Fan fiction facts for kids
Fan fiction, also known as fan fic, fanfic, fic or FF, is a name for fiction created by fans instead of the original author.
Fanfiction writers take fictional characters and settings from fictional (or sometimes historical) stories that were created by other people, and write original stories about them.
Fan fiction ranges in length from a few sentences to novel-length and can be based on fictional and non-fictional media, including novels, movies, comics, television shows, musical groups, cartoons, anime and manga, and video games.
When fanfiction first began, it was often only published in fan magazines. Today fanfiction, like many fandom activities, can be usually found on the internet. This has created many fanfiction communities. People in these communities post their fanfiction and receive feedback (reviews) from other community members.
There is also fan art (also called fanart), which is often drawings or other visual art based on a fandom.
History
Before the adoption of copyright in the modern sense, it was common for authors to copy characters or plots from other works. For instance, Shakespeare's plays Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, As You Like It and The Winter's Tale were based on recent works by other authors of the time.
In 1614, Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda wrote a sequel to Cervantes' Don Quixote before he had finished and published his own second volume.
Among 19th-century literature that has been subject to depictions not authorized by the original author include Bram Stoker's Dracula's depiction in the translated adaptation Powers of Darkness. The works of Jane Austen remain among the most popular works for unauthorized adaptations, with a notable example of Jane Austen fan fiction being Old Friends and New Fancies. Many unauthorized stories of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle have been created, including The Adventure of the Two Collaborators by J. M. Barrie. Other notable works include The Space Machine and Morlock Night, respectively based on The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine by H. G. Wells; A New Alice in the Old Wonderland, based on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll; and Wide Sargasso Sea, based on Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.
Star Trek fandom
The modern phenomenon of fan fiction as an expression of fandom and fan interaction was popularized and defined by the Star Trek fandom and its fanzines, which were published in the 1960s. The first Star Trek fanzine, Spockanalia (1967), contained some fan fiction; many others followed its example. These fanzines were produced using offset printing and mimeography and mailed to other fans or sold at science fiction conventions for a small fee to cover the cost of production.
World Wide Web
Fan fiction has become more popular and widespread since the advent of the World Wide Web. According to one estimate, fan fiction comprises one-third of all book-related content on the internet. In addition to traditional fanzines and conventions, Usenet newsgroups and electronic mailing lists were established for fan fiction and fan discussion. Online, searchable archives of fan fiction were also created, with these archives initially being non-commercial hand-tended and specific to a fandom or topic. These archives were followed by non-commercial automated databases. In 1998, the non-profit site FanFiction.Net was launched, which allowed anyone to upload content in any fandom. The ability to self-publish fan fiction in an easily accessible archive that did not require insider knowledge to join, as well as the ability to review stories directly on the site, led the site to quickly gain popularity.
On May 22, 2013, online retailer Amazon launched a new publishing service, Kindle Worlds, which allowed fan fiction of certain licensed media properties to be sold in the Kindle Store, with terms including 35% of net sales for works of 10,000 words or more and 20% for short fiction ranging from 5,000 to 10,000 words. However, this arrangement included restrictions on content, copyright violations, poor document formatting, and use of misleading titles. Amazon shut down Kindle Worlds in August 2018.
Other pages
Images for kids
-
New Adventures of Alice (1917) by John Rae, an early pastiche or fan fiction
See also
In Spanish: Fanfiction para niños
