The difficulty of fanfiction about Ender's Game (discuss)

[DragonArmy]

I am considering attempting to write a fanfiction about Ender's game. However, the difficulty of writing a fanfiction in the Enderverse comes from the fact that Ender's Game is a very open-and-shut book, plotwise. Battle School is abolished by the end of the novel so it's not like you can continue it (since there's no point; the Buggers are "gone") and there's really not much to write about before the book begins (since there really aren't any other strategic geniuses aside from Ender and Bean who are notable, or else they would have been made note of in the novel).

One path to take is to look at the Ender's Game novel from another point of view, as Card did in Ender's Shadow. But whose points of view, aside from Ender's and Bean's, really matter?

A second way to approach this is to assume an alternate ending to Ender's Game, one in which somehow the Buggers are not defeated (yet). While I'm down with that, I know that some people will not appreciate such a change.

Other than that, I am really not sure where to begin. I am open to suggestions on what I should do. I'm really leaning toward the second option I mentioned, but would like to hear what other people think before I actually get started.

[Petra]

Since this would be a fanfiction, I don't see any problem with twisting the story the way you want. However, I understand that some readers might not like that. I've never written an Ender's Game fanfiction because I, too, am a bit confused on how it would work out.

Like I said, though, make the story your own. An interesting idea that I had once would be to almost "re-write" the original Ender's Game story, but from a different character's point of view. Instead of Ender's view at the Battle School, why don't you write from Alai's perspective, or Petra's perspective? What did they do on a regular basis? What interesting things have happened to them when Ender's not there to experience it?

Hope this helps, but I apologize if it's actually no help whatsoever. XD

[DragonArmy]

Well yes, being the author of the fanfiction allows you to do pretty much whatever you like, but if you're trying to please your audience you have to do what they like.

Also, when writing fanfiction, I like to stay within the bounds of what the author has already set up. If a character acts or talks a certain way in the original, they should do so as well in the fanfic.

Anyway, yes I was thinking of perhaps doing my own version of Ender's Game from the perspective of another character (just like Ender's Shadow was done). I would have to take some time to get used to "being" one of the other characters rather than Ender, of course. I'm not sure if any of the other characters are in enough of the novel to really let the reader "know" them, so a lot of what I would write would be purely imaginative on my part.

[Delphiki]

I think, considering their major roles in the shadow series, Petra and Alai would be good characters, since they are also major characters in the original book as part of Ender's jeesh.

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