Richard Book is Innocent (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
oxfordtweed) wrote2010-03-07 08:19 am
oxfordtweed) wrote2010-03-07 08:19 am
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Next-Gen!Fic
No, I’m not talking about Star Trek. Well, not directly, anyway. I’m talking specifically of a sort of bizarre genre of fic that focuses on the “next generation,” as it were. The canon characters are all old and grey, and their kids are now running the show.
This seems to be a popular genre in fandoms where canon couples have canon children. It runs rampant in Friends, though I’ve not seen any in Hot Fuzz (or any of the Pegg/Wright/Frost fandoms), Life on Mars (though, I may just not be looking hard enough), or oddly enough, not even in Hitchhiker’s Guide. I’ve seen, and even written my share of kid!fic for Fuzz, and even though Arthur does have a daughter, both of those fandoms are very slash-centric, so having kids... well, it shouldn’t be possible, but hey. This is fan fiction (can open; worms everywhere).
I do like the occasional kid!fic, for the same reason I like the occasional pet!fic; it’s nice to see a character that usually comes off as a bit of a prick have a genuine pet the dog moment. There are some characters who do tend to have more surprise, illegitimate children show up on their door steps than others (Bernard Black and Joey Tribbiani, I’m looking at you both), so I am right there with everyone else who thinks that the genre can get real old real fast.
But next-gen!fic is an entirely different beast. Often times, you don’t get the canon characters to root the story to a familiar setting, and if you do, they’re typically very minor and in the background.
I think I can see the appeal, here. Yeah, it might be fun to explore where these characters who were once children with maybe three canon lines have gone in their lives; what they’ve become and where their lives are heading. But to me, that seems like it’s getting a bit close to “original fiction” territory. More often than not, next-gen!fic seems like an excuse for the writer to play with certain quirks of the parents, but not have to deal with people calling them out on writing them OOC. After all, it’s 15 years out of canon, and the kid only ever had three lines. How can they possibly manage to be out of character in this situation?
Or is it more than that? Is there something in this sub-genre that I’m missing? Has anybody out there written this sort of thing in the past? Is it a genre that appeals to you? Or is it all just exactly what I suspect?
This seems to be a popular genre in fandoms where canon couples have canon children. It runs rampant in Friends, though I’ve not seen any in Hot Fuzz (or any of the Pegg/Wright/Frost fandoms), Life on Mars (though, I may just not be looking hard enough), or oddly enough, not even in Hitchhiker’s Guide. I’ve seen, and even written my share of kid!fic for Fuzz, and even though Arthur does have a daughter, both of those fandoms are very slash-centric, so having kids... well, it shouldn’t be possible, but hey. This is fan fiction (can open; worms everywhere).
I do like the occasional kid!fic, for the same reason I like the occasional pet!fic; it’s nice to see a character that usually comes off as a bit of a prick have a genuine pet the dog moment. There are some characters who do tend to have more surprise, illegitimate children show up on their door steps than others (Bernard Black and Joey Tribbiani, I’m looking at you both), so I am right there with everyone else who thinks that the genre can get real old real fast.
But next-gen!fic is an entirely different beast. Often times, you don’t get the canon characters to root the story to a familiar setting, and if you do, they’re typically very minor and in the background.
I think I can see the appeal, here. Yeah, it might be fun to explore where these characters who were once children with maybe three canon lines have gone in their lives; what they’ve become and where their lives are heading. But to me, that seems like it’s getting a bit close to “original fiction” territory. More often than not, next-gen!fic seems like an excuse for the writer to play with certain quirks of the parents, but not have to deal with people calling them out on writing them OOC. After all, it’s 15 years out of canon, and the kid only ever had three lines. How can they possibly manage to be out of character in this situation?
Or is it more than that? Is there something in this sub-genre that I’m missing? Has anybody out there written this sort of thing in the past? Is it a genre that appeals to you? Or is it all just exactly what I suspect?