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

[arcanetrivia]

We could argue about pure drawerfic I guess

...We can? Why would this somehow not be fanfic? I mean maybe it's not doing anybody any good just sitting in my digital drawer (although tbh some things I've written probably are doing more good there than airing them on AO3 ;) ), but how does that make it not "A story I wrote using characters and settings taken from some previously published piece of media"?

My pet peeve is that "fanfic" cannot include official entries in a series. You can dislike an installment all you like, but that doesn't mean it's "just fanfic" of the earlier ones you liked better, you party pooper. It's effectively using the word "fanfic" dismissively, as a pejorative, that it is always and without exception of poor quality and probably a thing only sad weirdoes and stupid teenagers engage in doing.

[silveradept]

I agree that fanfic should never be used as a pejorative, but when you talk about "official" entries in a series, does that include series that have multiple authors, either by another author writing after the death of the previous one, or in the comics world, where a writer is expected to contribute a certain number of issues and stories and then pass on to the next author? Especially those series in comics where one author takes the character in a specific direction and the next author pulls them in the opposite direction because they didn't like that characterization? Are both of those interpretations of the character excluded from the definition of fanfic, because they appeared in an official installment, even though they can't exist simultaneously? (which is why we have official metaverses, of course, but…) If all of the possible interpretations of character are potentially canonical and not fanfic, where does that put people who write fanfic of specific runs and their canonization? They're fanfic solely because they're not officially in charge of a run, even though they're trying their best to match the characterization of an official run?

(It's okay if the answers to this are "yes, nothing that's been made official can be considered fanfic, because it's official." It just seems to exclude a big swath of things that I would consider fanfic.)