http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FanFic
Go To
If you want something done right, do it yourself.
Fan Fiction is a form of Alternate or Expanded Universe created by the fans of a work, rather than the work's original creator. Fan Fiction stories, or "Fanfics" as they are often called, are written for any number of reasons, such as:
Due to the inexperience of many fanfic writers, fan fiction has gained a reputation for being a source ofhorrible, horrible writing. However there are fanfics out there that areINCREDIBLYgood — sometimes arguably being just as good as, if notbetter than, the original work.
Saying "It was like a fanfic episode," though, is not usually a compliment. Rather, it indicates a belief that the episode is poorly written and/or is the result of the writer indulging their personal fantasies, so itshould not be regarded as canon.
Fan fiction is often the place whereEpileptic Trees are planted and cultivated. Expect many, many,many more fics to star theEnsemble Dark Horse thanThe Hero.
Although fanfic exploded along withThe Internet, it existedwell before the Net did. Such luminaries as John Stuart Mill contributed unauthorized, original stories set in a fictional universe. Before medieval French troubadours were shippingLancelot and Guinevere, the ancient Greeks were writing plays about relationships between characters inThe Iliad. InPlato'sSymposium one character complains that a play byAeschylus got the characterization of Achilles and Patroclus wrong.Namely, that it got theLover and Beloved dynamic backwards.
Not all fanfic is written, though that's the most common form. It can be in anyformat that can tell a story. In Japan,mangadoujinshi (amateur "comic books") are a common vehicle; and with the increasing ease of their production on personal computers,Fan Videos (ranging fromanime series, toStar Wars) have also appeared.
The distinction between fanfic and original fiction, as we know it today, is largely created by modern copyright law; much of classical writing is actually "fan fiction" based on older sources. The major distinction between fanfic and a story inspired by another story is that the story a fanfic is based on has one or more "official" versions, usually owned by a company, a creator, or both. Thus, things likeThe Infancy Gospel of Thomas
, a piece of biblical apocrypha featuringAngry!Uber!Baby Jesus, or variations onArthurian Legend where there is no Holy Grail and Lancelot's affair with Guinevere never happens, would not "count" by this definition.
No statement on the legality of fanfic, based on works still under copyright, has ever been given in American formal law or in its courts. The two most common arguments for fanfic being legal involve either implied consent — companies and authors have every right to enact aFan-Work Ban as evidenced byFanFiction.Net's banlist but are mostly tolerant — or fair use — the non-profit, educational and transformative use of the work justifies its existence; see"Legal Fictions: Copyright, Fan Fiction, and a New Common Law". The first is something of a misunderstanding of how legality works; you would need active permission from the rights holder for fanfics to be legal and silence does not impart permission. The latter is the main argument that sparked the development of the Organization for Transformative Works, a fan labor advocacy site.
Authors often have conflicted reactions to fan fiction set in "their" universe, which sometimes leads to the aforementionedFan-Work Ban.J. K. Rowling has largely embracedHarry Potter fanfics, albeit with certain limitations, for example, andTamora Pierceadvises aspiring writers that fan fiction can be a good way to hone one's writing skills. SirTerry Pratchett acknowledged it exists and was cool about it, pointing out thateverything works so long as people are sensible about it. He added two caveats: anyone doingDiscworld fanfics shouldn't eventhink of doing it for money, and authors should take care not to put it where he might see it — since he didn't want to risk being accused of plagiarising his plagiarists (so to speak) for his own future plots, however inadvertently.George R. R. Martin, author of the epic fantasy seriesA Song of Ice and Fire,expressed his disdain for the practice, saying that "creating your own characters is a part of writing." He's even gone so far as to threaten legal action should he become aware of any fan fiction set in the Westeros universe. In contrast, writer/journalist James Bowmakes a rather firm case for supporting fanfics, pointing out that it forms a stepping stonetowards creating your own characters and setting. As far as media businesses are concerned, reactions have ranged fromArchie Comics demanding immediate removal toParamount taking some of the betterStar Trek fanfics and having them published in print books.
It should probably be noted that several big-name authors arethemselves writers of fanfics. BothStephen King andNeil Gaiman have written (for example) stories dealing withCthulhu,Dracula, andSherlock Holmes, and label these stories fanfics. Contributors to franchises such asDoctor Who such asPaul Cornell have often posted wholly unofficial stories to their blogs and websites, above and beyond their fully licensed scripts and novels.
Some franchises — such asStar Trek — have actually turned fan fiction into a profit source by creatingTie In Novels. These books are usually penned by young and upcoming authors, often former fanfic writers, and represent an intermediate state between fan fiction and completely original fiction.
In the end, more and more media outlets are recognizing that fan fiction and other fan works are a simple fact of life. And as art imitates life, it's now possible to findfake fan fiction created as part of a marketing campaign. For example, the 2010 season of Showtime'sUnited States of Tara introduced a new character, an artist who had created and published a comic book character named "Princess Valhalla Hawkwind". As part of the promotional buildup for this, Showtime actually created a"fan site" complete with fanfic, fan art, and fan video.
Some fan fiction becomes well-known enough to influence other fanfics, which themselves influence more fanfics, and so on in a domino effect. This can and does result in the creation and perpetuation ofFanon — when one author comes up with a "cool detail" and others blindly copy it without realizing it was a fellow fan's invention and didn't belong to the official source material. Furthermore, characters can becomeFlanderized by the feedback loops of fan fiction, sometimeschanging dramatically from their original form.
Eventually, this accretion of fan-born details and mutations turns into things that "everybody knows" about the series. Those new to or unfamiliar with the original material are frequently confused into believing that itobviously must beCanon if so many people mention it, even "facts" of theEpileptic Trees variety. This is especially the case with series that have long runs and which gloss over details which are unimportant to the plot but are of interest to the fans and the fan writers.
One example is theHarry Potter fanficThe Draco Trilogy, which was apparently so widely read that details such as Blaise Zabini being female and Ginny's name being Virginia were taken to be canon,although they were both refuted by later books.
Another example of this is the manga/animeRanma ½, released well before the Internet became ubiquitous and when many fans had no easy access to the original source material. All manner of detailsnote (including the explanation of Akane's mallet as either aki attack or as residing in ahyperdimensional pocket, herFlanderization into a "psychobitch", herlethal cooking — rather than being just bad — and the names and fates of the manymissing mothers) were never touched on in the actual show but became standardized inRanma fan fiction over the course of approximately a decade. The process was accelerated and exacerbated by the appearance of fan fiction written by people who had never actually seen the show itself and whose only exposure toRanma was other fan fiction.
It's not surprising that fans of some shows occasionally penFAQs solely to reduce the accumulation offanon in this way.
Another problem with fan fiction is that sometimes writers don't do their research even when it is very simple. A common occurrence is when an author from a country other than the original work's country of origin writes characters as if they are from their own country. An example isHarry Potter where non-British writers (particularly American) make characters act and think like an American would; this also happens vice versa as seen inFifty Shades of Grey.
Currently, the largest source of fan fiction on the Net (and probably anywhere else) is the aptly namedFanFiction.Net, which as of 2022 offered approximately 14 million stories across all but a select few canons (which were banned due to creator request) and an automated system for posting. The fanfic-archive-turned-repository siteArchive of Our Own, part of the largerOrganization for Transformative Works, has over 10 million stories and less restrictions on what can and cannot be posted. In mid-2013, Amazon.com joined in the act with its Kindle Worlds program, which allows for the publication and sale (!) of fan fiction from specific 'verses, which was shut down in 2018.
See alsoMemetic Mutation andShipping. For fanfic-specific tropes, seeFanfic Tropes.
Of course, the hive mind hasa few favorites. There are alsoa few favorite unfavorites, if that doesn'tconfuse you too much.Some here have even written a few.
Note that since this is intended to be an index of fics with pages, aRed Link will be frowned on and given a very brief (week or two) grace period before being removed by your fellow tropers. Start the page for the fic if you think it should be in this index.
This page is for the sub-medium ofliterature. Other types of fan work belong on the subpages ofFan Works (Fan Film,Fan Vid,Fan Music,Filk Song, and so on). We're working on moving the misplaced works — helpFan Films,Fan Vids, and others get to their correct index!
If you want to try your hand at creating your own Fanfic,we've got you covered.
Special note for authors of fanfics: The fact that you wrote the fic gives you no say in whether or not we have a write up on it, unless you create the page for it yourself. Furthermore, you do not have more say on the contents of the page than any other author. You quite expressly donot have the right to have our page taken down because you wish to disown your work or because you don't like the tropes we have found in it.The page here is ours. The fic is yours. Those are different things.
