Writing Meme: "AC"

awyvern asked for "AC", which is, If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?



Oh, man.  Okay, it's a great question, but it's an ambiguous question.  It's the part that starts with If I could that makes it ambiguous.

If the author said, yes, please?  If there were no legal repercussions?  If there were people who wanted to read a prequel or sequel by someone who didn't write the original?

I should say, heck, yeah.  But I can't.

The thing that stops me from writing the sequel or the prequel, whether or not I think I could do it, is that I... well.  I just wouldn't.

I had to think about this question all day to figure out why.  The only reasons I can come up with are two things my favourite English teacher told me:

The only one who can write the story the way it needs to be told is you.

And more than that:

Only you know how the story begins and how the story ends.

The reason she's my favourite teacher is because not only did she never try make me fit my homework to the assignments, but because she taught me to respect my story.  She taught me how to trust my own judgment when it came to my writing voice, my writing style, the worlds I create, the characters I torment.

And by definition, I learned how to respect other people's stories.  I could never write that story better.  I can only write that story differently.  I can't write the prequel to someone else's story because I don't know the story that came before, just like I can't write the sequel to someone else's story because I don't know the story that comes after.  I will never know their world and their characters in the same way that I know mine, and my prequel or sequel will always be a pale shade of the original.

For every story that I read, I'm trusting that the author told the story that needs to be told, and I respect them for telling that story in the way that they choose, no matter how heartbreaking or how hurtful or how painful it was to read.


In saying all this, though, I have a caveat.  This is me.  My mindset, my choice.  Other writers might feel differently, and I in no way want to imply that they are doing something wrong if they write a prequel or a sequel to someone else's work.  Quite the opposite, actually.  I very rarely have the space in my head for someone else's universe, never mind all of the ones that keep spawning in the dark recesses of my brain, and I am impressed by those who can not only live someone else's canon, but write it so beautifully and fluildly that I believe that they are channeling the original author.  That's not easy to do and it's a gift I've never acquired.


On the flipside, if the question had been, in what other author's universe would you like to play in or what piece of artwork by any artist would you like to write a story for...

I would have a really, really long post to give you.