Fan fiction can be defined as a story written about a pre-existing media source such as a book, movie, TV show, video game, or even music (Black). Writers of fan fiction will create their own storylines based on plot elements and characters from the existing media source, called the canon (McCardle). To understand the nature of fan fiction and the sites that host it such as Fanfiction.net, it is vital to know why people feel compelled to write fan fiction. According to Meredith McCardle, “the impulses of human nature led people to expand on the stories passed down in their cultures, changing plotlines or adding characters. The practice grew increasingly common, perhaps coming to a head in the Elizabethan era”. Since fan fiction is based off of someone else’s original ideas, some people, including authors, argue that fan fiction is entirely unoriginal and lacking in creativity (Young). However, its history suggests that this is not so, as many classic works are a kind of fan fiction themselves in that they are based off of an earlier story, including popular fairy tales and works such as Goethe’s Faust and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (Young). There has been debate about whether or not fan fiction violates copyright laws since 1977, when Paramount (the copyright holders of Star Trek) sent a cease and desist letter to the publishers of a Star Trek fanzine (McCardle). However, Paramount dropped the case (McCardle).
Fanfiction.net is the largest online archive of fan fiction works from multiple fandoms. It was founded in 1998 and contains hundreds of thousands of stories (Hellekson and Busse 57). Fanfiction.net, as the largest fan fiction website, enacts policies to keep its community safe, such as not allowing explicit sexuality or porn (Hellekson and Busse 90). They also ban fan fiction based on works whose creators disapprove and do not create categories for those fandoms (Pugh 234). Fanfiction.net features a rating system that prompts authors to choose a rating for their work before posting. Ratings include “K- general, K+ some innuendos, T- teen, or M- mature” (Kell). On Fanfiction.net, stories are posted into specific categories or genres, such as romance, drama, comedy, or angst (Macdonald). Authors are encouraged to post their stories in serial form, meaning chapter by chapter. Authors will post in the description of their stories whether it is completed, in progress, or meant to only be one chapter in length, known as a one-shot (Pugh 178). Multimedia fandoms on Fanfiction.net are listed under the original media format; for example, Harry Potter is listed under the ‘Books’ category (Hellekson and Busse 229).
Fanfiction.net is very much a community – readers leave comments, called reviews, on stories they read with constructive criticism, and unhelpful, hateful reviews are discouraged and called flames (Black). Fan fiction writers also have the opportunity to actively edit other writers’ work by becoming beta-readers, or an author or story’s official editor (Carper). The beta-reader feature on Fanfiction.net allows users to send text files to other users for editing purposes. Authors will often include notes to communicate with their readers. They will explain certain things about their work, such an obscure reference or telling their readers why they wrote the story, respond to reviews, or apologize for not updating frequently (Kell).
Fanfiction.net incorporates many slang words invented by its community and the communities of other fan fiction sites. On Fanfiction.net and many other sites, there is a large following of writers and readers who enjoy slash, or yaoi, fan fiction, defined as stories which centre around homosexual relationships. These stories are often written by females and involve male characters much more often than female characters (Levi, McHarry, Pagliassotti 126). Some stories are labeled “alternate universe”, or AU, stories because they radically change the canonical story, such as by changing the setting, a major event, or the ending (Carper). Original characters created by the fan fiction author are often called OCs for short. OCs that are too perfect and seem to be incarnations of the author are looked down upon by readers and are called Mary-Sues, if female, or Gary-Stus, if male (Mackey and McClay).
Works Cited
Black, Rebecca W. “Online Fan Fiction and Critical Media Literacy.” Journal of Computing in Teacher Education 26.2 (2009): 75+. Academic OneFile. Print. 29 Feb. 2012.
Carper, Tess. “Authors Improve Skills By Writing Fan Fiction.” The Capital (Annapolis) (2007). Web. 28 Feb. 2012.
Hellekson, Karen, and Kristina Busse, eds. Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2006. Print.
Kell, Tracey. “Using fan fiction to teach critical reading and writing skills.” Teacher Librarian 37.1 (2009): 32+. Academic OneFile. Print. 19 Jan. 2012.
Levi, Antonia, and Mark McHarry, and Dru Pagliassotti, eds. Boys’ Love Manga: Essays on the Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-Cultural Fandom of the Genre. Jefferson: McFarlane & Company, 2008. Print.
Macdonald, Marianne. “Harry Potter And The Fan Fiction Phenom.” Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide 13.1 (2006): 28-30. LGBT Life with Full Text. Print. 19 Jan. 2012.
Mackey, M. and McClay, J. K. “Pirates and Poachers: Fan Fiction and the Conventions of Reading and Writing.” English in Education, 42.2 (2008): 131–147. Print. 9 Mar. 2012.
McCardle, Meredith. “Fan Fiction, Fandom, and Fanfare: What’s All the Fuss.” Boston University Journal of Science and Technology 9 (2003): 433-470. Print. 28 Feb. 2012.
Pugh, Sheenagh. The Democratic Genre: Fan Fiction in a Literary Context. Glasgow: Poetry Wales Press, 2005. Print.
Young, Cathy. “The Fan Fiction Phenomena: What Faust, Hamlet, and Xena the Warrior Princess have in Common.” Reason Feb. 2007: 14+. Academic OneFile. Print. 28 Feb. 2012.