What is fanfic?

[melannen]

It seems like I've seen people trying to define fanfic way more than I expected in the last couple weeks, so I put the question to you folks: How do you define "fanfiction"?

I am going to set some constraints on what must be included in your definition, though, because a lot of the working definitions I see people use silently exclude things that are definitely fanfic.

• It must include RPF. Not necessarily all fiction about real people, but while I've seen lots of people arguing about the ethics of LotRPS or Taskmaster RPF, I've never seen anyone claim it's not fanfic. So you can't exclude the RPF that's definitely part of the fanfic community.
• It must include public domain fandoms. Les Miserables fanfic is still fanfic, Dracula fanfic is still fanfic, P&P fanfic is still fanfic, Sherlock Holmes fanfic is fanfic even if it's only about the first few stories.
• It must include fanfic that isn't publicly shared. We could argue about pure drawerfic I guess, but stuff only ever shared with a few friends can still be fanfic, or you're excluding my generation's hundreds of millions of words of preteen fic written in school notebooks and only shared around the lunch table.
• (Relatedly, it can't require the existence of the internet, or participation in a larger fanfic "community" - see all that lunch table fic.)
• It must include fanfic that is only available for money. It doesn't have to include all work done for money, but zines that cost money (even if it's a little over the price of shipping and printing, as a treat), patreon fic, and commissions are still often fanfic whether you personally like it or not.
• It must include stuff done with the rights owner's/creator's explicit approval. Young Wizards fic isn't suddenly not fic just because Diane Duane likes it and got some of her copyrights back.
• It's got to include stuff that isn't shippy (and definitely isn't porn). That's a minority of all fic ever written. It also can't say anything about quality (obviously) or the presence or absence of redeeming social importance.
• It must include fanfic that doesn't use any canon characters, or you're invalidating a generation of Pern fans with their carefully separate original weyrs. It must include fanfic that doesn't use any canon settings or plot points, because setting-swap AUs exists (so do atg pwps.)
• It can't rely on legal definitions because there are no laws that unambiguously define fanfic (also stuff doesn't suddenly stop being fanfic if you cross a national border.)

Somewhat more questionable but I think yes:

• Stuff that doesn't include canon characters OR plot OR settings. This does often get the "you might as well be writing original fic!" comments but it seems like your sequel to your massive AU epic about what your OCs were doing is probably still fic.
• Stuff written for a fandom of one. There's lots of fic on AO3 where nobody else has ever made fanwork for the canon and I think it's still fanfic.
• Audio-first podfic. Surely this is still fanfic right?

So come up with a definition that includes all of that. (What else you include or exclude is I guess up to you. Or arguments in the comments.)

Comments

[extrapenguin]

Fanfiction is fiction based on a work of art (in its broadest meaning) or the public persona of a (well-known) human being that is not designated an official part of the original universe (sequel/prequel/etc) by the rights-holder or creator of the work of art, and meant to be read (or listened to) in context of the original work of art or public persona.

"Work of art" here would be broad enough to incompass ephemeral media like the Folgers incest commercials. The sequels/prequels/etc are there to eliminate Star Wars tie-ins and the like, which I suppose could be considered fanfic, but generally isn't. "Read in context of the original" is to cut out reaction works – say, someone read The Cold Equations and wrote a refutation/reaction to it – but I'm not terribly attached to the wording.

[melannen]

Hmm, "official part of the original universe" doesn't do a great job excluding Star Wars tie-ins, since whether they are officially part of the original universe tends to vary wildly (and change from day to day.)

(I'm fine including all Star Wars tie-ins, including the sequel trilogy, as fanfic but I know a lot of people aren't.) (I'm fine including the first Star Wars movie as fanfic, actually, given how heavily it pulls on Kurosawa movies, but that's a very broad umbrella at that point.)

Not sure what you mean by "read in context of the original". Why would a refutation of The Cold Equations not be meant to be read in context of the original?

[extrapenguin]

It could probably be worded better, but every tie-in has been officially part of (a) Star Wars (universe), even those published intentionally as non-canon. And that, idk, official seal of "approval" is a big difference between actual fanfic and various tie-ins, no matter how "ficcy" they might seem.

Lol, yeah, I realized that just after I hit post. Basically to me, fanfic that refutes/criticizes the original and non-fanfic that does the same do it in different ways and with different toolkits. So a non-fanfic refutation of The Cold Equations would not use the same characters, while someone who was writing a fanfic refutation of Star Wars's treatment of women might write a Shmi Lives AU, say. If I describe it as criticizing from the outside vs criticizing from the inside, does that make any sense?

[melannen]

I do like the idea of something about coming from the inside vs the outside, but I'm not sure how I would word that into a definition. Hmm.

Requiring an official seal of "approval" does automatically throw everything into fanfic where an official seal of approval isn't an option - that makes Shakespeare fanfic and Chaucer fanfic and the Les Miserables musical fanfic, and any fiction about historical people whose estates aren't actively managing their image fanfic. Which maybe it is - I generally include it there.

It does seem kind of weird to me to say that Shakespeare is fanfic but Splinter of the Mind's Eye isn't, though.

[stranger]

I'd want a fanfic definition to include, or potentially include, media tie-ins whether "official" or not -- doing it for money, even only for money, doesn't mean the work isn't based on the movie/show/whatever and transforming it a bit. The question this raises for Star Wars is whether the Disney-produced SW movies are fanfic or part of the original concept of the series. Hmm, likewise the Dune sequels by Brian Herbert, post-Fleming Bond books, and so on.

Maybe to some extent the concept of what's included in a source work, as opposed to fanfic on it, that isn't a single piece, is a bit fuzzy as well.