Hey guys,
(I meant to post this last night but accidentally sent it to the wrong list.)
I'm more than a bit behind on the posts, and I'll try to answer a few of them tonight.
However, I think we're getting a bit circular, partially because we're either arguing the
points more than needs to be for the point of these awards are, and partly because we're
using the terms differently. We don't need to come up with a definitive answer to what
canon is (for example), but we do need to look at what they'll mean in the context of these
awards. That has a lot to do with how most people mean by them and less with what is
rigorously "true".
With that in mind, I propose the following distinctions. If you think they won't work, please
feel free to reply.
Movie-verse stories contain some plot element that follow an adaptation of JRRT's works
rather than the books themselves where the two difer. A movieverse story may use the
books to augment the movies in areas the movies do not address.
Book-verse stories are just the opposite. They do not contain plot elements that follow an
adaptation of JRRT's works rather than the books themselves where the two differ. It can
use the movies to augment the books in areas the books are silent. In the case of different
drafts and so on, the canon is either the published version of events, or the draft that the
author identifies that they are following.. So if an author is writing about Celeborn-as-
Teleri (as opposed to Celeborn-as-Sinda in the Silm), they are following book canon if they
tell us they are going with that version of events. Unless specifically stated otherwise,
readers can assume the author is following the version of events set forth in JRRT's books
TH, LOTR, and (in the case of 1st-2nd Age events not laidout in TH or LOTR) the Silm.
An AU story is a purposeful attempt to ask "what if" the canon material had been different.
Basing a story around a different draft than the publoished books doesn't make it AU, it
just means you're following a different canon. Both movieverse and bookverse stories can
be AU -- for instance, Eowyn stays with Theoden to fight the Wargs on the way to Helm's
Deep (movieverse) or Gollum is killed trying to escape from Mirkwood (bookverse,
probably).
Marta