"Nails" An AU Shorthand...

[Epsilon]

Something just occured to me on another forum. I should use the term "Nails" whenever I am discussing a work of alternate universe fiction from now on. The term comes from the phrase "For Want Of A Nail" obviously.
Every "Nail" a story has is a point of divergence from established history. So if a story about, say, Ranma has Akane going on the training trip with him when he is young that is a "One Nail" story while if the same story had Akane going on the trip and Ranma was born a girl that would be a "Two Nail" story and so on and so forth. Events that follow from a previous Nail don't increase the Nail count (eg, if Akane convinces Genma to take Ukyou with them, that would still be a One Nail fic since Akane's presence is what led directly to the story change) though unexplained changes still would even if they could be explained with the previously established Nails (eg, if Ukyou comes along, just because with no explanation given its a Two Nail story).
I will also posit the opinion that the number of Nails is inversely proportional to the quality of the story. So while a One Nail story may be interesting, a Ten Nail story will just be a incomprehensible mess that might as well not even be a fanfic.
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Epsilon

[Bob Schroeck]

You know, that's a very good bit of shorthand. I hereby resolve to use this terminology.
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Proginoskes]

I posit that while yes, there is a very strong inverse correlation between Nail Count and quality, there are outliers that are very high quality indeed despite having a very high NC (and probably outliers in the opposite direction too). Of course, it might still be reasonable to assert that positive outliers might as well not be fanfic – they just happen to be well-written stories instead of incomprehensible messes.

YMMV of course, but I think Anne Walsh's Dangerverse is an outlier above the Main Sequence, as an example. That thing's NC is huge (it might be easier to list the things not changed or invented wholecloth), but I enjoyed reading it immensely.

[Dartz]

I like it, but it lacks a little bit of granularity in things. 2 one-nail Ranma fics can have wildly different outcomes and wildly different characters depending on how the effects ripple through the mix.

Whatever happened to the Butterfly-Beaufort scale?
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[Black Aeronaut]

I like it, but it lacks a little bit of granularity in things. 2 one-nail Ranma fics can have wildly different outcomes and wildly different characters depending on how the effects ripple through the mix.

Whatever happened to the Butterfly-Beaufort scale?

It gives people an idea of how divergent things start out.  It's a good litmus for some people who only like a certain amount of divergence.
Never heard of that scale, Dartz.  Care to elaborate?

[Dartz]

Butterflys for the amount of initial changes. The amount of butterflies fluttering in Beijing.

The Beaufort Scale for the scale of wind their fluttering kicks up in memphis. Something that corresponds with initial changes, and results.
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