A Question for Fanficcers

[steepholm]

Is there a term in common use to distinguish fics consistent with canon (e.g. "Neville and his Grandmother Pack his Bags the Night before he first goes to Hogwarts") from those that contradict it (e.g. "After the Final Victory of the Death Eaters, Draco decides to Employ Ron Weasley as his Houseboy")?

Comments

[lilliburlero]

Others may have different answers, but I'd use 'canon-compliant' for the first case, and if it's an event that is referred to but not described in canon it might also be tagged 'missing scene'. Your second example sounds to me like 'canon-divergent A[lternate]U[niverse]': i.e. takes place in a world that is changed because a crucial event has gone a different way from in canon.

[jadelennox]

I agree, though some fandoms wouldn't bother to call the latter AU; it often depends how much of their corpus tends that way, anyway.

Fanlore gives examples of AU, including:

The most strictly defined AUs may diverge from their source canons in a single specific way (for example, a Star Wars AU in which the first Death Star is not destroyed, a Merlin AU in which Merlin comes to Camelot as an agent of Nimueh, or a Castle AU in which Johanna Beckett was not murdered). More broadly, an AU may transplant a given source work's characters to a radically different setting, shift the genre in which their adventures occur, and/or alter their professions and goals, such as those popularized in the Xena: Warrior Princess "Uber" genre.

There's some fascinating taxonomies in that article.

[steepholm]

Thanks - I shall burrow into it!

[nixwilliams]

Yep, the first would be canon compliant/missing scene and the second could be an AU.

However, as jadelennox points out, an AU often takes elements of canon and puts them into a completely different setting (e.g. "Harry Potter is running in the county council elections with the help of his brilliant campaign manager Hermione Granger, but local gentleman farmer and man about town Draco Malfoy has been put forward to contest the seat for the Conservatives and is proving a wily rival" or "Molly Weasley runs a chaotic but popular cafe in Warren Street with the haphazard assistance of her twin sons, George and Fred. When a disheveled young homeless boy named Harry arrives on the scene, they decide to offer him a job").

[nixwilliams]

Now I kind of want to read those two fics.

[steepholm]

There's only one way to make that happen...

[nixwilliams]

Bat my eyelashes at you until you oblige? :D :D :D

[steepholm]

Thank you. "Canon compliant" has a nice ring.

[legionseagle]

I use "canon-compliant" and "divergent universe" with an Author's Note, if I'm feeling charitable, to explain the point of divergence: "Canon compliant up to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire; divergent after that. People alive who are not in canon and vice versa."

[steepholm]

Thank you. It's good to get a report from the field!

[ashkitty]

At this point I'd use AU for the second one, but I wouldn't have back when I was writing Harry Potter fanfic, because the series hadn't finished yet. I'm more used to 'missing scene' for the first but obviously canon-compliant is also perfectly usable.

ETA: When this actually came up (I was beginning a long adventure tail of what might have happened if Bran had gone with Arthur instead of staying behind), I just called it a 'What if?' But that was a long time ago, and terminology has probably changed.

[steepholm]

Thanks, ashkitty! As a matter of interest, did your story follow Bran to Avalon, or stay with Will in Wales? Or both?

[ashkitty]

It followed Bran, though Will did join him a few chapters in. Bran realise time doesn't pass in the castle beyond the north wind, and basically goes off on a coming-of-age quest so he can grow up. It took some stuff from the rhamantau and Culhwch ac Olwen...they were just about to reach the Stag of Rhedenvre when I got overwhelmed with coursework and let it slide. Now, of course, I know much more than I did then, so it's the one lost fic I still intend to go back and rewrite and finish. The ending is quite different from what I'd originally planned, now that I am more familiar with the sources I'm stealing from!

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Fanlore has all the latest shorthand in fan fiction terms, I believe.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thank you! A treasure house...

[grondfic.livejournal.com]

I've seen 'canon compliant' used; and for the opposite, the good old 'AU' covers a multitude of sins.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Canon-compliant sounds good. AU may be just a little too broad, but I'll see if it can be refined.

[gillo]

Not many simple terms, but "Starts in S5 canon but goes rapidly AU" is one I see quite often (many variations, obvs). I've seen "off-canon" a few times but don't really like it. "[A canon event] never happened" is another.

Canon-compliant is good. "Doesn't comply with[comics, a given series/episode/book]" is fairly common.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Interesting. What does S5 stand for?

[gillo]

"S" stands for "season" of a TV show. (You may have noticed that's what I write.)

In a fandom based on TV, a sequence of films or a long sequence of novels it is also common to use initials for a specific point from which the fic springs off. Thus, a story based on "What if Spike had killed Wood in LMPTM?" Or "How Philippa might have got home at the end of PiF", or " Boromir survived the orc attack in TTT". Code because fanfic is mostly consumed by people with very significant shared knowledge and thus easily recognise references. ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer ", Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond stories and " The Lord of the Rings" in the unlikely event that you didn't recognise any of those references.)

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

blamebrampton and electricwitch are fanfic writers and would know more, should I lead them here or you there?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Thanks - I may well ask you to do just that for the follow-up questions that will inevitably, er, follow. But I think I've got my answer for this one, thanks to my lovely flist.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

'Canon compliant' means what it sounds like. If it goes away from canon, it's generally referred to as 'canon divergence'.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you! I like the symmetry of canon divergence better than AU, which sounds too broad a term.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Yes, and AU generally means wildly different to canon - I write a LOT of AUs (whichever fandom I'm in!) - often historical ('cos that's my thing). But I do also write canon divergences where the story jumps the tracks at a particular point in canon, and goes off and does its own thing (or the characters do! *rolls eyes*)

[forochel.livejournal.com]

I see all questions have been answered so I just want to say I WOULD READ THAT FIC. THE SECOND ONE. Actually the first one, too. BOTH OF THEM!