General Discussion and Recs

[Scott6373]

When you get right down to brass tacks, the film "Brokeback Mountain" was the first and best canon.  It just happened to be on film.  Fanfic is all a matter of taste, and the more emotional the source material, the more opinionated folk get about their fanfic preferences...I think.

[one_of_one]

Every author has their own vision,

I agree, and I think that's fine.  My problem has always been when certain authors profess to write canon and believe that their work *is* as close to canon as can be and other authors are not when each and every one of us is writing from our own life experiences and bringing them into whatever we put down on the page.


And also what you say about which canon is which.  I tried early on to reconcile the two but realised that it was an impossible task because I believe that there are fundamental differences between them.

[louisev]

Hm, well out of consideration for yb being a foreign speaker of English, I might offer to translate?

There are some stories were are discussed at immense length, and, without citing a reason in favor or not, when I started writing "Taking Chances" that got a great deal of discussion - and in fact, way too MUCH attention was paid to parts of the story which in hindsight probably were unimportant.  I believe that stories that are written, that people read, but may not have generated a great deal of discussion when they update - at least in a forum environment or in LJ entries, might be considered underrated - at least as compared to others of its kind.

[louisev]

I agree, and I think that's fine.  My problem has always been when certain authors profess to write canon and believe that their work *is* as close to canon as can be and other authors are not when each and every one of us is writing from our own life experiences and bringing them into whatever we put down on the page.


And also what you say about which canon is which.  I tried early on to reconcile the two but realised that it was an impossible task because I believe that there are fundamental differences between them.

The belief that we each have our own vision is actually built into the rules of this forum area.  We actively discourage members from touting one story as authentic or authorative over another - because it's ALL fanfic, and no one has the blessed holy vision of Jack and Ennis.

[mvansand76]

I agree, and I think that's fine.  My problem has always been when certain authors profess to write canon and believe that their work *is* as close to canon as can be and other authors are not when each and every one of us is writing from our own life experiences and bringing them into whatever we put down on the page.

Helen,

I am not entirely sure what you mean, because how do you know that the writer believes that his/her work is as close to canon as can be?

Sticking to character in my opinion is not the most important thing when you write a story in which events take a different turn (is that canon, I never did get familiar with the terms), because people can change and things can happen to them that changes the way they look at life. What is more important is if the story you write is compelling and makes people think about how things could've gone differently, sometimes by changing just a single aspect of the story.

I think AU/AU's are so popular right now, not necessarily because they stray so far away from the original characters J&E (because they often do not, Ennis is still often the reticent guy and Jack the open, talkative one), but because we can follow them through the whole falling in love ritual again in a whole different setting, that is what makes it so interesting to read.

Thinking about it now, I have an idea where fanfic is heading: I think there will be more and more extreme AU/AU's (situations totally away from the BBM setting) and then, after a while, writers might start to replace the names Jack and Ennis and write an original story because it has hardly anything to do with BBM anymore.

Mel

 

[moremojo]

The belief that we each have our own vision is actually built into the rules of this forum area.  We actively discourage writers from touting one story as authentic or authorative over another - because it's ALL fanfic, and no one has the blessed holy vision of Jack and Ennis.

Quite so, and I would never wish to unintentionally disparage anyone's efforts in this area. Fanfic was an outgrowth, to a large extent anyway, of people's attempts to make sense of the powerful emotions the original story/film engendered in them, and the reading of fanfic often comes out of the same impulse (this was at least true for me). But I honor everyone's desire and effort to create and contribute in their own unique way to this phenomenon we call Brokeback fever.

The only BBM-related story I ever found offensive was one effort (I don't think I would even call it a true fanfic) that was posted by one new user and quickly deleted, as the new member quickly disappeared from the forum as well. I suspect that the user was a troll who didn't escape the moderators' radar for long. Their story, which showed Jack coming to accept and appreciate his situation with Lureen through an unsavory dream of that "sweet life" with Ennis, exhibited a thorough knowledge of the original story and film, but presented the characters in a way that suggested a lack of sympathy for them.

[one_of_one]

Helen,

I am not entirely sure what you mean, because how do you know that the writer believes that his/her work is as close to canon as can be?

Because they've said so.

[one_of_one]

Helen,

I am not entirely sure what you mean, because how do you know that the writer believes that his/her work is as close to canon as can be?

Sticking to character in my opinion is not the most important thing when you write a story in which events take a different turn (is that canon, I never did get familiar with the terms), because people can change and things can happen to them that changes the way they look at life. What is more important is if the story you write is compelling and makes people think about how things could've gone differently, sometimes by changing just a single aspect of the story.

I think AU/AU's are so popular right now, not necessarily because they stray so far away from the original characters J&E (because they often do not, Ennis is still often the reticent guy and Jack the open, talkative one), but because we can follow them through the whole falling in love ritual again in a whole different setting, that is what makes it so interesting to read.

Thinking about it now, I have an idea where fanfic is heading: I think there will be more and more extreme AU/AU's (situations totally away from the BBM setting) and then, after a while, writers might start to replace the names Jack and Ennis and write an original story because they have hardly anything to do with BBM anymore.

Mel

 

I think what you're talking about when you mention events taking a different turn is AU.  Canon is when a story is written within the events of the original short story or film.  There are also canon aspects to AUs and AU!AUs.  I agree with what you say about different events changing characterisations - I have always thought that and argued strongly in the early days of fanfic that when you did have such an event taking place that that was the moment when the characters stopped being "in canon" and started to take on different aspects.

I think you're right about the direction AU!AUs are taking.  A lot of writers around now seem to have a somewhat tenuous connection to BBM.  About what you say regarding Ennis=reticent, Jack=talkative.  I know there's more to it than that, but also there is more to Jack and Ennis than just one character trait.

For me I've usually taken one or two characteristics and expanded on them whilst damping down others but I think once you do that you are not writing about Jack and Ennis any more, you are writing about two men who you've named J and E because that is the fandom in which the stories are being written.

 

[one_of_one]

The belief that we each have our own vision is actually built into the rules of this forum area.  We actively discourage writers from touting one story as authentic or authorative over another - because it's ALL fanfic, and no one has the blessed holy vision of Jack and Ennis.

Well said.

[Scott6373]

The one thing I could never quite wrap my brain around were those folks who blatantly said:  "I don't read dead Jack stories".  They were rather a rabid bunch abuot the subject.  Whenever I heard that, my skin crawled,  he was dead...so, did you see the movie?  Read the book?  Guess AP had no justification in killing the poor guy off, let's annihalate her, and make her life miserable.