Expanding the Universe
Fanfiction, or ‘fanfic’, is a broad category of creative writing where fans use another creator’s work as a sandbox to tell their own stories. It is born from a love of the source material and a desire to spend more time in that world, with those characters. Fanfiction asks the question ‘What if?’ and then proceeds to answer it in myriad ways. What if a character made a different choice? What happened between the scenes? What would these characters do in a completely different situation?
This transformative work is a major pillar of modern fandom and has a long history, with some tracing its roots back to amateur Sherlock Holmes stories written in the early 20th century.
Common Genres and Tropes
The world of fanfiction is vast and diverse, with many established genres and tropes:
- Shipping Stories: A huge percentage of fanfiction is dedicated to exploring romantic relationships (‘ships’), both canon and fanon.
- Alternate Universe (AU): These stories take the characters and place them in a completely different setting. A ‘Coffee Shop AU’ might reimagine two Jedi as rival baristas falling in love. A ‘High School AU’ would place the heroes of a fantasy epic in a contemporary high school setting.
- Fix-It Fic: As the name implies, these stories ‘fix’ a plot point that fans disliked. Most commonly, this involves writing a version of the story where a beloved character does not die.
- Missing Scene / Episode Tag: Stories that fill in the narrative gaps of the official film. They might depict a conversation that happened off-screen or explore the emotional aftermath of a major scene.
The Fanfiction Community
Fanfiction thrives in dedicated online communities. Websites like Archive of Our Own (AO3) and FanFiction.Net host millions of stories across thousands of fandoms. These platforms have sophisticated tagging systems that allow readers to find exactly the kind of story they’re looking for. The community is built on a gift economy of writers creating content for free and readers leaving comments and kudos (likes) in return. While fanfiction has historically had a complex legal relationship with copyright, it is now largely recognized as a vibrant and legitimate form of creative fan engagement.