Temple of Ranma's Sailor Senshi Seifuku

Some pieces of fiction have a "reveal" of sorts. For example, Darth Vader is Luke's father, Snape was working against Voldemort, witches are fallen puella magica, Soylent green is made of people, etc.

But how should fanfiction treat this? Especially when its a crossover where the characters crossing over have no idea what the reveal is going to be? Should the author attempt to build tension? The problem here is that, likely, the person reading the fanfic ALREADY knows the reveal, and as such, most of the tension (which is for the sake of the audience) is lost. If tension is to be built, then how? Foreshadowing, one of the best methods of building tension prior to a reveal, is completely pointless in fanfiction.

Note, this is not the same as "prequels". Prequels can get away with building tension by introducing a while new plotline. For example, star wars ep 1 to 3 had the clone wars, padme, jar jar binks, etc thrown into it, not just the fall of Vader.

To put it another way, imagine if you've been hired to write the script for a soylent green remake, how would you go about it? Keep in mind that nearly everyone on the planet already knows that Soylent green is made of people, but your job is to make the new movie as surprising as the old one (barring cheap tricks, like over the top special effects or turning it into a slasher fic).

I'm just a little confused by what this is about, exactly. I mean, I think it's possible to use foreshadowing for a reveal in fan-fiction, so long as it's about something else. And it might be tricky, but it should also be possible to use a different means of foreshadowing for a reveal that people expect if it's unfamiliar enough and/or might suggest something else.

This makes me think of the live action Super Mario Bros. movie. At least in America, the cartoons (or at least one of them, as far as my memory tells me) established that Mario was from one world and got sucked into another via a pipe. In the movie, they used a meteorite to reveal how the other world was formed, as well as an explanation for what happened to the dinosaurs.

As far as how the reveals in fan-fiction should be treated, I believe that -- unless the author is writing a divergence or alternate universe that alters or nulls the reveal -- that it shouldn't be ignored unless there's a good reason provided by the plot itself. Even if people expect it, they can still only guess how the new elements (crossover characters and such) will play into them (that is, if there are any). If there are no new elements, and all it is is the exact same thing from the source material, how much attention you give it can depend on what kind of effect it has on events and characters. If it's something with a widespread and/or significant effect on the story, you'll probably want to cover it. If it doesn't matter all that much, it's possible to get away with mentioning it in passing, or summarizing the event, rather than devoting a scene to it. Basically, they shouldn't be ignored, if only for the integrity of the story. Depending on what it is, however, I think an author can enhance it with certain techniques: such as looking into the thoughts of characters that weren't heard in the source material, which could only be guessed at or assumed.

mondu_the_fat wrote:Foreshadowing, one of the best methods of building tension prior to a reveal, is completely pointless in fanfiction.

Bah, humbug! Foreshadowing is completely pointless only if the fanfic is completely canon. If you're doing fanfiction, you can use the canon foreshadowing as a red herring.

Hm. Well, my own method involves a deft touch. Don't outright say things, your readers may not be familiar with the source material yet anyway, and it gives them more opportunity to exercise their own brains. Show things from other perspectives, what's going on elsewhere, and work around the angles. You don't really need to outright say it, many of the characters in question don't know... focus on the characters and how they'll react to X Reveal.

Bah, humbug! Foreshadowing is completely pointless only if the fanfic is completely canon. If you're doing fanfiction, you can use the canon foreshadowing as a red herring.

It could be useful if the fanfic reveal makes more sense than the canon reveal, but if its a red herring for the sake of throwing the readers off, that can be annoying.

Don't outright say things, your readers may not be familiar with the source material yet anyway, and it gives them more opportunity to exercise their own brains. Show things from other perspectives, what's going on elsewhere, and work around the angles.

If it's something with a widespread and/or significant effect on the story, you'll probably want to cover it. ... Depending on what it is, however, I think an author can enhance it with certain techniques: such as looking into the thoughts of characters that weren't heard in the source material, which could only be guessed at or assumed.

This is likely why I like fanfics POVs from axillary characters so much. Its canon, but seen differently.


Thanks guys!

mondu_the_fat wrote:It could be useful if the fanfic reveal makes more sense than the canon reveal, but if its a red herring for the sake of throwing the readers off, that can be annoying.

Hey, I'm a mystery writer. Red herrings are one of the valuable pieces of our armamenterium.

Pale Wolf wrote:Hm. Well, my own method involves a deft touch. Don't outright say things, your readers may not be familiar with the source material yet anyway, and it gives them more opportunity to exercise their own brains. Show things from other perspectives, what's going on elsewhere, and work around the angles. You don't really need to outright say it, many of the characters in question don't know... focus on the characters and how they'll react to X Reveal.

While this topic is rather old, I've also been rather dead (in that I don't think I've actually visited this site in 6 months) and it's not so old that I feel like I'm a necromancer (speaking of which...cannot wait for Diablo 3...). As a reader, I appreciate what Pale Wolf says, particularly for crossover series. I'm an avid fan of the actual Ranma (among others, but it is one of the focuses here) anime/manga, and am willing to read pretty much anything it gets crossed with, even if I don't know the source, as well as it is well written. Given that, I appreciate the suspense in things that are completely mundane to people that actually know the series.

A good personal example for me is Naruto. I pretty much dislike the canon Naruto anime (having never read the manga, so I won't judge it but I'm pretty sure it will suffer the same flaws I find in the anime... anyway, I digress). But, having seen a few episodes in the past, I can pretty definitively say that I really don't like. I have enjoyed a good number of Ranma/Naruto crosses, and even beyond that, have read a few comedy pieces set exclusively in the Naruto-verse that I found quite entertaining. The better written fics were almost categorically the ones that tried to preserve what I imagine was the canon buildup to big events.