Changing the world we write in

[bluflamingo]

My best friend and I got into a discussion a couple of days ago based off me wondering if women could be RAF fighter pilots (answer:yes). She wanted to know why I wanted to know this, and I told her it was for a story I was thinking about, in which there would be (possibly) women who flew in the RAF.

Her response was, well, if they can't be, just make it so they are. In other words, change one of the basic premises of the world you're writing in. Which in the end, I didn't need to do, but what she said lead to a debate about whether this is OK or not.


My argument was that it was cheating, to not try and write within the constraints of the world you're in (unless it's an obviously different world, like a fantasy novel) and to not give an explanation for the change. On the other hand, if I was to explain the change, I'd be writing a different story or a different character.

To take an example that works, since women can be fighter pilots: say I want to write about a guy in an open gay relationship in the American air force. I don't feel comfortable just saying, well, this is OK, we're in that world, without explanation. So I explain it as the rules having just been changed - but then I'm writing about a world where this is still new, and about a guy who is going against a long history of it not being allowed, and my story has to deal with these things, which it wouldn't if being openly gay in the military was old hat. So I decide to set the story ten years in the future, years after Don't ask, don't tell has been repealed, and everyone's used to it - but then I have to deal with other changes to the world I'm writing in... And on and on and on.

My friend couldn't see why it was a problem for me to change something without explanation, and neither could a couple of other people I tested the theory on. Possibly this is just because I'm obsessive about details and the kind of person who'd be reading the story going but why is it like that? Explain it to me!

My other possible explanation was that a lot of my writing and reading is fanfic, where it's considered cheating and bad form to change something that desn't fit with what you want to write. You know: I want to write a story where Ford and Lorne get it on, so I'll just ignore the fact that Ford turned into an enzyme-junkie and was probably blown up on a hive ship. I won't tag my story as AU, and I won't explain how Ford didn't get turned into an enzyme-junkie, or how he came back, I'll just pretend it never happened. It's considered sloppy writing and I'd expect people to complain (though now I really do want to write a story where Ford and Lorne get it on, but with lengthy explanations for how it would work - curses!)

So I guess this is what I'm asking (or maybe I'm not asking anything, maybe I'm just rambling because I have to proof read something I wrote and I hate doing that): are there rules of fanfic convention that have changed your opinion of how things should be written, particularly if you write original fic? Are there things that you won't tolerate, or find annoying that other people don't, because of what's OK, or not, if fanfic? Both as a reader and as a writer, I guess.

Comments

here from metafandom

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I don't think what you're describing has to do with fanfic conventions. Professional authors who write about real-world things usually spend a helluva lot of time doing research, and if they screw up their research there will be plenty of people ripping them apart -- in the era of the internet more than ever. Anything related to military or law enforcement, from my understanding, is particularly problematic because people who have worked in those fields are very protective of accuracy.

Basically, you are right, your friends are wrong wrong wrong.

I do think that your larger question raises some interesting issues -- particularly the "mary sue" notion of what's acceptable as far as an author's relation to/investment in a character. I think it's considered, generally, a "bad thing" in fanfic to use details/experience from your own life, whereas it is more or less expected in original fic.

Re: here from metafandom

[bluflamingo.livejournal.com]

Basically, you are right, your friends are wrong wrong wrong.

See, that's what I said - they weren't convinced for some reason!

I think you're right that anything from a specific field, people will complain about. I work in a university, and I'm so easily thrown out of a story set in that world by something that I know isn't right.

I think it's considered, generally, a "bad thing" in fanfic to use details/experience from your own life, whereas it is more or less expected in original fic.

I'm not sure about that - I mean, definitely not trying to overlay the author's own experience on a character who would have had a different experience - but sometimes it's nice to see random details from a person's life pop up in fic, like Cadman eatching Ronon tai chi (I think it was). But I suppose that's more using their knowledge than using details from their lives, so maybe I do agree with you after all :)

Re: here from metafandom

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

Ahh, I meant, actually that I think fandom is overly criticial about people using personal details/ identifying with characters, etc. "Mary Sue/Gary Stu" tends to be overused, I think, in this context. On the other hand, I think there are plenty of 'mainstream' authors who could stand to be familiar with the concept.

[syredronning.livejournal.com]

I think it depends on your target group. There is a long history of novels (and movies) which sold more or less fantasy as truth, and many readers loved them. Even today, with all our research methods, I think invention can go a long way as long as it's well invented and conclusive to the reader.

[bluflamingo.livejournal.com]

I suppose so. I guess my issue is with what a reader needs for it to be conclusive to them - like I'd want some kind of explanation, but maybe other people would be prepared to just go with it. Which is kind of ironic, given the number of times I've been explaining the plot of something to a friend and gone, just go with it, over something that doesn't make a lot of sense. So maybe it's just paranoia on my part about people complaining about what I've written.

[alexseanchai]

If I am familiar with a subject, then when I pick up a book or click a fanfic dealing (however peripherally) with that subject, I do not want to find errors in the author's treatment of the subject. Differences with plausible explanations are not errors.

If I am unfamiliar with a subject and I find that the story I am writing will deal (however peripherally) with that subject, I attempt to make myself familiar enough with the subject that someone who is very familiar with the subject will have no quibbles with my treatment of the subject.

[bluflamingo.livejournal.com]

Differences with plausible explanations are not errors

Yeah, exactly! But it needs the plausible explanation, right, otherwise how do you know it's not an error? If I write my guy in an open relationship in the American military without explanation, people will think it's an error, not that I'm doing it for a reason (even if I am).

I attempt to make myself familiar enough with the subject that someone who is very familiar with the subject will have no quibbles with my treatment of the subject.

That sounds like a really high standard to hold yourself to - I wish more people did that :)

[alexseanchai]

It is a high standard to hold myself to, but hey. Learning new things is fun. And yes, the plausible explanation is key.

[jalabert.livejournal.com]

There is no hard and fast rule about accuracy, just people with strong opinions. How much 'splainin' you have to do--if any--depends on the author.

As a person who writes Ford-centric fanfic, I found your example very interesting. I ran into just that scenario in season two of SGA. As a writer, I generally strive for accuracy--my scholarly instincts insist upon it. I put a lot of time and effort into my stories, researching even minor points that no one but me would even notice. But when it came to season two, I could not ignore reality--or could I? I have, in fact, written stories that dealt with Ford's transformation and stories that completely ignored canon. I didn't see it as cheating when I did the latter--there were stories in my head that had nothing to do with what happened in season two, so why couldn't I write them in season one?

For the record, I tend to write my stories with no specific timeline in mind, unless it is relevant to the plot, and if canon doesn't provide the right circumstances for my story I have no problem with "just making it so they are." I think the trick to good fiction suspending the reader's disbelief, and I don't think that having all the facts "right" is necessary in order to accomplish that. I focus on characterization and plot and plausibility (probably in that order), because I think that ultimately, the reader wants to be entertained. And if the story is entertaining, the small details can be overlooked, or at least forgiven. Of course, each writer must decide for herself how comfortable she is in flouting canon. I'm fairly confident in my ability to suspend disbelief. I'm also fairly confident in my reader--I assume that when someone looks at a head shot she knows that the person in the photo is standing on the ground, even if she can't see his feet. So why shouldn't I assume that the reader won't sort out the background details without a lengthy exposition?

By the way, if you want to write your Ford/Lorne fic, you might consider an alternative approach. For example, both men were on Earth at some point before the Atlantis expedition. Why couldn't they have gotten it on before Ford left for the Pegasus Galaxy?

[bluflamingo.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly confident in my ability to suspend disbelief.

Maybe that's my problem - because I'm the kind of person who can't suspend her disbelief when something isn't "right", I worry that the people reading my stories won't be able to either. I think, like you said, I'm confident they can assume the guy whose feet they can't see is standing on the ground, not floating in space, but if I want to say that he is floating in space, I want to give an explanation for why he is, if that makes sense.

I tend to write my stories with no specific timeline in mind

I guess that's probably where we differ, because I usually know exactly where what I'm writing falls in the timeline, even if the story doesn't make it so. I think with writing Ford (not that I ever have, so I could be talking total nonsense) what you say about writing stuff that's essentially set during season one, even if not explicitly, makes a lot of sense. I was thinking more about if someone wanted to set the story during later season events and include Ford - I think I'd want some kind of explanation for why he's there, or an AU tag so I knew it wasn't part of the canon we have now. But now I think I'm just rambling, so...

Why couldn't they have gotten it on before Ford left for the Pegasus Galaxy?

That does seem like a logical solution, which probably explains why it didn't occur to me :)

Here from metafandom

[sarah-frost.livejournal.com]

I think it...can work, on the premise of what I might call flavoured-AU. Someone gave a Stargate example of this recently, a Jane Austen alternate universe where Ronon's an earl and marries the middle-class John and people are shocked, not because gay marriage and black earls shouldn't exist but because one of them's been a bit of a playboy before and someone else was out to win Ronon's fortune. (I'm not a fan of the series, and so might have got some details wrong, but that was the gist of it.) And I wouldn't find it tough to get the fannish shorthand--here are these characters, here are their costumes for this event, here are bits of setting flavouring, but you see that the setting flavour has been mixed in with how things are between the characters in canon, and we don't need to go into what might've caused this alternate world's social standards because we can see that it's AU.

There's a difference between doing something that so obviously breaks the rules and doing something half-hearted that looks like it was trying to get it absolutely right. I think writers are allowed leeway on the blatant things, when they make an offer to the reader to just accept and move on, but not so much when they seem to be trying to get the reader to just assume it as history. (Like a Stargate AU like the above where everyone talks about dollars rather than pounds, maybe.)

Your example is canon character death, right? I think there's a fic genre called Timeline What Timeline, which use the device of placing the characters in "normal" setting for them, ignoring or using whatever episodes the author feels like. And that feels natural enough to me sometimes, like how canon could have been if it'd stopped at a certain point. My canon wasn't finished, and ended with one character in Dire Peril, but we write fics set at some unexplained point after that assuming that everyone we care about lived through it all. I understand the need for some sort of explanation, but if the labels are clear and the characters shine through enough I can see why the author wanted to get to the "good bits" as soon as possible, and join them in wanting to read it.

Re: Here from metafandom

[bluflamingo.livejournal.com]

See, now you give that example, I think I'd buy into quite happily, even though it's obviously "wrong", kind of like I bought into the idea of the stargate in the first place. Maybe because, as you said, it's obvioulsy a major difference in the world, and no-one could construe it as having got the details wrong by mistake. Like, I happily write in my own fantasy world, and trust that anyone who ever read it would accept that this was a different world, but with the example of openly gay military officers, I'd worry, because it would be quite a small detail in the world of the story, if people would just think I was making a mistake.

My canon wasn't finished, and ended with one character in Dire Peril, but we write fics set at some unexplained point after that assuming that everyone we care about lived through it all.

I suppose my example is a bit different, because things carried on after Ford was gone, so we know what happened next, that he got hooked on the enzyme and probably died on a hive ship, so I can't trust to people assuming that everything was fine because they know it wasn't. If SGA had finished at the end of season 1, or if I was writing it before we knew what happened next, it would be different... I suppose like that Timeline What Timeline thing you mentioned, taking things off at a certain point. But I think I'd still need to someone make it clear that was what I was doing, not just that I was ignoring what happened next, though that's probably more to do with my need to have things clear than anything else.