DPP: Going AU

[anamarya.livejournal.com]

Ok, this is it - the week in which the person in charge of the DPP bus doesn’t have a driving license. so, because of that and the fact that I had a plan and then I changed it and then sort of changed it again, and so on… I’ll take one advice from another show and “I’ll fake it until I make it”. I do hope that you all are going to bare with me and not throw assorted vegetables my way.
After last week’s lovely discussion about what we don’t like in fiction I ended up with the idea of speaking about AUs this week (or at least for a while).
Today’s topic is not really a topic but a Q&A about AUs in fanfiction. In a perfect world the goal would be to try and classify them but some thoughts, opinions, ideas, even some recommendations would be great.

1. do you like them?

2. what do you like/dislike about them?

3. what works and what doesn’t?

4. when do you consider a fic to be an AU and when not or if you want: where are you drawing the line?

5. do you prefer the ones where we have just something slightly different, the ones where everything is different or even the totally different setting type?

6. how do you feel about crossovers?

7. are BSG related AUs different from the ones that you wrote/read in other fandoms?

8. what about original characters?


And the list can go on and on but I promised myself to keep it sort of short and to go by my own 8 question rule. So, let’s have it people...

Comments

[shah-of-blah.livejournal.com]

1. do you like them? LOVE THEM.

2. what do you like/dislike about them? They're so much fun? Honestly, the possibilities are endless with AUs. Eventually, in any fandom, you start to feel like you've maybe exhausted the canon. Like you've read (or written) fic about every episode, every what-if scenario (though I consider those to be AU as well, but for the purposes of this discussion I'm talking about total AUs), every moment that was missing...and now you just want to read a story wherein your favorite characters are lumberjacks or world famous soccer players or whatever the frak you feel like.

3. what works and what doesn’t? For me, this is the same as any fic--if it's well-written and in character, then it could work.

4. when do you consider a fic to be an AU and when not or if you want: where are you drawing the line? Traditionally, I'd say anything that deviates from canon is an AU. I got started in my first fandom by writing what-ifs, and that was how people used the term there. So you'd say "this fic is AU from episode XYZ" and it would just mean a departure point from canon. But there's also the really AU stories...the ones where canon never happened and never will, and it's about, you know, lumberjacks. A lot of people might also class crossovers as AUs, but I think they deserve their own genre.

5. do you prefer the ones where we have just something slightly different, the ones where everything is different or even the totally different setting type? I love all of them.

6. how do you feel about crossovers? I love them to pieces.

7. are BSG related AUs different from the ones that you wrote/read in other fandoms? Yes. Before BSG, I was heavily involved in the BTVS fandom. The name of the game there was all-human high school AUs. And they were terrible. There are many differences between BSG and BTVS, but I feel like the sort of high school/Earth/all human AUs are so much farther from the respective canon that somehow they are better? I mean, I can only think of a handful of high school fics here, and they're pretty much awesome. And as a writer, you don't just sort of stumble onto those AUs because they're the 'it' thing, so I think there's more thought and effort involved.

8. what about original characters? As a rule, no, not interested.