On Fri, 19 Sep 1997, Gary Kleppe wrote:

Consistency in a premise is a good thing IMO. If character X's tendency
to glomp women for comedic effect in the original makes him a sadistic
rapist in your story, and if character Y does the same thing in the
original, then the premise should apply to Y too -- even if Y is your
favorite character.

There is quite a problem here in applying the "does the same thing" part
of this.  Look at it this way.  In the original Ranma manga, Happousai
frequently fiddles with women's underwear, and most fanfics portray him
as a hopeless hentai.  Ranma also frequently fiddles with women's
underwear, but he's _not_ usually portrayed the same way that Happousai
is because of this.  The reason for this is that, despite outward
appearances, they are _not_ doing the same thing, because, in this case,
their reasons for their actions are different.

(Of course, there are times when it's not really possible to pin down
exactly what the character's reasons for doing a certain action are.
Not to mention the fact that you're likely to get differences of
opinion on whether two actions are "the same" or not... Complications,
complications. :)
 

2. DIVERGENCE. The story proceeds from the premise and shows what
happens next. Things usually start out quite close to the original, then
get father and father from it as the effects of the alteration
accumulate.

Hmmm... sneezing butterflies and all...

But...

<rant>

If I have to read through _yet another_ alternaverse variant of the Golden
Pair match, I'm going to SCREAM!!!!

</rant>

There.  I feel better now. :)
 

3. COMPLICATION. Things that happened or people who appeared in the
original need to show up in your alternate timeline, unless there's
anything in your premise that says they don't. This can be a pain, as
such complications were put into the original for purposes which are
probably different than those of your fic.

Dealing with unwanted complications is a difficult but necessary job. If
you just move certain characters or situations quietly out of the way,
the believability of your story is threatened; wheras if you give them
too much influence they can interfere with the story you're trying to
tell. Sometimes problems can cure each other; e.g. Shampoo marries
Ryoga, and they go off leaving your Ranma/Akane story to proceed
undisturbed.

As long as it's done believably.  If Ryouga and Shampoo suddenly up and
get married out of the blue, it's a fairly good indication that the author
simply wanted them out of the way.
 

4. CONCLUSION. The story comes to an answer of sorts to the "what-if"
question. We see how things would have resolved themselves differently
as the long-term results of the premises are known.

Well, we see the author's vision of how things would have resolved
themselves, anyways. :) 


- Sean Connor (sec@frodo.com)  
 
        "It jams." - Intel TV ad, referring to the Pentium chip.