Inspiration from 'Processed' Canon

[g_uava]

How inspired are you to write new fic if someone else has picked out and organised the parts of canon most interesting to you? Think of it as if a fellow fan has 'processed' the raw ingredient of canon for the creation of creative works. Examples of 'processed' canon include meta/fan analyses, screencaps, timelines, supercuts and detailed guides locating the appearances of certain characters or important events.

On one hand, it's inspiring to review and organise material for writing fic on my own, as I get to reaffirm my interest in canon while becoming more familiar with its details. On the other hand, with someone else's available resources to build on, more energy could be channeled into developing the story and refining my interpretation.

I also wonder if it's possible to arrange bits of canon in a way that's maximally inspiring for other fan writers. Once, I tried to encourage other writers to write about my less popular ship by creating and compiling video clips of my ship's interactions, but then I thought that I had to distribute not only the ship fodder but also prompts and ideas based on that ship fodder. To demonstrate how to 'cook' with ingredients that have been 'processed', so to speak.

Comments

[althea_valara]

This is an interesting question to me, because I'm currently "processing" canon myself by writing fan scripts of several Final Fantasy games. It's a work in progress, posting results to my Neocities site. My goal was mostly for my own enjoyment: I don't want to lose access to these stories once the game(s) shut down, but hey, if fic writers find the scripts useful, that'd make me happy!

I haven't written much fic myself, but I've got several in progress now (this is UNHEARD of for me), and I find myself doing canon review at the games' wikis because I haven't yet gotten to documenting those parts of canon myself. So I definitely appreciate other peoples' work here! It's a tool I can use to make my fic more accurate to canon (I tend to write "missing scenes" kind of fic)

I think of it as another tool, like... prompts are a tool for me, because I don't often get ideas myself but I'll read a prompt and go "oooooh! I could write that" and then do it. Most of my fic came about from prompts in the Final Fantasy Kiss Battle, though one prompt was inspired by all my friends participating in Spook Me.

As for your second paragraph: Well yeah, I do loves me some prompts! But I think your example of compiling video clips of a less-popular ship is good in that it might get other writers thinking about said ship. I don't know if it's really necessary to add prompts, TBH, but for me it's helpful. One of my Kiss Battle fics was written for a pairing I had never considered myself, but my friend prompted the pairing and it made me curious, so I wrote it. That said, this is what works FOR ME, and others might be inspired by the video alone.

I also feel that just being enthusiastic about a pairing will naturally get others interested. Some of my acquaintances have been talking about certain pairings, and their obvious excitement and love has made me curious about maybe at least reading the pairing, if not writing it.

[g_uava]

That's true about some kind of fanworks, which seemingly involves less artistic input, being like tools for creating new fanworks. Like actually tangible tools, their form alone doesn't inform those wielding them how to use them and it's a challenge to distribute both the tools and their manuals for encouraging the creation of new fanworks.

It's really great to take on someone else's enthusiasm! I had tried to get others curious and excited about my ships through sharing fanworks, but it rarely works in my case since it seems I have to put the appeal of my ships even more front and centre in my fanworks.

[verushka70]

I often use processed canon - episode transcripts, fan wikis, etc - as research materials for fics if I need to refresh myself on the canon, or if it's for a fic exchange and is a canon I know, but I don't know by heart, haven't been into for a while, and/or haven't already "processed" myself.

Example: I recently participated in the Classic Film Exchange by pinch hitting for two recipients who otherwise wouldn't get a gift. I knew the canons (both classic films) but I don't know them by heart. So I downloaded subtitles, rewatched both films (a bunch of times), checked the ebooks out of the library (one film was based on an early 1950s hit novel; the other had a novelization ghost written from the screenplay that ended up being published before the film itself came out), listened to an early 00s radio play (from the novel used as source for one film I wrote fic for), and researched the side characters and/or the locations where the films were set.

Technically, the subtitles and novels aren't "processed" canon in the way you're describing ("pre-processed" by other fen), but they are canon. In a way, the classic film itself was/is a processed bit of canon - processed by the film's director! - of the original novel it was based on.

For one, though, one of the optional prompts was "backstory" on a main character. For that, "processed" canon - whether fen processed or existing source - can only help so much with that. A lot of extrapolation from the existing canon of the classic film was necessary (and the source novel wasn't a ton of help with that because the character was changed, in a couple significant ways, from the novel to the classic film).

But to me, that's where the fun and creativity comes in: take the bare bones of character from the classic film's canon (the subtitles), and write the backstory.

So I think the answer to your question is: my use of processed canon as inspiration for writing fic really depends on the fandom, my familiarity with it, and what processed canon is available.

For my second Classic Film Exchange pinch hit, I was EXTREMELY familiar with the canon - starting 48 years ago when I was a kid [yes: I'm old! :-) ]... but I hadn't been fannish about it in decades, so I used the existing processed canon (subtitles, draft film script, old novelization from the screenplay) - as well as rewatching the source classic film about 10 more times! - to re-familiarize myself with it. There was a TON of processed canon from fen, but I didn't delve into it much because the "official" processed canon was so abundant.

For due South fandom, I don't often have to refer back to processed canon. It can inspire me, but I've been in it and with it and watched the entire series so many times I've lost count. I usually only refer back to episode transcripts if I need to use a specific quote and I want to be exactly correct about it (or I want to write new dialog that parallels, mirrors, or turns inside out the original dialog).

For a couple of my past fics, though, there WAS no processed canon. I was in a fandom of one, as far as I knew (except in one case, where there were a few existing fics in Korean, but none in my native language, English).

So in that case there was no processed canon to refer to, other than downloading subtitles and rewatching the films in question multiple times... obviously, in that case, the inspiration for writing came from just watching the source, not the processed canon, of which there was none.
:-)

[soricel]

I've never done a pitch hit before, but I just wanna say, that first example seems like a really impressive and admirable amount of work!

[verushka70]

Well, pinch hitters are called in to anonymous fanwork exchanges when one of the original participants drops out, so that their assigned recipient will still get a gift at the end of the exchange. If I have time (and familiarity with the fandom), I'll pinch hit. It can sometimes be pretty challenging, but it's often a lot of fun, too.

[igenlode]

I'm now very curious as to what classic films these can possibly be ;-)

[verushka70]

All different movies - many are from the classic noir era, but many aren't. The whole Classic Film Exchange is fully open now (author reveals were 2 days ago). I pinch hit requests for gift fic for the movies To Catch a Thief (1955) and Star Wars (1977).

[igenlode]

Thanks! (And the idea on that list of a crossover between "Sabrina" and "The Most Dangerous Game" is... fascinating.)

[verushka70]

Yeah, that crossover kinda perturbed me too, but, well - different strokes for different folks!

[pir8fancier]

I try to take a ridiculous concept and make it work, i.e., Snape owning a diner in Arizona and John/Rodney working at Disneyland. Part of the fun of writing pieces like these is to keep their characters canonical and then throw them into crazy-ass situations.

[verushka70]

That IS fun! And luckily, my primary fandom, due South, has many canonical crazy situations that lend themselves to fanfic - missing scenes, AU, inspiration, and more!

[g_uava]

'the classic film itself was/is a processed bit of canon - processed by the film's director' - Interesting idea to see adaptations as processed canon! That makes sense since creating an adaptation involves some rearranging and interpreting of the source material.

I'm often in a fandom of one myself and while writing fic, often create non-writing fanworks like graphics and video edits as a way of processing canon. It's better when there's material to refer to rather than starting from scratch, like with the example of your film subtitles and novelization. Perhaps processed canon is more helpful than inspiring if we already know how to focus on the bits most interesting to us, instead of looking to the efforts of other fans that have put those bits front and center.

[verushka70]

Agree 100%. As inspiration, I think it helps to process cannon yourself and see what jumps out at you, rather than focus on what others focused on/processed ml... Because others may not be inspired by what inspires you and vice versa.

[g_uava]

'Because others may not be inspired by what inspires you' - I found this to be especially true when reflecting on what inspires me most when creating different kinds of fanworks. A visually compelling shot without dialogue or interactions may be more inspiring to a graphic editor than to a writer.

[igenlode]

Not at all inspired by, as such -- for me, the ideas come first and the surrounding research comes second, and things like timelines and transcripts are invaluable resources at that stage. Transcripts in particular can be visually skimmed (and machine-searched) far faster than any video material, even if they can *occasionally* prove to be misleading in terms of dialogue without the associated body language!

But I find that where my ideas very often come from is in responding to user comments on my own fic that spark off bits of character analysis, or in noticing bits of unexplained canon inconsistency; one of the stories I wrote this year started off by my noticing that the final sentences of the novel were different in the 'original' text and in the translation I likewise owned, which eventually turned out, so far as I can tell, to be an editorial error at some point in the original canon, of which there are at least three different 19th century variants floating around! The translator was evidently working from a corrected version, possibly amended by the author when he realised that what he had written didn't make sense in the context of the sequel -- but at any rate the inconsistency caused me to look much more closely at dates and places...

I can't say that looking at fan analyses on its own inspires me, however. I've drawn upon them once for a minor character, but only when I already had a major plot what-if involving my own speculations about different main protagonists.

Short version: I use them but don't derive plots from them.

[g_uava]

'even if they can *occasionally* prove to be misleading in terms of dialogue without the associated body language' - That's a little thought of pitfall for referring to transcripts of visual media, and which is perhaps extra motivation for creating GIFsets that combine dialogue and visuals.

It's awesome to be inspired to create fanworks that's like a dialogue with other fans and the canon itself. And the different translations can perhaps be seen as processed canon, like in the case of the film adaptation mentioned in another comment.

[igenlode]

Yes, I was thinking of my experience with one particular Blake's 7 episode where the implications of what was said, when I watched the original video, turned out to be quite a bit different from how I'd interpreted it from the bare dialogue in the transcript :-)

(I don't even remember which characters or episode were involved any more, but the awkward jolt of discovery has stuck with me!)

[celli]

I definitely get inspirations from things like edits/vids. In RPF/music fandoms, so much happens that isn't just the product (albums/MVs) but is everything else (interviews/variety shows and other guest starring things/solo work) that I need help finding everything that I need to be inspired/do research, and this helps quite a bit!

[g_uava]

'In RPF/music fandoms, so much happens that isn't just the product (albums/MVs) but is everything else' - That's exactly what motivated me to compile the moments for my RPF pairing! So far I haven't seen many such compilations aside from dedicated Twitter accounts, which makes me less motivated to create fanworks about other RPF pairings since hardly anyone has organised neatly what to base the pairings' fanworks on 🙃

[matsushima]

I don't know if I get inspiration from it but I do rely on fandom wikis for little canon details that I might've missed. The Hunger Games movies added a lot of detail to the background worldbuilding that's not in the books but I'm not much of a movie person, so I'll look up stuff as needed, like What color were the District 8 tributes outfits in the 74th Hunger Games? and so on.

[g_uava]

If not exactly inspiring, it is inspiring to have other fans who've noticed the specific details!

[g_uava]

I'm familiar with those terms and see each fannish activity as landing somewhere on a sliding scale of curation and curative. Since even activities that seem like mere summarisation or data entry are to some degree guided by a fan's interests and preferences, I wonder if other fans do end up influenced by those interests and preferences.

Ship manifestos tend to convince its readers to agree with the manifesto author's interpretation of the ship, but seldom encourages them to develop their own interpretation. In a sense, they get onboard without really wanting to sail the seven seas.

[g_uava]

If anything, I'd like to encourage agency in others to develop their own takes for starting and continuing conversations on a mutual interest, of course without disregarding that everyone's free to do what they want.

[mific]

One of the mods here - just stepping in to remind you about rule 10 on the comm's profile - be respectful when you post and comment.

ETA: this was in response to a commenter who's now deleted their comments.