storytelling is really all about the people, including the nonhuman people.
Try hard to keep to one POV in a scene, look through that one character’s eyes and see what he sees / hear what she hears. Might end up shuffling some other characters around in order to give that character a better view, but stories usually end up better for it.
--Yes, sometimes one has to switch POV’s in the middle of a conversation, when you want to get inside more than one character’s skull. But even better way: switch scenes and have immediate flashback, retelling the conversation from the other person’s POV.
Sometimes the best POV for a particular scene isn’t from a main character after all. Try looking at the main characters from a bit player’s POV; what do they see? The answer might surprise you, and make for a more interesting scene,
Five, not just Two!
Cartoon episodes are limited to telling stories with just two senses: sight and sound. Reading is actually limited to just one sense, the sense of sight.
But since preschool, all of us are trained to take words on a page and associate them with sensations we’ve experienced and stored in our brains. We read the word ‘horse’, and we picture something in our heads, whether it’s a cartoon pic of a farm horse or a memory of a horse that you rode once. And the memories stored in our brains are not just not limited to sight and sound.
When I read the word ‘horse’ I not only recall the sight of a beautiful bay horse, I can remember the sensation stroking the soft velvety nose, the sleek-haired hide, that singular horsey smell, the sheer strength just about emanating from that body… how uncomfortably close that dinner-plate-sized hoof was to my sneaker-clad foot…
So when you write, you can do far more in your storytelling than a cartoon can. When you describe people, places and things, don’t use the two senses of sight & sound; use all five! The more senses involved, the more real the scene becomes in the reader’s mind.
Examples: Describe the texture of a new fabric being worn by a character, describe the smells that are present in a dark spooky room before the light’s turned on, etc.
How is Dialogue like a Hot Dog?
There’s a lot of debate about how best to write dialogue. One debated aspect is about how to frame that dialogue; what to put outside the quotation marks.
Some people prefer to use the word ‘said’ over and over again. He said this, she said that, he said something else, etc.
Some people say that for good writing, you need to avoid using ‘said’ and substitute synonyms for it whenever possible. He said this, she muttered that, he snarled back, etc.
Here’s the metaphor I came up with for the whole deal: written dialogue = hot dog.
The words within quotation marks: the sausage, the meat in a hot dog.
‘he said / she said’ before or after the quotation marks: that’s the plain bun.
If the sausage in the hot dog is tasty enough, like kielbasa (yum!), the bun is there just to keep the hands from getting sticky. If the dialogue is hot enough, the words outside the quotes are needed only to help the reader keep straight who said what. And only needed if the characters’ speaking styles aren’t so different that it’s obvious who said what.
‘said’ is so ubiquitous it becomes almost unnoticed in dialogue. Just like no one really thinks about the average plain ol’ hot dog bun. I’ve been at barbecues where there were kielbasa sausages grilling next to Oscar Meyers next to veggie-dogs, and people were hovering nearby by make sure their meat was grilled to their tastes, but not one of ‘em gave a peep about the sausage of their choice being wrapped in a plain old hot dog bun.
Synonyms for said like ‘grumbled’, ‘muttered’, ‘shouted’, ‘sing-songed sarcastically’, etc: they’re the condiments. Ketchup, mustard, sauerkraut, etc.
If the dialogue is necessarily too plain -no real character can be witty 24/7 and utter a meta-quotable bon mot in every scene-or goes on for too long, then a writer can add some synonyms and adverbs as condiments, to make the dialogue more interesting.
But too many synonyms for ‘said’ in a stretch of dialogue are like too many condiments on a hot dog. Result: a gooey mess that draws attention away from the meat itself.
--It’s really a ‘flavor to taste’ situation. Just keep in mind that not everyone shares your tastes, and when in doubt, better to use sparingly.
Don’t Forget the Tail!
Gargoyles are people, but they are not humans. Keep that in mind.
--Like I said earlier, I’ve read thousands of Gargoyles stories. And in too many of those stories, people wrote about them as just humans with wings on their backs, who don’t have day jobs. Some writers forget about the wings when describing how the gargoyles interact with their settings while not gliding, and plenty of them forget about the tails.
--What drew many fans, such as myself, to Gargoyles was the whole idea of another sentient species, people who clearly weren’t human, struggling to survive and find ways to coexist in a world full of us egocentric primates.
--Sure, write about gargoyles as people, living alongside humans. And have them do human things, too. But don’t forget the tails, and all the rest that makes them gargoyles.
Keep it Canon--Or Not
First, we need to define what canon is for any fandom. Canon is at least what we saw in the episodes or read in the book series, and canon is what most of us started with for source material when we started writing.
--But in addition to Canon there is Fanon, and authorial intent. I highly recommend Merlin Missy’s defining article ‘Canon Versus Fanon Versus Authorial Intent’! Everyone should read it; it might settle some flame wars before they start.
Fanon is something that wasn’t explicitly portrayed in the show or the published series, but that a group of fans think happened between the scenes, between episodes, etc. Sometimes it’s such a very large group of fans who think that, that newcomers to the fandom think the fanon is canon, unless or until they scrutinize the canon for themselves.
Authorial intent is what the author or show creator says has happened, or did happen, or will happen, but it hasn’t been portrayed in the show or published series. And authorial intent is not canon, simply because people can and do change their minds about that information later on, as their stories and characters and entire world-settings evolve.
--Gargoyles is also a unique sort of situation, in that we not only have several metric tons of authorial intent material, in the Ask Greg archives---far, far more than just about any other fandom out there---we now have two sources of canon, which are starting to contradict each other.
We do have some canon that everyone agrees on: Everyone agrees that the episodes of the first two seasons on TV are canon.
--Then there’s a very large subset of fans also agree that the third season, everything that happened after The Journey, is NOT canon because it wasn’t what Greg Weisman envisioned, or had any hand in writing. So far as many fans are concerned, the rest of the third season just didn’t happen. But the third season did air, and some folks see those episodes as canon, or at least want to work with the ideas they gave us. (C’est moi. I like the P.I.T., so my fanfic series incorporated ‘The Dying of the Light.’ The rest? Feh.)
--The same “it’s not really canon” attitude is applied to the Gargoyles comics series put out by Marvel in collaboration with Disney, back in the mid-1990’s. The eleven published issues of a comic that’s really hard to find in back issues bins nowadays, so most fans who didn’t grab the comics off the stands back then will never have heard of the gargoyle hybrid Venus--Delilah’s older half-sister, or of the Unhatched Egg, or other events and characters shown in those comics. I became interested in Gargoyles in 2000, so even I wouldn’t have heard of them if another fan hadn’t sent me scans of the pages years ago; scans I lost when my last computer died, darnit. Anyway, not just because Greg Weisman didn’t write them but because those issues are so hard to find, many fans don’t think of them as canon either. But they were published, and again, there’s some excellent source material in there for fanfic writers.
--And now, after over a decade of no new canon and several boatloads of fanfic written and fanon created, we have the comics series from Slave Labor Graphics as new additions to canon. Which is already very different from the third season of episodes, and contradicting it more with each issue. And I haven’t seen any references to events or characters from the old comics series yet, either.
--But it could be worse, folks; any fan of the mainstream comics who’s suffered through Crisis after retcon after Crisis after ‘exciting new direction’ will tell you it could be worse
--Does everyone here know what ‘retcon’ means? …I’ll explain anyway, if someone’s too shy to admit otherwise. ‘retcon’ is short for retroactive continuity; rewriting the past to make it fit better with the current comic events. When not the fans, but the comic publishers themselves are saying “That stuff we showed earlier? We’ve decided that it didn’t really happen, or didn’t happen that way.” Other media has done it too, but comics are infamous for it; just say the word ‘retcon’ to a comics fan and watch them cringe.
--Several of the longer-established fanfic writers are choosing, in their series, to deliberately ignore the events portrayed in the new comics. Not because they don’t like them-I want a Coco action figure!--but because they see no way to incorporate the new canon material without a lot of severe retconning of their own fanfic series.
--I could use that excuse too, but I’ll be honest; I violated canon-actually, back then it was just authorial intent-- right from the start of my Life Goes On series in 2000.
--It was never stated outright in the show, but Greg Weisman said gargoyles breed and lay eggs every twenty years, starting in their fiftieth year of life, and the next breeding season would be 2007 with eggs laid in 2008. I thought ‘what, wait over a decade to get to all the soap-opera craziness that goes with breeding the next generation? Too long for me!’ So for my fanfic I changed the breeding cycle to every twenty-five years, starting in the fortieth year of their lives, and it’d happen in 1997 with eggs laid in 1998.
--And then the Angela in my head started panicking about it being so soon, the New Orleans clan forming in my head suddenly gained a lot more females, and… well, some of you probably read the results in the Mating Games story arc I just finished up.
--But for those of you who are new to the fandom, or new to writing fanfic, I’d encourage you to work with the new canon material in the new comics, when creating your stories.
--When is it okay to violate canon while writing a story? What I mean by that is, when will the readers forgive you for doing it, and keep coming back for more?
But usual answer is: when that violation is necessary for the plot of the story. When what you want to write about just doesn’t quite fit into the framework of history, alien biology, rules of magic, etc. that was established in canon, but it’s a story worth telling anyway.
--If you do find that you need to violate canon for the sake of the story, a little author’s note to that effect at the start or end of the story could deter the flame emails from the touchier critics. Though thankfully Gargoyles fandom doesn’t seem to have nearly as many ‘canon-Nazis’ as other fandoms do.
--For those who insist that you’re violating canon when what they’re talking about is really just fanon or authorial intent, please debate them in a civil manner. Even when they toss ad hominem barbs at you, don’t respond in kind. It takes two people to start a fight, but fights can spread and flame wars don’t help any fandom.
Git along, lil' ficcy!--Corralling your Plot Bunnies
My tips on getting plot bunnies to behave:
Make some mental corrals -or some folders on your computer -and label them with something like Between the Scenes, Prequel, Post-Journey, and Alternate Universe.
When a plot bunny starts nibbling, grab it by the scruff of its lil’ bunny neck and shake it until it says whether it’s something that had to happen before the series started, something that *could* have happened during the series on TV, something that could only happen after “The Journey” or after events in the comics, or something that just flat-out couldn’t happen in canon or afterwards-but it’s such a nifty plot bunny, you want to cuddle it and keep it anyway.
Write down the basic idea in no more than four sentences, by hand, on a notepad you keep somewhere convenient. Head it with whatever annotation you use for your mental corrals: I use GarEpSc for something that could have happened between the scenes of a Gargoyles episode, LifeGo for something that happens in my Life Goes On saga, GAU for Gargoyles Alternate Universe stuff, and so on.
I find that once I have that basic idea labeled and written down in no more than four sentences, the plot bunnies will usually be happy to settle down and let me keep working on the current project/story, knowing that I’ll at least think of getting back to them later, even if I ultimately don’t find the time for it.
…Usually. There are exceptions to the settling down. Who here reads Sluggy Freelance?
Sometimes plot bunnies have acted like Bun-Bun, the homicidal lop-eared bunny from Sluggy Freelance and snarled in my head, “Just four sentences? Screw that! Write me out NOW, or I’ll make your life miserable!”
My story “Violent Night” was one of those; I had to write that out in full even before I was halfway through the Times Changing story arc. Then it sat on my hard drive for years until the timeline was right for posting it, after changing exactly five paragraphs to make it fit saga continuity; my timeline had naturally evolved a bit by then. And I’ve got over three dozen other scenes and snippets that have been written out and saved in files, but won’t be used in stories for a long time to come.
Why We Write
Lastly: a reminder to everyone that ultimately, you should be writing stories to please yourselves and the characters living in your heads, not for your audience. Because feedback is often wonderful when it’s received, but even the best writers never really get enough of it. Some fans are very courteous and will write to say what they loved about the show, and some will even give you constructive criticism about what they think you could improve upon. But most fans are frankly more interested in reading than in writing back, and they won’t send emails or reviews unless they’ve got a burning question to ask.
Writing in anticipation of reviews and ego-strokes is a sure way to get disappointed. Write to shut up those plot bunnies that are bouncing up and down on your brainpan and screaming ‘WRITE ME!’, and when it’s over and posted you’ll at least be relieved!