Fan Fiction Crossovers

One of my goals for 2011 was to finish all three of the fanfiction crossovers that were Works In Progress on January 1st. It’s looking like I might actually accomplish that goal! I’ve got one that’s still incomplete, but the plot is clearly winding up, (and leaving open the possibility of a sequel.)

To me, writing a crossover can be the ultimate fanfic high – not just playing with somebody else’s characters and telling your own story with them, but trying to find a way to make two different fandoms work together for more than twice the fun, and finding the common ground between them.

The first crossover I finished this year was ‘A Roswellian Alien in Metropolis’, and it was already nearly finished in December – 3 chapters out of four. This was a sequel to a Roswell/Smallville crossover that I wrote because of a challenge. The first story in the series, ‘Arrow through my soul’, involved Maria DeLuca going to Metropolis for a record deal and falling in love with Oliver Queen/Green Arrow.

By the time I finished that one, I’d already thought that there could be a sequel involving Michael going to Metropolis as well, and then I got the idea of Chloe trying to train Michael to become part of the Justice League. That gave me my opening scene, but it was actually when Chloe sent Lana Lang to keep tabs on Michael that the story really hit high gear. Somehow Michael and Lana have chemistry on the page. Who knew?

And that’s part of the fun of crossovers, of course, seeing how the different characters will relate to each other. Roswell and Smallville have very similar canons and mythologies, of course – both teen soaps originally from the WB network, featuring extraterrestrial teenagers hiding their abilities. It wasn’t hard to picture the two sets of characters, some in New Mexico and the others in Kansas, unaware of what was going on in the next state over.

Both of these stories have followed the pattern of a protagonist character from Roswell (in first person narration,) entering the world of Smallville and meeting many of that show’s characters, and facing a challenge from a Smallville antagonist. I’m still considering a third story in the series, which would play with that convention a little, and have Clark come to Roswell and meet with Max, Liz, Michael and some of the others.

Progress update, June week 1

So yeah, I figure it’s time for another post about how I’m doing with my writing goals lately:

• The rewrite of ‘Harry and Mars’ is going pretty well – I’ve got up to about three thousand words, starting from scratch, and it’s addressing a lot of the issues from the last critiques I got. On the other hand, I’ve only got 1 more week to polish up both stories and send them in to my Kansas peeps.
• Preparations for going to Kansas are also doing well – I’ve gotten a lot of the logistical arrangements made, including shipping off a box of linens so that I don’t need to pack them into a suitcase to take on the plane, and I’ve started to get to know the other students on the class forum.
• I’m a little behind on the draft of “Won’t somebody think of the Children?” for the free Createspace proof – I’ve got one chapter done out of six, and I have that annoying feeling that I wasn’t paying 100% attention for the last few pages. Well, I’ll be able to get something sent off I’m sure, and if it’s not perfect then it’s not.
• I’m back on the Nanopubye forum and getting to know some of the regulars there.
• Posted a few more entries into my fanfic tracker, and realized that I really need to be working on that from the desktop tower, because that’s where all of my old fanfic chapters are stored, not necessarily on the laptops.
• About half a chapter written for my Roswell/Pern crossover.
• And I’ve been doing a LOT of blogosphere work lately, first making the rounds to try to get some votes on my next in-depth review series, (Prisoner of Azkaban still in the lead by two votes!) and visiting everybody who participated in the Fun and Games blogfest. I’m sorry that I couldn’t comment on everybody’s, but if you were on that linky list, I did come and take a look!

So that’s what I’ve been up to. How about you?