Epistolary Fic

Tropes and genres
Synonym(s)	letterfic
Related tropes/genres	documentation!fic, Social Media AU
See also	Dead Letters Challenge
Related articles on Fanlore.

Epistolary fic is fanfic in the form of collated documents. Most usually these are letters, often written between the characters in a romantic pairing (for example, No Unicorns, a Pros story in which Bodie and Doyle write to each other). Email may take the place of traditional letters when appropriate to the story's setting. Other types of documents—such as diary entries and newspaper clippings (or a mix of forms)—may be used as well, or as an alternative.

cover of the Pros zine, Classified

Some epistolary fic is actually multimedia, consisting of pictures of handwritten letters between the characters. An example is Timelapse by Musamea in X-Men fandom.

One of the more impressive multimedia examples of epistolary fiction was the Professionals zine Classified, published by Keynote Press. Its first print run consisted of a portfolio full of 435 separate documents—letters, memos, cards, notes, and artwork—numbered in a sequence that formed a story. (As production of this was extremely complex, later print runs were regular zines, with the documents written up as plain text.)

A twist on epistolary fic was the Dead Letters Challenge, in which the letters were written by characters from beyond the grave.

In more recent times subreddits have become a popular format, with the /r/AmITheAsshole thread format becoming another way to examine relationships between characters.

Epistolary Fanworks

• Astrolabe by reluctantabandon and winter_of_our_discontent - a Dean/Cas SPN fic, AU where they are both graduate students with adjoining study carrels in the library who communicate through notes left at each other's desks.
• Classified, a Professionals zine
• Communication by Jenna Sinclair (Star Trek TOS). Letters between Kirk and Spock
• "Dead Letter" by Alexis Fegan Black in the zines Charisma #12 & Psychic Storm: A security guard on the Enterprise sends a letter recounting his unintentional witnessing of his captain and first officer making love.
• Drunk by Noelle "Nicky" DeLaet, a Hanson fanfic seemingly written in second person, then revealed to be a notebook filled with anecdotes to remind Zac (who suffered memory loss due to a morphine overdose) of his relationship with the narrator.
• "Full of Grace"[1] by lastscorpion, a Forever Knight story for FK Fic Fest 2011: Grace Balthazar writes a series of letters home to her mother about her job at the Coroner's Office.
• Heroes by Rossi, a Common People story about a school shooting told via a variety of sources.
• An Ink-Stained Year by sixbeforelunch. A series of letters from Caroline Bingley and Colonel Fitzwilliam, set after the end of Pride and Prejudice
• Killing Elvis by David Hines. Hilarious e-mail correspondence for the Alien films; a Yuletide hit
• Letters, a Star Wars TPM zine
• Lived by Amanda Dupuis, a Hanson fanfic written as a posthumous letter to Zac following his untimely death.
• The Movie Journals by cmiran:[2] sundry correspondence concerning the (fictional) preparation of a film of The Charioteer during the early 1960s
• Sammy's Drunken Letters to Stephen King by eighth_horizon: a multimedia series of letters about the dangerously inaccurate portrayal of paranormal creatures and defenses against them in King's works.
• Sleepless in Providence, a Beauty and the Beast zine told with actual letters in envelopes. See more at Epistolary Fic#Beauty and the Beast Epistolary Fanworks.
• Sometimes On The Rarest Nights by Clionaeilis. A long series of letters from Ivor Novello to Mabel Nesbitt which fuse Gosford Park with Novello's actual life
• Sub Rosa by prof_pangaea, a series of telegrams exchanged by the Holmes brothers during the Hiatus. Note: Some of the graphics are broken on LJ, so the author published it on AO3
• Dream SMP Poetry Zine edited by Aim_and_Fire, a PDF fanzine written as a series of collected poems by several characters from Dream SMP. The in-universe collector is supposedly the character and monarch, Eret from Dream SMP.
• 21st Century Blues by Jojo, Starsky and Hutch communicate by email.

Diary Excerpts:

• "Five extracts from Ralph's journal"[3] and "Nicking a few pages from Ralph's journal..."[4] by queen_ypolita: extracts from Ralph Lanyon's journal (a) betweeen Dunkirk and the middle of The Charioteer, and (b) after the end of the novel
• Attachments by Greer Watson:[5] covers the events of Forever Knight from the time Natalie Lambert first meets Nick Knight to the final episode of the series, largely through entries in Natalie's diary but also e-mail, cards, and letters

Beauty and the Beast Epistolary Fanworks

Beauty and the Beast (TV) fandom had a strong tradition of epistolary fanworks.

Even the show's creators utilized this when they created the for-profit Dial-a-Beast in 1991.

Other fanworks with a letter focus:

• Vincent's Letters (& more) (unknown date)
• Songs of the Dream (1994)
• Sleepless in Providence (1995)
• Father's Letters to Vincent (1997)
• Letters of Love (1997)
• many examples in anthology zines

• 

  letter from Vincent to Catherine

• 

  from Bondstories #7 (1994), a letter from a tunnel dweller Below to her parents

Challenges

• Unsent Letters

Recs & Thematic Lists

• Professionals Epistolary Stories
• Recs tagged Epistolary at Fancake

External links

• Works tagged as epistolary at the AO3
• startrek_diary on LJ Epistolary community for Star Trek reboot
• list of Starsky and Hutch fics involving letters and notes