Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Fun with Polls Why Fanfic?

I found your clarification interesting, too, Sheila. I've wondered why you seem less interested in episode adaptations and 'what-ifs' set during the timeline of the series, but that explains it.

Just one small thing:

I know you enjoyed FTGG; I very much appreciated your lovely comments while I was posting it. But your reference to it as an 'in-canon' story surprised me for a moment. And then I realised why: it's not fully in-canon to me because I've tended, in the few post-S4 stories I've written (there was the Big Boys series and A Love So Long/So Strong A Foundation too), to ignore completely the events of Family Hour and the 'baby ex machina'. I probably never explicitly said so in FTGG, but neither of L&C's children was that baby - in fact, that baby never arrived in their lives.

(And that's not because I don't like the idea of Lois and Clark having children; I've written lots of stories where they do. I just hated the baby out of nowhere idea).

Why do I like fanfic? I think I answered yes to just about all the options. Yes, I want 'more' - more of the series and the characters I love. I do want to borrow the characters to play with them - to experiment with scenarios and 'what-ifs' and alternatives. That includes wondering what might have happened if events in various episodes had turned out differently. Drawing on discussion in the other thread, I don't mean 'what if one character had done something which was completely out of character', but what if things which might easily have changed had been different. What if, at a decision-point where the character could have done several different things - and there are times when it's a toss-up what a person will do - one character had taken a different path?

So, for example, what if Clark hadn't been asleep in Lois's car at the end of TOGOM? (And didn't it seem odd that he was asleep?). What if the original script for TJO had been filmed - how might things have gone afterwards? (I wrote that one). What if Lois had her journalist's brain well and truly screwed on during the events of Fly Hard? (wrote that one too. ). And many more minor changes, all - to me - perfectly plausible in the context of the characters' behaviour in an episode.

Or events could happen differently, just as they could have in any of our lives. We've all said it - what if X had happened just five minutes later? What if Y had never happened at all? What if Clark had come to Metropolis a few days earlier than he did, and stumbled on a lead to the same car-theft ring Lois was investigating? What if Lois had come to Clark's apartment in WWW after he'd already left? What if someone who'd seen Clark do something Super in Metropolis before he became Superman remembered and put two and two together? These, and many more, are the sort of scenarios which fascinate me.

Does anything go? Well, I do have boundaries. Apart from certain types of story (most crossovers don't interest me because I rarely know or like the other series, for example, and I'm not keen on New Krypton stories), I do have personal characterisation boundaries: I have my perceptions of what Lois or Clark or occasionally a minor character will or will not do, and unless the author has given me sufficient motivation to believe in the events in the story, then I may find it out of character. Minor characters can matter: for example, I remember a story in which Ellen Lane conspires with Lex Luthor to break up her daughter's marriage to Clark by engaging in cruelty and deceit, up to the point of telling Clark that Lois had had an abortion when in fact she'd had a miscarriage - he was furious about the abortion, while she was devastated that he never came to sympathise about the miscarriage and mourn the loss of their child together. I couldn't accept that Ellen would do that, and so the story didn't work for me.


Bottom line for me: I love fanfic because I love the Lois and Clark story, and can never get enough of variations on that story.


Wendy

You can't imagine the tingle that went through me when I read this, Kathy. For the first time in a very long time, I felt a stirring to write L&C. We'll see where that goes, but, thank you. I knew neither of L&C's children in FTGG was that baby from FH (wasn't Beth the oldest?). But since the story never stated that the baby from FH hadn't appeared, I was free to imagine that L&C had returned him to the future and picked up their lives after that--in fact, exactly what happened in TUFS, S5, and the Unintentional Season 5, and what TPTB were intending for the fifth season, too. So there was nothing in FFTG that made it in any way out of canon.

So, this confuses me just a bit. What it seems to me that you are saying - and pardon me please if I've gotten it all wrong - is that as long as a fanfic story says nothing or alludes to nothing that gives you the idea that any canon has been altered, you will assume that the story picks up at some point in time after every event and outcome shown in the series occured. And believing this, the depiction of Lois and Clark (if well done) will be in-character. If anything appears that indicates a breach of canon, no matter how accurately they are portrayed, Lois and Clark cannot be considered in-character or the *real* Lois and Clark?? (Again, I'm trying to figure this out.)

So, for example, using CC's story "When The World Finds Out" - since CC did not in any way indicate otherwise, it seems as if this story happened so many years after the end of what we saw in the show. She implied no changes to any events during the season, or at least no indication of any deviations. Therefore, the story is considered "in canon". And since this story was pretty universally well received, I think it's safe to say that the majority of the readers found the Lois and Clark presented as in-character. The *real* Lois and Clark as defined by the show, so to speak.

What happens if CC didn't change a single word of the story as it was written - the entire story was exactly the same in terms of setting, characterisation, dialogue, etc. - but she added one sentence: "Lois hadn't seen Clark this upset since his parents had perished in a tragic car accident mere days before their wedding."? According to what I understand as your meaning, by adding that one sentence, this story would immediately become against-canon.

And if this story becomes against-canon, does that mean that all of CC's otherwise acceptable charaterisation and dialogue become unacceptable or out-of-character? That now we are not reading about Lois and Clark but rather some version of an AltLois and AltClark? A complete devaluation of the story simply because of a single sentence??

Because if this is the case, what I understand you to be saying is that the characterisation of Lois and Clark within any given story is determined entirely by the story's content rather than the portrayal of the characters.

I guess my point, or rather, my perspective, is that if a story presents a Lois and a Clark that are in character as defined by the show (i.e., Clark wouldn't kill anyone, Lois tends to be a workaholic), if the story deviates from canon slightly to explore a new idea or theme, the Lois and Clark in the story are just as valid as an L and C from an in-canon story.

The story might not be in-canon, but that does not necessarily mean the characters are not the *real* ones or are out-of character.

Lynn

From what I've gathered, Lynn, it seems like "in canon" and "in character" are two completely different things.

In your example (although I haven't read When The World Finds Out, yet) I'd say that the story would still be in character, but not in canon. Alt-universe? I don't know. Maybe someone would like to clarify this one?

See ya,
AnnaBtG. (who's been watching this discussion since it first started)

Lynn, you're mistaking my use of "real." It doesn't refer to how well a writer handles imaginary characters to whom s/he assigns thoughts, actions, or dialog in order to take them through the character arcs the writer has decided on. It isn't related to being OOC or not.

It means that for me, the Lois and Clark we saw on the screen are like real people in a universe somewhere. They can't be manipulated; they can't be made to behave in ways that they didn't. You can't arbitrarily say that I never married, or that I didn't have three children, or anything like that because I did. L&C is like that for me. The ones who lived the lives we saw on TV are "our" L&C. All the others in all the other fanfics and in all the other scripts or scenes that never made it to the screen are a Lois & Clark who live in a different universe, some more like our L&C and some less like them. Right. WTWFO would no longer be a story about our L&C. It would be the story of an L&C whose universe broke away at the point that Martha and Jonathan died before L&C's wedding. Our L&C never went through that, so the story isn't about them. No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying that the story would no longer be about our L&C. It would still be a well-written story about an L&C who had different lives than our L&C. That doesn't say anything about the characterization or the value of the story. And since many fanfic readers don't care one way or the other about canon, how could my opinion possibly devalue the story?

OOC is a different issue for me, and you've seen that, for me, it isn't enough to simply have Lois or Clark decide to do something different than they did on the show. If you (as a writer) don't change the circumstances, I'm not going to believe in your characterization because, for me, the same person will make the same decision in the same circumstances. Change the circumstances and support your new premise, and I'll probably go along with your tale of another L&C very like ours.

Please don't assume from my response that being in-character is simply a matter of following canon. It's entirely possible to follow canon and write a story that is horribly OOC. A couple come to mind, and they are no more about "our" L&C than my "In the Beginning" or Zoom's "Speeding Bullets."

Besides, don't worry about it, Lynn. I'm one of the few FoLC who prefer to read stories about "our" L&C. If you check out the rest of the responses, everyone else is okay with stories about an L&C who go through different experiences than ours did.

You weren't here when we had this discussion long ago at the beginning of the Kerths as we tried to hammer out definitions of elseworld and alt-world. For me, every episode rewrite was alt-world, but the committee rightly decided that that would make that one category bigger than all the others combined, so they went with a much narrower description of alt-world, one that satisfied more FoLC. I remember KathyB being astonished that I considered most of her stories to be alternate universe, and we had a number of discussions about it, but nothing was ever settled except our recognition that we defined "real" in very different ways.

What Sheila said. Thanks for expressing so well what I never seem able to.

But that said, it is very hard (not to mention very time consuming!) to set polls.

For example, sometimes poll questions may be inadvertently worded in such a way as to elicit one answer over another - eg - who's going to admit, even in private, that they like to stick close to home??? so dismal, boring etc But on the other hand -- try new (unique? ) experiences -absolutely! So that was my answer, of course.

Although, since the poll cited slash as too out there, I'm wondering what else was explicitly excluded? Clark torturing cats, or having sex with sheep, or becoming a born-again Christian evangelical preacher or a terrorist , or Lois murdering Clark or.... cutting her hair? I know, I know, set my own poll....

Very hard to set polls.

c

I think that's something that would vary. AFAIK, none of us wants to see L&C slash but other things have more of a following. Some people will see deathfic, for instance, as being out of bounds -- but others won't. So different people will "draw the line" at different things.

Though I admit that, hair-cutting aside, I can't imagine anyone wanting a story with any of your examples, either

That was how I saw it, anyway

PJ

Pam wrote: So almost impossible to interpret the results for that particular poll question, I guess.

& Rats! Does that mean I'd better scrap my Lois murders Clark after she caught him making out with Dolly the sheep fic?

c

If I understand all this correctly, this would have to be an AltClark, right? If not an Elseworld Clark.

In which case, I say go for it, Carol! I'll need a bucketload of motivation, especially as regards the sheep, but you've very talented, so I don't doubt you for a minute.

CC

Sorry, too fun to resist. Maybe this should move to fanfic challenge?

Oh, dunno about that. I have a very old WIP on my hd that at least has Clark looking at sheep in a different way. Didn't go the whole way though. It was, lest anyone wonder, a comedy, I should add.

There are slash stories out there too, of course. They never really got much of a following in this fandom, but they have been written and posted, way back when.

LabRat

I think I am coming at this discussion from a completely different perspective from a lot of people (at least those that have posted so far). I watched the show on and off throughout the first - third seasons. I knew the show, watched the show, but it wasn't necessarily a much-watch. Then, one day, my dad said, "Oh, look, Superman and Lois Lane are getting married. For real this time. Let's watch." And we did.

Coincidentally, soon after, we got a computer and AOL. I am not sure how I found the Lois and Clark message boards on AOL, and I found this section that I had never seen before. People were writing stories about the show! I was instantly hooked. My mom and sister called it my "no life club" because I made a comment that whoever writes these stories must have no life. To that, my mom said, "You're reading them, aren't you? That means you have no life, too!"

The only one of the folders I actually checked was the fanfic folder (and occasionally, I looked for spoilers). I didn't care about the actors (still don't), didn't care about discussion about the show; all I wanted was the fanfic. It kind of makes sense. Even when I was a kid, I would read books staring characters of my favorite shows -- 90210, Melrose Place, and even Saved by the Bell even had published books that I read!

I never thought of myself as a writer. Still don't. However, after I read spoilers for Toy Story and Family Hour, I was appalled. I thought those episodes were just so *BAD* that I had to fix them. I thought the characters I had grown to love would *never* behave that way! I *had* to *fix* it!

That was the beginning of my journey into writing. I wanted to *correct* what I thought was *wrong* with the show. And, yes, since it is TV, I felt like I had the power to change the ending. It wasn't like I was rewriting someone's life (although I would love to be able to do that!). These are *characters* from a *TV show*! They aren't real people. It is, at the core, a love story between two people you root for to get together.

I almost wonder if that is why my tastes seem to be different from a lot of people. I like soap operas -- Everwood, Dallas, etc. If there is a couple I can root for to get together, then chances are I will watch it/read about it. I don't particularly like the sci fi or the action/adventure aspect of LnC. I like the romance between Lois and Clark. I can identify with Lois, and Clark is the man I've always wanted to marry :p . Maybe that is why my fics don't include many (any) references to Superman and are generally really lacking in any A plot. Anyway . . .

Honestly, I like being omnipotent. I enjoy getting inside characters heads and correcting the mistakes they made on the show -- or, actually, correcting the mistakes the show's writers made -- making it happen the way I would have liked it to happen. I never respected what happened in the show as being the almighty truth. I thought that changing what was wrong with the show was one of the major points of fanfiction! I like rewriting a show I have otherwise enjoyed when the writers make a wrong choice.

To me, fanfic is so much better than the show ever could be. I don't watch the show -- haven't since even before I threw my tapes away 5-6 years ago -- and I am not planning to waste my money on the DVDs. I don't even remember a lot of what happened in several of the episodes. Does that make me a bad writer? Maybe. But, you know, if you don't like the fact that I don't respect cannon, then you shouldn't read my stories .

- Laura

Thanks, Sheila. Your explanation of how you define the "real" (and I mean the ones we saw on the show ) Lois and Clark makes complete sense to me now. And I understand what you are saying - that even if some event occurs that pulls the story out of canon, therefore rendering that story's LnC an alt-version (even if only the most microscopic bit), you don't necessarily find them out-of-character. I get it now.

Lynn

I've told this story before, but two years ago I took a road trip around the country, and it was when TBS was showing re-runs of LnC (timing is everything in life). I would watch two hours of LnC in my hotel room before hitting the road for my next destination. God help the place I stayed that didn't have TBS! That's how addicted I got, so quickly.

When I got home from my trip (a month later), TBS was still showing re-runs so I began taping the show, and would happily watch two hours of LnC when I came home from work. It was something to look forward to after a sometimes crappy day at work.

Of course, after the summer ended, TBS stopped showing LnC and my frustration began.

Angry that ABC cancelled the show with an unresolved cliffhanger (the Family Hour), I started searching the 'net, and found the web site "The unaired Fifth Season". Links on that site eventually led me to the Archive, and eventually to the MBs.

I have a Master's degree in Communication and wrote a lot of very dry papers while in college, but had never written much fiction and so I began my fanfic writing "career". I get so much inspiration from the experienced writers though!

It's so much fun to pull up these boards every day and see what your favorite writers have come up with next.

Also, comics deal more with adventure than romance, as a rule. I always felt that the romance between LnC was never played up enough. This site fills that void!

Ok, I'm done!

Hi

For one of the questions, I picked one where I am open to anything. Though, if I find I don't like it I stop reading it. I can't really fit into any category. Sometimes I hate the future generations thing b/c I like LnC only, but if I'm in the mood for something not so central on the characters I'll venture out into this type of futuristic fic. ***It's all about my mood.***

But, once I checked it off and submitted it I realized !HEY! what on earth is slash? Gee wiz, I feel silly asking, but I just don't know. I feel silly that I submitted it w/o realizing what I did. I found every reference in this thread of slash and tried to peice together what it is...but would someone care to define it for me? I **think** I'm a non-slash kind of gal.

Hmm...

Slash refers to fanfic about same sex relationships. Clark/Jimmy in our case. Or Perry/Jimmy or Superman/Batman or...well, you get the idea. The permutations are endless.

The term comes from some of the very earliest slash fanfic - pairing up Kirk and Spock from the original Star Trek series, several decades ago. Fanzines which contained such stories used the term 'K/S' to denote the content, which became the Trek fandom's term for that genre of fanfic. That eventually became shortened to just the / or slash.

You'll find examples of slash fanfic in most every fandom under the sun, involving every pairing you can think of. FoLCdom is one of the few fandoms which has only rare examples of it.

LabRat

I don't write fanfic, really, so I skipped the second question.

I didn't pick the first option for the first question because I never really watched L&C when it was being aired, save for one or two eps--and those halfheartedly. I wasn't into TV much as a kid--books were MUCH more interesting. And that's most of what got me into fanfic. I managed to get a hold of the Pilot episode, and I've Got a Crush on You, and Smart Kids, and from that I got a glimpse of who the characters were. I actually discovered L&C fanfic on ff.n, where I found Nan's stories to be some of the few really good ones. I think her author profile must have had a link to the Archive or something, because I ended up there next, and that's where I really acquired my taste for fanfic. I love it because I love the characters, who are like real people to me. I feel as if I actually know them, as I read a good fanfic, like I could reach out and touch them and they'd be THERE. I love seeing characters in new situations--what-if's are some of my favorite ideas to ponder--everyone else seems to have covered all the examples of them, lol. I really love reading alt beginnings stories, and elseworld ones too, because they are "what-if" stories too. My favorite stories are probably set in first or second season, pre-knowledge, pre-dating. I love the situation of Lois looking for love and missing it under her nose, and Clark patiently loving her and waiting for her to open up, no matter how many times it is done; the emotions from those stories are just delicious (have to go with Kathy on how it is like a new episode). Though I haven't actually read TUFS or S5 & S6 (I keep putting it off to do "when I have time", because they'll take awhile--that never happens), I like stories about what happened after the show, so long as they have interesting premises. I like second gen fics too (I firmly believe the super gene is dominant and all the kids would get it), but stories central to the L&C characters are the best. And last, but CERTAINLY not least, I love seeing situations handled differently to fix them or make them better. Certain storylines (NK, "baby ex machina"--as Wendy puts it) need a good story to redeem them (after which I do not think of it much, lol), some episodes just went the wrong way (BatP), and some just needed more going into on some of the wonderfully emotional parts (Witness, The Prankster, HoL).

I'll accept most fics as LnC:TNAOS fanfic, as long as the authors can write it well. I draw the line at anything remotely slashy, yes, as well as a few other equally bad (or worse) ideas.

I especially love L&C fanfic because the writers take time to really make you feel as if you were in the characters' minds. That is what drew me to reading books, I think, and is what still draws me to fanfic. The chance to find an ever fresh look into a character's mind . . .