How I Put Canon in My Fanfiction

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I write fanfiction and original fiction. Each of those categories has their own challenges. Today I am only going to be focusing on fanfiction, specifically how I choose what parts of canon to keep and discard. This is by no means a comprehensive guide as there are many variations on how I decide.

Consider this a beginner's guide on how I do things as sometimes the writing process is different depending on the fic.

Main Character/Narrator

When starting to write a fic I decide first what I want to do. In Inbetween: The Incredible Burp and the Rin Duology I needed characters for these two scenarios: come down with hereth illinit and going between realities.

In both I first tried to decide which canon character would do what I needed them to. In the first case I originally wanted any Animorph but Rachel as that character had already come down with it in canon. While for the latter I wanted Daenerys Targaryen as I more than love the idea of her getting together with Jorah Mormont.

In the end I decided on Original Characters (OCs) for both. For The Incredible Burp this was because there wasn't an Animorph who would have an interesting story involving hereth illinit. So I had to create an OC so that there would be an emotional side and not just a wow factor.

For the Rin Duology I also decided on an OC as Daenerys wouldn't be able to handle what I wanted her to go through. I have a love/hate relationship with the character and I do know her strengths. Those would be less than useful for what I needed my main character to do.

The exception to this process is if I'm writing a fic for the hell of it or writing a crackfic. In those cases deciding on whether or not to use a canon character is much less complex. Characters will be acting out of character even if they're canon.

Servicing the Plot

Another way I determine what canon to include and which to discard is through the plot. Exploring different scenarios sometimes means leaving canon behind. With the Rin Duology I had to deviate from canon so that the timelines would fit in the Game of Thrones reality. On the Resident Evil side...never made it a priority to fully stick to the movie canon as the fic was originally going to be much shorter. Never mind way less complex than it became.

In the case of the Rin Duology I liked certain ideas of where the show Game of Thrones was going. When I started the fic, Game of Thrones Season 7 hadn't yet aired and so I didn't know how an Arya Stark and Nymeria reunion would happen. This meant I was left to think up scenarios on my own.
Due to what I had constrained myself to in the fic, I had more limited options of how I could get the pair together again. Arya was with Rin at this point which meant she couldn't be wandering Westeros alone when encountering her direwolf.

So I was able to keep the idea of them getting together again, but not in the way I thought it would happen in the show.

Game of Thrones is a show with plots upon plots. Subplots upon subplots. So in the Rin Duology when I write in the Game of Thrones reality I have to drop some things. Such as Littlefinger and Varys. Both were quickly killed off for the same reason: their schemes are extremely complex and were too hard to properly work into my fic.

Choosing Headcanons

In fiction there are times when the canon doesn't cover everything. Either by design, poor writing, or things haven't been revealed yet. So people fill up those empty spaces by making headcanons. Recently in Game of Thrones the budget doesn't allow for direwolves, for the most part, which means there are headcanons (ranging from funny to serious) about where those creatures are.

I want to state here that there are many reasons for headcanons and I'm just talking about one reason they exist.

Deciding on which headcanons to use depends on what fic I'm writing. If I want to do an Animorphs fic where Marco and Rachel are a couple, I can't have Marco being gay.

If I want to write a fic where Jon Snow or Jorah Mormont is Azor Ahai and a Valyrian sword is Lightbringer, I couldn't have Lightbringer be Dawn. This due to the fact that neither Jon or Jorah are of House Dayne thereby making it impossible for them to get Dawn. Unless I decided Jorah just had to be Azor Ahai and Dawn just had to be Lightbringer which means I would mess around with canon.