First draft attempt at a de-fanfic'd story

Okay, guys. I think this has been successfully "de-fanfic'd." The trick is inventing and inserting a original back story (two back stories in this case) and describing the characters that we usually can already visualize from canon.

My question to you -- especially if you haven't read my SG-1 fics -- does the story work for you? Does the back story make sense?

Possible problems:

- Pacing may have been screwed up by adding detail.
- Descriptions of characters may still be lacking.
- The back story might not be believable, or might not be clear. (For example, I may need to add a briefing room scene, though I really want to try to keep all the action to just the firing range.)
- My invented character names could be laaaaaaame.
- The story could just be flat-out boring without the "hook" of already loving the characters.


( First Time A Soldier, remastered. )

Since the prof sneereth at sci-fi and fantasy ("I'm not going to allow the other students to write genre fiction"), I picked a story that I could take out of sci-fi.

The goal is to prove to the professor that I'm experienced enough that I can take on the 50,000-word nanowrimo as my one of my assignments for the course. I want to do nanowrimo this year, but I'm afraid that if I don't include with my creative writing classwork, either nano or my homework will suffer badly.

So. What do you think?

How Shave Off Those Serial Numbers: De-fanficcing Fanfic

Okay, discouraged and frustrated at the moment.

The process of "de-fanficcing" a story, i.e., sawing off the serial numbers and turning fanfiction into original fiction, is much more than simply changing names and developing some backstory.

1 - ( Character development in fanfic is based upon prior material. It's a little like starting in the middle of a book. )

2 - ( Fanfic plots can be borrowed for original fiction without too much difficulty; however, if you have relied heavily on allusion to canon... )

3 - ( Allusion to canon in fanfic becomes the major stumbling block in 'de-fanficcing,' depending on the sort of fanfiction you've written. )

The fanfiction writer's greatest asset is their reader. Like with any highly specialized educated audience, the writer can reference a shorthand of shared ideas.

Even though fanfiction uses the same writing techniques as original fiction, within the restrictions of canon, the fanfic writer has this extra tool. It's a slightly different technique. Which doesn't tell us whether the writer can or cannot write original fiction. It just means you'll have to write differently.

As for "de-fanficcing": If you have an AU, with plenty of original characters (or at least a unique backstory for those characters), and aren't closely tied to canon, then maybe it's worth the effort.

The last question is: how attached are you to that fanfic? *Icarus starts the chainsaw.* Be ready to take it apart.