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INTRODUCTION

To begin, I have written fanfiction for over two years now, so from both the fanfiction author and reader's point of view, I hope this will help explain what fanfiction is to those of you who are unfamiliar with it.

Fanfiction is a genre of writing where fans of a book, movie, or TV show write stories based on the characters and plot of that book, movie, or TV show. These stories are often posted online on sites such as http://www.fanfiction.net that exclusively host these stories free of charge on their sites. Fanfiction varies in length and can have anywhere from 100 to 1,000,000 words. Like published fiction, fanfiction is also seperated into its own genres such as romance, action, angst, etc. Fanfiction authors do not profit monetarily from their creations and often only receive reviews as their only reward.

THE LINGO

As the world of fanfiction continues to grow bigger and more complex, there are many words created by both readers and writers, I'll list a few basic ones here:

Angst: A genre of fanfiction where the central theme is often death or suffering.

Beta: This is a fanfiction author's editor. He or she will usually correct the spelling, grammar, and punctuation of the author's work and will sometimes work with the author on things such as plot and character development. Authors kind find betas through forum threads and sites that specialize in helping authors find betas.

Canon: What is established as "true", information from the book, movie, or TV show that the stories are based on. Canon can also include characters or settings from the book, movie, or TV show.

Drabble: A short story usually containing no more than 500 words.

Fandom: This is basically what you call a group of fans of anything en masse.

Fanon: Facts or events that evolved from the Canon universe, which include characters or plot events created by fans. Fanon is distinctively different from Canon and the two terms are not to be confused.

Fluff: A genre of fanfiction in which the central theme is romance, it is similar to a chick-flick in the movie world.

Flangst: A genre of fanfiction where the central theme is angst and romance.

H/C: Short for "Hurt/Comfort", a genre of fanfiction similar to flangst.

Moderator: Most fanfiction sites have quite a few of these. Moderators often read through stories that are submitted to the site and decide whether or not they are appropriate or meet the quality standards of the site to be posted.

One-Shot: A story that contains only one chapter.

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