Help:Fanworks
This help page provides instructions for how to create, organize and develop articles about individual fanworks. See Help:Starting a new page for basic information about creating a page.
See also Help:Zines, Help:Podfic, or Help:Fanart for information about editing specific types of fanwork pages.
Fanlore contributors are encouraged to create pages to document individual fanworks in the wiki. Fanworks can include fanfiction, vids, AMVs, machinima, doujinshi, fan films, fanart, fanzines, filk, fancomics, fanpoetry, audiofic, meta essays, how-to guides, and more.
What Fanworks Can I Create Pages About?
Fanlore is not a directory of all fanworks that have ever existed. However, Fanlore also has no notability requirement. If fans have an opinion on it (LOVE IT! HATE IT! have Deep Meta Thoughts about it), it's probably worth including.
If it's your favorite, it belongs here!
How Do I Name the Page?
In general, the name of a fanworks page should be the title of the fanwork. Follow the capitalization of the fanwork's title.
The author or creator's name should appear only in the text on the page and in the infobox, unless needed for disambiguation. See Help:Disambiguation Naming Conventions for more details.
See also Help:Naming Conventions.
What Next?
There are templates and categories available to add to fanworks pages. See also Help:Templates and Help:Categories.
Add a Template
When in doubt, use the generic fanwork template for fanwork pages. However, there are templates specifically designed for some fanworks. You can utilize the ones below, OR use something from Category:Infoboxes.
Audio:
Video:
Art:
Print:
Text:
- fanfiction
- interviews
- meta essays
- open letters
- fannish original fiction (other than slash)
- original slash
- surveys
Add Categories
All of the above templates automatically add either the fanworks category or one of its subcategories to the page. However, we don't have templates for every type of fanwork (yet), so you will sometimes need to assign additional categories manually.
Fan Activity categories:
- Fanpoetry gets Category:Poetry
- How-to guides get Category:How To
- Online episode guides and other non-fiction works get Category:Non-fiction Writing
- Printed fanworks that are not zines get Category:Print Media
- Fannish documentaries get Category:Fan Documentaries
- Other types of videos (except for vids and AMVs) get Category:Video
- Other auditory fanworks get Category:Audio
- Multimedia fanworks (e.g. fanworks that include both text and audio) get Category:Multimedia
Other categories to add:
- fandom category
- date, if known
- Crossover Fanfiction or Crossover Zines, if applicable
- genre/ship type, if applicable:
- Femslash Fanfiction
- Gen Zines
- Het Fanfiction
- Slash Art
- Slash Fanfiction
- Slash Vids
- Slash Zines
What Content Should I Add?
A brief description of the work would not go amiss. The templates prompt you for the basics, like
- author/creator
- title
- format/genre
- fandom
- date created
- links, if applicable
You may also want to include other relevant characteristics such as plot and characters if it's a fic, song choice if it's a vid, etc.
If applicable, images can make a page look prettier.
Print zines and other fanworks that are not available online may be described in more detail. Enumerating the contents of long-running zines can take up quite a bit of space. For example, see T'hy'la (Star Trek: TOS anthology).
Other possible topics include:
- whether the fanwork won awards
- how it was received by the fan community
- what people say about it
- whether it influenced other fanworks and how
- whether it was influenced by a particular fanwork and how
- ???
Privacy and Copyright Concerns
See
Page Templates for Starting a Page
- Help:Relationship_Pages/Template
- Help:Vid_pages/Template
- wiki code generator courtesy of user:Kylara: doujinshi page generator, also available in Japanese (日本語でフォーム)
- User:MeeDee/SamplePreFilledPodficPage
Example Pages
- Still Alive, a vid
- Banned From Argo, a filk song
- Beach, an unfinished fanfic
- The Draco Trilogy, a fanfic trilogy
- Drastically Redefining Protocol, a multimedia fanfic
- Pros Fanfic Angst Viewed As a Five-Star Thai Menu, a meta essay
- The Holmesian Federation, a fanzine
- T'hy'la (Star Trek: TOS anthology), another fanzine
For any other questions, you can use the Talk page or contact the Fanlore Committee.