Preferred naming conventions for AUs?

[ardatli]

This question came up in a conversation elsewhere, and moonbrightnites and mander3_swish suggested that I ask over here as well - I'm very curious as to folks' opinions on this.

I'm reasonably new to reading and writing AUs, and I know there are a lot of different ways in which authors manage to bring characters from one property over into another universe and still keep them

Comments

[wouldbedorothy]

I... don't know. No answer quite seems right. This may be why I don't really read historical AU's, lol!

But that's not helpful at all, is it? :-b Um...

I think I would lean towards keeping the names canon.

[moonbrightnites]

Tell me you've at least read the Abernathy Trilogy!
It isn't especially IC (Brian is barely recognizable) but I loved every page of it.

[wouldbedorothy]

I started to say yes, but I only remember reading one story, so I must not have read the entire trilogy. What I read was good, but historical romances generally don't interest me, fanfiction or otherwise.

Wait... Pride and Prejudice kind of makes a liar of me on that point, lol.

[ardatli]

P&P isn't a romance, though; at least not in the traditional sense. Austen wrote satire and social commentary. So I think your statement still holds!

[wouldbedorothy]

Non-traditional romance worked for B/J ;)

I know Jane's stuff was full of social commentary, even satire, but deep down, she was as goopy-hearted as the rest of us, lol, and there's no way I can think of P&P, S&S, Emma, etc. as not being romances. Still, I think you're right, because I'm pretty sure Austen can't be considered historical romance, anyway, as her books were set around the time she lived. True historical fiction has to be set far in the past from when it was written, right? Instead of something being "historical" just because it's old? lol