Not!fic

Not!fic emerged as a term in Bandom to refer to a story written in a particular style - generally more like a story outline or summary than a traditional fic, and with a liberal sprinkling of chatspeak, lolcat and references to various memes. Not!fic has since spread to other fandoms.
==Origin==
skoosiepants had a not!fic tag in her livejournal with several Bandom fic posts, but the first was actually a Stargate Atlantis fic in December 2006, which she introduced as:
The SGA fic was written in the same breezy summary style as later Bandom not!fic, but lacked the emoticons and chatspeak. skoosiepants posted her personal definition of not!fic on AO3:
skoosiepants happened to be a member of damnyouwentz, where posting chatfic and unfinished fic ideas was popular. A few of the members lived together or close enough to hang out in person, so their AU crackfic brainstorming sometimes occurred in person, resulting in a need for one person to summarize the discussion after the fact. For example, see posted in May 2006 and posted in August 2006. 
skoosiepants posted "Ryan of Green Gables", which she described as "not a fic" to the community in July 2007, 2007-07-19, though it was posted with the label not!fic in May to her own journalskoosiepants. , 22 May 2007.. Also in May, damnyouwentz mod callsigns made a post with the title "not fic re: brent", 2007-05-01; however, the post did not contain not!fic, but a ficlet instead. These are the only two public references to the term not!fic on the damnyouwentz comm.
shoemaster, who was not a member of the comm, posted a due South crossover labeled as not!fic in August 2007.shoemaster. , posted to livejournal 2007-08-17. However, it lacked the effervescence (and emoticons) of later examples.
Another possible source for the spread of not!fic is wolfshirts. The wolfshirts community wasn't created until November 2007, but it was mentioned in the author notes for "This Never Happened" by Bexless in 2008 and did reflect the same emoticon- and all-caps-laden writing styleSee quote at Mikey_Way#Facial_expression. Example of a beautifully wolfshirty comment:
Of note, Bexless also named shoemaster in her author notes, but did not explicitly label her fic a not!fic. 
Not!fic likely got a very slow start and may have become more popular in the early 2010s, but it's hard to be certain since the term is difficult to search on. By 2010 someone on frerardrec had posted a short list of recs for not!fics: . By 2011 fans were podficcing not!fics.
==Examples==
* This Never Happened by bexless, podficced by klb - 20k words of not!fic, the perfect example of the genre. fic: 2008? podfic: 2011
* by theopteryx (2011) podficced by xojemmaxo (2012)
* I refuse to dignify this with a title by reni_days, podficced by xojemmaxo. metafic where Spencer Smith writes fanfic about Brendon Urie. fic: 2009?
* If you stay by reni_days, Feb 2, 2011. podfic by knight_tracer, Jan. 2nd, 2012.
* Frank the Failiest Vampire by mistress_curvy, 2011-09-30. Podfic by isweedan, 2012-01-21.
* I want to be a pop idol by epershand - Smallville rather than Bandom, but a writer who is also in Bandom.
* teen wolf fics i want so much i could cry by gyzym, 2012-09-10. Podfic by klb, andeincascade, girlpearl, anoneknewmoose, melusina, argentumlupine, elaineofshalott, inkjunket, aethel, swiiftly, and bessyboo, 2013-04-01. - Teen Wolf lumberjack AU.
==Links & Resources==
* Notfic works on AO3
==References==
Category:Tropes & Genres
Category:Fiction Writing
Category:Bandom Glossary