Fanfiction

This article is about the fiction work by fans. For other uses, see Fanfiction (disambiguation).

Synonyms:	fan-fiction, fan fiction, fanfic, fan fic, fic, derivative fiction (older term), fan lit
See also:	Spec, Fanwork, Original Fiction
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Fanfiction (fanfic, fic) is a work of fiction written by fans for other fans, taking a source text or a famous person as a point of departure.

A fan/zine ed named Julia Howarth (West) typing up an issue of The Communicator. She is surrounded by paper tribbles, a by-product of The Fannish Writer in her natural habitat. "There is a new baby in the family. His name is Randy. He is grey, with green teeth and a great carriage. He typed the entire COMMUNICATOR. He is my typewriter, which I up and bought with $20 that should have gone to the electric bill!"

Fanfiction 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. Fanfiction is also written by fans in isolation, perhaps shared with a few friends or no one at all. Writing fanfiction is an extremely widespread fannish activity; millions of stories have been written, and thousands more are written daily.

For information about some specific works of fanfiction, see Category:Fanfiction.

Origins of the Term

The term fan fiction is from science fiction fandom and according to Brave New Words antedates 1939. However, fan fiction originally meant either amateur science fiction published in a fanzine by a fan or fiction by a fan about fans. Fiction about fans was also known as faan fiction.

The earliest example cited in dictionaries for the modern use of the word is in Star Trek Lives! in 1975. See Wiktionary and Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction. Post-Star Trek, the original meaning of the term appears to have been completely supplanted by the new definition--fiction by fans using pre-existing characters and/or settings.

In the late 2000s and the early 2010s, another minority usage of the term fan fiction also referred to any narrative work produced by a fan about preexisting characters or setting(s), including fancomics. This already niche usage fell out of prominence before 2013, with fan fiction now overwhelmingly referring to written prose.

Origins of the Activity

From prehistory, stories were built on other stories: retelling, extending, and sometimes subverting them. For example, Virgil's Aeneid is an explicit 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. Shakespeare's history plays are based on real personages much like Real People Fiction, while many of his comedies and tragedies are based on existing stories from Italian history, classical myths, and other existing stories.

Fanfiction, the creative appropriation of existing characters, is a part of play. Numerous fans have memories of writing and "acting out" stories from the shows and books they saw and read. From a fan in 2000: "As far as I figure it, "fanfic" has been something that has probably existed in every kid's life, no matter what year. Heck, I can recall stories I made up about SW [Star Wars] (bad Mary Sues, I might add... but hey, I was seven.) and my friend and I used to make up stories about ST [Star Trek] as we rode down the bike path every afternoon... *I* certainly didn't know what fanfic was then. But I was doing it anyway - and I'm sure everyone in every time back to when printed stories became widely available people were imagining sequels, What If's, etc. The only difference now is, more people share their work with others :)

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. By 2008, a poll on EW's PopWatch Fan fiction: do you write it? poll was answered by 35% as 'yes', and 37% as 'I read it'.

However, the point at which "true" fanfiction -- or at least, identifiable amateur stories by fans using copyrightable creative works -- started to be written is difficult to determine and depends on how broadly one defines the term itself. Shannon Chamberlain argues that the appearance of hundreds of stories extending Jonathan Swift’s 1726 "Gulliver’s Travels" (many sexual) "marked the beginning of [the fanfic] movement... Readers started to imagine its hero, Lemuel Gulliver, in [invented] circumstances... the more shocking the revisions, the better." Jane Austen fanfic has been around since Austen's nieces started writing it. (See Jane Austen fandom history.) Sherlock Holmes appeared in fiction written by other authors as early as 1891's An Evening With Sherlock Holmes, the first of three Holmes parodies by James M. Barrie. Sherlockians were writing pastiches about the Great Detective in their journals in the early 1900s. A fictional account of 19th century fanfic writers can be found in Little Women, suggesting that the pursuit was widespread, if undocumented. Possibly the first published Tolkien fanfic appeared in I Palantir in 1960. And Star Trek fans started publishing zines (lots and lots of zines) with fanfic in the late 1960s, starting with Spockanalia.

Variations on the Term "Fanfiction"

The term fanfiction, and the variations fanfic or simply fic, are the most common terms within fandom. Newer and younger fans tend to use "fic" or "fanfic," while older fans more often utilize the longer term.

Some fans feel that the use of "fan fiction" instead of "fanfiction" reveals the user to be someone who is an outsider to fandom. In academia and fan studies, fan fiction has been the accepted spelling. However, other fans do not make this usage distinction at all and use fan fiction within fannish contexts.

Mainstream dictionaries, always struggling to define moving targets, attempt to clarify, and do so with the added complication of differing audiences. 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.

However, 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.

First Language Variations

Many fans whose first language contains different rules about compound words prefer the fanfiction construction.

English Usage

In English, fanfiction is usually treated as a mass noun, referring to the concept or the collective body of text written by fans. In contrast, fic is a countable noun that can be pluralized. Usage for fanfic varies: some fans treat it as a mass noun (i.e., an abbreviation for "fan fiction") and others treat it as a count noun (i.e., a longer version of "fic"). Examples:

• "I read a lot of fanfiction last night!"
• "I read ten fics last night!"
• "One of the main things I look for in a fanfic is emotion."

In 2012, Trobadora polled her flist about the usage of the words fanfiction, fanfic and fic as countable. The majority of respondents thought fanfiction as a count noun was incorrect, but opinion varied on fanfic.

In the 2010s the use of "fanfiction" as a count noun instead of a mass noun has become quite common. Some examples:

• "my best friend suggested that I read a fanfiction"
• "It's been like this ever since I read a fanfiction about them on Wattpad"
• "So in summery, these are my views on fanfictions"

Finnish Usage

In Finnish, the noun fanfiction is the most popular in online fandom, but fanfic and fic are also used.

German Usage

In German speaking countries, the english noun fanfiction is the by far the most common, but fanfic and fic are used, too. Very occasionally the German form Fanfiktion or Fangeschichte(n) is used (for example at FanFiktion.de), but it’s not nearly as widespread as the noun fanfiction and its abbreviations.

Portuguese Usage

In European and Brazilian Portuguese, the (feminine) noun fanfic is by far the most popular in online fandom, though both fanfiction and fic show up occasionally as well. All three are used as countable nouns to designate individual works or the genre as a whole.

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 (that is, the original work) (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 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 G rated or very explicit. It can be for general audiences, or include heterosexual relationships, Lesbian relationships and homosexual relationships, and many genres not so easily defined. It can be a fluffy romance or a serious examination of sex and sexuality. Fanfiction can examine any sexuality, whether represented in the original work or not (see BDSM, Domestic discipline, polyfic, transfic or threesome among many, many others) and Rule 34 definitely applies. See Genres and Ratings, and the List of Fan-fiction Kinks, Tropes, and Clichés.

Fanfiction can be about real people, historical or contemporary, rather than fictional characters.

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

Fanfiction can be professionally published, as with the authorized Star Trek novels, or the Twilight fan novel Fifty Shades of Grey, which brought fanfiction to the attention of the mainstream public.

Writing Style

Certain stylistic trends appear in fanfic, sometimes as a passing fad, sometimes not. The quality of writing in fanfiction varies widely from near-professional to misspelled ungrammatical badfic, but not all trends are related to fanfic's amateur status. A 2014 discussion at Fail_fandomanon identified several common stylistic elements in contemporary fanfic, including

• present tense (relatively new, also widespread in the publishing world)
• one-sentence or shorter paragraphs (either an example of bad writing or for ease of reading on the computer)
• less description overall, but more adverbs
• epithets
• "The generic voice of angsty longing"
• "Vaguely emotional purple prose"
• JK Rowling's writing style turning up in other fandoms

Third-person limited is by far the most common narrative POV, though alternating POVs of multiple characters is also reasonably popular. First-person fic has trended at certain times (early 2000s?) and in certain fandoms, but according to Slash Report in 2014, is currently verboten in most fandoms in direct contrast to publishing trends.

Mklutz commented in a Slash Report episode that the writing style of fanfic changed very quickly, to the point where fanfics she used to admire later seemed unpleasantly outdated.

In 2005, Julad wrote a meta post about a then-current trend in SGA fic that was criticized as "stories that lack heart or that are in some way emotionless or dispassionate or fail to move." Another (or possibly the same) panfandom mid-2000s LiveJournal fic trend was later described in an AO3 comment as "The short, sparse, poetic piece where not everything is laid out. I don't see many of them anymore and I miss it."

The 2015 Tumblr discussion Was Fanfic Any Different in the Olden Days? generated many observations about fic writing styles. See Style, Aesthetics. At least one fan cited popslash as the origin of modern fanfic styles.

Fans are not always able to describe what constitutes a fanfic writing style, but have been known to remark that they identified p2p novels or novels written by former fic writers based purely on the vague sense that it "read like fanfic". See the comments on the 2008 post something's lost in translation.

In 2008 livejournal user euridice72 wrote,

...the one area of writing fanfic that I still find the greatest benefit from is the one area that is most often criticized. Characterization. In this way, writing fanfiction is actually more difficult than writing original characters. What critics often overlook in declaiming writing about characters that don’t belong to you is the fact that…these characters don’t belong to you. They belong to everyone who has ever watched and loved them. In creating realistic fanfiction, you need to be even more aware of character history, speech patterns, and motivations. The best fanfic is usually that which best captures the characters we fell in love with in the beginning. Because ultimately, that’s what a lot of readers are looking for. More of the characters they love. If you can’t recreate that, you’ll lose your audience.

prillalar hosted a 2006 livejournal discussion on words that appear more often in fanfic than anywhere else.

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.

• See also Fan Translation.

Platforms

Fanfiction had been, and is, distributed via different "platforms," according to technical capabilities. These methods of delivery are changing with an increasing rapidity.

One fan's comment in 2015:

First there were zines, lovingly mimeographed and stapled by our fandom foreparents, and those who remain to us from the Zine Age are powerful and wise.

Then there was Usenet, where formatting went to die. You know not the strength it takes to read 60k fics entirely in Courier New, or the pleasure of a really artistic looking section break marker composed of ASCII characters.

Then there was the Great Schism, as fandoms spread far and wide across the Web, and basic HTML was the whole of the law. Many of us lied our way into private “18+” listservs, and roamed the webrings, lamps aloft, in search of one virtuous author (or at least somebody else who shipped the thing).

From this dark age rose FF.net, that pit of voles from whose bourn many a hungry reader has returned, starved for citrus and heartsick from the cutesy author notes.

And FF.net begat Livejournal, which allowed easy archiving, threaded comments, flocked posts and invite-only communities. And it was Livejournal, in its death throes, that begat AO3, which once seemed like only a utopian vision and now bestrides the world like a Colossus.

Also see:

• Archive of Our Own
• Archives
• Bulletin Board
• DeviantArt
• Drawerfic, Round Robins, Postal Service
• Fanfiction.net, AdultFanFiction.Net
• Fan Fiction Database
• FanLib
• Fiction Alley
• FicWad
• Listserv
• LiveJournal, Dreamwidth, Insane Journal, JournalFen
• Mailing Lists
• MediaMiner
• Quizilla
• Tumblr
• Twitter
• Wattpad
• Web Rings
• Usenet, Deja News
• Yahoo Groups, eGroups, OneList
• Zines
• and more!

Creators' Views on Fanfiction

Also see Professional Author Fanfic Policies.

In 1994, a fan turned pro writer wrote about fanfiction, its use as "training wheels" for better things, and offered some broad mixed messages about skill, luck, and motivation:

There is a place for fanfic -- in fanzines. Even though I've helped illo fanzines, and even done some fanfic myself, I can't help feeling that it's a dangerous exercise. A long time ago, I still had the mindset of wanting to burrow into another writer's world and use that setting to tell my own stories. Why? It was easier. I loved Pern, and Star Wars, and Tolkien, and my small efforts were more flattery than solid literature. And then something really odd happened -- I got bored with other people's worlds, as setting for fanfic. I found out I LIKED putting years of effort into my own universe. Then I found out I had some marginally-good stories...and then I found an agent who thought the same way. I'll let you know if this has a happy ending in a publishing house, but my point is simply this: If I'd stayed writing fanfic, I'd never have known how much fun originality was. I think a lot of fan writers have the fantasy that they'll get 'discovered' writing fanfic. It happens, but not so often as they'd believe. Misty is one writer whose innate talent lifted her very quickly out of the fanfic markets -- she had her own stories to tell, and DAW liked her originality and verve. Too many people who copy her work lack her fire and skill.

If fanfic is just a labor of love, that's great, and it has a real purpose. If people treat it like a springboard to pro status, they may only be spinning their wheels.

Creators' opinions and policies towards fanfiction and permissions vary greatly. Some authors, such as Robin Hobb (see The Fan Fiction Rant) or Anne Rice, 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." Cory Doctorow has called it "active reading."

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. A thread on author John Scalzi's blog, Whatever, 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.

A very early example of a statement on fanfiction comes from Leonard Nimoy in 1968:

I must discuss a difficult problem with you. So many of you have taken the time and effort to write "Star Trek" stories or scripts, and have sent them to me. While I think this is very worthwhile work, and much of the work is extremely creative, you must understand that it is absolutely impossible for me to read or evaluate this material. The studio has very firm rules about actors accepting scripts from anyone. They will allow scripts to be submitted only through authorized literary agents, since evidently their insurance companies will cancel their insurance if scripts are accepted through other channels. I realize that in many cases these scripts are not submitted with the intention of them being sold to "Star Trek" but in any case, it is absolutely impossible for me to accept and read them. Please understand.

Why Fans Read and Write Fanfic

The reasons fans write fanfiction is a varied as fans themselves.

• the joy of writing
• fill in gaps in narratives
• fix what they consider errors or oversights
• fix what things they consider to be mistakes in characterizations
• include things they wish could be included but can't be shown due to censorship or societal norms
• for the porn
• interact with other fans
• improve their writing for the pure pleasure of it
• as a "training ground" for professional writing
• as a way of taking back power, refusing to become passive consumers
• it's fun

Fan Comments

1979:

"Fan Fiction, Is It Legal, Or Merely Tolerated?." This was extremely interesting because it points out that the fan writer does not have a chance to get published legally, and isn't that what writing is all about?

[...]

"Alternative Thoughts" by Gerry Downes. An intelligent and well-written article to justify the writing of the "let's-not-talk-it-out-loud-theme".

But again, anyone who can write as well as Gerry Downes should be able to create her own heroes and situations to great advantage. I suggest that the same substitution be applied for the characters of these erotic stories. To use established characters is still imitation, no matter how well done.

To write Star Trek stories for fun is fun. But to believe that expanding and elaborating on these characters is the one reason for writing is self-defeating. It may also be one of the reasons that for anyone who does not know and love Star Trek and all its characters, and who happens to read one of these stories, may conceive Star Trek as something entirely different. I also am of the opinion that Mr. Nimoy, Mr. Shatner and Deforest Kelley may feel that their privacy is being invaded, and we don't do that to friends.

1992:

...Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of owned by the folk.

2000:

There will always be fanfic. The characters cease to belong solely to their creators the moment they are made public. They are ours. You cannot have them back.

2000:

I will jump in cold and defend fan fiction any time. I would laugh too, and then laud the virtues of treksmut through some brilliant statement of cultural theory, perhaps along the lines of: (Marxism) Treksmut turns the capitalist power structures that control the production of cultural artifacts on their head! (queer theory) Treksmut refigures the dominant sexual norms to celebrate transgressive possibilities! (semiotics) Treksmut creates entirely new ways of structuring text and meaning! In short, fan fiction is one of the last bastions of genuine resistance to the dastardly forces of global econo-social conformity and control, whereas pro-fic is just whoring yourself out to the Man!

2004:

Can there ever really be enough Jack and Daniel? I think not! So, here you have it. Jack and Daniel as we all remember them best and as they were when so many of us fell in love with them: best friends. And in these pages, falling in love. Ah, fan fiction. A place where we can indulge our fantasies and keep the characters safe and warm ... and maintain their integrity.

2006:

When our culture has replaced its own huge variety of stories with one official version owned by one person, that leaves the rest of us very little recourse but to re-appropriate what would have been common property in an earlier day and age and put our own spin on it.

2018:

do you ever read a piece of fanfic that is just so fucking spectacular that makes you actually feel things? boy, i swear to god, i’m so goddamn grateful for every single one of you writers, yall literally giving us entertainment for free almost every goddamn week; and this is not only for those gracious magnificent bastards that are practically gods because they’ve perfected (and keep developing) their craft, this is also to that little (and equally amazing) writer that is just starting and might not be the best at it, you my friend keep writing because practice makes perfect, don’t stop writing if that’s what makes you happy. i just want all of yall to know that i appreciate you so goddamn much and yall the fucking best to every fanfic writer out there: i love you, u crazy motherfucker

2023:

fanfiction is like. here's a piece of my soul! here's the parts of me i didn't know what else to do with! i wrapped them up in something i love in an attempt to understand my own feelings and morals and maybe the whole world. hope you like it.

Reading and Creating Fanworks for Shows You've Never Seen

Fan Comments: 1997

By reading Sentinel fic, for a show I know *nothing* about, the characterizations have to be *pretty* far off before I'd even notice.

A truism in fandom is that a story has to be incredibly good to enroll a fan who's never even seen the show before. I've thought that before myself. And yeah, I'm sure I'm missing all kinds of subtleties in these stories--I don't know when they're referencing the show, and when they're making up some cool backstory for the character's, but I don't care.

A truism in fandom is that a story has to be incredibly good to enroll a fan who's never even seen the show before. I've thought that before myself. And yeah, I'm sure I'm missing all kinds of subtleties in these stories--I don't know when they're referencing the show, and when they're making up some cool backstory for the character's, but I don't care.

Changes in Availability and Platforms

See: Zines, Usenet, LiveJournal, Tumblr, Fanfiction.net, Archive of Our Own....

A fan in 2016 commented about fanfic's changing "platforms":

The different fanfic eras explained as lunch:

Pre-internet era: You walk into a room and sit down at a table. Someone brings you a turkey sandwich, a bag of potato chips, and a soda. Perhaps you are a vegetarian, or gluten-free. Doesn’t matter; you get a turkey sandwich, a bag of potato chips, and a soda.

Usenet era: You walk into a room and sit down to your turkey sandwich, a bag of potato chips, and a soda. Someone tells you that over at the University they are also serving BLTs, pizza, coffee, and beer.

Web 1.0 (aka The Great Schism): You walk into a room. The room is lined with 50 unmarked doors. Someone tells you, “We have enough food to feed you and a hundred more…but we’ve scattered it behind these fifty doors. Good luck!”

Web 2.0 (present): You walk into a room. Someone points at the buffet and says, “Enjoy!” You turn to see a 100-foot-long buffet table, piled high with every kind of food imaginable. To be fair, some of the food is durian, head cheese, and chilled monkey brains, but that’s cool, some people are into those…and trust me, they are even more psyched to be here than you are.

Further Reading/Meta

See Timeline of Fanfiction Meta.

There is a great deal of discussion of fanfiction in Category:Perspectives on Fans, and its subcategories, Category:Academic Commentaries, Category:Industry, and Category:News Media. For fannish meta on fanfiction, see also Category:Fanfiction Meta. There are also a number of Category:Fannish Podcasts which discuss or share fanfiction.