Hi all,

I personally am very intrigued with the idea of the crossover fic-a-thon, but as a marketing person, I cannot help but wonder about target audiences

So I asked myself which of the possible crossover shows would widely be know around these boards (or known at all) and which would sound interesting to readers.

The following poll will consist of a list of possible crossover shows
(taken from the official Crossover Fic-a-thon thread) and two questions:

1. Do you know this show?
2. Would you like to read an L&C crossover with it?

My hope is that this might help people decide which crossover to write and to determine how much exposition explaining the other characters/universe would be necessary.

An example: I would guess that you would not have to explain much about agents Mulder and Scully from the X-Files while my beloved Bernhard Black from the British "Black Books" might be less familiar to most.

Or maybe it's exactly the other way around and my conceptions are completely false. Only one way to find out ...

This is my first poll, so if it does not work out, please bear with me.

Happy voting

Eva

Wow - that's a pretty comprehensive list it seems! I'm guessing most [all?] come from James' list. From the current responses, I may need to brush off my Friends sequel to the one I wrote previously, though it included really only Rachel...

Can't wait to see what everyone else says.
Carol

Nice idea, but there's a bit of a fatal flaw with the poll. For people like me, and I understand there's a few of us around, it's impossible to answer without lying. I don't like crossovers and rarely read them even if I like both series involved (eg Doctor Who and L&C). But I can't respond to the poll unless I tick at least one option in the list of crossovers that I would read.

You need a 'don't like crossovers' ticky box


Wendy

Um, yeah, like Wendy said. I happily ticked off the shows I knew. But I wouldn't be interested in reading a crossover of any of them so the poll wouldn't let me finish.

I'm not saying that crossovers shouldn't be written. It's just not my personal preference.

Yes, they're all from James's list.

Hey, don't give up on Rache now, will you I won't give up on my Men in Trees crossover either ...

Sorry, Wendy, with 90 options, it didn't even occur to me that I would need a "don't know/don't like" button, I'll try and do better next time.

If you want to participate anyway, how about you vote for something really popular (at the moment either Harry Potter or Heroes) and disclose your choice here and I will adjust the results when I post an update in the thread.

Or *conspiratorial whisper* you could vote for "Men in Trees" and make me feel more confident about the fact that I signed up to write a crossover with this fabulously WAFFy show, which no one else seems to even know

I do understand, I usually am not that crazy about crossovers either (though I have actually signed up for one, what can I say ...). The only one I can remember reading from the top of my head is "Swapmeet", though I don't know if it counts when you crossover Lois and Clark with Dean and Teri

Of course one could always argue that you and Wendy are not in the "target audience" of this poll, as it was mainly designed to get some information for people who want to sign up for the crossover fic-a-thon in the first place

But I would happily make you the same, totally decent proposal as Wendy: vote for something popular and say so in this thread, I will gladly adjust the numbers accordingly.

Thanks for taking the time,

Eva

As I said already, I am not oen for crossovers, though the idea can be intriguing and lol I am going to try it myself. I wouldn't mind reading some new crossovers with our world and or Dean truly discovering he has superpowers. George and Lynn, right?

Mona

Just a reminder that we don't accept G&L stories on this forum. Which isn't to say that someone couldn't write one and post it elsewhere. Zoomway's mbs, for instance has many of them posted there.


LabRat

I'm not a big fan of crossovers, either - I'd be another of those who says she doesn't read them. Think it's my inability to multi-suspend disbelief - I can do it for the flyboy in red tights but my limited imagination can't handle flyboy in red tights meets Donald Duck.

Yet that said, I do check out crossovers because one of my many favourite stories is a crossover - Becky Bain's Timeless:

Timeless

Interesting poll.

c.

Please forgive my ignorance, but what is a 'George and Lynn' fic and why don't we accept them?

======================================
Facinating Poll, Eva!

As I have stated many times, no poll is universally loved.

Anyway, I find it interesting that while a lot of the shows are known, there are so many shows that are not known better!

Heck, I put down that I 'knew' Angel, Buffy, and HP simply because I have read so many fan fics on them that I felt like I could really read about them without getting too lost.

I'm glad you did this. I will have to be just a little more descriptive in my Stargate crossover than I thought...


James

George & Lynn stories are fanfic about two actors who are having a relationship. They happen to have the names George and Lynn because those are the middle names of Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher and the stories, for the most part, are loosely based on the gossip surrounding the lives of D&T.

Back in the day, there was a deal of debate in FoLCdom as to whether they were actually LNC fanfic. One half of the fandom said they were and the other half didn't. When this forum was set up, the group involved in its inception just happened to come from that latter group and so, because it wasn't to our collective tastes, we made this forum a D&T gossip-free zone - we don't allow posts about actor gossip either - and to us that includes G&L fanfic.

But, as I say, any fans of G&L are well catered for over on Zoomway's mbs, for one.

LabRat

Thanks Labby.
James

But now that we've taken the poll, the question is what to do with the data. Do we write only what others have said they want to read, or do we write for our own enjoyment? Even so, how do we interpret the data? Do we say that only three people want to see a Sue Thomas, FB Eye crossover or do we say that of the three people who know Sue Thomas all three want to see it as a crossover? Or do we chuck the results of the second question and say that while the grand majority don't want to see a Chucky Cheese crossover it's only because you haven't pitched the idea of your particular Chucky Cheese crossover; if they knew more they wouldn't be able to resist reading.

One thing is certain: if only 80-85% of respondants know the other Superman venues then it is certain that no matter what is written a certain amount of people won't know the characters. (In reality, there are certain L&C episodes that I'm fuzzy on, as well, even though I'm an expert on others.) Therefore, no matter what is written it needs to be introduced to the reader as if they've never met the characters before.

I, for one, am going to continue to write what *I* consider to be a good story instead of taking the politicians' approach. It's not that I'm knocking the poll--I think it's very interesting--I just think that too much thinking makes people think too much and write too little. Besides, even though I'm not a fan of crossovers, I've read too many that have swayed my opinion for just that one story.

Maybe on the inside we are all just a little bit country and just a little bit rock 'n roll. We like what we know, but we can be swayed by something new if it is artfully done.

Elisabeth

I agree with you pretty much wholeheartedly. In the end it is my personal belief that story writing has the most potential when the story and the characters are close to the author's heart.

This poll wasn't intended to facilitate the "politicians' approach", it was started out of curiosity and because of a few questions I had.
And for me, at least, it has proved to be interesting

As I pointed out earlier, I signed up for a "Men in Trees" crossover, which so far only one other persons who took the poll seems to know and I am *the only one* who wants to read a crossover with ...
I would never have expected this because a lot of things that drew me to Lois & Clark also drew me to Men in Trees (romance, great supporting cast, fun banter, chemistry between leads), so I expected there to be more people who liked the show here
Will that keep me from my crossover story?
No, but I will probably adjust my expectations in terms of readership and feedback

And for other crossover ideas that I came up with (James really planted a bug with that thread, at least in my head), if I should decide to actually write any of them, I might go for one of the shows which is a little more widely known. (Out of the ones I actually like and have ideas for, I wouldn't for example write about Heroes, even though I watched the first season and it seems to be popular, simply because it wouldn't work for me.)

Btw, in spite of this poll, I'm almost 2,000 words into my story *yay*

Have a great weekend

Heck, I wrote a VeggieTales crossover. Now *that* had a big audience! NOT!

But I had fun with it. I knew the audience would be extremely limited but it was fun anyway and I actually got a better/bigger response than I would have thought, iirc.

So write what you want, just be prepared for a small readership if it's something a lot of people don't know.

And - I have a passing knowledge of Buffy and have read other crossovers where I didn't really know much about the universe, but recently I read one [Yvonne?] that I just couldn't get into. The writing was great etc, but there was stuff going on that I just had no frame of reference for [the whole of Sunnyvale had disappeared into a big pit?] and after I was about 1/3 through, I backed out. It just wasn't for me. I've heard Becky Bain's BB crossover [Timeless?] is excellent even if you're not very familiar with the BB universe. It can go either way. Just be prepared to limit your audience if you write about a certain other universe is all. It may be more for your own enjoyment rather than reaching mass audiences like other fics might.

Carol [who has visions of Superman in a Space Jam type scenario]

that would be me! at least I think so, I 'meant' to say I knew it in any case...


desiree

I have to say I'm one of those that rarely reads crossovers for several different reasons.

1. Most of the shows I don't watch so I know nothing about the characters. From most of the stories I've tried to read not knowing the guest characters makes the story hard to follow or impossible to develop an interest in the story so I get bored with it and put it down.

2. The few that I have read just weren't very good. The guest characters just seemed to be there to give a reason for Lois & Clark to be in a different city - and hey there is nothing that says they always have to be in Metropolis or Smallville.

3. The guest characters were poorly written. The reason for that seemed as if the writer just didn't know the guest characters well enough to really develop them.

That said I have also read a few that were excellent. So to the writers out there write whatever crossover stories you want. Just please write them well and if they grab me I'll read them, if they don't I won't. But the most important thing is that you enjoyed writing it. There is an audience for any story. So keep plugging away and those of us who can't write will keep on reading shooting off our big mouths about what you write.

Hi everbody,

So far, 23 people participated in the poll.

Just a quick update on the results:

Which show do you know?

Nobody seems to know Narbonic ... me neither

Here are the shows known by 10 or more people:

10 : 43% Charmed
10 : 43% CSI Las Vegas
10 : 43% CSI (any)
10 : 43% Frasier
10 : 43% Star Trek Voyager
10 : 43% Stargate SG1
10 : 43% Third Rock from the Sun
10 : 43% Wallace and Gromit
11 : 48% Friends
11 : 48% Sesame Street
11 : 48% The Muppet Show
12 : 52% Batman
12 : 52% Bones
12 : 52% Heroes
12 : 52% JAG
12 : 52% Remington Steele
12 : 52% Star Trek TOS
12 : 52% Star Trek TNG
12 : 52% The West Wing
12 : 52% The X-Files
13 : 57% Buffy
13 : 57% Doctor Who
13 : 57% Harry Potter
13 : 57% Law & Order
13 : 57% X-Men
14 : 61% Batman (Adam West Series)
15 : 65% Quantum Leap
17 : 74% Smallville
17 : 74% Superman Returns
18 : 78% Superman 2

The most popular crossover ideas so far:

17% : Angel
17% : Batman (Adam West series)
17% : Comic Book Superman
17% : CSI Las Vegas
17% : Firefly
17% : Grey's Anatomy
17% : JAG
17% : Mystery Men
17% : Remington Steele
17% : Smallville
17% : Star Trek TNG
17% : Star Trek Voyager
17% : Sue Thomas, F.B.Eye
17% : Wonder Woman
17% : X-Men
22% : Eureka
22% : Highlander
22% : Justice League
22% : Superman 2
22% : The X-Files
26% : Bones
26% : Dead Like Me
26% : Harry Potter
26% : Superman Returns
26% : The West Wing
30% : Batman
30% : Doctor Who
30% : Heroes
30% : Quantum Leap

Wow, I wouldn't have thought that Doctor Who was so far up. And what about Quantum Leap - after all those years, but I also think this could work out well

One show that wasn't listed that I would love to read a crossover with is Jericho. I've even thought of writing a crossover of Jericho and LnC someday.

Also, I'm familiar with the shoe Heroes, and would also like to read a crossover, but I forgot to put a check mark next to it in the poll.

Wow, I knew quote a few of those shows. But there aren't very many which I think would make good cross-overs with LnC (unless I'd already read a good cross-over with them).

I also think it would be kind of pointless to cross over LnC with anything Superman- or Justice League-related.

Hercules but no Xena? *pouts*

Gee - and that's one of my specialties.

Another answer to this problem, would be to take a well known DC character and develop his/her character in the L&C universe. Then "spin-off" the character from the show. Then crossovers would be no problem. This happens with spin-offs all the time (think CSI shows - for example).

I've done this in my story (Missing Lois), but alas, you have to wait until Chapter 8 (I think) before he shows up. Hope that wasn't a spoiler.

Wow. A lot of shows there. I have to say, I'm also not big into crossover fics, considering the fact that you'd have to be really well acquainted with both shows in order to write really well for it and to make the crossover seamless. And some shows just refuse to be crossed... That being said, I think Quantum Leap would be perfect (Doctor Who would be okay, but seems a little trite).

<~~~~~ is writing a LnC/Xena crossover

Would anyone actually read that?