Writing Filter

I was thinking a little this morning, while looking at prompts for a ficathon and noting how few of them I could even consider writing. I came up with five out of hundreds, and those are all based entirely on the fandoms without referencing the characters mentioned or the prompt for them.

I suspect that the problem is manifold. First, I'm very cautious about live action fandoms. I won't write (and generally won't read) explicit fic in them. Second, I'm wary of large fandoms. Third, I'm wary of large, internally consistent canons, especially complicated canons. Fourth, I don't tend to fall into fandoms and then look for what I can write. I get an idea that has to be written in that fandom and then review the canon with that in mind. Fifth, I need a fandom with elements of fantasy, SF, etc. There has to be something not every day, not real world, about it. Fifth, it can't be horror. There's a level of grimness that I can't handle, and my definition of horror may be broader than some other people's.

When I'm looking at something to be written fast (under six months) I need either a small, easily reviewed canon or a canon I don't need to review because I know it well or because it's sufficiently contradictory that nothing I do will mangle it really badly. Examples of the former that I've written include Nightwalker, Zenna Henderson People stories, Labyrinth, Legal Drug and Clover. Examples of the latter are Weiss Kreuz, Doctor Who and The Pretender. Weiss Kreuz and Doctor Who are tangled enough that I can do anything without breaking the continuity any more than it already is. The Pretender, I thought I knew well enough not to screw up, but I was wrong and made a fairly major continuity error that meant that I had to label the fic AU.

I've also written Rurouni Kenshin, InuYasha and Ranma ½. They don't actually fit either category exactly. Ranma's more in the what-continuity? category but isn't entirely. InuYasha has solid continuity, and I didn't review it. I peeked at a general summary of the ending, reviewed one of the movies for characterization and wrote something sufficiently post-canon that the details I didn't have probably wouldn't matter. The Kenshin fic has been sitting with only snippets completed for a very long time because it's going to be a lot of work to figure out how it works. I've seen most of the pertinent episodes of the anime multiple times and have the volumes of the manga carefully set aside for research. Maybe I'll get around to it some day. Maybe I won't.

I don't think that it's a coincidence that Weiss Kreuz is still the fandom in which I experiment most. It's where I attempt strange pairings just because they're not common. It's where I try to write smut (and generally fail). It's where I get sudden what-if ideas and write snippets of them. It's where I'll take weird prompts to see what happens.

I wish I had more fandoms I felt that way about. It's a fun sort of playing around. I'm not sure what else is out there that would fit my criteria. Weiss is perfect because it's small enough that I can remember all the characters and the rough order of events. It's large enough to be contradictory (plot holes big enough for multi-lane highways) and to let me pick and choose what pieces and characters I want to use. It allows multiple character interpretations in different combinations. I also haven't run into anybody in the fandom who's fanatically attached to one particular pairing, interpretation, etc. (Not to say they're not out there, but I haven't run into them.)

Okay back to writing the stuff with deadlines....