See, the beauty of White Collar is that the characters have so much ridiculous, esoteric knowledge in canon (Peter can ice skate? Why? WHO KNOWS) that you can pretty much throw anything into fic and have it work. Also, "Mozzie talked about it once" is the perfect get-out-of-jail-free card for that sort of thing ...
I would still read the hell out of it, btw.
In fanfic, a good chunk of the "why do I care" is built-in: you care because you already have an emotional investment with these characters and/or this world. Granted, that's usually not the only criteria; most of the people I know don't want to read every single story in a fandom. It's usually "I cate about this world/these characters, plus the genre of the fic and the basic predicament promised in the summary, possibly also plus I care about this author's stuff." It's not "I like White Collar fic!" so much as "I want a White Collar fix in the form of some gen Neal angst!" But the genres of fanfic – hurt/comfort, character study, episode fic, whatever – and the pre-existing engagement with the canon material gives you a really convenient framework to hook people with. And it's the sort of thing that only really works when you have a canon to riff off.
*nods a bunch*
There's a great post by Jo Walton about the long spear, where all the buildup is leading you to the emotion-packed moment (the pointy end of the spear), but you need that buildup in order for the spearpoint to penetrate. But fanfic is all spearpoints; the buildup is canon itself, which means you can write the pointy bit and people already care about it so the spear goes in. I think some people go from fanfic to original fic and can make great spearpoints, but don't know how to construct the spear itself. (I can totally relate to this. I think my spearpoints are pretty good -- god knows I've made enough of 'em -- but my shafts are warped, weird, and either too short or way too long. I sometimes notice when I'm editing my original fic that there is a noticeable style shift about halfway through, where it stops being a slog and takes off, and I think this is exactly why. I've had plenty of practice at writing emotional resolutions for characters we already care about, but not so much at doing the buildup that makes people care in the first place ...)
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I would still read the hell out of it, btw.
In fanfic, a good chunk of the "why do I care" is built-in: you care because you already have an emotional investment with these characters and/or this world. Granted, that's usually not the only criteria; most of the people I know don't want to read every single story in a fandom. It's usually "I cate about this world/these characters, plus the genre of the fic and the basic predicament promised in the summary, possibly also plus I care about this author's stuff." It's not "I like White Collar fic!" so much as "I want a White Collar fix in the form of some gen Neal angst!" But the genres of fanfic – hurt/comfort, character study, episode fic, whatever – and the pre-existing engagement with the canon material gives you a really convenient framework to hook people with. And it's the sort of thing that only really works when you have a canon to riff off.
*nods a bunch*
There's a great post by Jo Walton about the long spear, where all the buildup is leading you to the emotion-packed moment (the pointy end of the spear), but you need that buildup in order for the spearpoint to penetrate. But fanfic is all spearpoints; the buildup is canon itself, which means you can write the pointy bit and people already care about it so the spear goes in. I think some people go from fanfic to original fic and can make great spearpoints, but don't know how to construct the spear itself. (I can totally relate to this. I think my spearpoints are pretty good -- god knows I've made enough of 'em -- but my shafts are warped, weird, and either too short or way too long. I sometimes notice when I'm editing my original fic that there is a noticeable style shift about halfway through, where it stops being a slog and takes off, and I think this is exactly why. I've had plenty of practice at writing emotional resolutions for characters we already care about, but not so much at doing the buildup that makes people care in the first place ...)