Fanfiction
From The Writerium - the wiki for writers
Usually spelled "fanfiction" or shortened to "fanfic."
Fanfiction is fiction written by a fan of a franchise. Everything from a 12-year-old's story based on Pirates of the Caribbean to published Star Trek novels written by someone other than the show's writers is technically fan fiction. It's been around for years; J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan, wrote stories about Sherlock Holmes.
It has also become infamous as the spawning ground of many a Mary Sue. This well-earned reputation has put some people off reading it entirely, although there are those who enjoy giving bad fan fiction the MS3K treatment.
Some authors forbid fanfiction of their franchises, although some encourage it. Some authors have specific rules about what can and can't be written.
Most fan fiction authors write a "disclaimer" at the beginning of the story denying their ownership of the story, characters, or world and their ability to make money off the story, presumably to keep the author from suing them. Fanfiction is usually "published" online on sites set up for it.
Fan fiction can be any genre but is usually the same genre as the original story or humor, parody, or romance.
Terms associated with fanfiction
- Alternate Universe or AU: an alternate storyline to the published one, created by the fanfiction author
- Angst: contrary to the original meaning, this term is generally used in fanfiction to describe a story that is overly depressing or gloomy
- Author insert: a story in which the main character is very similar to or an idealized version of the author
- Beta or Beta reader: a fan who reads and edits another fan's story before it is posted on the internet
- Canon: the original, published story
- Canon Character or CC: a character from the canon
- Crossover: a mixture of two or more published stories in one fanfiction story
- Fandom: the community of fans and fanfiction writers for a particular story and practically anything relating to the story
- Fanon: "fan canon," something that is accepted in the fanfiction world but does not actually have basis in the canon
- Fic: an individual fan fiction story
- Fluff: a non-serious, feel-good story, usually involving romance
- Het: a label for stories with heterosexual romance
- One-shot: a short story
- Original Character or OC: a character created by the fan writer
- Out Of Character or OOC: a label for stories containing a canon character behaving in ways contrary to the canon
- Ship: short for "relationship," a romantic pairing of canon characters. "Ship" can be used figuratively as a real boat that one can board or can be sunk by a new development in the canon.
- Shipper: someone who supports (is "aboard") a ship
- Slash: homosexual romance, usually between characters who are heterosexual in the canon. Some fanfiction readers find slash insulting and refuse to read it, and most authors of slash fiction warn their readers in the story's summary.
- Songfic: a story containing lines of a popular song interspersed through text
