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Do you prefer your fan fiction to follow the letter of the books or do you like to read characters in the environment but go in the direction the author wants to lead?

As I am getting back into writing shorts about Rifts, my research has led me to some hard questions: do I follow exactly what the books say, can I use what the books offer and expand what it has, or should I just do what makes me happy?

I’m of the mind that if the Coalition acts in a certain way and characters can’t just sneak in and assassinate high ranking members in Chi-Town as a plot point most people will want to read what you have to say. But I could be mistaken.

My main reason for asking is I may go further and submit some pieces for a Rifter and don’t want them rejected because “The Federation of Magic would NEVER do that” or “One does not simply walk around Wormwood.”

A little deviation is a good thing. Good writing can explain away a lot of things.

I read fan fiction based on games. Some of it is very good, some of it is very bad and much falls in the middle.
My thoughts are as long as you are true to the spirit of things you are probably good. I would personally avoid deviating TOO much from canon since that can turn people off narrowing the scope.

Fan fiction should be true to the spirit and character of the original work.

I enjoy short tales but never really jumped on long stories. You need to have an editor in the company to guide the story. i like to know that the long stories have a place in the game world. If you can't get that level of signing on then I just want a short interpretation of character in the game world. If people like it, they will ask for more.

IMO, fan fiction should avoid contradicting the source material, but might enhance it... but even that gets a little wiggly.

"The lore in the game got the details of this historical event wrong" is not too bad... if you write a Rifts FanFic that changes some things about the Founding of Chi-Town, or the events that lead up to the Great War, that contradicts the "official" story by adding nuance, it's usually not a problem, unless the nuance you made completely invalidates some of the important facts (it doesn't matter WHICH event REALLY started the Great War, but some of the highlights should be unchanged). Defining events that are left undefined, "historical fiction" that fills in the details are cool... I'm less down with changes like "Karl Prosek is actually an uber-powerful witch and that's why he's so evil", just because it diminishes the character to make him not responsible for his actions.

"The metaphysics of the world as you understand them are completely wrong or, at best, highly ignorant" is a lot more problematic. I see this frequently with Palladium, where someone comes up with a unifying energy that's *LIKE* PPE and ISP but BETTER and just ONE of them but NO ONE has heard of except this super-secret race of butt-kickers? I'm usually skeptical of this... though I'm also guilty, as I went and defined PPE as being the raw form, and ISP and Chi as two aspected refinements of PPE when I wrote MOM (no idea if that made it in the book; haven't looked at it in like 10 years).

The nature of Rifts is such that I think it can easily survive lots of Buffy the Vampire Slayer storylines, where the world almost ends and no one notices that isn't immediately involved. Demonic incursion that totally tore up three square miles of Kansas, but then disappeared? No problem. Massive attack on Chi-Town that caused a lot of not-very-specific damage (i.e. no one important died)? I can see that. "Karl Prosek assassinated and replaced by a Changeling?" You're moving more into the "messing with canon" territory.

tl;dr FanFiction should mesh with canon and the present day, not supercede it.

In Rifts since there is supposed to be the concept of parallel dimensions I say screw it all. Do whatever you want in the story with all of the established characters if it is illogically/unexplainably different then it is obviously a parallel dimension.

Fan fiction Anthology called Deviants. Essentially "Sliders" but through Rifts and it is a merc group trying to get back home. They know what Rifts are and that they're supposed to be Time and Space portals but every single one they go through ends up being to an parallel dimension instead of a different time or place. But instead of writing it from the view of the merc group it is written from the view of someone in the world and the merc group is just some "The Narrator", Recurring Extra, or the Recurring Traveller tropes where they intro the story coming through a Rift do some recon and notice something out of sync from their world and then the story begins from that point with them as recurring FAR background characters with them returning at the end as "The Narrator" either causing the story that was running to end or making off-hand comments about something unusual they saw the main character do that ended the story and then going through the next rift.

Blackwater Sniper wrote:Do you prefer your fan fiction to follow the letter of the books or do you like to read characters in the environment but go in the direction the author wants to lead?

As I am getting back into writing shorts about Rifts, my research has led me to some hard questions: do I follow exactly what the books say, can I use what the books offer and expand what it has, or should I just do what makes me happy?

I’m of the mind that if the Coalition acts in a certain way and characters can’t just sneak in and assassinate high ranking members in Chi-Town as a plot point most people will want to read what you have to say. But I could be mistaken.

My main reason for asking is I may go further and submit some pieces for a Rifter and don’t want them rejected because “The Federation of Magic would NEVER do that” or “One does not simply walk around Wormwood.”

My advice is to use your best judgment and remember that while certain factions might have rules, individuals can and do throw those rules right out the window, and many of the CS's high leaders do so on a regular basis (Dr. Bradford, Joseph Prosek II, others). As long as you lampshade it, it's ok to break some rules.

Better hurry; KS is spit-canning the Rifter in a couple of issues due to "reasons".
*shrug* whatever...
Hopefully you can get something published before that 'legal' fan-fic avenue is closed. And don't even try FanFic.net otherwise he'll sick his rabid mid-priced lawyers after you...

I am of the view that fan fiction is about putting your stamp on something. Pick a point in a movie, show, book, etc's timeline and branch off. Make it your own and have fun with it. When you're writing fan fiction, you're doing more for yourself than anyone else.

DhAkael wrote:Better hurry; KS is spit-canning the Rifter in a couple of issues due to "reasons".
*shrug* whatever...
Hopefully you can get something published before that 'legal' fan-fic avenue is closed. And don't even try FanFic.net otherwise he'll sick his rabid mid-priced lawyers after you...

You'd get mores py putting up on a site designed to host fiction than having it in the Rifter anyway.

I treat stories/fiction as just something to read for entrainment and not something that really matters to the game perspective. Non-cannon stories are just something for fun and not part of any canon.

I think it's an abomination and should be hidden away from view. Please write all you want, in any fashion that brings you pleasure, but keep it to yourself.

No, really, don't hold back. Please tell everyone how you really feel.

RPGs are, by their nature, writing fan fiction. The variable is the number of authors.

I like fan fic that 1: Stays true to the original material, and 2: if changes are made, explain it in universe.

That said, characterization is very important, as is internal consistency.

-STS

Blackwater Sniper wrote:Do you prefer your fan fiction to follow the letter of the books or do you like to read characters in the environment but go in the direction the author wants to lead?

As I am getting back into writing shorts about Rifts, my research has led me to some hard questions: do I follow exactly what the books say, can I use what the books offer and expand what it has, or should I just do what makes me happy?

I’m of the mind that if the Coalition acts in a certain way and characters can’t just sneak in and assassinate high ranking members in Chi-Town as a plot point most people will want to read what you have to say. But I could be mistaken.

My main reason for asking is I may go further and submit some pieces for a Rifter and don’t want them rejected because “The Federation of Magic would NEVER do that” or “One does not simply walk around Wormwood.”

A little deviation can be good, but don't stray too far from the original content and spirit of the base work. It's OK to portray some Cs as evil and some are genuinely human. I wholeheartedly agree that one cannot just simply waltz into Chi-town or any other Cs city and assassinate the Emperor or any other high ranking official. I'd be more than wiling to read what you write just so long as it follows the original content and spirit as well as makes logical sense.