How to Write a Good Fanfic

7.1 No Author's Version, No OoCness, No Possession Sues

Hermione wasn't Hermione.

The reader's eyes blinked a couple of times, wondering how the writer of the story could think the character in the story was actually Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series. While the character did, in fact, share the same name as Hermione Granger, that was it. Gone was the lovable bookworm who cared more about smarts than beauty, replaced by a shallow, self-centered girl who cared more about getting a makeover to get revenge on Ron for cheating on her. Which, in fact, Ron hadn't actually cheated on this fake Hermione. It amounted to an excuse to get the fake Hermione together with Draco Malfoy, which was problematic due to the tension between the two that wouldn't go away simply overnight.

So, the reader reviewed, calling the reader out for making the characters out of character.

In return, the writer responded. "What don't you understand about this story being AU? By that, I mean both alternative universe AND author's version. Since this is OUR version, we can do whatever we want to."

...

So, this particular essay is long over due. However, this one took quite a few drafts to write, but also couldn't be written before I wrote 6. Canon Facts and Canon Interpitations, 7. AU – Not Actually Infinite, or 8. The Dreaded Mary Sue, as this piece does build upon those three despite not referring back to those particular essays. So...

I'm honestly not sure where the words "author's version" actually comes from, but I do know that the term AU does not in any way mean "author's version", but is instead short for "alternate universe". I think I saw one argument awhile back where the person using the term stated AU comes from the first two letters of "author", but that's not how acronyms work. I've only ever seen these words used two or three times so far, kind of in the same manner I've seen only a hand full of people say the term "ship" means any kind of relationship.

So, can I accept the definition of AU from a small handful of writers I am only able to count on one hand?

The answer is, no. Even if the number was larger, the actual definition of AU wouldn't change. The question however is, what is the person using the words "author's version" getting at. Well, as the writer in the sample story notes, there is the belief that they can do anything they want -- which is in part true. A person can do whatever they want when they write a fanfic, outside of plagiarism, and yet these "author's versions" are also something writer's can't do. Add to this, there seems to be the idea here that the stories belong to them, forgetting about copyright law, and how the characters and places actually belong to the original creator of the series.

Did you know one of the arguments made by people who plagiarize the original canon material by transcribing the plot and dialogue and making a few edits here and there, is to argue they're not making any money off the work, but also claim that what they posted is their story?

Author's version speaks of an ego problem on the part of the writer belying the idea they think they can do no wrong. However, one of my favorite quotes from Wikipedia's says this in regards to the alternate universe.

"A common mistake made by inexperienced fan fiction writers is to believe that writing an AU fan fiction means that the writer can acceptably and drastically alter the personalities of major characters; in fact, the point of AU fan fiction is that the characters' personalities remain as much the same as possible, and the only changes are those that could rationally be caused by the differences from canon."

Making the characters OoC is always bad writing. To clarify here, while OoC is short for "out of character", any out of character moment which can logically be explained by proper character development, a particular event occurring within a character's life, or even working specifically with an AU where one is looking to explore how canon would change should one or more characters personalities change is still considered IC, or "in character". Hands down there used to be a time when the latter was classified under OoC, which is where the term originally came from -- writers who were exploring varying character faucets, but the term quickly came to be used to describe moments where the reader found themselves unable to willingly suspend their disbelief in regard to the out of character moment.