Silk said:
>There is a fine line between fixing what's wrong in canon and making it so AU that the characters are no longer themselves. When that happens, you might as well be writing original fic. So the challenge is to keep them in character *and* make whatever changes may be necessary to make the story or their relationship work. What I find helps is to get their voices right. If I can't hear Curt or Brian saying a certain piece of dialogue, it doesn't matter how great the line is, I'll take it out.>

Right there with you!! Totally agree. That's exactly the approach I'm trying to take, I write far more on instinct than forethought, especially in this new venture of fanfic. It's an interesting sort of challenge... :)