For 'don't need canon' fic: I remember enjoying a selection of the Supernatural Harlequin Romance challenge stories, basically because I had *no* interest in the show, knew what the characters looked like, and was quite happy to read slushy m/m romances for a while. But I would never have chosen to read a canon-adjacent Supernatural story.
Not sure if there's a point in there or not!
But: I read a short story recently—I think it was a Check, please! rec—where for a while I could not figure out what was going on, because the canon characters were referred to by different parts of their names in different parts of the fic—nickname vs surname, that kind of thing. Eventually I think I got them sorted out, but it was too much like hard work to continue reading the story. For a canon fan, it's hardly unreasonable to expect them to know who's who, but it didn't work for me! I've read in that fandom before, because there seems to be a lot of pining in it and I approve of pining, but I don't know or care what anyone looks like and cannot keep straight in my head what they do or where or who relates how to whom. So I need the simple stuff. And I do quite often find that there are a lot of characters within a quite short fic, and that there isn't much characterisation that helps me figure out... anything very much. Again, a fan would presumably know them in the first place, and have read more of the palimpsest of fanon so as to be able to fit them onto the already-fleshed-out characterisation.
I like your point about the way AUs very often *do* rely on the fans knowing what the correspondences are, where the surprises are, and so forth. I usually like to put some canon references/parallels in my AUs, it's more fun that way and, well, this is my fandom, not that thing over there. Also, after a certain point, an AU with no actual reference to canon except for the characters' names is essentially (un)original fiction, just the kind that we'll read because we know what the characters look like already. See above.
Crossovers—specifically, several very well done popslash/SGA crossovers—lured me into reading SGA stories for a while, and I had seen enough SGA icons on my friends list to have an idea what the characters looked like. Eventually I even acquired the canon! It was, of course, disappointing.
On the subject of story length: I'm very rarely willing to invest much time on a story in a fandom I don't know, so for me, long fics are very unlikely to lure me in. I suppose I did make exceptions for the Supernatural Harlequins, but I knew I wasn't interested in the fandom when I read those.
Ultimately, though, what makes a fanfic a good story for someone who doesn't know the fandom is some combination of good writing, characterisation, and the right kind of fan catnip, whatever that may be.
no subject
For 'don't need canon' fic: I remember enjoying a selection of the Supernatural Harlequin Romance challenge stories, basically because I had *no* interest in the show, knew what the characters looked like, and was quite happy to read slushy m/m romances for a while. But I would never have chosen to read a canon-adjacent Supernatural story.
Not sure if there's a point in there or not!
But: I read a short story recently—I think it was a Check, please! rec—where for a while I could not figure out what was going on, because the canon characters were referred to by different parts of their names in different parts of the fic—nickname vs surname, that kind of thing. Eventually I think I got them sorted out, but it was too much like hard work to continue reading the story. For a canon fan, it's hardly unreasonable to expect them to know who's who, but it didn't work for me! I've read in that fandom before, because there seems to be a lot of pining in it and I approve of pining, but I don't know or care what anyone looks like and cannot keep straight in my head what they do or where or who relates how to whom. So I need the simple stuff. And I do quite often find that there are a lot of characters within a quite short fic, and that there isn't much characterisation that helps me figure out... anything very much. Again, a fan would presumably know them in the first place, and have read more of the palimpsest of fanon so as to be able to fit them onto the already-fleshed-out characterisation.
I like your point about the way AUs very often *do* rely on the fans knowing what the correspondences are, where the surprises are, and so forth. I usually like to put some canon references/parallels in my AUs, it's more fun that way and, well, this is my fandom, not that thing over there. Also, after a certain point, an AU with no actual reference to canon except for the characters' names is essentially (un)original fiction, just the kind that we'll read because we know what the characters look like already. See above.
Crossovers—specifically, several very well done popslash/SGA crossovers—lured me into reading SGA stories for a while, and I had seen enough SGA icons on my friends list to have an idea what the characters looked like. Eventually I even acquired the canon! It was, of course, disappointing.
On the subject of story length: I'm very rarely willing to invest much time on a story in a fandom I don't know, so for me, long fics are very unlikely to lure me in. I suppose I did make exceptions for the Supernatural Harlequins, but I knew I wasn't interested in the fandom when I read those.
Ultimately, though, what makes a fanfic a good story for someone who doesn't know the fandom is some combination of good writing, characterisation, and the right kind of fan catnip, whatever that may be.