I am way overthinking this... (Kaleidoscope manifesto)

[shimotsuki]

...but it's so ironic that the Remus biography was released just as I've been making a push to seriously finish Kaleidoscope. As much fun as it was to get more background information, it has shut down my fanfic brain just as effectively as DH did until I decided to write them a new ending. ;)

Seriously, what's hard about this is I've always prided myself on being strictly canon-compliant (except for that pesky death thing), and now by definition Kaleidoscope can't be -- I've got too many specific details in there that we now know aren't what JKR imagined for them.

So I think to get over the writer's block problem, I just need to make myself some new ground rules for finishing Kaleidoscope. Here goes: For anything that happened before Remus makes his first appearance in canon, I will hew to the new information from the bio. So this includes Remus's childhood, parents' names and histories, and so on. (I do have to assume that Lyall dies prior to OotP, but I don't think the bio explicitly contradicts this.) But from the time-frame of PoA onward, Kaleidoscope is compliant with book-canon only.

I think I can work with this. And venting about it here has already made me feel better. ;)
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Comments

[alias-amy.livejournal.com]

You're not overthinking it, and its perfectly understandable that your writing mojo has taken a hit. I've been working on my novel a long time, and every time I hear about another book in the same area I die a little bit inside :-P Not to mention, the last time I told someone the plot of my book, their reaction was, "isn't that the same as such and such by so-and-so?" And then I'm all, "WHY DO I BOTHER!"

But I would also very gently suggest that canon is what was established in the 7 books. It was sealed, solid state, it was done. Of course JKR may have some other thoughts in mind now, but she presented the world with a finished product. Think of it this way -- it's like George Lucas continuing to tinker with the Star Wars saga, i.e., making it clear that Han Solo didn't shoot first (if you're not into Star Wars, this won't make sense!) He'd created this character and everybody embraced that maybe Han Solo wasn't a saint, and then Lucas had to go back and "fix" something that didn't need fixing! Coming back and adding details to a character ten or twenty years later is a hindsight, almost AU perspective.

[train-lindz.livejournal.com]

There is no question - Han shot first. George Lucas is WRONG.

/rant

[alias-amy.livejournal.com]

I just recently rewatched the prequel movies. They are so much worse than I remembered! They are so bad that when we saw the scene at the end of Return of the Jedi, where they see the ghost figures on Endor, that it was physically intolerable to see Hayden Christensen digitally replace the guy who played dying Anakin. SO WRONG.

/re-opened wound

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

I've been working on my novel a long time, and every time I hear about another book in the same area I die a little bit inside :-P

Ouch, that's got to be particularly tough when it's an original project (mine's only fanfic, so I've really got nothing to be complaining about). On the other hand, since yours is an original novel, surely it's still something unique even if other books with similar aspects turn up.

But I would also very gently suggest that canon is what was established in the 7 books. It was sealed, solid state, it was done.

Oh, you're quite right -- book canon definitely has its own status, more central than interview canon or now this Pottermore stuff. (Or movie canon, lol, which I always ignore completely since I haven't seen most of the films!) It's just that it does appeal to fit Kaleidoscope to some of the new backstory details, and that felt like a cheat if I weren't going to keep compliant to the new bio as a whole. I think my new "policy" will keep me satisfied there.

All of this is coming from the fact that find it fun to keep as canon-compliant as possible, because it's like writing to prompts or something -- it's fun to keep canon details in place and write things around them, ideally not always in predictable ways.

Thanks for the reassurance. And, Han Solo totally shot first. :)

[alias-amy.livejournal.com]

I think your guidelines are very sensible! I meant to mention that in my first comment -- it's a good compromise. I know exactly what you mean about prompts; I love a good constraint that pushes me to extract the most out of my writing, so I can well relate!

So glad to know "Han shot first" is fully understood metaphor!