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sarasa_catI've been thinking about the kinds of video game fanfic I most want to write (and read) versus the kind of fanfic I find easiest to write.
Easiest to write: fanfic that diverges from canon, or is mostly divorced from canon, or doesn't really rely on canon at all. "What if" fic, AU, or fic that borrows the canonical characters and/or setting purely for my own purposes to tell whatever story I wish. (Most of the prompt fic I write falls into this category).
Most want to write: fanfic that is Quite Tightly Aligned with canon, but rather than just existing a straight-forward retelling (novelization) of the canon, the story contributes additional layers of meta-analysis and depth to the canon, serving as a dialogue with the canon itself. (For each video game that has inspired me to write fanfic, THIS category of fic is always what I draft first and think about the most, but isn't necessarily what I finish first.).
The above creates an odd contradiction. I've never been interested in slavish novelizations of anything. In fanfic, I cringe for reasons I cannot name whenever I read (or write) exact lines or scenes from a video game's canon. I already know the canonical story so I don't need it retold to me. On the other hand, I am interested in everything unspoken that goes on inside characters' heads. I'm interested in alternate points of view that add to the overall story. I want the missing scenes and, when a video game allows players to create a custom protagonist, I want their point of view, particularly if that point of view says something interesting to me about the story and the world -- something different from the way I experienced it.
The thing I struggle with is doing this kind of novelization-style metafiction well and writing it in such a way that the story actually adds something of value as it weaving through the existing threads of canon.
All of this is why I find it so much easier to do the other thing -- to write fanfic that takes some random idea and runs with it, canon be damned! For me, fanfic like this can be a lot of fun to write but I think I enjoy writing this kind of fanfic less and less each year I'm in fandom because unless the story is short or it is gift-fic for someone else, I often wonder why I'm not developing the story further and writing it as original fiction instead. And, when I read this kind of fic, I find it hit or miss whether the story keeps my interest because the further it diverges from canon and my understanding of the characters (especially!), the more I start wishing I was reading that story as original fiction.
When I'm reading fanfic that has been written more or less as a novelization *and* the story provides me with that fic author's thoughts and feelings and experiences with the canon, that interests me. That fanfic becomes dialogue about the canon. In video games, especially games with highly detailed worlds and multi-pathed parallel "canons" that are based on players' choices, this sort of story as dialogue about canon becomes a really interesting space to explore, at least to me.
There's also a middle ground in here: stories that are written as alternate canon where the canonical story suddenly takes a left turn, and the character go down a completely canon-believable alternate path that the game itself was not written to explore.
But either with novelization-style stories told through the protagonist's eyes or through an alternate POV, and with these middle-ground stories, within the Dragon Age games, the canon is chock full of things that are under-explored. So many hints waiting to be unpacked and dots waiting to be connected. And then there are all of the different ways that any particular Hawke or Warden could think and feel and believe as they experience the on-screen events of the game and, perhaps of more interest to me, all of those other hours, days, weeks, months, (and for Hawke, years) that happen off screen but that logically connect on-screen events together. And then there are all of the alternate points of view and along with the roads that are and aren't taken.
To me, what is most interesting in this kind of fanfic is the opportunity for meta -- the opportunity to say something interesting that adds to canon or illuminates canon. Usually these stories add something new to the canon that slips right in, weaving between existing canonical threads, which tends to be far more interesting than playing canon slavishly straight.
All of this gets back to why the fanfic I most want to write is always the first story I think of, the first idea that makes me want to participate in a fandom, but also the most difficult for me to write. I play a video game. I have an experience. I start thinking about what is going on behind the scenes. I have something I want to say but getting all of this into a story that is interesting and that truly weaves right into canon is far more difficult than just winging it and writing "what ifs" or AUs or random tangents, short character studies, PWP and kink prompts, or anything else that isn't really saying something directly about the canon itself.
Or, it's easier to just tell a story than to tell a story about a story. ;)
YMMV.
