CousinAlexei I found your Inspector House fic very interesting. I so hope you continue! About the MPreg, the problem I have, as a reader, is how much OCC all characters behave, for obvious reasons since House is not a sci-fi or supernatural show. But I still believe that some authors, with right incentive (*coughAsyncacough*) could make it work - and Dee, I really don't think that your fic is a MPreg!fic, I'd call it a twistedMPreg!fic :D And what about AU fics? What exactly is an AU fic? H/W in a establish relationship is AU?

I have enough trouble following regular fan fiction never mind AU. I tend to stick to plain vanilla fan fic, mostly H/W, (friendship or otherwise). However, if something is rec'ed and people really like it I will read other pairings and whatnot. In fact the other day I read a Chase/Cam one that left me needing a smoke. :lol:

In fact the other day I read a Chase/Cam one that left me needing a smoke. Could you post the link on the rec thread? I'd be curious to read that. snarkbait (who is leaving the fandom btw. I'm more than a little sad). That's a shame, I know a lot of folks liked her fic. Is it public why?

One AU I really liked was Maddoggirl's Bloodlines, her Civil War AU. Link goes to part 1

Snarkie's leaving the fandom!? That's awful. She's one of the best House/Cammie writers around. She renewed my faith in sticking House, Cameron and a kitten all in the same story and making it work. For those of you who don't know Snarkie is a very talented writer who actually makes House/Cameron work very well. http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3350183/1/Five_years The problem I always have with House/Cameron is the reality of living with House - for any woman. Who doesn't want a man who keeps a rat in the kitchen, watches New Yankee Workshop, has a black sink, and his idea of a holiday is getting stoned. House: Hey babe. You doing the dishes, me doing you... watching the L Word with Wilson. Do you have a sister, we could reenact it live! Cameron: Ahh! Stacy must have been one hell of a woman or else House has changed a LOT. KittenCam from season one would have run screaming, but I'm not too sure about new PsychoCam of late. Maybe she could take him on. Snarkie cleverly puts House through the wringer and changes him and Cameron so the dynamic works. So I agree with Mare, it's not the size mate (or in this case the plot line), it's what you do with it. I think shipper writers have a harder time of it because they have to take a good hard look at a bunch of very dysfunctional characters and plausibly make them have sex with each other. Now this seems relatively easy because just looking at real life people will shag at the drop of a hat. It's where writers start popping in their own 'emotional' ideals, ie two kids and a white picket fence onto the House characters that it all seems to go a bit pear shaped for me. And we all do it. Everyone has their own take on the characters and everyone has their own wishes of what would happen with them. But look at the reality of the show. Ff writers are now getting more and more on the House characters so we are getting see more canon, instead of having to guess. But remember. Much as I love the House writers. They are basically making it up as they go along too. So, in terms of ships - what have we learned? House expresses his love for Wilson by trying to kill him, Wilson expresses it by giving House empty coffee cups of lurve and just being there, Cameron expresses her various loves by impromptu shagging sessions and suggestive feelings upings of House and Cuddy does it by House baiting. House is sooo not love mounds and Mills and Boons. House relationships are messy and odd - just like real life. Some ff writers like to explore the 'hey, I've just come to the conclusion I like you' part (which in the case of H/W can lead to some excrutiating 'hey I've just realised I'm gay' stories, but also some interesting takes on just how House and Foreman could end up shagging) and others just take it as a given - which I think is a clever way to get around suspension of disbelief - a bit like Buffy. There was that great episode where mum was going 'what the hell is going on' and Buffy and Spike are calmly discussing plans while dusting vampires because that was their world. Complex is the word I'd always keep in mind when writing any House ff.

Another thing you can do is list the elements of the cliche and play around with changing one element and see what that does to the rest of the story. Take the car accident one. A quick list of key elements: Wilson innocent and hit by drunk driver of truck. House finds out Wilson is hurt and suddenly realizes how much he cares about Wilson. Goes to Wilson's hospital room and declares love. Wilson answers that he loves him to, and they kiss and/or shag. Pick an element. Let's say the accident is Wilson's fault, not some random drunk driver's. He was talking on his cell phone, or changing the CD, or just not paying attention, and he hit someone else (or maybe just a telephone pole--having someone else be injured would ratchet up the angst). Does having it be Wilson's fault change how House reacts? mer-duff did this twice with two great friendship stories, one where Wilson is hurt saving a child from a fire and one where Wilson is hurt doing something stupid. In both cases House's reaction was anger, and it worked beautifully. Who doesn't want a man who keeps a rat in the kitchen, watches New Yankee Workshop, has a black sink, and his idea of a holiday is getting stoned... Stacy must have been one hell of a woman or else House has changed a LOT. A black sink? I must have missed that. My interpretation from comments made in 'Hunting' and 'Failure to Communicate' is that it's both, Stacy was a hell of a woman AND House has changed a lot. Even House thinks that Stacy wouldn't be able to stand him for long. But then I also think that FtC + Stacy's remarks at the end of 'The Honeymoon' indicate that their relationship wouldn't have lasted even if the infarction didn't happen.

I think shipper writers have a harder time of it, said Sheep, and while I know what she meant, I have to disagree. I think anyone who seriously tries to write well, has an equally hard time of it for different reasons. Well -- I suppose it depends once again upon the writer and plot line in question, but as I see it, shipper stories tend to have a built in audience and a guaranteed hook: romance/sex, for which there will always be a huge demand. It's human nature to find that stuff very interesting. Whereas gen writers have to come up with other ways to grab your attention. It's hard to do that in any original fashion. It can be really hard to show how much a character like House really does care for some of the people in his life, without relying on sexuality to convey those emotions. How do you get all the twists and turns of that crazy House-and-Wilson dance, without taking the easy route of "Well, they're in love and really secretly want to shag each other." Sheep herself is one of the best at walking that tricky path, so I think she ought to give herself more credit for the degree of difficulty involved. Or maybe it just flows so easily for her that she doesn't notice.

But in terms of canon or AU - anyone who writes something not in the show is (as I like to think of it) - is pushing the characters around as if they were playing with Barby dolls. And that takes courage - AU, gen or shipping. But god yes B Mare - how does House in non-sex land express affection? That is a tricky one - and that's just going on the episodes.

Q: How does House in non-sex land express affection? A: He doesn't. Well -- not in any way that normal human beings do, he doesn't, and that makes life quite difficult (and extremely interesting) for the writer of gen.

zaara, I'm not sure how public it is so I can't really comment on the reasons, but she's Bahleting her LJ and says she'll finish Five Years Later at the Pit. Pity.

And what about AU fics? What exactly is an AU fic? H/W in a establish relationship is AU? As far as I'm aware, an AU means that the characters are space cowboys, or ninjas, or baker's assistants, or proboscis monkeys. The setting is not Princeton-Plainsboro, in other words. Same characters, alternate universe. I don't think of established relationship fics as AU; I think of them as...well...established relationship fics. Of course there's a continuum of canonicity. Some AUs come closer than others. It's a pretty blurry line, when you get down to the type of fic where just one decision was made differently and the consequences expand like ripples. My next question: when a n00b asks for concrit and their story's pretty bad, how harsh do you get?

Haven't done that a lot but the last time I was asked I hit pretty hard on grammar, spelling, word usage - lots of mistakes there. Ended up telling the person to actually use the spell check function. Also talked some about staying IC, writer had made some very strange basic assumptions and both House & Wilson were portrayed very much like teen girls. Didn't go as far as I could have in that area though. End result was an improvement over where it started but didn't want to push so hard as to completely shut the writer down. It's a very hard line, especially if you don't know what the writer means by concrit. Does she mean really nailing the obvious OOC stuff or only hitting lightly on that with more emphasis on the mechanics.

how harsh do you get? I rarely concrit for anyone I don't know fairly well, and I won't do it at all for a story I don't enjoy. Even if they've asked for concrit, I'll usually start a conversation and get a feel for who it is I'm talking to. I need to be reasonably sure that they won't take my thoughts personally and fall into a fit of tears or temper. There are some who will. As for being harsh, I'm just not, unless you've got a different definition of "harsh" than I do. And I start slow, with those who don't know me well. If I see five problems I might gently point out two of them and explain why I think this or that thing might be changed. The response I get will tell me whether it is safe to continue.