• About
  • Waypoint
    • AIN
    • Before the Sun Fades
    • Convergence
    • The Galactic Federation
      • Tsien: Chapter 1
    • The Fallen Empire
    • The Fused
      • Chapter 1: Mission
      • Chapter 2: Lindsi
      • Chapter 3: Fusion
      • Chapter 4: Morning
      • Chapter 5: Meridian Park
      • Chapter 6: Filtration
      • Chapter 7: Explanation
      • Chapter 8: New Destination
      • Chapter 9: Solar Strip
      • Chapter 10: Power Imbalance
      • Chapter 11: Lock and Key
      • Chapter 12: Self-Determination
      • Chapter 13: Engineering
      • Chapter 14: Radiation Leak
      • Chapter 15: Shielding Patch
      • Chapter 16: Doubt
      • Chapter 17: Reactor Control
      • Chapter 18: Silent Success
      • Chapter 19: Need to Know
      • Chapter 20: Maintenance Entry
      • Chapter 21: Shards of Sight
      • Chapter 22: Nothing For It
      • Chapter 23: In Case of Emergency
      • Chapter 24: Sightlines
      • Chapter 25: Into the Unseen
      • Chapter 26: Escape to Nowhere
      • Chapter 27: Consequences
      • Chapter 28: Hard Vacuum
      • Chapter 29: Spacewalk
      • Chapter 30: Unanswered Questions
      • Chapter 31: Captain on Bridge
      • Chapter 32: Horizon Mission
      • Chapter 33: Answers
    • Mysteries Unite
    • Oranges and Lemons
    • The Path of the Gods
    • The Bridged Divide
      • Grehstadt
        • Paralysis
  • Buy Books!

Distant Realms

~ A selection of tales from across the Multiverse! Travel via Waypoint to learn more…

Tag Archives: Fanon

Wait, WHAT Now?

23 Thu May 2013

Posted by Metalwings in Miscellaneous

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Canon, Fanfic, Fanon, Thoughts

Whoa. Dude.

So apparently, Amazon are starting to sell fanfic. Sell sell. For actual money. (As opposed to fanfic web cred. I have a slowly diminishing pile of that somewhere…) My world is on SIDEWAYS. SIDEWAYS I TELL YOU.

How is this going to work out? I have no real idea. They’ve only got three titles ‘available’ for playing with from what I can see, and none of them even sound like they’d interest me.

Now me, I’m up for this weirdness. That CC-BY-SA on all of my stories says I pretty much have to be. I can’t wave that flag around and then say ‘but this thing is bad’! That would be hypocritical to say the very least! (And I don’t want to anyway.) But it’s weird, as Red Dwarf’s Cat might say, with a capital Wee. For me, at any rate. I spent a lot of time writing fanfic, in that grey area of Fanon, messing with other worlds and weaving the threads into my own pattern. It was fun, it was good, and if I thought I could do it without risk of backlash I’d happily link it here. But I don’t think I can do that, and that’s why this is weird: outside of certain ‘permitted’ fic (Star Wars extended universe, Warhammer 40k tie-in books, Star Trek ditto, Doctor Who, all that stuff), I’ve never, ever known it get more than an author’s discreet nod and wink, and sometimes a lot worse.

And now Amazon are buying up rights and opening the playing field for everyone to not only write the stuff but sell it in a three-way profit arrangement.

That’s weird. (And I am tired enough to be rambling mildly incoherently, although that may also be a product of still being confused by all this, so now there will be a line break to hide the rest of this post.)

Continue reading →

Canon, Semi-Canon, Fanon

05 Sun May 2013

Posted by Metalwings in Authorial Gubbins, Reading, Writing

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Canon, Fanon, Thoughts

In the course of my reading, reading about writing, and occasionally even reading about reading, I tend to group information into at least three, rather than two, distinct categories. For me, canon is what is actually written down in the book, there forever, immutable. It describes the universe of the story, a rigid framework from which all other things hang. Unless the author engages in some serious retconning (and they shouldn’t!), canon will be there forever.

Semi-canon is a more complex beast. Included in here are things hinted at but never spoken in any book, or things the author has said but never included into anything. Subject to change, they might be regarded by some as “Word of God”, but for me they’re more strongly worded suggestions. That’s what you meant? That’s nice, but that isn’t what I read. That’s how you pictured that? That’s nice, but I’ve always seen it this way. And that’s how I want my random pronouncements to be viewed – particularly since anything not written down is, for me, potentially subject to change. Semi-canon comes on a great sliding scale from the practically canon solidity of “yeah, this is the timeline I’ve been using since Day One to keep everything coherent” down to the ephemeral “hey, wouldn’t it be cool if the reason for X was Y? I just thought of that!”

Fanon, meanwhile, is what one or more fans have started to take as read. It has a lot of value all its own – but no fanfic writer should feel bound by its constraints. There’s a whole world out there!

And of course, there’s always the Great Disaster, the fatal moment when a beloved series jumps the shark. As far as my own personal canon goes, anything that happens after that is semi-canon at best. And I hope that if anything I write goes that way, any readers will be sensible enough to take the same view. (And possibly also to warn me that I’ve gone insane. Insane!)

Addition 2013-05-08: Forgot to add, but share your own thoughts! This is just my view!

Book News

Before the Sun Fades is FREE (ebook only) for the month of July!

Current Project: completing Reclamation; ebook preorders now open.

NaNoWriMo 2016: Instability.

Recent Posts

  • The Best-Laid Plans
  • Temporal Morality
  • Distant Realms!!!
  • A Continuing Infuriation
  • Merry Christmas!

Categories

  • Games (6)
    • Roleplay (5)
  • Miscellaneous (49)
    • Philosophical Meanderings (9)
  • Reading (5)
  • Writing (148)
    • Authorial Gubbins (30)
      • Book Statistics (2)
    • Behind the Scenes (18)
    • Epubs (1)

Archives

Sites I Read

Techdirt Technology news and discussion. A little America-centric, but not too bad.
Quackometer Ever wondered just how much quackery there is on the internet?
Girl Genius My favourite webcomic of all time. Mad Science!
Schlock Mercenary Another exceedingly good (and funny!) webcomic set in the far future.
PhD Comics It's true. It's all true.

Tags

Admin Adventuring AIN Alt-Shift Art Ashi & Arien Ask away! Background Before the Sun Fades Books Cal Forester Canon Chapters Characters Convergence Copyleft Copyright Creative Commons Dayna Kingsley Epub Erithenia Fallen Empire Fanfic Fanon Fantastic Multiverse Fantasy Films Fused Galactic Federation Ian Walker Important Inexcusable Spelling Instability In the News Kirai Music Mysteries Unite NaNoWriMo News Oranges and Lemons Overview PC Games Philosophy Publication Question for you! Rakariel Readers Reasoning Recommendations Reviews Roleplay Sale Sales Sci-Fi Science Short stories Siris Social Kneejerk Songs & Poetry Spamtastic! Star Trek Style Tei The I-D-10-T Error The Path of the Gods Thoughts Three Wishes Time Travel Timewarp Tales Top X Uploads Writing process

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy