Playing In Someone Else's Sandbox: Alternate Universes

[dragonbat2006]

Whenever you choose to write your story in a modified canon—that is, whenever you choose to add or change certain canon elements—you are writing in an Alternate Universe, or AU. Some people argue that virtually all fan-fiction is technically AU, and that’s definitely one way to look at things. Fan-fiction does, by definition, explore beyond canon. However, for the purpose of this manual, we will define an AU as a story which contains certain elements that render it incompatible with canon, as opposed to a story which did not transpire in canon (but could have!). There are five principle types of AU¹:

1. Predictive


2. Divergent


3. Contextual Reassignment


4. Swaps


5. Crossovers

We’ll be looking at crossovers more thoroughly in the next section.

Predictive

"But mother warned me never to stray from the path."

"The path has strayed from you."

—Little Red Riding Hood and the Baker, Into the Woods

Earlier, we touched briefly on “Jossing.” Jossing is what happens when new developments in canon render your story no-longer-compliant.

Example:

In Book One, Alice, Bob, Dave and Carol meet in high school. You begin to write a story in which Alice and Dave become romantically involved over the summer. However, a short while later, Book Two comes out. In it, we discover that Alice’s family moved away over the summer, Bob and Carol are now dating, and Dave is mooning over Eileen—who has just moved into the neighborhood.

This doesn’t mean that you need to scrap or change your story. You can continue writing it precisely as you started. All you need to do is include an author note at the beginning that says something like:

AU in which Alice never moved away and Eileen never appeared.

Some writers like to mention that they started writing the story before the new developments came to light:

When I began writing this, Book Two wasn’t out yet, so Alice was still in Settingtown and Eileen didn’t exist.

This isn’t entirely necessary, since most archives and blogs date-stamp entries. However, it doesn’t hurt.

Divergent

A Divergent AU is an AU in which the writer envisions how canon might have changed had an established canon event transpired differently (or not at all). Suppose that the rocket that carried Superman to Earth as a baby had landed in Gotham City and the child inside was adopted by the Waynes. Clark and Bruce grow up as brothers. However, this could mean that, on the night that the family takes a fatal shortcut through the alley, young Clark steps in front of his parents and deflects the mugger’s bullets. The Waynes survive—which may open up new challenges and possibilities for the two boys...²

Another sort of Divergent AU would be when, instead of changing the character’s history, the author changes the world. What would have happened to Scarlett O’Hara, had the South won the U.S. Civil War? If the Roman Empire had never fallen, what might that have meant for the residents of Nottingham, England in the twelfth Century?

Contextual Reassignment

Contextual AUs come about when the characters are taken out of their familiar surroundings and placed in a different setting or context.

• Your canon is set in a high school. You wish to write a story in which the characters are US soldiers fighting overseas.


• Your characters are intergalactic pirates. You choose to write them as normal Earth-dwellers in the 21st century.

Swaps

This often refers to switching out the characters with the actors who portray them.

Susan Star wakes up in a bedroom that isn’t hers. At first, she thinks that she must have fallen asleep on the set of the TV show in which she currently appears. However, she quickly realizes that she’s not on a set at all. In fact, the TV world is real—and everyone thinks that Susan is her character, Helen Heroine. The only problem is that everyone is expecting Helen to save the day—and Susan has no clue how!³

Also prevalent are the gender-swap AU—in which one or more characters are written as members of the opposite gender, and the body-swap AU—in which the minds of various characters are switched into different bodies.

Warning:

You have the freedom to write whatever story you wish, however, posting it for public consumption may — depending on your subject matter — incur additional risks. Be careful when you write about actual people, as opposed to the characters that they portray. This is commonly referred to as Real-People-Fiction (RPF)⁴. While fan-fiction may operate in a legal grey area, RPF could leave you open to prosecution for libel or character defamation, in the event that you choose to portray the character as a villain. Think long and hard before you decide to write an RPF in which you portray a living person as a murderer, rapist, or pedophile. This holds true not only for the celebrity, but also for the celebrity's real-life spouse, child, or other family member. You should be aware that posting your story under a pseudonym may not protect your identity. The internet isn’t as anonymous as people like to believe.

Keep in mind...

However you change the universe, the characters about whom you are writing should still be recognizable. It doesn’t necessarily follow that a character who is a leader in canon will always be a leader, no matter what. The canon Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “Tapestry” explores the track that Captain Picard’s life might have taken, had he not received a near-fatal injury in his youth. As it turns out, sustaining the injury taught the younger Picard how fragile and fleeting life could be—which led him to take chances and risks which culminated in his becoming a starship captain. When he was given an opportunity to alter history and avoid the injury, he also avoided the learning experience which prompted him to take risks and distinguish himself as an officer. Thus, in this (canon) AU, Picard did not become a starship captain, nor any other person of note⁵. His potential still existed, but in this AU, it was wasted potential.
Remember that your audience is reading fan-fiction largely because they want to see further adventures of their favorite characters. If they no longer recognize their favorite characters, they may feel cheated by the experience. If you find it a challenge to keep the canon characters recognizable, you might want to consider reworking your story as an original fiction.
Also, watch out for erasure. Erasure happens when a writer ignores a marginalized character’s race, ethnicity or orientation to write them as though they were a member of the majority (also called “white-washing,” “straight-washing,” etc.). Essentially, it is erasing the representation of people who are already under-represented in the media (or who, are often represented in stereotypical ways). If a character is Black, Asian, gay, bi, etc., be extremely careful before you decide to write an AU in which the character is white or straight. It’s hard to say whether minority erasure is more or less offensive than minority stereotyping—but since both are problematic, it’s best to avoid either⁶.

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^{1 “Alternative universe (fan fiction), Wikipedia, last modified June 27, 2012.
2 Another example of this would be the DC Comics Elseworlds story Red Son, which has the infant Superman landing in Soviet Russia during the Cold War.
3 While not exactly the same thing, the films Pleasantville and Galaxy Quest can be seen as examples of this.
4 The term “RPF” is typically used only with respect to living or recently-deceased individuals, but not to long-dead historical figures, such as Richard the Lionhearted in Robin Hood or Elizabeth I in Blackadder II.
5 “Tapestry (episode)” Memory Alpha, accessed July 2, 2012.
6 “Invisibility vs bad representation” Anger is Justified, last updated August 14, 2011.}