On the importance of Canon

[Scoutcraft Piratess]

beeftony said:

I always like to build from canon, but I never let it restrict me. The whole freaking point of fanfiction is to explore things that, for some reason or another, could not be explored in canon. Characters can be fleshed out more, and stories can become deeper and more involved, sometimes greatly surpassing the events depicted in canon.

I very much like how you put this.

I've had people get mad at me for writing fics because "it never happened in the show". And these were for fics where other readers said it could have very well been an episode!

So, yeah, I've written fluffy things that are very close to the show.

I have also written other fics that I feel step away from the usual KP feel (such as "Envying Monte Cristo" and my share of "The Ronless Factor") yet I still tried to base those on canon and proper characterizations.

[beeftony]

cdb said:

I firmly stick to cannon in all of my stories: crossover or not

I believe that's what readers, like Mike prefer, and more important that's what I prefer.

That's how I've written my previous and very first KP story, and with over 370 people reading it...I can say that sticking to cannon was the right way to go.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but by even writing fanfiction, you're not sticking to canon. Not in the strictest sense anyway. Canon is the source material; the place where all the characters come from, where the world they inhabit is established, and where the parameters are set as far as how the characters talk and act.

It is NOT POSSIBLE to truly stick to canon unless you copy verbatim one of the episodes. Canon is just a starting point; it SHOULD NOT be a constant companion. Every single fanfic is technically AU, since nothing that happens within will ever appear on the show.

And honestly, if your only reason for writing this way is to please the people who are reading, then you're not writing to your fullest potential. An author who is passionate about writing never submits or panders to the audience in an attempt to become popular. Those authors burn out faster than dry grass in a brush fire. An author who truly cares about writing will write for himself first and foremost, and for the audience second.

What I'm saying is that if it is your personal preference to "stick to canon" (even though that's technically impossible), then by all means, do so. But DO NOT do it because you're afraid of what might happen to your readerbase if you venture into unknown territory. If anything, your fanbase will probably expand; that's what's happened to me. I started out writing K/R, now I write KiGo, Rongo, and several other pairings. I don't see the point in restricting myself to one single genre or pairing. I like to branch out and think for myself.

That's what I think anyway. I could be wrong. But I doubt it.

[Scoutcraft Piratess]

Canon is merely what is "official", what is on the episodes, what TBTB have said. So, yes, fanfic writing tends to step out of canon by nature, just because we're not copying episodes.

[slicknickshady]

As Micky stated and I would agree with his following statement.....

protomickey said:

If the characters in a fiction do not resemble the characters in a show, then really all that's been done is the author borrowed the names and made their own characters.

He stated this better than I could have ever dreamed.

[Scoutcraft Piratess]

slicknickshady said:

As Micky stated and I would agree with his following statement.....

protomickey said:

If the characters in a fiction do not resemble the characters in a show, then really all that's been done is the author borrowed the names and made their own characters.

He stated this better than I could have ever dreamed.

I agree with that as well.

Yes, characters are utterly open to interpretation, but I see too many authors using that as an excuse to make their own character instead of properly exploring the character.

[erdrik]

I am of the 'stick to canon' persuasion.
Tho it should also be creative and unique in your own way.

Basically when writing a fan fic the only time I concern myself with the "reader base" is trying to immerse them into the story and style of the show well enough that they could see it being apart of the show.

I mean, when I read a fan fic I'm reading it because I want more stories involving the show and its characters.
Not because I want to see the characters do something they would never do on the show.
So I try to put that same effort into writing.
But thats just what I'm interested in, so... *shrug*

Tho admitably I haven't done too much writing.
(working on KP Fics now but I've only completed a few Futurama fics and one PPG fic.)

[Scoutcraft Piratess]

But if they are doing something they would never do and the writer is not convincing me that they would possibly do it, it's not really canon to me.

[erdrik]

Umm... well yeah. I thought that was pretty much what I said...

[Mickey]

slicknickshady said:

protomickey said:

Canon has to have some place in every fan fiction, even if it's small. A bare minimum of canon in a story is to have the characters act like they do in the show. If the characters in a fiction do not resemble the characters in a show, then really all that's been done is the author borrowed the names and made their own characters. As long as the characters are the same from the show, then I don't mind if there's nothing else canon. Of course, the plot needs to interest me, but that's a different topic.

That's like me exactly.

Great minds...

beeftony said:

This show, for example, is great for fanfiction because of its intriguing characters and surprisingly rich mythos. The only reasons I watch the show are for the characters and the dialogue, not the lazily constructed "plot of the week." This is a show where the creators have stated that continuity happens "by accident." More often than not this just serves as an excuse for shoddy writing whose only saving grace is the amazingly vivid characters and quick-witted dialogue that somehow draws us in and makes such trivial details as plot not matter anymore.

I have to disagree with this comment. The fact that each episode in seasons 1-3 wasn't necessarily built from previous episodes doesn't automatically mean the writing was shoddy. On the contrary, most every episode was written well enough that they could stand on their own individually. The advantage to this is that a person who has never seen the show can just jump right in and watch an episode and not miss out because they have no prior knowledge of previous episodes. This was very good for people like me who never heard of the show until 2004.

If Kim Possible was written like most of today's modern shows (ie Smallville, 24, Lost, etc) then I would never have watched more than one episode because I would have missed a lot of the stuff in the show merely because I came onto the KP scene too late. This is exactly why I don't watch shows Smallville on television. Because you have to plan to watch them and if you miss an episode, then you're screwed if you try to watch the next one.

There are a lot of tv shows, cartoon and sitcom, that were structured in a similar fashion, with little to no connecting strings besides the characters that were/are hugely successful. Shows like Darkwing Duck, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Get Smart, etc.

Bob Schooley stated in a recent post that the show belongs to us fans now, and that nothing that happens after Graduation is really set in stone. That, to me, is indicative of the life and vivacity that they have breathed into these characters that makes even the "worst" episodes of this series still watchable. By essentially turning creative control over to us, the creators have given us a wonderful gift. I say we use it to its fullest extent.

That paragraph I can get behind, except for the part about the characters making the worst episodes watchable. I refuse to watch Trading Faces ever again and I hate myself for watching it all the way through the first time. I kept thinking "This has to get better!" Eventually, it did get better but only when the closing credits rolled.

misspiratess said:

Yes, characters are utterly open to interpretation, but I see too many authors using that as an excuse to make their own character instead of properly exploring the character.

misspiratess said:

But if they are doing something they would never do and the writer is not convincing me that they would possibly do it....

Precisely. I don't mind seeing a character doing something they haven't done in the show, but there needs to be some solid reasoning based on things the character has actually done on the show and is canon. For example, if someone wrote a story where Ron gets jealous of some dude hitting on Kim at college and ends up in a fight. That would need some supporting evidence written into it. "Ron got mad and through a punch" just doesn't cut it.

[slicknickshady]

protomickey said:

Great minds...

Yeah it's like why don't they Create there own original story with original charecters if they really want to turn the KP charecters into something tbey are not.

[CDB]

beeftony said:

cdb said:

I firmly stick to cannon in all of my stories: crossover or not

I believe that's what readers, like Mike prefer, and more important that's what I prefer.

That's how I've written my previous and very first KP story, and with over 370 people reading it...I can say that sticking to cannon was the right way to go.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but by even writing fanfiction, you're not sticking to canon. Not in the strictest sense anyway. Canon is the source material; the place where all the characters come from, where the world they inhabit is established, and where the parameters are set as far as how the characters talk and act.

It is NOT POSSIBLE to truly stick to canon unless you copy verbatim one of the episodes. Canon is just a starting point; it SHOULD NOT be a constant companion. Every single fanfic is technically AU, since nothing that happens within will ever appear on the show.

And honestly, if your only reason for writing this way is to please the people who are reading, then you're not writing to your fullest potential. An author who is passionate about writing never submits or panders to the audience in an attempt to become popular. Those authors burn out faster than dry grass in a brush fire. An author who truly cares about writing will write for himself first and foremost, and for the audience second.

What I'm saying is that if it is your personal preference to "stick to canon" (even though that's technically impossible), then by all means, do so. But DO NOT do it because you're afraid of what might happen to your readerbase if you venture into unknown territory. If anything, your fanbase will probably expand; that's what's happened to me. I started out writing K/R, now I write KiGo, Rongo, and several other pairings. I don't see the point in restricting myself to one single genre or pairing. I like to branch out and think for myself.

That's what I think anyway. I could be wrong. But I doubt it.

Abeit defensive with the response there my friend.

No, I'm not afraid about losing my fanbase, I write stories for the joy of bringing my ideas forth and sharing them with the Community.

As far venturing out into uncharted terrioity, to add more readers I don't need too I don't need to do a Kigo story to that, just make a d@#n good one to do it.

As far as you're theories about Fanfiction automatically not being cannon, that's automatically assumed and known by all authors.

Buliding from cannon to creating unique and original stories are encouraged..... I strongly agree with Mickey.

protomickey said:

If the characters in a fiction do not resemble the characters in a show, then really all that's been done is the author borrowed the names and made their own characters.

Cannon has place in any fiction. And so is the proper usuage of characterzation. If you're gonna use Ron Stoppable for your fanfiction be sure that it is "Ron Stoppable"

[maetch]

Canon is important, but solely sticking to the canon is NOT the way to write. The idea is to expand on the canon presented. Take the "Star Wars Expanded Universe", for example.

When I wrote "What's the Switch?", I knew that the minimal plot in the PS2 game needed work, so I made it more engaging. Things like Kim questioning her career, Camille Leon getting involved, stuff the writers never thought of.

The problem I have with CBD's story (which I do like, to a point) is that it doesn't truly expand on anything that the show's already done. It feels more like a scripted episode than a unique fanfic.

[CDB]

maetch said:

Canon is important, but solely sticking to the canon is NOT the way to write. The idea is to expand on the canon presented.

I mean no offense and I am not flamming you....But:

Simply expanding cannon itself is not the "idea" way to write, nor should it be.

maetch said:

The problem I have with CBD's story (which I do like, to a point) is that it doesn't truly expand on anything that the show's already done. It feels more like a scripted episode than a unique fanfic.

The general premise of the story itself was to fit inside a time period within the 4th Season. And used a storyline that was not explored by few here. The feel of an epsiode itself...that in itself should be the idea of fanficition.

Regardless if it written in script format or novel style, the readers should envision as a Kim Possible epsiode being played in front of them.

[ScareGlow]

As many others have said, I like stories that take the canon as a starting point, as a basis, so to speak. Characters should be recognizable, and if you want to change them, you have to do it in a believable and understandable fashion in order to make it work in your story.
Ignoring certain events is a different matter; I don't mind people declaring that certain episodes never happened in their stories. I do mind if characters are mutilated by authors just to fit in the story they want to tell, but events don't matter too much to me.
I often ignore StD in my stories, simply because I'm unwilling to write a break-up of Kim and Ron, but since my stories very often are Ron/girlthatisn'tKim, I'd have to do that if I included StD.
Other than that... I've read stories that were very close to canon and still great, but I've also encountered stories that stuck to canon and were dead boring. Same thing with stories that deviated greatly from canon.
In the end, a lot of it is a question of the writing skills of the author.

[maetch]

To be honest, making a fanfic that reads like a standard episode is just boring. The trick I use in writing is to:

1. Take a scenario in any episode
2. Study it throughly
3. Ask myself "How can this be expanded upon without contradicting anything shown or mentioned on-camera?" and write it up.

To use my first KP story "You've Got Promise, Kid", I put these ideas through the wringer. Exactly how did Camille get disinherited? Why'd she go criminal? Is it merely out of her own desire, or is there a deeper motive, something that the writers never thought of?

THAT'S what makes fanfiction fun, to analyze those little details and share them.

You've got your own style, CBD, but I like mine better.

[kinginyellow]

My own views, for what they may be worth.

•By definition all fanfiction is outside canon. Even if you are expanding an episode, as I did in Out in the Midday Sun, and everything except one small comment about sex could appear in the show it is not canon.
•There is no foolish consistency (the hobgoblin of little minds) in canon. There may not even be a reasonable level of consistency. Ron suffers from this especially. In some episodes he is lazy, moronic, and inept - comedy relief in the very worst sense of the word. In other episodes he takes initiative and exhibits a high level of skill. Whatever a writer needed from a character in a particular show that character was given, and if a wildly different character trait was needed in another show s/he was given wildly different character traits.
•You shouldn't elevate one element as the sole test of canon closeness. I've been told because I write KiGo my work is non-canonical (see point 1, all fanfiction is non-canonical) despite the fact you'll be hard pressed to find writers with as many characters and references to canon as exist in my Best Enemies series. I've been accused of this by people whose stories resemble something where Kim is a queen from another dimension visiting an earth colony on Mars in the 23rd century while Ron is caveman brought into the story by a time machine accident - but their stories are 'canonical' (whatever that may mean - see points 1 and 2) because it is K/R, even if no other character names are used and the two bear no resemblance to the characters in the show except for names.

That being said, I prefer stories which are reasonably close to the nonsensical idea of canon. I want to be able to recognize aspects of Kim, Ron, or Drakken that appear somewhere on the show even if not consistently. I want to understand something of the relationships of the characters going into a story, even if they will change and evolve over the course of the story. (People grow in real life, I try and do that in my stories also.)

For a long time I couldn't read stories set too far from canon. (Every fanfiction is AU so I won't use the term - but some depart more radically than others.) When the characters have nothing but names and hair color in common with the characters in the show I wondered why bother to call it Kim Possible fanfiction -- there are no identifiable elements from the program there. I still have a certain feeling that way. But I've also come to appreciate that some of these are ripping good yarns in their own right and I can enjoy them even if they are set in the past, the future, or some enchanted realm which never existed on this earth.

Oh, and will air a pet peeve in this, my first post to this forum. I really don't need the opening paragraph of a story to tell me that "Kim is a red-haired cheerleader and Ron is her blond best friend since pre-K." I kind of know that when I start reading a KP fanfiction. I've never started reading fanfictions in a category where I didn't have some sense of the existing characters. Only if you plan to depart radically from the established story, "Ron Stoppable moved to Middleton in time to start high school, and met Kim Possible and her best friend since pre-K, Bonnie Rockwaller, on the first day of classes," do you need to provide that sort of background.

KiY

[Luke Danger]

The reason I'm writing fanfics now is that

A) I'm expanding on cannon, sort of a expanded universe so to speak, but I do make sure cannonical things stay in, and if Cannons gets in the way, I come up with a VERY good reason to make it so it couldn't help, namely Ron's magic, which I'm nerfing by having it ristricted by several factors, while Ron now has the ability to use magic on demand, it taxes him pysically, simmilar to how it's done in Eragon.

B) I use cannon as a basis for my stories, while it may not seem so, I try to make the picices fit togther by the end.

So basicly, fanfiction is just a fan's way too express a sitch that WON'T happen on the show for any reason, and write it out. The closest thing to non cannon I'd do is something made non-cannon for a stupid reason for in-universe reason, namely Birianna from KOTOR II not traveling with the (cannonicly) female Jedi Exile (main character in KOTOR II)

[Mickey]

The reason I write fan fiction is because an idea pops into my head, either from a discussion or when my brain randomly puts together a few episodes and forms a plotbunny from said episodes. I try to make my ideas as close to canon as possible.

[Scoutcraft Piratess]

I just can't stand it when people clearly care more for writing their own plot than staying true to the characters and the universe.

[Ezbok58a]

This is the canon I follow...



I'm dissapointed in this thread. Two pages and not a single cannon joke....for shame...