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.
However, I'm not a big fan of "if book X hadn't happened" fics. I never used to mind them, I even tried to write one, but that may have been around the time I decided I didn't like them.

I'm not a big fan of AUs altogether, not because I have issues with the concept, but because the execution often ends up being more wistful than purposeful. Let's use Harry Potter. There were many AUs where Harry was Sorted into the Slytherin House. This opens up all kinds of possibilities; the problem is, fanfics that did this were usually more interested in opening up the possibility of a Harry/Draco pairing and maybe a bit of general Slytherin love. So it's not really about exploring the "what ifs" so much as it is a slightly more plausible way for Harry and Draco to get together. The same is true with AUs of the book the writer didn't like; it's a matter of wish fulfillment, as opposed to a look at what could have been.

I think my other problem with them is that the way I see it... certain installments, awful though they may have been (at least to you), happened. It's like the embarrassing Grandpa - you cringe at his old fashioned humor (sometimes not so funny) and ideas, but he's still your Grandpa and he still gets invited to Christmas dinner. There's no point in pretending he's not there.

I don't mind AUs by themselves. I don't even mind retellings, exactly - as long as they're about a true alternative perspective, as opposed to wish fulfillment.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

(Also, because this post is public, I'm omitting the name of the fandom in question as it's small. Although to many of you it'll probably be fairly obvious...)

Comments

[lordhellebore]

I like well-written AUs, but they are hard to come by. That is because, as I had to find out, they are hard to write. With AUs more than with any other kind of fanfic, imho, you have to at the same time leave canon behind and explore different avenues, and yet stay true to it enough so it's all plausible, all believable to the reader in the verse you are writing. And that is really hard to do. I keep trying, because I love the challenge.

[luvscharlie.livejournal.com]

I went through a period where AU's felt weird/off to me when I read them, but it was a short-lived period. I've gotten so that I just love them.

[ragnarok-08.livejournal.com]

I like well-written AUs, but they are indeed hard to come by.

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

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.

[thekaiserchief.livejournal.com]

AUs can be good if well-written, I agree. I think they're interesting because authors can oftentimes come up with creative alternative situations for the characters, though I'm usually content with canon.

[rhiannonmr.livejournal.com]

I don't read fanfiction for a retelling of the canon. The canon is set by the original author, in the case of HP, JK Rowling set her canon. Everyone writing fanfiction by definition writes AU/AR. That said, the sorting of Harry as a divergence point often bothers me because it tends to go into bash Gryff or Weasley territory. Some do not but many do and honestly the other house story is more than a bit cliche since the fandom has been around for awhile, and has explored it in fanfiction extensively.

But I do like a good AU and some have been excellent. But you have to wade through a VAST amount of garbage to find the gems.

[timeofnoreply.livejournal.com]

All AUs are wish fulfillment. Some AUs are excellent. Some are not. Some are mediocre. That's just fanfiction - and original writing. I fail to see the complaint here.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

There's no complaint, it was just a commentary on my own preference of style. And I'm sure some rewrites of books worked well.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

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...

[chocolatepot.livejournal.com]

Hmm, you know, thinking about it, I'm not sure I've ever read an AU fic that's primarily about exploring the change rather than having a scenario you want to write and making it able to happen. But it makes sense to me because in my own experience, trying to write an AU based solely on the change is awkward and not rewarding. It's deliberately ham-stringing yourself, or else not preparing enough.

But also, I'm not sure I'd be that excited to read an AU that didn't have an angle - if someone doesn't have an emotional connection to the story, it's not liable to be that compelling. Promises Unbroken is wonderful, but if Robin was really just wondering about Sirius being taken by Voldemort instead of Peter defecting, there wouldn't be so much brother-loyalty and Sirius manpain. And, going strictly on logic and canon, it's very likely that if baby Harry didn't take down Voldemort, so many more people would have died, possibly even James and Lily in battle. (UGH now I want to read this AU, much like PU but with 10x the angst.) He probably would have just won, period, and killed all of the Order. Which could make for a good story, but again, only if you want to read about eg. the Weasleys growing up under Voldemort and can create reasons for them to be able to do what you want to have happen, which is the same sort of wish-fulfillment. Does that make sense?

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

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!