the example that comes to mind immediately is The Shoebox Project ( http://community.livejournal.com/shoebox_project/ ) -- we are told lots about the adult Maurauders, but very very little about them as kids-- just enough to that many of us want more. Quite a number of fics (this being one of the best) capitalize on how little we know from that time, making any story plausible--- Almost the opposite of the Biblical suggestion- More like the Star Wars prequels.
Basically, one of my theses is the reason there is so much harry potter fanfiction out there is because the world jkr has created is filled with holes, inconsistencies and dangling pieces.
I don't really have any fic suggestions at the moment, but I'd like to chime in and say yes, I've always thought so too. It's in fact the "excuse" I have to why I've written HP fic but not Diana Wynne Jones fic - DWJ's stories are just so damned good, more often than not there's nothing left to fic. Whereas JKR writes well enough to keep interest up, yet has enough "dangling pieces" as you put it for a ficcer to chime in.
I agree, although it's not DWJ I'm thinking of, George RR Martin created one of the best fantasy worlds since Tolkien and Moorcock, number of fanfictions it's got? I've only seen two. The story and world is /just too good/ to fic.
Ah, but GRRM is actively against fic, whereas JKR is all for it. Personally, I try not to dabble in fandoms the author doesn't approve of, and that might apply to many other fans. And GRRM is just - so - complete in his writing! ♥ It'd be pretty difficult to take it on and do as good a/a better job.
Also, re: OP -- I'd say JKR doesn't have holes or inconsistencies as such, but nice areas to stretch out it without fear of bashing into random canon. JKR tells us what we need to know, but never goes overboard; obviously there's lots (and lots and lots and lots) of stuff we don't know, but it's not so much "shoddy world creation" as a blessed avoidance of info-dumping.
That said, I do adore one-shot "canon-filling" fic with minor characters. Capturing Luna, by ladylarna, for instance, fits in with canon but also develops two (neglected) minor characters in a way they haven't been looked at in the books. It's also really very good. :D
Yes, you're right: my first (and to this day, most popular) fanfics were none other than an attempt at interpreting and perhaps explaining something that I saw not as a plot hole, but an intriguing scene nevertheless. It's better explained in the long A/N at the beginning of my first fic, but that's what prompted me to write fanfiction in the first place: the potential that JK Rowling does not realise in her own writing. In the same fanfics, I've tried to explain or, more precisely, exploit some of the threads JKR left hanging, such as the feud between the Weasley and Malfoy families, why the Weasleys are so poor, what is a blood traitor, whether there's a concept of social classes in the wizarding world, what exactly is Dark magic... I could go on and on.
I'm sure it would make an interesting essay: How JK Rowling's Plot Holes Make Fanfic Writers.
I'm not sure if it's so much shoddy world creation as it is that Rowling's a plot-driven writer rather than a world-builder like Tolkien or a character-driven writer like, say, Barbara Hambly
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I agree about fanfiction filling in the holes in Harry Potter. J.K Rowling is a wonderful storyteller and her world is full of inventive ideas, but it doesn't hold together as well as the stories of a great worldbuilding fantasy author. She doesn't always seem to think things through logistically or sociologically. Maybe it's an effect of her literary roots. She takes more from realistic fiction than from the fantasy tradition, and the fantastic children's stories she draws on (stories of Roald Dahl and similar authors, and The Chronicles of Narnia) aren't known for logical and complex worlds
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I don't really have any fic suggestions at the moment, but I'd like to chime in and say yes, I've always thought so too. It's in fact the "excuse" I have to why I've written HP fic but not Diana Wynne Jones fic - DWJ's stories are just so damned good, more often than not there's nothing left to fic. Whereas JKR writes well enough to keep interest up, yet has enough "dangling pieces" as you put it for a ficcer to chime in.
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Also, re: OP -- I'd say JKR doesn't have holes or inconsistencies as such, but nice areas to stretch out it without fear of bashing into random canon. JKR tells us what we need to know, but never goes overboard; obviously there's lots (and lots and lots and lots) of stuff we don't know, but it's not so much "shoddy world creation" as a blessed avoidance of info-dumping.
That said, I do adore one-shot "canon-filling" fic with minor characters. Capturing Luna, by ladylarna, for instance, fits in with canon but also develops two (neglected) minor characters in a way they haven't been looked at in the books. It's also really very good. :D
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I'm sure it would make an interesting essay: How JK Rowling's Plot Holes Make Fanfic Writers.
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