Fanfiction

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.
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,Over one million fanfiction are hosted alone in just the anime/manga section of Fanfiction.net; 1,016,367 as of 2010 March 13. 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 fanIn a 2010 LiveJournal post, sf writer George R. R. Martin cited this as the original definition and commented on how the change in meaning annoyed him. 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 DecameronWikipedia on Canterbury Tales. 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 storiesWikipedia on Shakespeare's sources.
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 :) ria, April 20, 2000 at alt.tv.x-files.creative 
In 2004, the Writers University compiled a timeline of the history of fan fiction, starting (somewhat tongue in cheek) with the invention of paperWhat they really needed was to start with oral tradition, which began simultaneously with the existence of humanity itself. 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.J.M. Barrie's Sherlock Holmes Parodies. Dragon in Knots, June 8, 2016. Sherlockians were writing pastiches about the Great Detective in their journals in the early 1900s.A list of known early Holmes stories at Wikipedia. (When researching Holmes fan fiction online, try using the word "pastiche" -- "fanfic" or "fan fiction" will lead you mostly to fanfiction.net or Archive Of Our Own entries, mostly for the television series Sherlock.) 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.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 is fairly consistent. Newer and younger fans tend to use "fic" or "fanfic," while older fans more often utilize the longer term. One rare early use of "fic" is the 1986 review of the zine, Sydicated Images #8: "This is the only Professionals fic I can read and really enjoy." -- from Lodestar #5 (1986) One 2002 example of "fic" is in a con report for Con-Version #19 by Dale Speirs, by a science fiction fan: "The anime panel was an eye-opener for me. The panelists talked of writing 'fic', not stories, and posting it on Websites, not publishing it in zines. Fanzines in the traditional sense were not even mentioning it in passing." -- Opuntia #52 (February 2003), a Canadian science fiction fanzine 
Some fans feel that the use of "fan fiction" instead of "fanfiction" reveals the user to be someone who is an outsider to fandom."I'd say it's a shibboleth. Actual fans write fic/fanfic, outsiders write "fan fiction," ""fanfiction" is only found among fans writing for outsiders and trying to double-signal," and " in the meantime, it's a great way to spot people who don't know much about fic" -- comments by Gretchen McCullough at In academia and fan studies, fan fiction has been the accepted spelling. A guide to fanfiction for people who can't stop getting it wrong, by Gavia Baker-Whitelaw and Aja Romano, "The Daily Dot," June 17, 2014 However, other fans do not make this usage distinction at all and use fan fiction within fannish contexts. Twilighted, the first Twilight fan fiction site., accessed January 11, 2010House Fan Fiction Archive, accessed January 11, 2010Xena Fan Fiction Archive, accessed January 11, 2010 
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.The 2009 update of Merriam-Websters Collegiate® Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, accessed January 10, 2010
 
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." UnknownWarner, accessed November 1, 2019
In 2012, Trobadora polled her flist about the usage of the words fanfiction, fanfic and fic as countable.So I keep stumbling over this., archived, posted to livejournal October 16, 2012. 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" My journey with m.fanfiction.net, accessed November 1, 2019
*"It's been like this ever since I read a fanfiction about them on Wattpad" Ultralife, accessed November 1, 2019
*"So in summery, these are my views on fanfictions" Oso1991, accessed November 1, 2019
====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. Hayley C. Cuccinello, "Fifty Shades Of Green: How Fanfiction Went From Dirty Little Secret To Money Machine". Forbes, Feb. 10, 2017.
==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 fandomsfail_fandomanon. Thread in , started 2014-12-28.
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.after the 20-minute mark of Slash Report episode 4x17 "Ask Us Anything B" July 2014
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."Comment by wickedcherub on a Star Wars: The Force Awakens fic by verity, 26 December 2015
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, 
prillalar hosted a 2006 livejournal discussion on words that appear more often in fanfic than anywhere else., posted 26 July 2006.
==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: 
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: 
Creators' opinions and policies towards fanfiction and permissions vary greatly. Some authors, such as Robin Hobb (see The Fan Fiction Rant) or Anne RiceWhere Can I Read Fanfiction Based on Anne Rice's Books?, accessed January 10, 2010, 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."Copyright holders' attitude towards fan fiction, accessed January 10, 2010 
Cory Doctorow has called it "active reading."Cory Doctorow, In Praise of Fanfic, accessed October 24, 2008
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.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. A thread on author John Scalzi's blog, WhateverLet’s Get Transformative: thread on fanfiction and the OTW, on John Scalzi's blog, Whatever, accessed January 10, 2010, 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: 
==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: 
1992: 
2000: 
2000: 
2004: 
 
2006: 
2018: 
2023: 
==Reading and Creating Fanworks for Shows You've Never Seen==
===Fan Comments: 1997===
==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": 
==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.
==References==
Category:Fiction Writing
Category:Science Fiction Fandom Glossary
Category:Media Fandom