Many people may not know what fanfiction is, and I suspect that some people that might pop into this site, may not even have heard the term "fanfiction" before. Therefore I am so kind as to quote from Wikipedia (any words you don't understand, see my dictionary-page):
Fan fiction or fanfiction, also known as fan fic, fanfic, fic or FF, is fiction written in an amateur capacity by fans as a form of fan labor, unauthorized by, but based on, an existing work of fiction. The author uses copyrighted characters, settings, or other intellectual properties from the original creator(s) as a basis for their writing and can retain the original characters and settings, add their own, or both. Fan fiction ranges in length from a few sentences to novel-length and can be based on fictional and non-fictional media, including novels, movies, comics, television shows, musical groups, cartoons, anime and manga, and video games.
Fan fiction is rarely commissioned or authorized by the original work's creator or publisher or professionally published. It may infringe on the original author's copyright, depending on the jurisdiction and on legal questions, such as whether or not it qualifies as "fair use" (see Legal issues with fan fiction). The attitudes of authors and copyright owners of original works towards fan fiction have ranged from encouragement to indifference or disapproval, and have occasionally responded with legal action.
The term came into use in the 20th century as copyright laws began to distinguish between stories using established characters that were authorized by the copyright holder and those that were not.
Fan fiction is defined by being related to its subject's canonical fictional universe, either staying within those boundaries but not being part of the canon, or being set in an alternative universe. Thus, what is considered "fanon" is separate from canon. Fan fiction is often written and published among fans, and as such does not usually cater to readers without knowledge of the original media.
The term fan fiction has been used in print as early as 1938; in the earliest known citations, it refers to amateur-written science fiction, as opposed to "pro fiction". The term also appears in the 1944 Fancyclopedia, an encyclopaedia of fandom jargon, in which it is defined as "fiction about fans, or sometimes about pros, and occasionally bringing in some famous characters from [science fiction] stories". It also mentions that the term is "sometimes improperly used to mean fan science fiction; that is, ordinary fantasy published in a fan magazine".
Before the adoption of copyright in the modern sense, it was common for authors to copy characters or plots from other works. For instance, Shakespeare's plays Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, As You Like It and The Winter's Tale were based on recent works by other authors of the time.
In 1614, Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda wrote a sequel to Cervantes' Don Quixote before he had finished and published his own second volume.
The Star Trek fanzine Spockanalia contained the first fan fiction in the modern sense of the term.
The modern phenomenon of fan fiction as an expression of fandom and fan interaction was popularized and defined by the Star Trek fandom and its fanzines, which were published in the 1960s. The first Star Trek fanzine, Spockanalia (1967), contained some fan fiction; many others followed its example. These fanzines were produced using offset printing and mimeography and mailed to other fans or sold at science fiction conventions for a small fee to cover the cost of production. Unlike other aspects of fandom, women were the primary authors of fan fiction; 83% of Star Trek fan fiction authors were female by 1970, and 90% by 1973. One scholar states that fan fiction "fill[s] the need of a mostly female audience for fictional narratives that expand the boundary of the official source products offered on the television and movie screen."
Fan fiction has become more popular and widespread since the advent of the World Wide Web. According to one estimate, fan fiction comprises one-third of all book-related content on the internet. In addition to traditional fanzines and conventions, Usenet newsgroups and electronic mailing lists were established for fan fiction and fan discussion. Online, searchable archives of fan fiction were also created, with these archives initially being non-commercial hand-tended and specific to a fandom or topic. These archives were followed by non-commercial automated databases. In 1998, the non-profit site FanFiction.Net was launched, which allowed anyone to upload content in any fandom. The ability to self-publish fan fiction in an easily accessible archive that did not require insider knowledge to join, as well as the ability to review stories directly on the site, led the site to quickly gain popularity. A popular example of modern fan fiction is E. L. James's Fifty Shades of Grey, which was originally written as fan fiction for the Twilight series and featured Bella and Edward. To avoid copyright infringement, James changed the characters' names to Ana and Christian for the purposes of her novels, a practice known as 'pulling-to-publish'. Anna Todd's 2013 fan fiction After, about the boy band One Direction, secured a book and movie deal with renamed characters in 2014. A movie adaptation, After, was released on April 12, 2019.
On May 22, 2013, online retailer Amazon launched a new publishing service, Kindle Worlds, which allowed fan fiction of certain licensed media properties to be sold in the Kindle Store, with terms including 35% of net sales for works of 10,000 words or more and 20% for short fiction ranging from 5,000 to 10,000 words. However, this arrangement included restrictions on content, copyright violations, poor document formatting, and use of misleading titles. Amazon shut down Kindle Worlds in August 2018.
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Some copyright holders have stated specific positive or negative attitudes towards fanfiction.
Most major studios and production companies tolerate fan fiction, and some even encourage it to a certain extent. Paramount Pictures, for example, allowed the production of Star Trek: The New Voyages and Star Trek: The New Voyages 2 from Bantam Books, fan fiction anthologies which followed Bantam's Star Trek Lives! by reprinting stories from various fanzines; as well as Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, a series of ten anthologies from Pocket Books in which the short stories were selected through an open submissions process geared toward novice writers.
Due to the ongoing nature of television production, some television producers have implemented constraints, one example being Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski. His demand that Babylon 5 fan fiction be clearly labeled or kept off the Internet confined most of the Babylon 5 fan fiction community to mailing lists during the show's initial run.
Many writers and producers state that they do not read fan fiction, citing a fear of being accused of stealing a fan's ideas, but encourage its creation nonetheless. When Buffy the Vampire Slayer went off the air, for instance, creator Joss Whedon encouraged fans to read fan fiction during the show's timeslot.
While many authors (for example, Neil Gaiman, J.K. Rowling, D.J. MacHale, Stephenie Meyer, and Terry Pratchett) do not take issue with authors of derivative works, a number of authors do. They may request that fan-fiction archival sites remove and ban any pieces of fan fiction based on their original works. To date, no fan fiction archive has failed to comply with an author's request to remove works, and many archives feature a full list of authors whose work cannot be the source of a fan fiction on their site.
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J. K. Rowling has also complained about sexually explicit Harry Potter fan fiction. However, lawyers on behalf of Ms. Rowling specifically noted that she has "no complaint about innocent fan fiction written by genuine Harry Potter fans" and she "is happy for spin-offs to be published online as long as the publications are not sold and it is made clear she was not involved in the stories", under the condition that they do not contain pornography or racism.
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Anne Rice objected to fan fiction based on any of her characters (mostly those from her famous Interview with the Vampire and its sequels in The Vampire Chronicles) or other elements in her books, and she formally requested that FanFiction.Net remove stories featuring her characters. However, in 2012, Metro reported that Rice has taken a milder stance on the issue: "I got upset about 20 years ago because I thought it would block me," she said. "However, it’s been very easy to avoid reading any, so live and let live. If I were a young writer, I’d want to own my own ideas. But maybe fan fiction is a transitional phase: whatever gets you there, gets you there." Similar efforts have also been taken by Annette Curtis Klause, Robin Hobb, George R.R. Martin, and Robin McKinley among others. Many authors do this, they state, in order to protect their copyright and especially to prevent any dilution, saturation, or distortion of the universes and people portrayed in their works.
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Some authors have said that they wrote fan fiction before they were published, or are pro-fan fiction. Naomi Novik has mentioned writing fanfic for television series and movies, and says she'd be thrilled to know that fans were writing fanfic for her series (though she also said she'd be careful not to read any of it); Anne McCaffrey allowed fan fiction, but had a page of rules she expected her fans to follow; Anne Harris has said, "I live for the day my characters get slashed"; Tamora Pierce stated on her website that she began writing The Lord of the Rings and Star Trek fanfiction and has no issue with fanfictions based on her works, provided they are non-profit. Author Cassandra Clare was a popular Harry Potter fanfiction author before she published her first novel.
This dictionary is a summary from the old Fanfiction Terminology page on Wikipedia and A Fanspeak Dictionary.
Have any additions you feel should be here? Use the contact form, and be sure to state your business in the subject.
Anti-Mary Sue - Product of an author doing everything that he/she can to prevent their character from becoming a Mary Sue.
AU - Alternative universe, a story that makes major changes to the canonical storyline or premise. The change must be something that would be extremely unlikely to happen in canon.
Beta - To edit and comment on someone else's work before it's finalized.
Beta-reader - Someone who edits a story upon the author's request.
Canon - The "official" source material upon which fanfiction can be based.
Canon rape - When the author twists the canon characters, setting, etc. so far out of alignment that it burns to read.
Challenge fic - Any story written as the result of a challenge.
Character death - A warning telling that one or more major characters die.
Crossover - A story which straddles two different fandoms. Can be as close to mixing characters from different universes within a genre (i.e. Batman/Wolverine) or as wildly disparate as you can imagine (i.e. Buffy/Teletubbies).
Darkfic - A story involving a large amount of death/pain/trauma being inflicted on the characters, often to force out characterization.
Erotica - A highly subjective term often used to differentiate "tasteful" or "classy" x-rated stories from "trashy porn".
Fandom - Refers to people who enjoy a story or game and actively interact with others who share the same love for the media. A collective term used to describe all fans and their activities.
Fanon - Refers to invented (non-canon or not verified as being canon) facts or situations. Information or characterization that has never been confirmed in canon, but is accepted as such by fans.
Femslash/Femmeslash - Same-sex pairing, specifically female pairings.
Fluff - A genre in which the story is devoid of angst and takes on a mood of light-hearted romance.
Het - Heterosexual pairing.
IC - Acronym for In-Character. Refers to the behaviour of (usually canon) characters which seem logical given what is known about them and their previous behaviour in canon.
Lemon - Japanese slang-term meaning "sexy". It is a fic containing gratuitous sex; some sources say it comes from the pornographic "Cream Lemon" anime series.
Lime - A fanfic involving non-explicit sexual situations, a tasteful "fade to black".
Mary Sue - Refers to characters perceived as being badly-characterized and unsympathetic, often written in a cliché manner. Mary Sues lack any significant or noteworthy flaws. She is always beautiful, has amazing skills/powers, gets into a love affair with an existing character, or (usually) all of the above.
Nextgen - Next generation, a tale focusing on the children/descendants of canon characters.
OC - Original character, a character created by the author of the fanfic.
OFC - Original female character.
OMC - Original male character.
OOC - Out of character, refers to the behaviour of (usually canon) characters in the story itself whether or not they seem "in-character".
Original fiction - The opposite of fanfiction, wholly original works of fiction.
Plotbunnies - You have been attacked by a plotbunny when you have a story concept that really doesn't go anywhere, but you have to write it down.
POV - Point Of View, specifically in fanfic, a type of story told first-person from a character's point of view.
PWP - "Porn Without Plo" or "Plot? What Plot?", indicates or implies that a fanfiction contains little or no original story, but instead acts merely as a vessel for pornographic scenes. It can also be an indication that the story is simply a story without a set plotline.
Ratings - An author- or archivist-applied system which lets readers know what they're in for before they start reading a story.
Shipping - Romantic or erotic involvement.
Slash - Same-sex pairing. Male pairings are the most common. Female pairings are often referred to as "femslash" or "femmeslash".
Smut - Porn, but in a light amused "yeah, gimme some of that" sort of way.
Smutfic - Lemon story without much plot other than sex. Also known as PWP.
Smushing - Refers to the practice of combining the names of the two characters being paired romantically, creating a new term to indicate that specific pairing.
Songfic - A genre in which an author takes an existing song and uses the lyrics to generate the theme of his or her story. Songfics are usually one-shots.
WIP - "Work In Progres", a story whose ending has not yet been written or a rough draft which has not been thoroughly beta-read.
As of August 31st 2014, the stories on Imagination will no longer be rated or given warnings. The stories can range from suitable for all audiences to NC-17 and the likes.
By clicking on a story on this site, the user accepts the following:
The stories on Imagination may or may not contain:
The only warnings that will appear if present in the story:
"Sensitive topic"
If any of the following appears; Suicide, self-harm, rape, and/or child abuse.
To see if the story is one of the major genres (smut, fluff, angst or general), see the tags.
Imagination is a site for all the creative fanfiction works of online author wickedsingularity.
Created: June 1. 2007
Version 4.0: December 8. 2024
Name: Martine
Nationality: Norwegian
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