I'm new to the forums. Hola.
First, let me say that I write AU (I wrote "Human Interest" and "Two Crows Joy," if you're familiar with them). I read AU. I also read canon-fic.
In fact, I've just spent the last week reading the Laramie Saga, Louise. And I'm quite knocked on my ass by the level of detail present there and the time you've taken to so painstakingly develop the characters, plots and relationships to the point that they attain of level of reality that goes beyond just versimilitude. I've written and read fanfic in a bunch of fandoms over the last ten years and it is damned hard to write a story that consists almost entirely of original characters and make the readers CARE about them. It's a very rare thing to find a writer who has developed a relationship to the point that we know their INJOKES.
And you know what else? Reading it has made it damned hard to work on my own fic. I go to work on my next chapter and I find myself missing Ellery and wishing I could somehow work him in. Damn you, Louise!
My point is that I like and respect both AU and canon fics.
In reading some of the comments here, I'm detecting a little bit of disdain for those of us who read and/or write AU fics. Inherent in statements like "I can't bear to read/write AU fics because I have such deep respect for the canon!" is the implication that the rest of us DON'T respect the canon, or love it the way it is. If I write AU fic, I must be taking the easy way out, romanticizing things, or pandering to the wishes of the audience while I toss Annie's canon out with the bathwater and spit in the face of the storyline that we all hold dear.
I can't speak for everyone, but I know that isn't the case for me. Just because I wanted to imagine a different outcome to the canon story doesn't mean I'm not deeply attached to that canon. Exploring a way that the story could have ended happily while keeping the characters true to themselves is just as legitimate a way to express my feelings about the canon as if I'd kept it sacrosanct. But if people prefer canon fics, that's their right. If people prefer AU, that's also their right.
I'd also like to comment on the "orthodoxies" that were brought up in the first post. While it's true that many BBM fics use these plot points, I think I can use myself as a counterexample. I've achieved a certain level of popularity (if that's the yardstick we're using, which is problematic in itself) with "Human Interest" and as far as I can tell, I've only employed the first and third of the seven listed plot requirements (and the third one is iffy)...although one could argue that it's the first one that's the most important. It's also true that since I started writing HI in January, a lot of these patterns were established well after I started writing. When I first posted HI to fanfiction.net, there were only 30 stories in the category. Now there are over 300.
Louise, I certainly feel that your magnum opus (and that term is an understatement...how many words are you up to now?) deserves to be wildly popular and that lauds ought to be strewn in your path for writing such an ambitious, detailed and satisfying (and hawt) work of fanfiction. But as I read your first post in this thread, I couldn't help but wonder if there wasn't a little bit of sour grapes in the question. If some negative comments have been made about your story (and I know that some have been, which is incomphrehensible to me) or if it doesn't enjoy the readership of some other AU fics, do we really need to go searching for a reason and/or a rationalization as to why AU fics are less valid, and canon fics are more pure and therefore more deserving of readership? I think it's a big enough sandbox for us all to play in. And if people aren't reading the Laramie series because Jack's dead in it, well, it's their profound loss.
I will certainly be pimping it to anyone who'll stand still long enough.
