Fanfiction - Fanlore

A work of fiction taking canon as a point of departure. Most commonly produced within the context of a fannish community.

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 give examine sexualities and lifestyles not often present in canon (see BDSM, or threesomes), show the depth of two partners' knowledge of each other (see Broccoli Test), or look at how they'd act in intimate situations (see het and slash). 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. Fanfiction can be short (the humble drabble) or long (novel-length, or multiple-novel series), gen or het or slash. 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 often responds to other fanfiction, either explicitly (issuefic, sequels, remix stories) or implicitly.

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

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.^[1] 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.^[2]

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.^[3] However, other fans do not make this usage distinction at all and use fan fiction within fannish contexts. ^[4][5][6] Many fans whose first language contains different rules about compound words prefer the fanfiction construction.

Creators' views on Fanfiction

A creator's opinion and policy towards fanfiction varies greatly. Some authors, such as Robin Hobb or Anne Rice^[7], 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."^[8] Cory Doctorow has called it "active reading."^[9]

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^[10] . A thread on author John Scalzi's blog, Whatever^[11], 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.

External Sources

Fanfiction: A Cautionary Tale by Sylvia Bond

References

1. ↑ A simple Google search shows fanfiction with 9,400,000 and fan fiction with 5,470,000 results (11 January 2010). Results vary from day to day but the general picture remains the same.
2. ↑ The 2009 update of Merriam-Websters Collegiate® Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, accessed January 10, 2010
3. ↑ needs citation -- anyone remember a remark/discussion?
4. ↑ Twilighted, the first Twilight fan fiction site., accessed January 11, 2010
5. ↑ House Fan Fiction Archive, accessed January 11, 2010
6. ↑ Xena Fan Fiction Archive, accessed January 11, 2010
7. ↑ Where Can I Read Fanfiction Based on Anne Rice's Books?, accessed January 10, 2010
8. ↑ Copyright holders' attitude towards fan fiction, accessed January 10, 2010
9. ↑ Cory Doctorow, In Praise of Fanfic, accessed October 24, 2008
10. ↑ Type "Darkover lawyer fanfiction" into Google; many of the 2,000 hits will be from sf writers, exaggerating the original occurrence into a horror story for authors.
11. ↑ Let’s Get Transformative: thread on fanfiction and the OTW, on John Scalzi's blog, Whatever, accessed January 10, 2010