Alpha Flight: Ponderings from a relatively new fan of the series.

Kiddie’s bit. (I’m glad I remember the strange conversations with the nephews. ^^) My younger nephew Derek was wondering why he doesn’t see the Alphans…or anyone in comics for that matter…cooking. I told him that the only character I know of (that he’s familiar with too) that I’ve ever seen cook in a comic book, is Gambit. Derek snorted. Derek’s dad is from right near Cajun country and Derek has it on good authority that ALL Cajuns cook, so Gambit doesn’t count. (I wanted to argue this with him but every Cajun I know personally is a cooking machine) Instead I told him that the super hero community have secret kitchen elves that show up and cook off panel. He bought it too. His latest obsession is cooking and he wants to be a secret kitchen elf now. =p

Alpha Flight: Ponderings from a relatively new fan of the series.

Fan friction…err fiction. ^^ It’s November and for the last six years now there has been this wunderbar thing called NaNoWriMo! National Novel Writing Month for those going ‘huh?’ The object is to get down 50,000 words in the thirty days of November. I’ve done this twice now and just successfully passed my second one. The novel itself doesn’t have to be the quality of War and Peace…it doesn’t have to be of any quality period. Trust me, mine aren’t. But the goal isn’t quality…its quantity. Everyone says they want to write a novel someday, but they never get around to it. NaNoWriMo is your chance to say that you got around to it.

My first attempt at this last year was a long winded fanfic based on the X-Men. No Jean-Paul though, sorry. It was crap. It had some good ideas I think but over all it stunk. But I don’t mind. It was the attempt and success of doing it in the timeframe of a month that was rewarding to me. This year's attempt was a biography…mine. ;) I can babble about myself for days, so I figured it would be no sweat…wrong I had trouble with several parts of it, but I got the words down and when the new year rolls around I may just clean it up and publish it on me live journal.

I also got so wrapped up in the novel writing that I haven’t gotten around to writing this column until…eh…the morning it’s due in Ben’s box. ^^ But as I was sitting at me comp, wondering what to ramble on about it hit me! Fan Fiction! Or ‘friction’ depending on the genre…the fandom…and the fans. I’ve seen some doozy fan wars break out online over fan fictions before. Anime fans, they’re nuts I swear! I should know, I’m one too.

Fan fiction is a great way for fans to express ideas they have about characters, or even things they want to see their favourite characters get up too. A lot of the Alpha fanfic I’ve seen on-line and all of the Alpha fanfic I’ve written, seems to focus on the Beaubiers or Sasquatch. A long on going fic I have, started out with just Jean-Paul…it was also supposed to be a one shot but it grew. Now it has become its own little universe in the Alpha Flight/X-Men world that I can play in. Jeanne-Marie and Walter showed up in it too.

Most fan fiction never sees the printing press of some book company…ever, some does though. Think about all those Spider-Man, X-Men or even Star Trek novels you have sitting on your shelf. That’s fanfiction. Authorized by the company that owns the copyright to the material, but fanfiction none the less. The writers state that they love the material and have always dreamed of writing a story or two of their own someday in most cases. Peter David is an avid fanfic writer who has done just that in a plethora of fandoms. Jack McKinney went one step further and novelized the entire Robotech universe.

I’ve seen some great fanfiction online that I personally think would make for a very successful novel for the property owner. In a multitude of genres and fandoms. I’ll personally wait until I’m possessed by the spirit of Mary Shelly before I make any such claims about my own works of fanfic though. ;) I know of multi chapter sagas that spawned their own fandoms and one shots so beautifully written that it took my breath away. There’s also the dark side of fanfic…the horror!

Now granted I have become a tad jaded over the years of fanfic writing/reading in general. I can spot a ‘Mary Sue’ at a hundred meters. A lot of them are written by teenage fan girls with slightly manic obsessive behaviour directed at their favourite fictional character…there are exceptions though and those are downright hilarious. BUT! The teenage girl sitting in the dark writing her fantasies about having her way with her hero is not all bad. The fact that she’s making the effort to actually WRITE is a good thing. And if you’re wondering why I say ‘her’ and ‘she’, it’s because I don’t think I’ve ever seen one written by a dude. Or at least a dude willing to admit it.

The one type of fanfic I avoid like the plague is the unedited fanfic…and believe me there’s a ton of it out there! Spell check, it is your friend! (and used a lot here on this very column. =p) A beta reader is a good thing too. Something I learned in an English course in college is that a writer usually can’t spot mistakes or story flow issues by themselves, so it helps to have a mate go over it and critique it. Preferably in a nice helpful manner. The comment section at fanfic.net is notorious for being flame central…and therefore not a good source of story critique for the novice writer.

So in the interest of feeding the fanfic starved, write something down you think would make a good story line. If you yourself aren’t the writing type, send it along to a mate who is and see if they’d like to write it. I consider myself one of the fanfic starved…I scour fanfic.net every day for the one gem that might draw me in and steal my brain for the time it takes to read. I’m also waiting to see someone get the Alpha Flight bandwagon rolling at fanfic.net…hmmm, might have to that myself sometime.

Then there’s the multitude of fanfic genres to consider. I usually write humour or man lust…which is why I don’t have the monster Jean-Paul fic linked to my little article here. ^^ I had a bash at a crime solving mystery a few years ago and found it again recently…I’ve also started in on it again. I usually read stuff that is naughty, steamy or downright hilarious. I occasionally find intrigue to be my thing and will search those out too. Character development fics are few and far between. But they’re out there! And some of them are fantastic in my oh so not humble opinion. Del over at Alpha Waves has a really good Puck one called Walk Tall, Walk Straight.

So while I admit that this column isn’t exactly Alpha Flight centric, it is about a part of the Alpha Flight, or any other fandom for that matter, fan experience. A lot of fans look for fanfiction, a lot of others are only to willing to write it. It is salvation for fans when a series is dull or getting the axe…something I’m whining about next time for sure! So if you stumble across a good Alpha fic I may have missed, drop me a line. You might have six feet of blonde goofball bowing at your feet. ^^

Luv Jo

jo@alphaflight.net

*Editors Note* - If you have written Alpha Flight fan fiction you would like to have posted on AlphaFlight.net, please email ben@alphaflight.net