OK, I've got a question. I post over at The Waterfront and I mentioned my latest AU and somebody asked me "What's *wrong* with Homicide season 5 that you wanted to rewrite it?" Nothing, really, it's just an experiment.(except for that Falsone aspirin thing. Yuck.) Do people often write fanfiction to "right wrongs"? Is that why you do it? I've just been enjoying getting characters together that don't talk much...stuff like that. And I want to try The Wire thing where we kind of follow the criminals, so we see inside Luther's head some, and I'm taking some time over the Pembleton stroke, but I wouldn't say I'm repainting the Mona Lisa or anything. So, question for the group...does something have to be wrong before you fic it?

Do people often write fanfiction to "right wrongs"?

Some of my stories are written because the canon plot went in a totally bone-headed direction--um, IMO.

I didn't turn Giles into a vampire, though, because I thought things should have happened that way, I just sat up one day and thought, "Giles. Vampire. With Spike. Oh, that could be fun." Everything else in the Career Change series had followed from Giles being on the other side (officially, anyway) and Buffy not dying.

And, of course, sometimes I just want to get a pair of hotties into bed and American network standards won't pander to me.

Do people often write fanfiction to "right wrongs"?

Alltheflippintime

Fix-it fic is far too common. Esp. Shipper fix-it fic.

Fix-it fic is far too common. Esp. Shipper fix-it fic.

Although the good writers don't make me grind my teeth when they go somewhere canon didn't. Good writers may write fix-it fic, but it reads more like, 'wouldn't it be cool if?' fic.

Ok, so maybe if Kay didn't go to to Fugitive, John might get with her. But I swear that's not what I had in mind, so it struck me as a weird question. But I guess I buck many trends...apparently everyone else writes short now and mine are long and intricate.

Fix-it fic has a habit of being annoyingly self-righteous, although I don't think that's innate. It's sort of like those people who got all screamy against Joss, when Tara got killed, except instead of being screamy in ways that proclaim Restraining Order, they express their screaminess through fic. So, actually, fix-it fic can have redeeming social value -- by saving otherwise-crazy screamy people from going off the deep end.

Or something.

I have read some interesting fix-it fic, or rather, fic that leaves canon behind because canon was not giving the author the dramatic hoo-ha the author needed; and plenty of real-world AU or "what if" fic. Personally I enjoy what-ifs, within reason and without axe-grinding. Like an amiably muddled dream of canon.

I like fix-it fic when it's a) well-done, and b) when the author is clearly having fun with the whole idea of it. One of my favorite fix-it fics in X-Files is like this. It's obviously a big, "I'm going to wrap up this whole thing and give it a happy ending with something for everyone!" but, it's like you can just picture the author smiling happily as she wrote the whole thing.

I interviewed Jane Espenson for my book, and we talked a lot about the audience and their relationship with the storyteller.

She mentioned something about fanfic i wanted to share with the fic writers here:

...Fanfic, the wonderful stories created by fans that allow them to play in the same world we play in. I adore fanfic and I think there are times when these stories can surpass the official product. Writing for the joy of creating exists in its purest form in fanfic.

And I thought that was such a lovely thing.

One of my favorite fix-it fics in X-Files is like this.

Snacky, I'm guessing that's Livia Balaban's thing, with the name I can never remember. Cuneda's Revenge, or something?

Writing for the joy of creating exists in its purest form in fanfic.

Awwwww. Thanks, Jane! Even if I never wrote any Buffyfic.

Jane rocks. Plus, has the good taste to know our Scrappy, so she wins at life.