Before listing the genres of fan fiction and revealing their features, it is necessary to touch on the issue of the origin and meaning of this term. What is fan fiction? This composition, most often amateur, based on the most popular literary works or film works - television series, movies, anime and the like. Moreover, fan fiction genres include a variety of comics and computer games.
The concept
The word "fan fiction" refers to jargon. The authors of the fan fiction are the fixers, and they become ardent fans of the original works, who can not part with the beloved heroes of the adored work. They also write most often for the same zealous fans. Recently, the creation of fan fiction happens on a commercial basis, but very rarely. Most often this is a product for fans of the original work.
The concept itself comes from English - fan literature or fan prose (Fan fiction). In use, there are other designations of this concept, uniting the genres of fan fiction. This is “fan fix”, “fan fix”, “fan fiction”, most often just “ff” or even “fix”. There are so many varieties of this new genre that only the most common ones will be listed. Any author has the right to create his own type of composition. And therefore, the genres of fan fiction (or rather, subgenres) are extremely diverse.
Varieties: by the nature of the relationship
Slash fans are rarely using a Curtain story, where the characters behave completely at home. For example, go shopping. Because the "slash" initially hints at the lack of heterosexuality. The fanatic with the presence of corporal punishment is called Domestic disciplin, and this concerns sexual relations: one of the partners is beaten for any mistake.
But more and more often there are mergers of different genres in fan fiction: the romance genre and the slash genre, for example. A pure genre, even a subgenre in a fan fiction subculture is generally difficult to find. But almost always present in the fanfics of recent years, Angstfic (dreary fan fiction) and Darkfic (dark fan fiction). The first component denotes depressive motives, spiritual or physical suffering, strong feelings and dramatic events. And the last component is an abundance of cruelty and death in the story.
Orientation
It is also often used in any fan fiction - slash or romantic - Alternate Pairing or Shipping style (alternative pairing or shipping), when they describe the sexual or romantic relationship of heroes who in the original work not only do not feel affection for each other, but are sometimes even divorced on opposite sides of the barricades.
In general, slash originally implied a kind of same-sex Alternate Pairing. However, now this concept has become much wider. Accordingly, there are Femslash styles, that is, Saffic, Fem or Femmeslash - all about the relationship of women - romantic or sexual. And, of course, highlighted in a separate line and sent to the tenth row in the fanfiction genre get (Het, Shipping Heterosexual).
Stronger Relationships
If the relationship between the characters is imbued with warmth and is not clouded by anything, this subgenre of fan fiction is called Fluff. Fan fiction about friendship, backed up by words and deeds, but where there is no hint of sexual relations, are called Smarm. If there is no love line in fan fiction or it means little, it’s General audience or just Gen. Not a single description of the genre of fan fiction is complete without Grapefruit; it is fan fiction with violence on its pages or coercion to it.
Frank sexual orientation is indicated by Lemon, if the plot is minimal, fan fiction belongs to the PWP subgenre (Porn without Plot - from the category 18+ and without a plot). Lime - Lightweight Lemon, censored, without explicit scenes. Unresolved Sexual Tension, or simply UST, is the other way around. The characters have a strong feeling for each other, but something prevents them from engaging in a romantic interaction. Well, the familiar Vanilla fan fiction, without exception, is vanilla relationships.
Way to create
Varieties can also be identified by the method of creation, here the genres of fan fiction and their significance for the reading public are most clearly visible. Quite often you can find a crossover in a subculture (especially English fans of fan fiction), where several alien universes merge in the narrative. For example, Jack Sparrow and Han Solo, along with Princess Leia, come to Hogwarts and meet Anton Gorodetsky there in order to jointly pay off the Eye of Sauron.
Very often, writers use Point of view or just POV. And this applies not only to fan fiction, many works, including those in the fantasy genre, are written in this way. For example, the saga "Song of Ice and Fire" by George Martin. This method is extremely convenient for narration, because it allows you to show events at different ends of the universe and at different time intervals or simultaneously from different sides.
Professionals
Extremely interesting genre Profic. These works are truly artistic and often highly professional, where the author describes the adventures of his characters in a world that was created by another author. There are real masterpieces in this genre, such as, for example, the fanfiction “Ring of Darkness” written by Nick Perumov to Tolkien’s famous work “The Lord of the Rings”. Many fans argue before fights who wrote better: Perumov or Tolkien.
Extremely much has been written in this genre. Authors love other people's universes and write entire book series on Star Wars, Dragonlance, Warhammer and other commercially successful works, the authors of which are loyal to franchising. The most interesting thing is that books from someone else's table - both sequels and prequels - are always sold like hot cakes. But you need to thank for this not the epigones, but the author of the original, who created such an interesting universe that readers miss them, and so much that even frankly weak imitations are ready to read.
More varieties by way of writing
Often the author does not want or can not master the whole book of fanfics alone. Genres, styles, narration language are intertwined, the transitions between parts become too sharp, and the actions of the characters become inconsistent if several authors write the same book - each fragment of its own. Round robin (or - "in a circle") - this is the name of this subgenre. Today, every reader can find their favorite genre of fan fiction. Fickbook is a site on the Internet where authors find their readers and readers find their authors.
There are daredevils at the risk of introducing characters into the text that are real people (usually celebrities). Such a fan fiction will be called RPF, or Real person fiction. The site "Book of fan fiction" genres of such a plan is in full assortment. Even more interesting is the situation when the author uses a variety of Real person slash and paints homosexual relationships of real people, moreover, famous people who never declared their orientation and are even the fathers of families. Sometimes the author puts himself in the context of fan fiction of his beloved. This is called an Author character or Self-insert. So, for example, Vasily Aksyonov made his hero find a credit card on the beach in the name of Vasily Aksyonov.
Division of characters into groups
Omegavers fanfiction shows a specific reality, where people belong to one of three types - alpha, omega and beta. Dominant males are alpha, and omega are passive characters, with strange inclinations, with periods of sexual activity, such as “gon” in animals or “estrus,” when alpha is physically necessary for omega. And beta is a neutral character, not interfering with alpha omega relationships.
This genre has come out of the slash, and therefore women may not be there at all. Omegavers are distinguished by a huge number of physiological assumptions that are impossible in the real world or in the canon world. As, for example, male pregnancy. Such fanfiction genres and warnings should have: suddenly some physiological details will be unpleasant for the reader. Authors usually mark the genre and dangers in the heading of the work, in the same place as thanks to the author of the original.
Compliance with the original
This is an evaluation part of fan fiction genres, and there are a lot of ratings. Alternative Universal, or AU, says that fanfic has big differences with Canon. NO-AU - on the contrary, either there is no discrepancy with the universe of the original, or they are insignificant or debatable. Original fanfiction have an indirect or very little relationship with the original. Uberfic, or Uber Fanfiction, is almost Original fanfiction, where the connection can only be a place of action or the names of the original are taken, everything else has nothing to do with the original. For example, there is Frodo and Sam, but no ring of omnipotence and other saurons, that is, all their actions is completely a fictitious invention.
Out Of Character, or OOS, is what they say about fan fiction, where the contradictions and differences in the characters' characters are very significant in comparison with the original. For example, Gandalf is a traitor, elves are bloodthirsty and vile, and orcs are honest and good-natured people (Perumov, for example, has the last two cases). If the fixer creates a unique image of a character that did not appear in any of the fandoms, this is called the Original Character. Such characters are usually not the main characters, but they play a significant role in helping the main characters to overcome obstacles. These characters are unpredictable and lucky, but they don't look like Mary Sue.
Mary and Marty
“Mary Sue” Russian fans of a universe are dismissively called “Marysuha” or even “Masha”. This is usually a character of a fan fiction written by a woman (girl), where the heroine embodies the real or desired (more often) features of the autoress itself. Usually Mary Sue is unusually beautiful and indescribable clever - a cross between Vasilis the Beautiful and the Wise. They are also found among venerable authors. And not in fan fiction, but in the original works. For example, George Martin has repeatedly.
The name is chosen complex and melodic, for example Daenerys, her hair and eyes are of a color that is not found in ordinary people, the past was turbulent and full of adventure, and supernatural abilities appeared, for example, not to burn in the fire or not to drown in water. Mary Sue is sure to charm all the main characters, and then save the world. That's what girls write about. Marty Sue is the same, but in a male version.
Varieties by plot
If heroes die in fanfiction, he is classified as Deathfic. If the heroes take a long time to establish relationships - Established Relationship. Hurt / comfort - immediately from the name it can be concluded that we will talk about the help of one character - strong and good - to another - weak and suffering.
Well, a genre that has almost classic examples is Continuation, when fan fiction is an exact continuation of the original work. For example, Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell continued quite successfully Alexander Ripley's novel Scarlett. In any case, it was sold and is being sold as successfully as the original.
Related genres
With the growth of opportunities, thanks to technological progress, fans of various works of art successfully combine literary creativity with related genres. And fan fiction is sometimes quite high quality. For example, a film on the Star Wars universe - Star Wars: Revelations: a high-tech level, using the latest technology. This is a fan film. A modification of fanfiction is also drawing based on the work, where completely new artistic images of favorite characters are created. This is fan art.
But for any genre - and pure fanfiction, and related as a role-playing computer game for example - we need first of all a general interest in the canon, that is, the work (book, film, series, comic book, television show and the like), whose heroes and the whole world will be used to write fan fiction.
Afterword
Fan fiction is an adjacent form of creativity, where the fixer uses both his own fiction, far departing from the canon, and some set of elements from the original world. This is the only one of the genres, except, of course, a parody, where the reader is better off familiar with the work that served as a source of inspiration for the fixer. The author did not write for money, but for pleasure, first of all for his own, and, secondly, for the pleasure of the same fans of the author of the original work. They are not only consumers of other people's creativity. Fickreiter is an example of co-creation when literature addresses the reader and the reader responds with action.
And sometimes there is the author’s understatement, the “open” ending, sometimes just gaps and inconsistencies, sometimes the essence of the storyline is indicated only by hint. And then the fans have an incentive. They carefully and thoroughly think over every detail of the episode, they sleep and see different development paths, build guesses and assumptions, and then all this translates into filling in the groped gaps in the original story. Are these attempts not worthy of respect?