"Tainting the canon"; one author's philosophy of fanfic

[Horst or Rebecca J. Bohner]

I know a lot of talented authors, including some published ones, who got
their start in fanfic and still dabble in it on occasion.  So I certainly
don't think of reading fan fiction as a waste of time.  There are some
amazingly gifted DOCTOR WHO and X-FILES writers out there, for instance,
whose stories are actually superior to many episodes of the parent works.
Sometimes when I've come across a particularly lame episode of the original,
I find my outraged feelings are soothed by reading a really good fanfic.
(Some decent fanfics might have gone a long way toward calming me down after
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST went bust in the third season.)

At the same time, I have never had any experience of "tainting the canon"
for myself by reading fanfic.  There's no question in my mind as to what is
real or "official" in terms of the parent work, and what is an author's
invention.  If I come across a really excellent fic which stays true to the
characters and the spirit of the parent work, and does not contradict
anything in the canon, I may make it part of my "personal canon", adopting
it as a pet theory until or unless it is explicitly contradicted by the
parent work.  But once it's clear that there is an irreconcilable conflict
between the fanfic and its source, I have no difficulty in separating the
latter from the former.

Admittedly, it's easier to make the separation when the parent medium is
different from the child medium, which is true of TV shows like WHO and XF
but not true of a written original like HP.  But even so, I have yet to come
across a piece of HP fanfic that has even come close to tainting the canon
for me.  And I've only found one so far that I felt I could make part of my
personal canon.  But even that's only until further notice:  if JKR gives us
a contradictory set of details about the Weasleys' courtship in a future
book, then in my mind "A Night on the Town" will go back to the status of
well-written, enjoyable, but ultimately erroneous speculation -- or I'll
stick it in the mental file folder marked "alternate universe".

All of which is to say that I don't think there's really any need for people
to avoid fanfic for fear of getting it confused with JKR's work.  Frankly,
very little of it is good enough for that.  I have more sympathy with people
who simply don't want to wade through a lot of cheesy plots and bad writing
in search of the occasional gem.  It seems to be a lot harder to find good
HP fic than it is to find good XF or DOCTOR WHO fic -- maybe because so many
of the writers are young.

*   *   *

Now to come at the question from a writer's angle.

I've found writing fanfic to be excellent practice for me as an author, not
only to hone and polish my individual style but also to develop an eye for
dialogue and characterization.

I started off writing fanfic "just for fun", but as I matured it became
increasingly important to me to maintain my own suspension of disbelief, as
well as that of the reader.  Since then I've worked hard to keep my plot
developments plausible, consistent with the spirit of the canon; and I'm
especially obsessed with capturing the characters realistically, replicating
their distinctive speech patterns and other personality traits as closely as
I can.

As far as I'm concerned, there's little point in fan fiction which doesn't
strive for faithfulness to the spirit of the original -- unless it's a
humour or parody piece (in which case almost anything goes, as long as it's
genuinely funny).  But when it comes to drama, adventure and the like, I'm
not interested in simply reading about a girl who happens to be named
Hermione and happens to go to a school called Hogwarts:  I want to read more
about the Hermione I actually know from JKR's books, going to the school I
recognize from JKR's books.  The more an author deviates from canon, the
less likely I am to enjoy the story -- even if there is nothing wrong with
the mechanics or style.

This is not to say that I don't like stories with a radical twist.  But any
major change in the appearance or behaviour of a canonical character needs
to be carefully, consistently, and plausibly explained if I'm going to buy
into it.  Simply saying, "One day Draco woke up and decided to be good," or
"Snape looked in the mirror and thought, 'Man, do I need a shampoo,'"
doesn't work for me.

This is, again, why I have found very few serious HP stories that really
"scratch the itch" for me as a reader.  And also why I felt I had to write
some, or at least give it the old Hogwarts try -- just to please myself and
other readers who feel the way I do.  There's already plenty of fic out
there for people who aren't as anal-retentive as I am.  :)

I have been thinking about compiling a "Fanfiction for People who Hate
Fanfiction" archive of stories that are not only excellently written in
terms of spelling, grammar, style, plot and dialogue, but which really seem
to me to capture the spirit of JKR's universe, stay true to the canonical
characters as we know them, and don't explicitly contradict anything we know
from the books.  I'll take recommendations, if anybody's got 'em.
--
Rebecca J. Bohner
rebeccaj at pobox.com
http://home.golden.net/~rebeccaj