FantasyLand (Next Exit)

So, you want to write an AU?

I've got news for you, kiddo. If you've ever written any kind of fanfic at all, you've already written an AU. ALL fanfic is AU. After all, AU stands for Alternate Universe, meaning a universe different than the canon one. Any time you write the characters doing anything they weren't seen doing on-screen, you've written an AU.

On the other hand, fandom does recognize a different type of story as an AU. Labeling your story an AU means you've changed some basic elements of canon (meaning the accepted universe that we see on-screen) in more ways than just writing that the guys or gals are having sex. Maybe you've decided to put Xena and Gabrielle in 18th century France. Maybe you've decided that Jim never left the jungle and that Blair found him there (I understand this is a popular theme among Sentinel writers for some odd reason). Maybe when Q lost his omnipotence and omniscience on ST:TNG, you've wondered what would have happened if he NEVER got them back? It could be as major as introducing a world-wide plague that destroys most of the civilized world.

(Give me a BREAK here, people. AU does NOT mean you should ignore physical reality. If you destroy 50-75% of the population world-wide, civilization will break down. Everything from being able to get your dry cleaning back in three days to water and sewage treatment plants that no longer have the staff to bring clean water to your pipes, power outages, an enormously increased crime rate, gasoline not being available at your neighborhood service station. You name it, and it won't work any more. Who's boinking who will be the LEAST of the character's worries. There won't be any FOOD.)

Okay, with gritted teeth, I admit that you can ignore any physical reality that you want, it's your story, after all. But it's not good writing.

That's my first rant. Whatever you do to the physical universe, make sure you cover the consequences of this action on your characters. Try to avoid things like the plague mentioned above. Unless you're prepared to deal with consequences, which means a lot more writing and a lot more work, you're going to wind up with a totally unbelievable story. And unbelievable does NOT equal great, or even good, writing, no matter what your little circle of admiring friends tells you.

Now that I have that out of my system, I'll admit that I'm not a big fan of AUs most of the time because authors seem to think labeling their story "AU" is a license to do anything they want with the characters. Like write them 100% out of character. I know, I've moaned about this before elsewhere, but here I am again. It's FANfic, people. Your readers are FANS of the show and they want to read about the characters they know and love (hate) from on-screen. If the people in your story don't share any characteristics with the on-screen characters outside of the names - it may be fanfic, but it's not GOOD fanfic. Good fanfic means recognizable characters, even in completely unrecognizable situations. (See characterization essay.)

If you want to make Mulder a vampire, that's okay. But, outside of the vampirism, he should still sound and act like Mulder. If it's your idea that being vampire will change him, you have to write the change, so the reader can follow it and will know how this person you call Mulder got from being the guy on the tv screen to being the guy sitting in that bloodbank, holding slip #78 and wondering exactly how he's going to explain a need for 25 pints of blood for the little soire he's giving this evening. If being a vampire changes him from a somewhat neurotic, brilliant, dedicated, obsessive FBI agent into a flamer who's only interest is in attending high society parties so he can munch on blue-bloods, you'd better explain how you got from A to B if you don't want people mocking your story when you're not listening.

If you wonder what would have happened if Jim hadn't been a Sentinel, but just a good cop who had this kid Blair foisted off on him as an assistant....

If your idea is that Bodie got hurt and wound up in a wheelchair for the rest of his life...and Doyle never HAD been a cop, so they met after the accident....

If you want to explore what would have happened if, instead of becoming a Mountie, Fraser had decided to be a longshoreman and he met Ray (whichever Ray) in the course of a crime Ray was investigating on the docks....

Those are all AU ideas. They run directly counter to canon, they are based on ideas that are a contradiction of what we see on-screen. I guess, in the end, that's what fans identify as an AU.

The bottom line is that you write an AU exactly the way you'd write any other fanfic story - make a list of the characteristics that define your people and make sure you stay true to those characteristics. Make your story internally consistent - if you're changing canon, you'd better start by writing a list of what stays the same and what you're changing, and how what you're changing will change what you didn't mean to change....

If you're writing a story where NOTHING stays the same and EVERYTHING is changing, why don't you just name the people Edward, Andrew, Nicholas, Timothy, and Wayne and get it over with? Just write Original Characters in an original universe and stop pretending it's fanfic. If you have an idea for an Original Story - GO with it!! Why limit yourself to fan writing? What might make a lousy fanfic story could be an excellent original story.

(At this point, I feel compelled to mention that I've written an AU and broke most of my own rules. Billowing Seas is a long piece of absurdity where Krycek, Mulder, Skinner and others infest a sort of imaginary pirate universe. No one is in character and Mulder, in particular, is sort of a cardboard nobody. This is the problem with AU stories, you see. It's almost impossible to remove these characters from their native universe and not have to twist them around to force them to fit another one.)