Pitfalls of Writing Fanfiction...A Ramble/Musing

[shadowkat]

In the midst of a horrid creative block aka writer's block? Well I guess they are the same thing. I think it's because I'm worrying about stuff and can't relax my mind enough to let the creative energies flow. Miss the writing. I get cranky without it. Even if it is crappy and no one but me sees it.

Speaking of writing...or rather reading and writing..

Fan-fiction. Been reading it again lately - because I have an itch and the books I currently own and am reading aren't quite scratching said itch. But that's irrelevant and not what this post is about.

The problem with fan-fiction, well outside of the whole copyright thing which I've discussed ad nasuem in other posts and am frankly bored of to be honest, is that you are writing about characters that have not only been well-established elsewhere but also have a rigorous and somewhat obsessive following amongst your readership. They've been established firmly in your readerships heads either by a writer, or a writer/artist, or a writer/artist/actor, etc. Writing a fan-fiction or even a legal sequel and/or adaptation to that original work - has pitfalls that you don't have to deal with if you write your own original story. Because when someone reads an original story with original characters, they usually aren't busy comparing them to the pre-established characters and/or story.



Example:

In 1991, Alexandra Ripley wrote a sequel to the famous Gone with the Wind entitled Scarlett - which was later made into a television movie. In the tv movie - Timothy Dalton played Rhett and Johanna Whalley-Kilmer played Scarlett. Go here for more:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlett_%28novel%29

I personally found it unwatchable. I did not try the book. And I admittedly have never made it through Gone With the Wind. But...I did find the original film version entertaining on a certain level. The sequel did not work.

Another example:

Pride and Prejudice - numerous adaptations have been made. The best in my opinion is probably A&E's with Colin Firth. The adaptation most people can't abide is Keira Knightly version, that came out recently, because it feels a bit too much like P&P meets Wuthering Heights.

The problem is - if you perceive the characters a specific way in your head, and the story that you are being given contradicts that - you are too busy rolling your eyes or arguing with the author to enjoy the story.

But adaptations - you can sort of give the benefit of the doubt to - they are after all, adaptations. Not continuations of the tale. It's basically no different than seeing ten different versions of the play MacBeth. It's still the same play, just different interpretations. Or like reading meta - you are getting another interpretation. Even published books like Wide Sargasso Sea (story of Rochester's first wife) or Ahab's Wife - get a broader benefit of the doubt or suspension of disbelief, because the writer is tackling characters that are not the leads - you are off talking about someone who the audience or reader is not close to or familiar with. It would be akin to say writing a fanfic about Vi or Rona or Nikki Wood or Dr. River Song in Doctor Who - the audience doesn't know enough about the character to argue with you over your interpretation of it.

Fanfiction about lead characters such as Rose Tyler, Doctor Who, Spike, Buffy, Angel, Spock, Kirk, etc...can cause problems. You have to be a bit more careful in how these characters are portrayed or you will lose the reader. Details are more important. Particularly since the majority of your readers wouldn't be reading the fic if they weren't overly familiar with the characters to begin with and had, well an itch to scratch.

That said, I think fanfiction may work better for the readers who have not spent a lot of time and energy analyzing the series or the characters. A reader who has, say, written a ten-fifteen page essay on the character of Spike - may be more critical of a fanfic about that character than a reader who just watched the tv show a couple of times. One reader is going to be more invested in their interpretation of the character than another. Same is true about other tv shows and characters.

I think this may explain the problems I'm having digesting darkapple's Imitation of A Man - a historical thriller about Spike and Buffy, which is well-written and fairly gripping, but her characterization of Spike, William and Buffy just are not working for me.

I keep arguing with the writer in my head. A couple of pages will go by, and I'll think okay, maybe...this isn't a problem, okay, give it a chance, it's just another interpretation, hey this could even be intriguing, and then wham! I'm sorry, that is just not true! What tv show did this person watch, anyhow? Spike did use weapons against other vampires and people - hello! School Hard. (Buffy to Spike, we don't need weapons do we? Spike looks at the pole that he has been considering skewering her with, and says, with a leer, but they make me feel all manly!) And what about the tire iron he used to beat in Angelus' head in Becoming? Did you even watch the show? Or, hello, Spike killed more than just two slayers. Where were you during S2?? And no, his father didn't die when he was sixteen - that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, did you completely ignore Lies My Parents Told Me? The father left them. It's obvious - from the song - Early One Morning. Hello! Why do you think Spike has this thing about abandoning women? While you can argue father dying at sixteen could work - if you listen to that song, not so much. The relationship between William and his mother was mutually destructive - she played a major role in it and it is to a degree reflected in his relationships with both Buffy and Drusilla. Sigh. You begin to see my dilemma. It's amusing actually. And it happens to me quite a bit when I read fanfic - I find myself arguing with the writer in my head. Grudge fics drive me crazy and so far this one isn't doing that as far as I can tell, although I'm guessing the writer doesn't think much of Riley or Angel, from small somewhat weird references to them.

There's been very few fanfics that I've read in which I'm not arguing with the writer. Rarihah's fic - Raising in the Sun, Necessary Evils, and POM - kept me engrossed with barely a flutter. I don't find myself arguing - no way this would happen or what the fuck? And unbridled b's fic - I had relatively few problems with, I argued a bit with her interpretations of the Scoobies and Buffy in the present, but she managed to make up for that and I let them go.

I think this may be the reason people have troubles with films based on books they adored to the point of memorization. If the actors and the direction of the presentation does not fit the movie in their heads, how they saw the story, they will find it unwatchable and spend the whole time arguing with the people adapting it.

I haven't given up on the aforementioned fic, but it is bugging me. I've spent too much time thinking about the characters, they are too familiar to me for me to accept a version of them that does not comply with what I believe to be true. It's hard to let go of my interpretation and look at it from another angle. And being a stubborn highly opinionated person probably doesn't help.

That's the thing about perception or pov or whatever you want to call it - it is so hard to let go of own's pov or interpretation to see another pov, particularly when it contradicts or doesn't quite jibe. You find yourself arguing with that other pov in your head. Or at least I do. Not sure this is a problem for anyone else. Possibly not - since the other issue I'm having reading this fic is the need to keep skipping over 40 to 50 positive comments in order to get to the next part. People seem to adore it to pieces. So maybe it's just me?? (shrugs)

At any rate, this may sound a bit presumptuous (my new favorite word)? But I'm guessing that I'm not alone in how I respond to fic - I think if the characters don't jibe with how you perceive them in some major way, you will be taken out of the story. It's not like seeing Buffy for the first time on tv - you are new to it, you have no established preconceptions. But when you pick up the comics or say a fanfic, after having watched all the episodes of the series, probably more than once, maybe even written essays or your own fanfic on it - then yes, if something doesn't jibe, you're out of the story, no longer enjoying it. Rolling your eyes. Or at least I am.

(I'm reading this thing via my Kindle - which requires a bit of finagling. Yes, I've figured out how to use the Kindle to read non-Amazon related stories, for free, online. Which apparently no one else has figured out how to do. Something I find to be rather bewildering - since I'm hardly a techie. In other words - if I can figure it out, so can you. ;-) )

Comments

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

I think you've got a couple of issues going on here. One is that reading fic that seems to have no respect for the source material is infuriating. This has come up with other meta-ish writingss lately in lots of ways. Such as, how reading about Buffy's blue eyes (or Drusilla's brown ones) immediately takes you out of the story. I've read about the green(?)-colored stone in Spike's Chosen amulet, when it's obviously clear. Certain things are just facts. So, when I read the statement that Drusilla never wore a corset in a fic set in the Victorian era, I've just gotta say: Wha? There are pictures, fer chrissakes! It's lazy to not do the minimal amount of research. It's not optional. Of course, some of these types of things could easily be adjusted by a beta, which makes it even more annoying that they weren't.

I never read fanfic until I had watched the entire series. Twice. I read fanfic because I'm not ready for those characters to not be there. I wanted to know more about their story. When people get sloppy, and disregard what is clearly there on the screen, I get miffed. Admittedly, I am a canon whore. Ask anybody. I once read an official BtVS novel about Spike and Dru in the earlier half of the 20th century. Totally my kind of thing. Except that, in the finale, Spike kills a Slayer. Not the Chinese Slayer. Not Nikki Woods. Another Slayer. Which completely ruined the book for me. They should've sold it with "NOT CANON COMPLIANT" on the cover. In sparkles.

Then, there is the issue of characterization, which is IMO far more open to interpretation. I've read really well-written stories by people just as obsessed with canon as I, who had a 24-year-old Buffy acting like her 16-year-old self. It's hard to know where to dig into the matter in a case like that. It largely comes down to: I don't like this take on the character. I don't like bashing. I don't like to read about people of one dimension. There's a looooong list of what I don't want to read, but I also don't have any illusions that my take on the characters is universal, and I accept that different people are looking for different things. So, I just back away when presented with a version that veers too wildly from my own personal "acceptable" spectrum.

Then there is the very interesting issue of thoughtful meta writers coming to not-exactly-obvious conclusions, and internalizing them as fact. Your "Early One Morning" idea was entirely fascinating to me, and seemed solid, but enters my brain as interesting possibility, rather than facts like Buffy's eyes are green/hazel, Spike killed two Slayers. I see conflicting evidence for Anne having been abandoned, the most obvious of which is her comfortable living conditions. It would be an unusual abandonment that didn't involve taking the assets along with the physical presence. Dying is the most obvious of these possibilities. I guess I'm saying that I have no dog in that particular fight, though the interesting metas and meta!fics I have read do inform my readings and writings. In fact, it might be the exploration of these interpretations of the facts that make for the most interesting fics out there.

Go you!

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I see conflicting evidence for Anne having been abandoned, the most obvious of which is her comfortable living conditions. It would be an unusual abandonment that didn't involve taking the assets along with the physical presence. Dying is the most obvious of these possibilities.

I suppose you can argue it the opposite way.

The song and the way the character acted - fit abandonment more than dying. Spike would have reacted differently after he got resurrected in Angel - if his father had died. He'd have told Buffy he was alive and done something about it. I guess you can argue it the other way. But for me? The author's depiction of William's father dying when he was 16 - doesn't quite work with the song or the characterization or the themes in the story - it rings false on so many levels that the characters become OOC. If it weren't for the folk song - "oh never leave me, oh don't decieve me, how can you treat a fair maiden so" - note it is NOT - "oh never leave me, how could you leave me," nor is it a fair maiden in the cememtary below, but rather a fair maiden down in the valley below.

Now it is more than possible the person who left is not William's father, but a suitor who came afterwards. But I doubt it. And note, Anne's father could have had money and only one daughter and left her with the house and enough money to keep up the servants, or for that matter William could be making a much better living than we think - we are assuming he had a low paying job, we don't know.

For me, the story makes more sense if the father abandoned them than simply died. It fits the cloying mother...did she drive him away? And it fits the song...because the question no one appears to be asking is why did the mother sing William that particular song and do it repeatedly? Not why did the First pick it, we know that, but why did the mother? And also the show is about Buffy - who has men leave...which makes the connection between Buffy and Spike even more interesting, both had sick mothers, both had fathers that abandoned their mothers...both were middle class in their time period. That may explain why they gravitated to each other and understood one another in a way that others did not.

though the interesting metas and meta!fics I have read do inform my readings and writings. In fact, it might be the exploration of these interpretations of the facts that make for the most interesting fics out there.

I totally get that and agree. It is to a degree why I wrote what I did above...to figure it out.

And thank you for your response. I deleted my first one because I wanted to articulate this better, not sure I have. ;-)

[next_to_normal]

Word to pretty much all of that. I'm a canon whore, too. :)

Then there is the very interesting issue of thoughtful meta writers coming to not-exactly-obvious conclusions, and internalizing them as fact.

Yeah... it's one thing to believe in one interpretation and to write fic based on that interpretation, but I start to have big, big problems when you tell me that my interpretation is wrong because it doesn't match yours, when there's no explicit proof either way in canon. If my fic doesn't work for you because it contradicts your interpretation, that's your deal, but don't try to tell me I'm doing it wrong. :-P

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Hm, very intriguing post.

Fo me weirdly enough it is a bit the other way round. I'm usually very critical of movies made out of books I love and I'd never touch a continuation of a book I love by another author (though I read some summeries of P&P continuations on amazon for the lulz). Usually when I love a story I spin it on in my head, but mostly I analyze it.

With Buffy though I needed it to go on, I couldn't go without and that is what got me into fanfiction and also what made me appreciate it. At the beginning I stuck with stories that kept very true to the shows canon, but the more I read the more I understood the fascination of just exploring a detail of canon, or of changing quite a lot.

Of course there's a lot of badfic out there, but a lot of fic is extremely thought through even if it dumps some aspects of the show completely and I find I can accept that better with Buffy than I can with any other thing I ever saw or read, mainly because I never obsessed quite that much about anything else.

For example there's a lot of slash fic I like to read, particularly centering around spike/angel. If you really stick to canon there is no slashy fanged four past for them (except for that one time), yet that particular invention of fanon works with so many scenes from the show, would explain so much that it intrigues me. It's a focus on just some aspects and I can enjoy it even if it contradicts other aspects.

But I see how it's a turn off if the author is just thoughtless of course.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

For example there's a lot of slash fic I like to read, particularly centering around spike/angel. If you really stick to canon there is no slashy fanged four past for them (except for that one time), yet that particular invention of fanon works with so many scenes from the show, would explain so much that it intrigues me. It's a focus on just some aspects and I can enjoy it even if it contradicts other aspects.

I like this stuff too. Slash fic is actually fascinating to me. And I've read quite a bit of it. Spander, Spangel, Fuffy, and Githan (Giles/Ethan). Of course I have to be able to visualize it - as subtextual in cannon, for it to work for me. I can see Spike/Xander - there's quite a bit of subtextual references in S4, S5, and S7. I also can see Spike and Angel, a lot of subtextual and blatant references in both series, also the writer more or less states they probably had that type of relationship at one point - that one is obvious, even if I prefer them written as brothers as opposed to lovers.

With Buffy though I needed it to go on, I couldn't go without and that is what got me into fanfiction and also what made me appreciate it. At the beginning I stuck with stories that kept very true to the shows canon, but the more I read the more I understood the fascination of just exploring a detail of canon, or of changing quite a lot.

I'm somewhat the same way. And I've read a lot of AU, even a couple of Everybody is Human fics. So hardly that particular...

I think fanfic is harder to pull off than people think. There is admittedly something playful about it - and experimental. Fanfic is in some respects a safe way of figuring out how to write a story and what might appeal to a wide audience. But the good fanfics - I think - have to be careful with details or they risk kicking the reader out of the story.

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

The father left them.

I thought about it a lot. Given that divorce was extremely hard in Victorian era

http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/agunn/teaching/enl3251/vf/pres/hurvitz.htm

it should have been something extraordinary to make William's father to seek divorce. Something crucial for William. Something that would give him serious father issues.

Of course, there are glimpses of father issues in Tabula Rasa in his scenes with Giles. But I still think that William's father died.

As to characterization - I write glaringly OOC Buffy and Spike. I know they're OOC. I write them the way I enjoy - funny and fluffy. I used to think I can't write serious fanfiction at all until I wrote a Xander-centric fic. In canon Xander is often used as comic relief, and my fic turned out to be angsty and dark. After that experience I came to conclusion that my kink is compensating for canon. :)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

it should have been something extraordinary to make William's father to seek divorce. Something crucial for William. Something that would give him serious father issues.

I don't think it was divorce or death, so much as a type of abandonment. Remember this was the Victorian Age - it was possible for men to leave for long stretches of time, often forever and not come back. Many men left for India with the troops. Or they were merchants working overseas.

I don't get the sense that his father died - because if that was the case, Spike would have issues with dying in Chosen or dying and leaving Buffy. Or being killed by Drusilla.

While it is possible the father died of "TB" as the mother eventually would have, my guess is it was simple abandonment, with no divorce. Often when someone was abandoned, families would take care of them.

This was the time of Bram Stoker's Dracula and Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. In those novels women are abandoned, but taken care of by family.

It is also possible that the father died overseas...possibly more likely.

Obviously, I've thought about Spike more than most. ;-)

As to characterization - I write glaringly OOC Buffy and Spike. I know they're OOC. I write them the way I enjoy - funny and fluffy. I used to think I can't write serious fanfiction at all until I wrote a Xander-centric fic. In canon Xander is often used as comic relief, and my fic turned out to be angsty and dark. After that experience I came to conclusion that my kink is compensating for canon. :)

Interesting. I think for me, I'm more interested in exploring the gaps in the canon, the bits left unresolved. Like how would Buffy react if she knew what Spike had been like as a human? If she knew where he'd come from. That's a kink of mine. And unanswered in the series. Or what was the relationship between Spike and Angelus prior to the events of the tv series Buffy? Why did Spike call Angelus - his yoda, and why did they embrace? And why didn't Angel ever stake Spike?

In fic, I look for the bits that were left unanswered. A deeper exploration of the character.

Another example - with Xander - what would this character be like if he went dark? What if he got turned as a vampire?

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

I haven't started reading darkapple's fic, yet, so let me just share general thoughts.

I run into similar problems quite often. Especially now where I'm going back and reading older fics, a lot of which were written while the show was still airing. So there's elements in the fics that got Jossed later (especially fics written pre-FFL). And I know I need to just get over it because it's unfair to judge those fics on the basis of canon that wasn't written yet. But it rubs me the wrong way when I see someone making human!William a rough n' tumble bloke in their pre-FFL fics. Cause that's just not William.

I have a much less tolerance for that sort of stuff for newer fics that should know canon. Course, there's always degrees on that. There's some stuff that blatantly contradicts canon (eye color and such). Then there's other stuff that just goes against my interpretation. When I first got into fandom, this wasn't such a big deal. But now that I've written a lot about how I see the show and have given it a great deal of time and energy, it bothers me to see a fanfic that goes against it.

Course, the one that annoys me most are S6 or S7 fics where Buffy has to Take Responsibility for how horribly she treated Spike to the point where I've read a couple fics where she apologized to him for the AR (which boggled and angered me and made me stop reading).

But I think there's a few different ways to approach fanfic. For someone like me, it's a way to explore canon, so it follows that I'll enjoy fics that stick very closer to canon characterization and events (even if the fic eventually goes AU). For other people, canon is just a leaping off point, and they don't feel particularly obligated to stick close to it.

Which is...well, whatever works for you. There's a lot of fic out there so there's no harm in passing over something to try another one. :)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Course, the one that annoys me most are S6 or S7 fics where Buffy has to Take Responsibility for how horribly she treated Spike to the point where I've read a couple fics where she apologized to him for the AR (which boggled and angered me and made me stop reading).

Ah yes. I know exactly what you are talking about and have run into quite a few of these fics. It drives me crazy. And darkapple's fic, which does take place prior to Seeing Red, has a heavy "Buffy must take responsibility for her horrid treatment of Spike" theme and Spike has done no wrong and is this poor put-upon pitbull that Buffy is kicking - which I am admittedly struggling with. I stopped reading it initially, but several flisters whose judgment I trust, sparked my curiousity when they told me that the fic takes a left hand turn and goes in a direction you would never imagine - and I just need to hang in there.

I'm just using darkapple's as an example. I can actually appreciate where this writer is coming from - the fic literally starts in the alley in Dead Things after Buffy has figured out Warren killed Katrina. Buffy's comes back to check on Spike who is lying in a bloody heap behind the trash can. There are others out there that are much much worse. I think I've seen the one you are referring to.

But I think there's a few different ways to approach fanfic. For someone like me, it's a way to explore canon, so it follows that I'll enjoy fics that stick very closer to canon characterization and events (even if the fic eventually goes AU). For other people, canon is just a leaping off point, and they don't feel particularly obligated to stick close to it.

I agree. And I admittedly like both to a degree, but find as time moves on...that I prefer the ones that stick closer to canon.
I think it is for the same reasons you state here:

When I first got into fandom, this wasn't such a big deal. But now that I've written a lot about how I see the show and have given it a great deal of time and energy, it bothers me to see a fanfic that goes against it.

I think the more I've written about it, the harder it is for me to read fic that goes against my own view of it or rather what I want from it.

That said, there's obviously something in this one that I am curious about because I haven't given up on it yet, even though there are bits that are driving me crazy - but nothing that would make me give up. You are correct there are degrees. For example - I've discovered that I cannot stick with a fic that describes characters by their hair color. (eg - "The redheaded witch watched the the blond vampire bite into his blood bag.") I also can't read one that I find the depiction of the characters offensive - or character bashing.

This one hasn't done either of those things yet. And the Buffy must take responsibility for treating Spike poorly, because he's my poor woobly theme - is not that overt, it's there, but not in a way that makes me stop reading entirely. I was able to skip over a good portion of it. (I am doing a lot of scanning.) ;-)

[next_to_normal]

And darkapple's fic, which does take place prior to Seeing Red, has a heavy "Buffy must take responsibility for her horrid treatment of Spike" theme and Spike has done no wrong and is this poor put-upon pitbull that Buffy is kicking - which I am admittedly struggling with.

Yeah, that totally did not make me want to read that fic - I'll be honest, I started reading and thought, "Why on earth is this getting recced all over my flist?" I made it as far as the magic resiring thing (which seemed way, way too much like claiming by another name), and then I threw my hands in the air and gave up.

[ubi4soft.livejournal.com]

Hi. I'm not a creative person just a consumer and if I don't like something I'll just stop reading it (about the fic you mention it, I stopped reading before any victorian era due to Buffy's ginormous apologizing stuff).

I saw you did some SF reviews (currently lurking through your 2004 posts) and I'm wondering what you think about Stalker (Tarkovsky) and Roadside Picnic (A&B Strugatsky). They're both brilliant yet, according to Tarkovsky, the film has nothing in common with the novel except for the two words Stalker and Zone.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Haven't read either of those writers or seen the films, will definitely have to check them out. Thanks for pointing them out.

And yes, I initially gave up on the Imitation of Man fic due to Buffy's ginormous apologizing - then because my curiousity got sparked jumped back again (I skipped most of the first section). I'm actually doing a lot skimming and scanning. This fic has a lot of problems. We'll see how far I make it before I give up again and move onto to something else. I'm thinking another plunge into the Barbverse or maybe I'll hunt down those two writers you suggested.

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

what you think about Stalker (Tarkovsky) and Roadside Picnic (A&B Strugatsky). They're both brilliant yet, according to Tarkovsky, the film has nothing in common with the novel except for the two words Stalker and Zone.

Especially if we take into consideration that the script had been rewritten 8 or nine times, the initial quasi-desert location had been replaced by industrial wasteland and the actual movie had been shot twice (the phenomenon possible only in Soviet Russia). :)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Alexandra Ripley's "Scarlett" was excrement, and it really violated the first rule of fanfic which is you need to focus on what brought the readers there in the first place. She left the South. She barely had Rhett in it. Scarlett wasn't...well... Scarlett. It was just plastering the name of characters into an entirely different fic.

And no, his father didn't die when he was sixteen - that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, did you completely ignore Lies My Parents Told Me?

Yeah... and I'm not sure why that doesn't make speculative sense. I don't think canon ever thoughtfully or substantially weighed in on the subject.

The father left them. It's obvious - from the song - Early One Morning. Hello! Why do you think Spike has this thing about abandoning women?

Except this is interpretation. I could totally buy your view in a fic or in interpretive meta, but there is nothing in text that makes this explicit. And I've never seen anything from Fury that he ever gave a thought to it when he wrote the episode (Hell, read his original post episode interview and you aren't even sure that he wrote the episode we thought we saw!) It's an interpretation, which is perfectly appropriate, except that we can't expect everyone to have the same interpretations. Unless it's something that is explicit in the text, I think we have to allow for a range of interpretations. Otherwise the only fic that will ever satisfy us is our own.

That said, I too can be very opinionated and sometimes I read a highly recc'd fic and go WTF? These aren't the characters I knew! That's fanfic for you. :)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

That said, I too can be very opinionated and sometimes I read a highly recc'd fic and go WTF? These aren't the characters I knew! That's fanfic for you. :)

Exactly.

Except this is interpretation. I could totally buy your view in a fic or in interpretive meta, but there is nothing in text that makes this explicit. And I've never seen anything from Fury that he ever gave a thought to it when he wrote the episode (Hell, read his original post episode interview and you aren't even sure that he wrote the episode we thought we saw!) It's an interpretation, which is perfectly appropriate, except that we can't expect everyone to have the same interpretations. Unless it's something that is explicit in the text, I think we have to allow for a range of interpretations. Otherwise the only fic that will ever satisfy us is our own.

Actually it is in numerous interviews - and Fury states off hand that Joss Whedon selected the song Early One Morning and told the writers exactly what he wanted them to do with it. Whedon read every script during S7 and made a big deal about Early One Morning. He also told the writers what to do with the flashbacks.

Whedon based a great deal of Spike on his own background - raised by a single Mom in England, who died of Cancer when he was in his 20s.
It's in the interviews.

Also the song is pretty explicit. As are the flashbacks, where the father is NEVER mentioned. Spike acts he didn't have one. And Spike's reaction to Giles - as well as the way he deals with male father figure - connotes a man who has issues.

Fury may not have thought about it - but Joss Whedon did. And said as much.

(Sigh, yes, I've spent far too much time reading writer interviews and essays...I even have a huge essay referencing these interviews in footnotes. LOL!)

[rahirah]

I have categories. There are stories where I can say "That's my Spike and Buffy!" without a qualm. And there are stories (and Darkapple's falls into this category for me, along with Herself and Mustang Sally and quite a lot of very well-regarded fan writers) where I say, "That's a Spike and Buffy." There are points of characterization or fanon I don't agree with, but it's close enough that I can enjoy the story on its own merits.

(And then there's the "Who are these people again?" stories.)

There's a difference to me between stuff which actually contradicts canon (Spike never using weapons) and extrapolations from canon that I wouldn't personally go with, for whatever reason. I think that William's father leaving them is a plausible extrapolation from canon, but it is by no means the only plausible extrapolation. I have a whole slew of head fanon about William's father which will probably never make it into a story because of the possibility of getting Jossed....

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Hee, I found myself nodding along with your comment. Thanks for it.

I think writing as much meta as I have on this...has to a degree made me somewhat picky.

There's a difference to me between stuff which actually contradicts canon (Spike never using weapons) and extrapolations from canon that I wouldn't personally go with, for whatever reason. I think that William's father leaving them is a plausible extrapolation from canon, but it is by no means the only plausible extrapolation. I have a whole slew of head fanon about William's father which will probably never make it into a story because of the possibility of getting Jossed....

Oh sooo true. I admittedly can deal with different interpretations of the William's father bit, the Buffy's profusely apologizing and biting of Spike was a bit harder to swallow with a straight face (I gave up and just skimmed). I'm still reading...but that's because I'm curious to see how the writer works her way out of the conundrum that she's put her characters in. There's bits in it that are quite intriguing.

[joe-sweden.livejournal.com]

I always assumed William's father died - in my imagination, he was a rather inept junior officer out somewhere in the empire who caught a fever and snuffed it when William was little. I don't know why, that's just the picture I've always had in my head.

I think that various interpretations could work though.I find analysing Spike's layering of class fascinating - rejection by polite society leading to rejection of polite society... I imagined that his status in his circle isn't just about him being a, well, prat, but also about him being a Pratt - that there's something a little lower down the pecking order about his family. Perhaps his father was disgraced? Perhaps they're simply financially embarassed (compared to his peers)... or...well, there's lots that could be explored.

I think one of the reasons I love reading fanfic is that there are certain areas that are unspoken in the show, and I enjoy seeing how others fill in the blanks.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I think one of the reasons I love reading fanfic is that there are certain areas that are unspoken in the show, and I enjoy seeing how others fill in the blanks.

I think that's why I read fic as well. I find the whole filling in the blanks interesting.

I always assumed William's father died - in my imagination, he was a rather inept junior officer out somewhere in the empire who caught a fever and snuffed it when William was little. I don't know why, that's just the picture I've always had in my head.

This interpretation works for me better than darkapple's and others proposed. And one I've flirted with.

I liked the parallel structure of William's family life to Buffy's.
While Angel's sort of parallel's Cordelia's and to a degree Xander's in the series.

Buffy's father leaves her and her mother (its divorce, but he is gone,and she feels abandoned by him), left to care for her sick mother in later years. William's father is equally gone, and there is a feel of abandonment, and he is left to care for his sick mother in later years.
The writers throughout the commentary in S6 and S7 repeat that Spike is Buffy's true counterpart. And I think that's why I prefer the interpretation that the father abandoned. If he died overseas - that also works within the abandonment theme - it wasn't deliberate perhaps, but it is far more traumatic than if he died when William was 16.
Carries more weight. (shrugs).

[jamalov29.livejournal.com]

I've spent too much time thinking about the characters, they are too familiar to me for me to accept a version of them that does not comply with what I believe to be true. It's hard to let go of my interpretation and look at it from another angle.
I think it’s where many people stand , maybe even more those who have been here in fandom for several years and have read a lot of meta and fics.
We expect a characterization to be done according to our own standards. And then comes the problem : what is true to me isn’t true to someone else. But interpretation of the characters is a road widely open so it never bothered me.. I mean if I find myself thinking :hee, "my" Spike would never do this ,repeatedly, I give up on reading.

But I'm guessing that I'm not alone in how I respond to fic - I think if the characters don't jibe with how you perceive them in some major way, you will be taken out of the story. You're not alone. I gave up on Anaross's fic sometimes whereas the majority seemed perfectly happy.Yet with My life closed twice she brought me to reading paradise( with lots of suffering on the way)
It's the same with Imitation of the Man : I simply adored that gorgeous work. I also completely understand why some others don't want to read it.
Like Gabrielleabelle said : whatever works ! :)

[lusciousxander.livejournal.com]

I love sticking to canon. I love writing those characters in character, hate character bashing as it ruins the story and makes it simple. It's so easy to write Xander as the ass who stands in the way of Buffy and Spike's true love, it's much harder to write a well-balanced Xander that is not really the obstacle between Buffy and Spike's true love.

I think my biggest difficulty in writing a good story is my English language, it's not strong, I keep getting things mixed, and I've tried to improve by taking many grammar quizzes in a lot of sites, but I still face a lot of problems. Making jokes can be really hard when I don't live in either America or England. I try to improve, the best thing I can do about it is getting as many betas as possible to beta for me. Though I have to say, I'm a much better writer now than when I first started, still got a long way to go, but I'm satisfied with where I am now.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

If English isn't your first language? May I just say that you write brilliantly? I am incredibly impressed with the people online who are writing in English as their second language. English is a difficult language to learn and write in well, those of us who claim it as a first language struggle with it.

I can't write in any language other than English. So, also, a bit envious. No facility for languages at all - I attempted French, but after six years, finally gave up. I can read it and understand some spoken French, but that's it.

It's interesting, the people I've seen online who write in English as a second language are often more careful than those of us who claim it as the language of our birth.

As for jokes? They are hard to do well. I joke all the time in my lj, but snark just does not come across well on the internet without emoticons. ;-)

hate character bashing as it ruins the story and makes it simple. It's so easy to write Xander as the ass who stands in the way of Buffy and Spike's true love, it's much harder to write a well-balanced Xander that is not really the obstacle between Buffy and Spike's true love.

So true. In complete agreement with you on this point. The story is far more interesting if Xander is not written in that manner. Grudge fic certainly has it's place - a way to vent. But it doesn't have universal appeal and tends to turn me off.

Not sure how reassuring this is? But character bashing and grudge fic is not isolated to the Buffy fandom. Actually we're fairly tame in comparison to certain other fandom's I've seen.

[lynnalso.livejournal.com]

Wait - you can use your Kindle for things not Amazon? How did you do it?!!!

Actually I like Darkapple and isn't it a male author? Though the complete draining of Spike's blood boggles me. That is alot of liquid to fit in her stomach :)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Wait - you can use your Kindle for things not Amazon? How did you do it?!!!.

Of course. It has a google search engine. ;-)

How? Simple. I clicked Home, then clicked Menu, then clicked Search. Put "Imitation of a Man by darkapple" then scrolled to google - then clicked it. It searched and pulled up several selections. I choose the one that looked the most likely to be a fic, selected it. Went to that page. Scrolled. Selected. Hit. Got the first chapter. Hit Next.
Etc.

It's actually easier with sites like All About Spike - because you don't have to deal with the comments downloading to your system or accidentally hitting them. Fanfic.net is a bit of a pain - but you can read stuff there as well. It is problematic for reading my own lj - because my password has a symbol in it and the Kindle hates symbols.

But yes, you can definitely get things that aren't through Amazon. I read three novel length tales from the Barbverse, and am on Chapter Nine of darkapple's fic. They have a google search engine and free wireless. You can also access wiki and numerous blogs. Just search for them via the google.

(That's the reason I wanted the Amazon Kindle - because I'd read it had 3G Wireless and the ability to read blogs online and it does. )

Actually I like Darkapple and isn't it a male author? Though the complete draining of Spike's blood boggles me. That is alot of liquid to fit in her stomach :)

Couldn't access the profile. Why do you think it is a male author?
I can't remember why I thought female - I'm guessing the rec's I got listed darkapple as female.