Blog: Fanfic Fanfare

Entertaining writing doesn’t have to come from bestselling authors. Consider the epic tale of magical manhandling “Werewolf Smackdown” by Mario Aceveda: horrible writing coupled with a ridiculous idea creates a couple hours worth of entertainment for the reader. This same concept is what drives fan fiction. Type in your favorite book/movie/tv show and you are bound to find plenty of fan fiction sites dedicated to the untold stories of such works. An army of untrained online writers write stories of alternate universes and romantic escapades centered around their favorite book or movie characters. Here are some examples of prime fan fiction that can be found in the wondrous world wide web.

Crossovers
One of the most popular categories in the fan fiction universe, this “trope” (a fanfic term for scenarios) involves the combining of two stories. For example, the story could center around Harry Potter waking up one morning and finding himself trapped in the Hunger Games.

WAFF
“Warm And Fuzzy Feeling” stories are those designed to elicit the occasional “oh that’s so cute!” from the reader. They usually explore unfinished relationships from television show or look at what would have happened if two characters who hated each other fell in love.

Episode Codas
These usually only pop up in the week after a series finale. An episode coda merely looks at what would have/could have happened after the last episode of a television show. Not to be confused with Futurefic, codas pick up exactly where the episode left off and continue the storyline just a bit farther. The best examples of this categorie popped up after the last episode of “Heroes” ended on a cliffhanger. Within an hour, hundreds of stories were popping up across the blogosphere from fans wanting to know what happened next and figuring they might as well make it up themselves.

Futurefic
Similar to Codas, Futurefic explores the distant future of a world. The best examples of this are the stories telling the adventures of Harry and Ginny’s kids at Hogwarts and beyond. Often Futurefics fall under the fanfic category AU (alternate universe) and involve invented characters who talk about the characters from the original work with reverence.

Het Fiction
Unfortunately, the most popular genre of all is romance. As you can probably guess, these stories include the steamy details of the “what if ___ and ___ made out” category. Mostly written by forty-year-old basement cretins, this genre is laughable for the ridiculous scenarios it proposes. Thankfully, fanfic sites provide a rating system for this section so you know which ones to avoid. Sites can either use MPAA ratings or the Fanfic standard of K, K+, Teen, and Mature. So feel free to head to the web but I highly advise that you check out some of the other fanfic sections and save hetfiction only for when you need a good laugh.