Here's a morbid question for my fellow medical drama lovers. Which do you prefer, injury or disease?
I'm going to go injury on this one, though Julie has an interesting point that injury does well as a subplot. Here's my reasoning- an injury has to have a backstory, a situation you put your character in to end up with said injury. A disease, almost 100% of the time, just happens. Then, the story basically has to be about the disease itself. Now, Julie has mastered the art of telling a "disease story" and making it excellent. I immensely enjoyed the Broken series and Curtain Call, but for my own reading/writing purposes, I think I actually prefer disease/injury as a subplot instead of having the whole story be about it.
Is there anything that is 'off limits' to you as a writer? Something you would NEVER do in one of your stories?
I agree with not killing the real-life Backstreet kids. That just seems so personal, and what it they actually DO read fanfic? I can't imagine, say, being Howie and stumbling across a story where little John dies. Eek. I also agree with keeping real-life drama out while it's still fresh. For example, let's take Nick in Falling in Love Again and it's (eventual) sequel. Leslie's death happened around the time frame I'm basing the story on. I have no intention of touching it. In my happy little fanfic world, that never happened. Now, Nick's real life family drama in that he had a pretty crappy upbringing, that's part of what makes Nick, Nick. So I'm not opposed to mentioning that. One thing I can never see myself doing is slash. That's just personal preference more than anything
As far as the self-indulgent writing goes, I think that in a way, all fanfic is a bit self-indulgent, because we're inserting our idols into stories we write. Otherwise, we'd all just be writing original fiction and leaving the Backstreet Boys or any other fandom out of it. That being said, there are definitely pieces that are more self-indulgent than others. Julie, I too wrote a big girl band meets boy band story many moons ago,and for anyone who's been reading the forum and the challenge thread, you know that the rewrite of that is Forever. Totally self-indulgent! For any other info on that story, you can see that I've alluded to it when answering other questions and in the challenge thread. No use beating a dead horse, there. lol