My vote goes basically to A, with the note that instead of "completely", I go more for "as much as I possibly can" - mainly because in RPF? There's no way to read/see/experience all the canon there is. So I vote like, A for the material where we can get at all the canon - like, tv shows or movies - and B for things there we can't get at all the canon, like RPF fandoms. :-)
I'm a canon stickler. I drive myself nuts with it. No wonder my output over the years has decreased dramatically.
*nod* That makes sense, I think -- that's kind of why I put in the "different for different fandoms" thing. Although possibly you just need to have a different definition for completely for RPF fandoms?
To explain a little: I believe that in a case where you can know all of the canon relatively easily (ie: four seasons of a television show, five books of a series) one should know the canon completely. If there's a finite amount of information to absorb, y'know. get to know it.
If there is what amounts to infinite canon (ie: comic books - fifty years of issues wherein each year contradicts the last! - or RPS, in which it is possible to know many things about an actor or pop group but [at least in my experience] quite difficult to know *everything*, because they give interviews every freakin' day), then canon is something to experience, but less, how to put it. Less integral? integral. whatever.
no more babble. I think if you can list all the things you need to know, then it's a good idea to know them. if you can't, then there's so much information that it's nearly impossible anyway.
I pretty much totally agree with what you've said here. On the other hand, though, that's actually probably exactly why I'll never write comics fic or RPS -- as a writer, I can't really handle not being able to absorb all the information like that.
I voted for #2, but would also add: I throw in references to toon!Supes or comics!Supes or Lois & Clark!Supes as the whim takes me in Smallville stories, but I don't feel the need to become expert in those canons if all I'm doing is a wink and a nod. There are other situations where a reference to a canon is all you need to be able to pull off convincingly, albeit not many...
Yeah, I would consider that definitely a different situation from actually, say, writing a story in those fandoms. Although with SV it does kind of get complicated when you start using characters from the other universes in a Smallville story.
I've always been amazed that anybody would start writing anything without seeing/reading the whole of a finite canon, but here I am doing it. I surely won't *finish* this story without reading book 5, and most likely book 2 as well, but frankly? I'm writing two characters who are sorely underdeveloped, and they both have a lot more personality(ies) in fanfic than they do in canon. Not to mention the HP canon is some considerably duller than the fic.
I had what I thought was an interesting idea, and knowing how JKR writes -- from Harry's pov, and he knows practically nothing about anyone but himself, Ron and Hermione, goodness knows there isn't much detail about those two either -- and having the general gist of what happens in the books I hadn't finished, I couldn't see waiting. If there's anything significant, I can fix it later.
I waver between 1 & 2, because I'm not terribly comfortable writing without knowing the whole of the source material (where available), but considering I still occasionally write Angel fic without having seen a great deal of this past season, I think missing an episode here or there isn't *that* big a deal (as long as you know what happened in those episodes, and preferably they're not really pivotal, like with Angel losing his soul or Cordelia going evil or something).
And yeah, with comics, it's... almost impossible to know the complete canon, and I don't expect most people to be able to quote chapter and verse of the Silmarillion to write LotR fanfic, etc.
Um, yes, that was a copy and paste error on my part. I meant to paste in this, I think:
And yeah, with comics, it's... almost impossible to know the complete canon, and I don't expect most people to be able to quote chapter and verse of the Silmarillion to write LotR fanfic, etc.
And make those same comments. THe other thing was from answering someone else's.
THe other thing was from answering someone else's.
I saw that afterward. *g*
But yes, what counts as canon, what needs to be known and what you can slide by without knowing, multiple sources, author/actor interviews, tie-in novels, written not seen scenes, etc...
and I don't expect most people to be able to quote chapter and verse of the Silmarillion to write LotR fanfic, etc.
which brings up a question minervacat had a while back that prompted a post of mine on film vs book canon, and then film vs book -fandom-. i don't write at all in the lotr fp fandom, though i do read some, so i'm fuzzy on that, but it's something that's come up in master & commander. because, good lord. PO'B wrote 20 books. that's kind of an investment, and though i'm enjoying the hell out of reading them, i don't want to have to wait a year before i can write some aubrey/maturin.
this also ties into how it annoys me when people refer to films as fanfiction, and how i think everything - book canon, film canon, and fanon inform my understanding of a character . . . but i think i've spammed enough for tonight ;)
For *me*, reading the full set of LotR strikes me as much more manageable than reading all twenty-odd Aubrey/Maturin books. I've only watched 8 or so episodes of Sharpe, but if I had the inclination, I think I could write fic based on what I've seen, set in the timeline of those 8 episodes.
LotR, otoh, is really one long book.
Of course, all my LotR fic is clearly and explicitly movieverse (except for one story) and so it uses some of the movie things that never happen in the book (Aragorn's flight over the cliff. Eowyn being at Helms Deep etc.), as is all my X-Men fic. And all my HP fic is based on the books, and it's HP now that gives me the most trouble, because while I enjoyed the movie of PoA, I don't want to read fic based on those versions of Sirius and Remus, and yet some writers have absorbed those characterizations (and the actors' physicality) into their mostly-book-based fic.
Which I find jarring, as a reader.
this also ties into how it annoys me when people refer to films as fanfiction, and how i think everything - book canon, film canon, and fanon inform my understanding of a character
See, I think you can easily make a case for LotR or X-Men movieverse as separate canons from the books/comics - the LotR films are deep enough that you can manage w/o the books (as long as you label your fic movieverse), and XMM is clearly AU from the comics, and comics fans are used to multiple canons (or you think they would be, but considering some of the nastiness of comics v. movie fans over the past few years, not so much).
The HP films, otoh, have never struck me as deep enough to support a fandom based solely on the films, without knowledge of the books, and I think PoA, but cutting so much important information from the overall plot, is even guiltier of that.
So I'm of the mind that the HP movies are sort of fanficcish, in that I'll always privilege the HP books over the movies, and that while I may choose to add interesting details here or there from the movie, I don't see it as canon.
I suppose if I were really onboard with the movie!Lupin characterization, and if the actors had fit my mental pictures of the characters, I might have a different answer, but I think that's a decision every fan makes for herself, and for me, it's kind of a kneejerk reaction.
I also have an uneasy relationship with fanon, though I'm the first to admit that I write both under its influence and in response against it.
I went with 2, but I prefer to know as much as I possibly can. If you have a TV show with a six year run, and you haven't seen say, four episodes, then I think you can definitely still manage good fiction. But if you have a book series with four books and you've only read three, chances are you're missing out on large chunks of character development which might change the flavor of the character your writing for. So unless you're writing the characters before the time of the book you missed, you would be a bit off.
I said A, but I'd like to note that my habitual, lazy baseless confidence means I will feel comfortable writing in something for which I *once* knew every second of canon by heart, but no longer do (like BtVS). I'd never feel comfortable starting writing coming from the opposite direction, tho'.
I don't think this is particularly *significant* addntl data, because it's pretty, um, obvious stuff. I post this comment anyway!
I'd also like to disclaim I've never been actively involved with one of those infinite-canon fandoms like comics (and, I think, to a lesser degree, RPF? Actually, now I want to know this. Tell me, do you think of *Nsync as an infinite-canon fandom?).
and, I think, to a lesser degree, RPF? Actually, now I want to know this. Tell me, do you think of *Nsync as an infinite-canon fandom?).
Well, pretty much, yeah. I mean -- when I got into Smallville, it consisted of, full out, under 11 hours of stuff; Firefly was under 14. Nsync has existed for the better part of a decade, every second and minute and hour of that time. There's no way to *know* everything there.
I think that, no matter the fandom, you need to be pretty damn familiar with the characters and, at the least, familiar with the events that make the person who they are.
Using due South as an example: I did in-depth research into the show, as well as read every single fic that I could get my hands on before I even considered writing in the fandom. I have, thus far, only seen three episodes (BDtH, Eclipse, and CotW), but it's more from circumstance rather than my not wanting to watch the show.
If you have the available resources, however, I think that you should use it to the fullest extent because it helps you to get a handle on the character(s) and also to make everything that you write more believable.
See, actually, I would consider that option 3, you know? Three episodes is limited direct exposure, and then using fans and other research for the rest of it.
[nods] I was debating between options 2 and 3, but in the end I still chose 2 because I think there's no substitute for experiencing the canon firsthand.
No matter how much you read up on all the due South episodes, even though it's as thorough as, say, a transcript, you're still missing out on a lot of things like body language and such. Same if you're experiencing the characters through fiction; you don't really know how much is canon and how much is filtered through the perspective of the author.
I'm still not really comfortable writing longer pieces because I don't feel like I have a handle on the characters yet. Then again, this is just from my perspective; other people may feel perfectly fine with limited exposure.
I chose #1. I don't feel comfortable writing fanfic without having a firm grasp of everything that's happened. If there are a few episodes I haven't seen, I'll refer to transcripts, but the nuances are just not there in the written form. I do think transcripts can come in handy if you're only working with a few episodes, and you've seen most of it.
Even if I'm writing something that takes place in an earlier season, I think it's important to know what happens past that point in canon because that influences the characterization.
I chose option C, but man, I think it makes a difference *which* fans you have check you over.
You need the ones who've either seen all (or nearly all) of the canon in one of those finite fandoms, or who are as-informed-as-they-can-be in the infinite ones -- at least up to the time period in which you're setting the story.
I wouldn't ask someone writing, say, a post-S1 SV fic to know everything that went down in S2 or S3.
But also... yeah. It's a care thing. I wrote a story a while back based on one small piece of canon from a storyline I hadn't yet read. Nearly everything in the story was written around canon I *had* seen, and the canon info I used from what I hadn't was correct, but... man. The story's still all wrong, because the fan I used for info-checking left out what I *considered* to be a major aspect of the storyline in question when tutoring/vetting me.
(Essentially, the story slashed character A with character C and did not mention -- at ALL -- character B, whose romantic relationship with character A, while ultimately over by the time I set my story, was a *major* part of the storyline. Hell, it was the B-plot. If I'd known that? I would've written the story in an entirely different way. If I'd gotten someone else who'd read the storyline to beta it, I would've *edited* in an entirely different way.)
And... yeah. You can't just ask anyone, I don't think. You have to take a good look at who's vetting you, and what issues they may or may not have with the canon and canon relationships. I don't *blame* the fan in question for leaving this stuff out -- I *did* know about their massive issues beforehand, in the same way I knew which people in SV fandom I could and couldn't ask 'hey, what's going on with Lana?' and expect a detailed, objective answer.
But... man. Yeah. In the end, it's always going to be *better* to see the canon yourself, I think, because even though it *is* perfectly possible to write -- and write well -- without it...
Even the most conscientious fan has weaknesses and blind spots.
Until I got involved in comics fandom, I'd have gone for A without a doubt. The trouble is that, in comics, it's damn impossible to read everything. Characters like Dick Grayson and Roy Harper have been around for sixty years - there's simply too much going on, most of which has been retconned over the years.
For most fandoms, though, I have to have seen the source material completely. I wasn't even happy writing Lawrence of Arabia until I'd read Seven Pillars of Wisdom and a couple of TE Lawrence biographies, despite the fact that the film doesn't have a great deal to do with the real TEL.
Same here. In Buffy fandom, I knew every little nook and cranny, but the same doesn't apply to comics, where the more I read, the less I feel I know.
I think in order to stay sane in comics fandom, the rule of thumb is just be as familiar as fuck with the last 4-5 years (real human time) worth of storylines, and pick up anything that's mentioned an awful lot, like Jason's death, Babs getting shot, or Dinah getting tortured.
i think it depends on the fandom -and- the sort of fic that you write. me, i don't write anything with a plot, or really anything long at all, and so i think i can get away with
but within limits. as much as i, after 8 episodes today, am convinced that dan & casey are soinlove, i'm not going to start writing sports night fic until i've made it through the set.
but on the other hand, i'm not going to let the fact that i haven't read all twenty aubrey/maturin novels get in the way of me slashing the dickens out of them (a side note - it was weird for me to type it that way. i always just call the fandom/series/whatever master & commander. but non-slash people, and in fact the flyleaf of the books themselvs, call it aubrey/maturin. and who am i to argue?)
but i write moments and moods and bizarre crossovers, and though i like to personally have a firm basis in canon, canon is not some holy thing that i must not violate. which is an entirely different post. i ought to write that. not tonight, though :)
(i think i can get away with not completing a thought, apparently)
i think i can get away with not knowing every last detail about a character. i think, was what i meant to say. but i'm not sure anymore. all i know is that twenty is a lot of books. and that there's nothing wrong with film!canon, either.
By inclination I've always preferred to see all the canon, but in reality, my comfort level is lower. I absolutely refuse to write fic until I reach some turning point, and that turning point is different for different canons. (I went with B, since I don't do much fan-research and instead only write to what I've seen.)
In Due South, I started writing RayV after watching all the RayV eps but having seen none of the RayK eps, and then wrote RayK after seeing the entire show. I think that process worked well.
In Smallville, I started writing when the canon was still open, resulting in stories that are now factually incorrect and out of character. That bugs, actually, and I'm wary of doing that again.
In comics fandom, the situation is quite different. It's possible to read a 95-comic series (Nightwing). It's possible to read a 200-comics series (Hellblazer). It is NOT possible to read a 700-comic series (Detective Comics), so I'm not even going to try. With Batman, though, I absolutely refused to write him until I reached that turning point in my mind, even though I've been a Bat-fan since I was twelve years old. (And there was pressure. Oh, there was pressure.) I snaffled up everything I could read and reached that comfort point without going in depth to the main series, much to my surprise.
(Side note: that turning point is the point at which I can hear the character's voice and it sounds correct to me. With some characters, I never reach that point, and so I don't write them. Ever.)
I know for myself that I need to know as much canon as I reasonably can -- I have to read (or see) the source material a number of times to 'get' it BEFORE my subconscious can start to cook up characters and plots and so on.
Interestingly for me, I had watched DS years ago when it was first broadcast, loved it entirely, and didn't then have the least fanfic impulse for it. But then I ran across Ces's stories, which felt so very much like the originals, and that started sucking me in. Then I read all the fanfic (at least the good stuff) I could get my hands on, and borrowed S3 & 4 from a friend (thank you Helvirago) and gradually found myself coming up with ideas for stories, getting the character 'voices' in my head. It's a very organic process for me....
I choose 2 but kinda waffled between 2 and 3. I think, in the long run, it depends on how well you can feel the characters, period. You can watch every single episode of DS 50 times each, and if you can't feel or hear Ray or Fraser, you wont be able to write them well. Whereas you can watch only 10 eps out of 20 but if you can hear them, that's it.
I honestly think the most important thing is to have a good beta. Someone to pull you back from overdoing things, and to keep you on the right track. You can't get that from watching the shows, imo.
I like what Basingstoke (above) had to say about reaching a "turning point". I am the same way, I don't need to see the entirety of the canon, I just have to click with the characters to write. Until I click, until I "get it", I can't write.
A lot of it has to do with being part of a fandom's community, where I get thoughtful, intelligent interaction with people in the fandom and get the benefit of their observations in essay, discussion and fic, and support for my own writing via talking out problems I might be having. I had only seen 5 eps of Forever Knight when I wrote my first FK fic, and now that I look back at the story, it still stands up as if I'd seen every episode. Through discussions of the characters with people on ForKni-L and reading other people's fic, I was able to understand and internalize the characters and their dynamics from only a few eps. I had seen only half of second season of Due South and then the pilot when I found I could write DS. But I had to see the pilot, see that the other Mounties he'd been working with up there in the cold, snowy wastes did not like or understand Fraser, before I clicked with my fav nut-case.
Fannish support has always been very important to me in my writing, just as important as canon.
I chose A, as the fandoms I've written in are really easy ones for knowing the complete canon, being book-fandoms. For TV series fandoms I think it's OK if one knows at least a good portion of the source well, but seeing every last episode probably isn't necessary (some episodes are necessary, if they change the story's direction, have significant character development, etc).
It's enormously important to know the canon of one's fandom, if for no other reason that it's good to deviate from it on purpose rather than accidentally.
There are very few times that someone who isn't familiar with the source material is able to write good fanfic. It happens, but it's definitely not the rule. The problem with less direct exposure, such as reading the fanfic only or having other fans check it for you/give their opinion is that it's very easy to get it wrong. How do you know that the person who wrote the fanfic story you're basing your fic on didn't get their perception of canon/characterization from someone else's story? It's not as if there's only one interpretation of canon or characterization, but too often people end up with a skewed perspective from just reading fanfic. I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard someone comment that they were really surprised by this or that Plus, if you ask people if something is right you're still getting an opinion filtered from their perception. A very good writer friend of mind has stated repeatedly that she wishes she could go back and redo the earlier stories she wrote in DS fandom because she wrote F/K but she'd only seen a couple of the eps and all of her friends were Vecchio fans who didn't like Kowalski. Asking them questions on characterizations lead her to write a very different RayK than she would have written if she had seen more of the episodes.
...A for me, usually including background research as well, thus my rarely writing TV fic (I also hate being Jossed). I've seen others produce fic that worked for me from much less obsesive groundings. So it depends on the person, I guess.
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I'm a canon stickler. I drive myself nuts with it. No wonder my output over the years has decreased dramatically.
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If there is what amounts to infinite canon (ie: comic books - fifty years of issues wherein each year contradicts the last! - or RPS, in which it is possible to know many things about an actor or pop group but [at least in my experience] quite difficult to know *everything*, because they give interviews every freakin' day), then canon is something to experience, but less, how to put it. Less integral? integral. whatever.
no more babble. I think if you can list all the things you need to know, then it's a good idea to know them. if you can't, then there's so much information that it's nearly impossible anyway.
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And yeah, with comics, it's... almost impossible to know the complete canon, and I don't expect most people to be able to quote chapter and verse of the Silmarillion to write LotR fanfic, etc.
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Which also starts getting into your pet topic about what counts as canon, yeah? Books and movies and alternate things and blah blah blah.
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Though I try to avoid all RPF discussions these days.
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And yeah, with comics, it's... almost impossible to know the complete canon, and I don't expect most people to be able to quote chapter and verse of the Silmarillion to write LotR fanfic, etc.
And make those same comments. THe other thing was from answering someone else's.
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I saw that afterward. *g*
But yes, what counts as canon, what needs to be known and what you can slide by without knowing, multiple sources, author/actor interviews, tie-in novels, written not seen scenes, etc...
*points to icon*
See my pretty new icon? Right up your alley...
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which brings up a question
this also ties into how it annoys me when people refer to films as fanfiction, and how i think everything - book canon, film canon, and fanon inform my understanding of a character . . . but i think i've spammed enough for tonight ;)
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LotR, otoh, is really one long book.
Of course, all my LotR fic is clearly and explicitly movieverse (except for one story) and so it uses some of the movie things that never happen in the book (Aragorn's flight over the cliff. Eowyn being at Helms Deep etc.), as is all my X-Men fic. And all my HP fic is based on the books, and it's HP now that gives me the most trouble, because while I enjoyed the movie of PoA, I don't want to read fic based on those versions of Sirius and Remus, and yet some writers have absorbed those characterizations (and the actors' physicality) into their mostly-book-based fic.
Which I find jarring, as a reader.
this also ties into how it annoys me when people refer to films as fanfiction, and how i think everything - book canon, film canon, and fanon inform my understanding of a character
See, I think you can easily make a case for LotR or X-Men movieverse as separate canons from the books/comics - the LotR films are deep enough that you can manage w/o the books (as long as you label your fic movieverse), and XMM is clearly AU from the comics, and comics fans are used to multiple canons (or you think they would be, but considering some of the nastiness of comics v. movie fans over the past few years, not so much).
The HP films, otoh, have never struck me as deep enough to support a fandom based solely on the films, without knowledge of the books, and I think PoA, but cutting so much important information from the overall plot, is even guiltier of that.
So I'm of the mind that the HP movies are sort of fanficcish, in that I'll always privilege the HP books over the movies, and that while I may choose to add interesting details here or there from the movie, I don't see it as canon.
I suppose if I were really onboard with the movie!Lupin characterization, and if the actors had fit my mental pictures of the characters, I might have a different answer, but I think that's a decision every fan makes for herself, and for me, it's kind of a kneejerk reaction.
I also have an uneasy relationship with fanon, though I'm the first to admit that I write both under its influence and in response against it.
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I don't think this is particularly *significant* addntl data, because it's pretty, um, obvious stuff. I post this comment anyway!
I'd also like to disclaim I've never been actively involved with one of those infinite-canon fandoms like comics (and, I think, to a lesser degree, RPF? Actually, now I want to know this. Tell me, do you think of *Nsync as an infinite-canon fandom?).
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Well, pretty much, yeah. I mean -- when I got into Smallville, it consisted of, full out, under 11 hours of stuff; Firefly was under 14. Nsync has existed for the better part of a decade, every second and minute and hour of that time. There's no way to *know* everything there.
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I think that, no matter the fandom, you need to be pretty damn familiar with the characters and, at the least, familiar with the events that make the person who they are.
Using due South as an example: I did in-depth research into the show, as well as read every single fic that I could get my hands on before I even considered writing in the fandom. I have, thus far, only seen three episodes (BDtH, Eclipse, and CotW), but it's more from circumstance rather than my not wanting to watch the show.
If you have the available resources, however, I think that you should use it to the fullest extent because it helps you to get a handle on the character(s) and also to make everything that you write more believable.
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No matter how much you read up on all the due South episodes, even though it's as thorough as, say, a transcript, you're still missing out on a lot of things like body language and such. Same if you're experiencing the characters through fiction; you don't really know how much is canon and how much is filtered through the perspective of the author.
I'm still not really comfortable writing longer pieces because I don't feel like I have a handle on the characters yet. Then again, this is just from my perspective; other people may feel perfectly fine with limited exposure.
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Even if I'm writing something that takes place in an earlier season, I think it's important to know what happens past that point in canon because that influences the characterization.
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You need the ones who've either seen all (or nearly all) of the canon in one of those finite fandoms, or who are as-informed-as-they-can-be in the infinite ones -- at least up to the time period in which you're setting the story.
I wouldn't ask someone writing, say, a post-S1 SV fic to know everything that went down in S2 or S3.
But also... yeah. It's a care thing. I wrote a story a while back based on one small piece of canon from a storyline I hadn't yet read. Nearly everything in the story was written around canon I *had* seen, and the canon info I used from what I hadn't was correct, but... man. The story's still all wrong, because the fan I used for info-checking left out what I *considered* to be a major aspect of the storyline in question when tutoring/vetting me.
(Essentially, the story slashed character A with character C and did not mention -- at ALL -- character B, whose romantic relationship with character A, while ultimately over by the time I set my story, was a *major* part of the storyline. Hell, it was the B-plot. If I'd known that? I would've written the story in an entirely different way. If I'd gotten someone else who'd read the storyline to beta it, I would've *edited* in an entirely different way.)
And... yeah. You can't just ask anyone, I don't think. You have to take a good look at who's vetting you, and what issues they may or may not have with the canon and canon relationships. I don't *blame* the fan in question for leaving this stuff out -- I *did* know about their massive issues beforehand, in the same way I knew which people in SV fandom I could and couldn't ask 'hey, what's going on with Lana?' and expect a detailed, objective answer.
But... man. Yeah. In the end, it's always going to be *better* to see the canon yourself, I think, because even though it *is* perfectly possible to write -- and write well -- without it...
Even the most conscientious fan has weaknesses and blind spots.
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For most fandoms, though, I have to have seen the source material completely. I wasn't even happy writing Lawrence of Arabia until I'd read Seven Pillars of Wisdom and a couple of TE Lawrence biographies, despite the fact that the film doesn't have a great deal to do with the real TEL.
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I think in order to stay sane in comics fandom, the rule of thumb is just be as familiar as fuck with the last 4-5 years (real human time) worth of storylines, and pick up anything that's mentioned an awful lot, like Jason's death, Babs getting shot, or Dinah getting tortured.
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but within limits. as much as i, after 8 episodes today, am convinced that dan & casey are soinlove, i'm not going to start writing sports night fic until i've made it through the set.
but on the other hand, i'm not going to let the fact that i haven't read all twenty aubrey/maturin novels get in the way of me slashing the dickens out of them (a side note - it was weird for me to type it that way. i always just call the fandom/series/whatever master & commander. but non-slash people, and in fact the flyleaf of the books themselvs, call it aubrey/maturin. and who am i to argue?)
but i write moments and moods and bizarre crossovers, and though i like to personally have a firm basis in canon, canon is not some holy thing that i must not violate. which is an entirely different post. i ought to write that. not tonight, though :)
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i think i can get away with not knowing every last detail about a character. i think, was what i meant to say. but i'm not sure anymore. all i know is that twenty is a lot of books. and that there's nothing wrong with film!canon, either.
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In Due South, I started writing RayV after watching all the RayV eps but having seen none of the RayK eps, and then wrote RayK after seeing the entire show. I think that process worked well.
In Smallville, I started writing when the canon was still open, resulting in stories that are now factually incorrect and out of character. That bugs, actually, and I'm wary of doing that again.
In comics fandom, the situation is quite different. It's possible to read a 95-comic series (Nightwing). It's possible to read a 200-comics series (Hellblazer). It is NOT possible to read a 700-comic series (Detective Comics), so I'm not even going to try. With Batman, though, I absolutely refused to write him until I reached that turning point in my mind, even though I've been a Bat-fan since I was twelve years old. (And there was pressure. Oh, there was pressure.) I snaffled up everything I could read and reached that comfort point without going in depth to the main series, much to my surprise.
(Side note: that turning point is the point at which I can hear the character's voice and it sounds correct to me. With some characters, I never reach that point, and so I don't write them. Ever.)
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Interestingly for me, I had watched DS years ago when it was first broadcast, loved it entirely, and didn't then have the least fanfic impulse for it. But then I ran across Ces's stories, which felt so very much like the originals, and that started sucking me in. Then I read all the fanfic (at least the good stuff) I could get my hands on, and borrowed S3 & 4 from a friend (thank you Helvirago) and gradually found myself coming up with ideas for stories, getting the character 'voices' in my head. It's a very organic process for me....
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I honestly think the most important thing is to have a good beta. Someone to pull you back from overdoing things, and to keep you on the right track. You can't get that from watching the shows, imo.
*glomps on pearl*
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A lot of it has to do with being part of a fandom's community, where I get thoughtful, intelligent interaction with people in the fandom and get the benefit of their observations in essay, discussion and fic, and support for my own writing via talking out problems I might be having. I had only seen 5 eps of Forever Knight when I wrote my first FK fic, and now that I look back at the story, it still stands up as if I'd seen every episode. Through discussions of the characters with people on ForKni-L and reading other people's fic, I was able to understand and internalize the characters and their dynamics from only a few eps. I had seen only half of second season of Due South and then the pilot when I found I could write DS. But I had to see the pilot, see that the other Mounties he'd been working with up there in the cold, snowy wastes did not like or understand Fraser, before I clicked with my fav nut-case.
Fannish support has always been very important to me in my writing, just as important as canon.
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It's enormously important to know the canon of one's fandom, if for no other reason that it's good to deviate from it on purpose rather than accidentally.
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