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Today I was entertained by lillianmorgan's thoughts on writing within canon, as opposed to pre- or post-canon.

She talks about people's preferences, why they would choose to write one or the other, and the freedoms/constraints of each. (Then she asked what would happen if Xander, Illyria, and Lilah were in a room together, and damn, do I want someone to answer that question.)

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[tkp.livejournal.com]

That is, for me, writing pre-canon or post-canon doesn't have any more, or any less, constraints than writing during the canon run of the series.

I disagreed with the idea of pre- or post- as "wish fulfillment", but I thought her example of setting the characters in a random location was a good idea to demonstrate what she meant. I can write a fic about Spike in Zimbabwe set pre-canon. I can write a fic about Spike in Nova Scotia post-canon. I cannot, however, write a fic about Spike in Uzbekastan that takes place between "The Body" and "The Gift", unless I go AR. So, if I want to write a story about Spike that takes place within canon, I'm constrained by where Spike is, what he was doing, how he was feeling at the time.

Now, if I want to write about Spike in Turkey post-canon, I still am constrained by things like characterization (would Spike go to Turkey?) and plausibility (how can he be in Turkey the day after NFA?), but I'm free to write a fic where a series of things would happen such that it's believable that Spike would go to Turkey, and I can't do that if I want to write a fic in-canon set in a specific time without going AR.

fics that change nothing about what was on the screen, still play the "what if?" game:

I know what you mean, but I'm not sure I really feel that way. For instance, I think well-written fics would all have a similar answer to "what if we knew what Angel was thinking when Buffy licked ice cream off his chest". The gist would be, "he's happy."

I'm not saying that fics written about this moment are by necessity unoriginal. There are plenty of variant details that could make each fic written about it unique; he could also be thinking, "that's cold", "her tongue is warm", "I want to fuck again", "what time is it?" But to write a fic in which he's thinking something radically different ("I wish she was Spike", "I hate being human", "she's being gross") would in my opinion just be bad characterization. Yes, it's a "what if" about what's going on in Angel's head, but for me a lot of possibilities aren't on the table if you want to stay "in canon". If someone asks, what if he's secretly thinking, "God, Buffy is a loser"--that's an AR for me.

Of course, it's completely subjective; it's all according to my interpretation of canon, but the author of the original post asks about writing fic. And if I'm going to approach a fic saying to myself, "Okay, this is in-canon, this is a missing moment that could've happened"--then I have to hold to my own interpretation of canon very very stringently, and feel very constrained by that.

As a result, the only fic I've written that takes place during canon is mostly an AR to me. Logistically, it could've happened, because the characters are in the right places at the right times for it to be canon, but for me it's not a "during canon" fic, it's a "tangential to canon" fic.

And now that I'm looking this over, I'm making distinctions between fics that take place during canon and fics that are meant to fit inside canon--a distinction I haven't heard talked about that much except in the broader terms of AR. And now I'm confuddled and rambling. Sorry. I think I'll think about it and come back when my thoughts are more organized.