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[Sakabelle]

Yeah that would be super annoying! It would be hard to follow a story that was constantly changing. Going back and making minor changes is one thing (like, I go back all the time and fix typos I find) but to constantly be in the process of re-writing? If you're going to do that then wait until the story is finished to post.

[FrickingKaos]

See I leave little notes on the story when I have added something to it, like I'm doing on YGLABN. All I'm doing with that is making it easier to read. I wrote it on my old phone so the spacing is terrible. Not completely changing it.

As for the person I was talking about, yeah it is annoying. She changed POV and everything.... I just don't want to read it anymore.

[Sakabelle]

Yeah but that is in the same vein as fixing typos I think. I have no issue with that.

Changing POVs would make it a completely different story I would think!

[Carter-Orange]

I don't think I'd go back and change my old stories, I'll just leave the typos and other stuff there, lol.  At least if I go back and re-read them one day, I'll see whether I've improved.

As for other people re-writing their stories, I don't think I'd read a re-written version unless it was turned into an original story and changed a hell of a lot. It would also have to be a story I loved the first time.

[myconfession]

I've thought about it.... especially with "Right Kind of Wrong" and "I Wanna Be Bad" because I think they are poorly written. RKOW was one of my earliest stories and IWBB is just too massive to even deal with. LOL

[mare]

Tonight's question:

Do you enjoy reading and or writing AU fics? What is it about them you like or dislike?

[julilly]

Tonight's question:

Do you enjoy reading and or writing AU fics? What is it about them you like or dislike?

AU is my absolute favourite genre. I just feel like there is so much freedom to break outside the "same old plot". I love reading a good AU fic, too.

Canon is fine, too but sometimes I just like to read/write something a little different.

[RokofAges75]

Going back to what I posted earlier about rewriting, the only fanfic I've rewritten is Code Blue, and I will never do that again!  When my original co-author quit, the new co-author and I decided to go back and make some changes in the characters' roles that we thought would make the rest of the story stronger, so we ended up rewriting a lot of the beginning from scratch.  We were going to rewrite the whole thing, but it got to be so tedious that we ended up just using a lot of the old story and just correcting the inconsistencie s caused by the details we'd changed in the first few episodes.  I do think the second version of the story was better, but the rewrite took so long that it killed our momentum, and we never quite did get it back.  I will never make that mistake again!

I do want to rewrite Broken as an original novel, but I think of that project as a complete separate entity from Broken.  I would never change the fanfic Broken or take it down in place of the OF one (unless I got it published and had to, but to be honest, they would be so different I'm not sure anyone would even know!).  I'm all about the nostalgia; that's why all my old crappy stories are still online, so the few people who actually enjoyed reading them back then can still find them if they ever want to revisit them, and so I can go back and laugh at myself and relish in how much I've grown as a writer since then.  I would never change those.

From the reader point of view, it would drive me nuts if someone constantly changed their story, like the people Steph and Tracy were talking about.  If someone wants to rewrite an old story and post it alongside the original, that's fine, but don't go all George Lucas and REPLACE the original.  I'm such a nostalgic person that I still have all my old Disney movies on VHS and have refused to buy certain ones on DVD because they've added in new songs and stuff that weren't in the original.  As a special feature, that's fine, but don't stick it into the original movie.  I like things to stay just as I remember them!

[Sakabelle]

I generally don't write AU in any fandom that I write in. I don't know why that is! I've never really branched out and tried it. I think I might have for a challenge once, but in all of my stories, BSB are still BSB. I guess the timeline might be a little altered, obviously, because it is fiction, but I try to keep my stories as true to life as possible.

Oh actually, I was writing an AU BSB story, but then I scrapped it from being BSB and started re-writing it as original fiction and got a lot further.

I don't think I've actually read that many AU stories. I'm not against reading them or anything, just haven't found many that have looked overly interesting. I was reading On The Rails and that one was really good. I also read Satin and Silk, which was also really good. Maybe I need to try reading more AU historical fiction for BSB? I'm cool with reading AU as long as the guys still act like the guys and have the same personality/looks etc. Those two stories were really good for that, as I recall.

[RokofAges75]

As far as AUs, I've learned to appreciate them.  I originally didn't want to read anything that wasn't about The Backstreet Boys being "The Backstreet Boys," but I read a couple of good ones for Mare's old fanfic discussion group, Between the Lines and On the Outside, that changed my mind.  I loved those two stories because, even though the Boys weren't "The Backstreet Boys," they still seemed like themselves, in terms of personality, and the brotherly bond was there or developed through the story.  To me, that characterizati on is crucial in an AU.  They don't have to be famous singers, but they should still seem like Brian, Nick, AJ, Howie, and Kevin.

I wrote my first AU back in like 2001 at the request of someone who gave me the idea; it was one of those "Brian has a long lost sister" types (except he was actually the long lost brother who'd been abducted), and I hated it.  Code Blue really opened me up to writing AUs; I hated the idea of it at first, too, but I gave it a shot and ended up loving writing that story.  00Carter and Song for the Undead have been some of the most fun stories to write, and they did so much for my opinion of AUs that I'm now writing one on my own, Secrets of the Heart, and enjoying that too.

What I love about writing AUs is the complete creative freedom it allows.  It's definitely a bridge between fanfic and original fiction, because even though you're still using the same characters, you can make them seem more like original characters by putting them in different lives.  I will always prefer writing the guys as BSB, but it does sometimes get tedious writing about the music business, touring, recording, being famous, and all of that.  Sometimes it's nice to put them in a world where all of that isn't part of their lives, where they can be doctors or secret agents or survivors of the zombie apocalypse or just normal people.  It's like playing dress-up.

In terms of reading, I still much prefer canon BSB stories, but I've read enough good AUs to not be turned off by a story simply because it's AU.  If I can still recognize the guys as themselves, and the plot sounds good, then I'll give it a shot.

[Pengi]

On the topic of revision/rewriting - I've attempted rewriting full stories, but it feels really contrived, like I'm plagerizing myself and it sucks so I've never actually successfully finished rewriting a story. Which is kind of why I'm having issues converting Something Beatiful to an OF, I think. Meh! With Something Borrowed I'm finding myself going back to revisit bits and pieces as reviews come in correcting issues in the story to keep the story realistic. For example I currently have Chapter 26 up on my Word doc and am about to work on it because I worded something wrong and a review came in and I realized I needed to word it differently in order for it to make sense. But I leave notes when I do such things and it won't change the storyline any. I think original copies should always be left available whenever anything is rewritten, especially drastic rewrites.

Moving onto AU... I have a hard time getting into AU because it honestly is like if it's gonna be AU, it might as well be OF. It just seems like if I'm gonna write about the Backstreet Boys, I should write about the Backstreet Boys, not five guys with the same names and personalities. But that's a me-thing. I don't hate on the genre at all, I think it's really hard to maintain personalities - especially of BSB - outside of their world they inhabit because they are who they are because of all the little things they've been through together. It's just not something I'm particularly good at writing.

[FrickingKaos]

I personally love AU. I've written both AU and non AU stories. Non AU is a bit tricky for me when I get into Howie and Kevin because I don't know much about them. I love them, just not enough to write them often.

I love writing AU because like Julilly said there's so much you can do with them, its like playing dress up. Make them have whatever jobs you want and stick them in any number of situations. To me that makes me use my creativity more. As for reading, I read both. I love reading stories about them being BSB more but I've read some awesome AU stuff as well.

[myconfession]

I was kind of against AU's at first, but after writing about being a BSB after a while can get old, so writing an AU is kind of refreshing a little. I mean, they are still the same guys, just not Backstreet Boys.

It really depends on the subject matter for me if I read it or not. Like if Nick was fighting aliens, I probably wouldn't read it because I'm not into sci-fi... but if Nick was a doctor (paging Dr. Carter lol), then maybe.

[RokofAges75]

Those of you who write both AU and canon BSB stories, do you find that your BSB ones are more popular than your AUs?  I've only written a few AUs, but I tend to get more feedback on my BSB ones - then again, that could be because most of the recent BSB ones have been Nick-centered, whereas the AUs are about other guys or the whole group.  But seeing as how most of us have said we prefer reading about them as BSB, it makes sense.

[Rose]

I have to agree about that, but then again, my AU ones were more of the less reviewed genres to begin with LOL.