Fanfiction

(Redirected from Fan Fiction)

Synonyms:

fanfiction, fan-fiction, fan fiction, fanfic, fan fic, fic, derivative fiction (older term)

See also:

Click here for articles related to this term on Fanlore.

1 Origins
2 Scope
3 Language
4 Variants on the Term "Fanfiction"
5 Creators' views on Fanfiction
6 Perspectives on Fanfiction
7 References

Fanfiction is a work of fiction written by fans for other fans, taking a source text or a famous person as a point of departure. It is most commonly produced within the context of a fannish community and can be shared online such as in archives or in print such as in zines. Writing fanfiction is an extremely widespread activity in media fandom; millions of stories have been written,^[1] and thousands more are written daily.

Origins

From prehistory, stories were built on other stories, extending, extending, and sometimes subverting them. For example, Virgil's Aeneid is explicitly a follow-on to the Iliad, linking the Roman origin myth to Greek heroes. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is partly a reworking of other stories, including some from Boccaccio's Decameron^[2]. Shakespeare's history plays are like Real People Fiction, while many of his comedies and tragedies are based on Italian, classical, and other existing stories^[3].

In 2004, the Writers University compiled a timeline of the history of fan fiction, starting (somewhat tongue in cheek) with the invention of paper and ending with the fanfiction.net archive. A copy can be found here. The site also offers timelines of anime and comic book fandoms, along with a separate timeline for the History of Television Fan Fiction.

Scope

Fanfiction takes a lot of forms and does a lot of different things. Some fanfiction seeks to close loopholes in a source text (see fix-its) or to explore character motivations; some fanfiction is designed to co-exist with canon (see Case Stories and Episode Tags), and some is designed to branch off from canon (AUs); some fanfiction turns minor characters into protagonists of their own stories, or uses minor characters' eyes to see a different perspective on the major characters; some fanfiction translates a given story into a new genre (e.g. from television series into noir detective film, or epic poem into screenplay form.) Fanfiction can create backstory, or age up characters and leap into futurefic. It can show the depth of two partners' knowledge of each other (see Broccoli Test). It can transform mundane shows into fantasy or sf, with attributes like Elves, Bodyswaps, Mpreg and Wingfic. Fanfiction can contrast and compare different shows by crossing them over or fusing them together.

See also Story Tropes, Slash Tropes, and Story Tropes by Fandom.

Fanfiction often responds to other fanfiction, either explicitly (issuefic, sequels, remix stories) or implicitly.

Fanfiction sometimes responds to society, such as in Don't Ask Don't Tell stories. Fanfiction is written to make us, or our fan friends, happy (see Bulletproof Kink and Squee), or simply to be a part of the Fannish Community. Fans can put themselves into their fiction (see Self-insertion), or use fanfiction to improve their writing as they transition to profic (see Fans Turned Pro).

Fanfiction can be gen, but it is often het, femslash and slash. It can be a fluffy romance or a serious examination of sex and sexuality. It can be G rated or very explicit. Fanfiction can examine any sexuality, whether they are represented in the canon or not (see BDSM, polyfic, transfic or threesome).

Fanfiction can be about [[RPF|real people], historical or contemporary, rather than fictional characters.

See also Genres and Ratings.

Fanfiction can be short (the humble drabble) or long (novel-length, or multiple-novel series).

See also Story Length.

Language

While fanfic in English is most common, stories are written in many other languages.

Fans will sometimes ask a fanfic writer if they can translate their English fic into another language for the enjoyment of non-English speaking fans (or fans who prefer reading in another language). Some languages that fics have been commonly translated into are German, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, French. Fanfics are also translated from one non-English language into another, but those translation are more rare. Stories that are translated into English from their original language are usually translated by the author of the story.

Sometimes, fans also translate a canon source, for this phenomenon, please see scanlation, fansub, fandub and fan translation in general.

Variants on the Term "Fanfiction"

The term fanfiction and its shortenings fanfic or just fic for individual works are the more common term within fandom.^[4] In academia and fan studies, fan fiction is the accepted spelling; the Oxford English Dictionary has listed "fan fiction" since December 2004, and in July 2009 Merriam-Webster followed suit, adding the term to the online and print editions of their dictionary, confirming fan fiction as the accepted standard spelling in American publishing.^[5]

But fans are rarely concerned with being accepted, correct or consistent with each other, and there is no consensus about the usage of the various terms, or what that usage says about a fan. For some fans, the spelling fan fiction is seen as indicative of an outsider perspective, either as a new fan or an aca-fan.^[6] However, other fans do not make this usage distinction at all and use fan fiction within fannish contexts. ^[7]^[8]^[9] Many fans whose first language contains different rules about compound words prefer the fanfiction construction.

Creators' views on Fanfiction

Creators' opinions and policies towards fanfiction vary greatly. Some authors, such as Robin Hobb (see The Fan Fiction Rant) or Anne Rice^[10], actively discourage fanfiction, while other authors are more lax, with opinions ranging from, "I don't like it but I won't stop you" to "I encourage it."^[11] Cory Doctorow has called it "active reading."^[12]

There is a definite lack of knowledge and understanding among SF writers about fan fiction, as can be shown by the many overheated stories by authors overstating the case of Marion Zimmer Bradley and Darkover fanfiction.^[13] A thread on author John Scalzi's blog, Whatever^[14], shows that most of them don't seem to realize that fanfiction based on books is far less common than fanfiction based on movies and television shows (Harry Potter is a huge exception to this, of course), that most SF books will probably never have fanfiction written about them, and that most others will only get a handful.