What If…

[quidditchmum]

 Has anyone else noticed that it is generally a bad sign when a story's summary contains a lot of What If's? The What If is generally followed by a scenario so implausible that I'm left wondering why the author chose to set their tale in the Harry Potter universe at all.  Here are a few examples I culled from today’s offerings on a popular HP

Comments

[cwarbeck]

What if... I could actually come up with an original plot line that wasn't a rehash of every other Super!Dark!Harry story out there? What if I gave up my firm belief that Harry actually likes boys rather than girls and has long-repressed feelings for Draco/any other male character? What if I gave up trying to force the Harry Potter characters into a totally different plot from another original story?

You've got to give these authors points - not that much, admittedly - for trying.

[flyingcarpet]

haha, I think you're right that the problem here isn't the what if?, it's the huge number of them all at once. My favorite AUs are the ones that tweak one thing slightly -- Sirius was never arrested, or Harry was sorted into Slytherin, Lily or Cedric lives, etc -- and then explores the consequences of that one tiny change and shows how it affects everything else. When an author changes 15 different things about canon all at once, I'm always left wondering why. What on earth does that show?

[kanedax]

I'm fully in your camp. I love the "Want of a Nail" storylines where one minor change affects everything or, just as importantly, what happened to make things different in the AU. It's a great exercise in character development and motivation if you go with, say, "okay, Voldemort chose Neville as an infant instead of Harry." Then you ask: Why? How did it happen? How would it change the Neville that we know? The Harry we know? The Ron, Hermione, etc etc etc?

Well-crafted AU stories are incredible. AU done for the sake of AU, however, and AU done to appease someones kinks/ships/etc can come across as pure wank.

[quidditchmum]

I think that's exactly it. I'm currently enjoying (and hoping for an update today) Gravity an AU story who's Harry was raised by Sirius and didn't go to Hogwarts. A Harry raised by Sirius is understandably different (and more of a prat), but is still recognizable.

[exartemarte]

What if Harry Potter wasn't an orphan, but an alien hermaphrodite from the planet Xenethon, sent to Earth to breed with humans?! Of either sex!!!!

Okay, I made that one up, but I know what you mean. A summary should draw the reader in or, alternatively, warn the reader off. And it's probably not a good sign if the writer uses the summary to justify the stance that he/she is taking. A bit like multiple exclamation marks!!!!!

I have always had a strong preference for canon-compliant storylines and pairings, which is not to imply that people shouldn't write about Alien!Harry and Nympho!Whore Hermione if they want to - just that I wouldn't choose to read it.

That said, though, I do think there's truth in the argument that you can enjoy (almost) anything if it's well enough written. Through beta reading and Britpicking for others I discovered some very well written Snape/Hermione tales, set in a world where Snape somehow survived the war, which I would never had read otherwise.

[scarletladyy]

Oh I love extreme AUs =D I wouldn't read those because they're not my cuppa, but with my favourite characters and pairings, I'm all for it.

I think it makes it more interesting to read, I'm not overly a fan of canon compliant fics.

[kanedax]

My favorite one: "I'm looking for a story I read somewhere about Ron and Hermione, only Hermione's a Muggle and Ron's older than her and her teacher in high school and they fall in love?"

....

What? Can't you just write a story about two completely seperate people? Especially since I once saw a Willow/HumanSpike story that's pretty much the identical storyline.

Also, issues?