Please Give Advice: Alternate Universes

[melwil]

I've read a little alternate universe fiction lately, and it made me think. I haven't really written alt-fic, unless you count the M*A*S*H/Firefly crossover. And it's an area that I'd like to try my hand at.

So, what would your advice be? What are the 'tricks' to good alternate universe fan fic? What are the things to avoid? What is the best/worst things about alternate universe fic?

I wanna know!

Comments

[sangerin.livejournal.com]

It kinda depends, firstly, on how you define AU fanfic. The West Wing AU ficathon seems to have used four categories (although they included crossovers and "apocalypse fic" as two of the four... I can see where the apocafic comes in as an AU, simply because it's something we'd never, ever see in tWW canon...)

But I would say the two major types are über fic (like "This Wartime Mortality", which was brilliant) and what-if fics (what they called "canon forks" for the AU ficathon)... and yet the what-if has to be pretty major for that to be an AU in my mind. Zoe not being convicted, staying around and thus having to deal with Danny's death might count as an AU... Tom dying instead of Helen in 1.2...

I've written flat-out über fic (Beyond the Farthest Star, Voy, J/C) and a sort of über fic (La Clemenza di Caterina, Voy, J/C, which was sort of Mirror Universe, but not the established, canonical Trek MU). They're fun to write, but you've got to pick a scenario that really works... which is why somehow This Wartime Mortality is so damn brilliant: Jed and Leo run a theatre company in Chicago during the 50s, Josh is the arrogant but brilliant lead actor, Sam is the brand new writer brought in to work with Toby... with a big ensemble case you've got to have a comparable situation to canon, that lets everyone still "fit in" somehow, or else pare down the cast. Annik La Chev's "Campus" (I'll hunt down the link if you want it) really only uses Janeway and Seven, similar to what I did with "Beyond the Farthest Star", and puts them into an academic, 21st century context (in Germany)...

I'm rambling.

This could be a really interesting conversation if I could get past my rambling. Do you have a particular fandom in mind? Then we could toss ideas around.

[melwil.livejournal.com]

Spooks, is what I have in mind right now - though with WW finishing next week, there are ideas there, too.

I was thinking of 'what if's' with Spooks, because the show does hit such extremes. What if Fiona had been killed instead of Danny? What if she'd been killed as well as Danny?

I like 'what if's' *g*

[sangerin.livejournal.com]

"What if"'s can be terribly fun, although I admit that they seem somehow easier in Trek than in these very now-based fandoms I mostly write in these days.

Part of the AU thing is about being able to extrapolate into the new situation... how would Adam react if it had been Fiona instead of Danny? What would that do to him, to Harry, to Danny? (Ooh, that reminds me, I still haven't written guilt-complex-Fiona.)

Or say, if Tom had in fact been dead at the end of 2.10? Then you can have fun with working out how to bring in Adam and Fiona in a different way completely. Without Tom, would Mace have taken over, would Zoe still end up on trial? I always think it's about getting into the character's heads even more than usual, because you're possibly putting them through the *opposite* emotion than what they had in canon.

(When I saw the end of the final episode of tWW, my reaction was "okay, where's "The West Wing: The Next Administration"? Seven more years, please.") *g* And of course, the granddaddy "what-if" for West Wing, is that there's a whole alternate canon out there on the assumption that Vinick won. Which, so I'm told, was the original plan. Only when John died, they decided that Josh couldn't handle losing Leo and the election.

So in other words none of this is advice, it's just musings...

[londonsophie.livejournal.com]

Oops, I just wrote a whole long comment full of AU ideas and general excitement and then I realised that you mentioned you were behind with viewing where you are. So I've deleted it, and if you tell me where you are up to, I'll repeat it in a spoiler-free way!

[melwil.livejournal.com]

(You absolutely rock for remembering)

I saw 4.5 on Friday night, but for the sake of the journal, sangerin has only seen up to 3.10, so for now it's probably best to stay on that side of the canon.

[londonsophie.livejournal.com]

OK, so here we go again.

The thing I love about AU (and I think Spooks has lots of potential for AU fic) is where you take a single change and then try to follow(ish) the canon storyline, seeing how it would change. I've read some lovely ones in other fandoms where you can equate the first few scenes with canon scenes with just subtles changes...and then of course your story starts to diverge more and more.

Without spoiling for readers, you can imagine how 4.1/4,2 would unfold if Adam were absent post Fiona dying, or just unhinged by it. And if Danny were on the team, interacting with the new folk, etc - would it all have worked out the same by different methods - or not?

I think it could be great and look forward to reading it.