The filidh that cam frae Skye
Removed:
- Believe it or not, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is rumored to be this. Apparently, Lauren Faust originally tried to pitch a show called Milky Way And The Galaxy Girls, but when she got FIM instead she literally modeled it after her original show, except with ponies.
This page strikes me as mostly critical... However, I have a question; How does a Cookie Cutter fic differ from an AU? Or are they the same. Cause if you just want to write about your favourite characters, but just don't want to deal with their world or have an idea for a different setting and thus make it AU, is that stereotyped to be bad? Considering if you keep the character names and personalities the same and just change the world they live in?
Same goes for ridiculously overused plots - High School A Us, to name one. As in, when you read "High School AU", it's immediately a negative impression. Because even with an overused setting, you can still use fresh ideas, and the fic can be good.
Maybe I'm getting this wrong and hear too much negative feedback from the Trope, but could someone clear this up for me maybe?
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For how transplanted characters differ from an AU in current jargon, as I understand it an Alternate Universe generally involves changing one or more known details of the original setting and developing from that point on.
To use Harry Potter as an example, the following would be Alternate Universes: Lily and James had a baby girl instead of a boy, Lupin was framed and imprisoned instead of Sirius Black, Harry dies at the end of Book 4 and the world has to carry on without him, etc. These stories would all be clearly rooted in the canon universe but events would happen differently because of the change.
However, a story about Harry the green-eyed cat with a lightning-bolt scar living in the sewers with his two friends, Ron the ginger tom and Hermione the clever longhair? That's Transplanted Characters.
That doesn't mean it's a terrible story - Tropes Are Not Bad. But it will face opposition from two groups, people who hate all fanfiction and think you're ruining your potential by jamming bits of something else into your story, and people who specifically wanted to read fanfiction of the setting and characters they like, not some other characters who vaguely resemble them.
OP here - thank you very much, that made the difference very clear. I understand it now! Thanks!
"Indeed, it's become almost commonplace for authors of well-reviewed all-human fics to pull their stories in hopes of publishing them as original fiction. Very few of them seem to see anything wrong with doing this."
I'm baffled. What is wrong with doing that?
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A good fic should heavily make use of and enrich the universe it's in (otherwise what was the point of making it a fic of that universe to begin with?), so trying to turn it into a good original story means either having to get rid of part of what made the fic good, or basically ripping off the original work by filing off the serial numbers. Both tactics could be fairly criticized, IMHO.
Well, the problem with that answer is that by landing in this trope at all, they already *weren't using* the universe of the original fiction, but some completely different setting, and only the vague shadows of the canon characters were still attached.
The only thing that's dodgy about it as far as I can see is that the writers are sticking in the names of a popular series just to get fans of it to review their work, then dropping those references and trying to sell the result. This could be seen as a cynical exploitation of the fanbase.
Rilkar
- Twilight fanfiction often suffers from this, with writers sticking Twilight names into stories about everything from a Hollywood movie set to the Titanic. Most of these stories also take place in a world where vampires do not exist, oddly enough.
- Indeed, it's become almost commonplace for authors of well-reviewed all-human fics to pull their stories in hopes of publishing them as original fiction. Very few of them seem to see anything wrong with doing this.
- And the worst part is, for one of them, it worked. Ever hear of Fifty Shades Of Grey?
- Indeed, it's become almost commonplace for authors of well-reviewed all-human fics to pull their stories in hopes of publishing them as original fiction. Very few of them seem to see anything wrong with doing this.
Did this trend start before or after 50 Shades?
I need some advice writing a fanfic of mine. In my story the one of the character's are taking a no-dive out of character,except it would be closer to a OC Stand In because the character didn't get any characterization or screentime in thr original. Nor did they play a big enough role in the plot that taking them out would change everything else. However the role they're going to play in my story is completely different then the one in that they would marginally take part in had they'd remain a minor character, it's completely outside the context. An example (not the fic I'm doing) would be like having Misty or Brock somehow go to a universe about trading cards or school-life, or a space-operah and somehow fit into it. Would this be a direct-example of a cookie-cutter fic, and would it be inheritly bad?
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What distinguishes this from In Name Only?
I guess I was expecting this to focus more on how the same stock plots tend to show up in fanfic over and over, with only the characters or fandom that get plugged into them changing. (ie Aliens Made Them Do It, or There Is Only One Bed.)
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Not enough as written. This needs a rewrite, and (if this page is still here next time I check) I may just go do it.
We need to emphasize the Cookie Cutter in Cookie Cutter Fic. A Cookie Cutter Fic should be a Fan Fic that not only is In Name Only but also has a Cliché Storm or othrwise blatantly unoriginal plot. High School AU is Cookie Cutter Fic not just because it tends toward Character Derailment, but also because it's so common.
Corollary: The Ur-Example of any fanfic genre cannot be a Cookie Cutter Fic for the same reason the original instance of a strange character type is not an Overused Copycat Character.
Some fandoms will have Fandom Specific Plots for Cookie Cutter Fics...
The most brazen example of a Cookie Cutter Fic, IMO, is a Fusion Fic (either from two original sources or between the In Name Only fandom and a fanfic in another fandom) which changes nothing about the characters but the names. Many years ago, when Fanfiction.net still had Real-Person Fic, someone posted a fanfic for The Beatles which the author stated in the author's note was what, in TV Tropes parlance, is a Fusion Fic of a Simon & Garfunkel fanfic that author wrote and John & Paul (the only Beatles who showed up). I remember that one vividly because it had Paul as a badly-recovering heroin addict and John as his straight friend, which was extreme Character Derailment even if one accepts edgier depictions of Paul McCartney in fanfic... And I lost respect for another author when I found that a House/Wilson fanfic they wrote was nearly identical to one they wrote for the Stargate fandom.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage — Paul McCartney
And yes, the "same stock plot" thing should be noted. What qualifies for a stock plot varies; some cross fandoms, but sufficiently perverse fandoms might even have a Fandom-Specific Plot of type B that gets twisted into Cookie Cutter Fic.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage — Paul McCartney
Personally I think this trope needs a rename, since "cookie cutter fic" tends to imply "one exactly like all the others" when the trope is apparently more "Character names and maybe some superficial resemblances set in a universe+genre that bears no relation to the original".
I mean, if people actually DO mean "ridiculously overused plot" then most of the examples, including the ones that linked me to this trope in the first place, are totally wrong. Turning Harry Potter into a non-magical Hardy Boys setting may be a bizarre thing to do, but it's not a fanfic exactly like all other fanfics!
Maybe "cut and paste fic"? For pasting the canon characters into whatever it is you're writing?
Anybody know the name of the star wars fic mentioned on the page? The one where Anakin discovers that he'll become Darth Vader by reading the ROTS xbox game cover?