Fanfiction

The term fanfic or fan-fiction belongs to the Anglo-Saxon language and can be translated as “fictions of fans”. It is often abbreviated as fanfic (this abbreviation is most often perceived as a single word in cyberspace) or simply as fic.

This is a fiction created by fans and for fans, which takes an original text or famous person as its starting point. The authors, who are generally part of a community or fandom, generate content from an existing fiction in any medium, using the motifs, characters and stories of the original work.

The term fanfiction refers both to the set of all these stories and to one in particular, depending on the context. Other ways of creating derivative fiction are cartoons, feature films or short films, and web series, as well as dōjinshi.

History

The term fanfiction began to be used, in the late 1930s, among science fiction fans to refer to amateurs who published science fiction in a fanzine or fiction created by fans for fans, which differed from professional publications. At present, fanzines can be considered obsolete, since the appearance of the Internet meant a transformation in the distribution of fanfictions.

The original meaning of the term has been replaced by the new definition of the 20th century. However, the first stories that can be considered fanfics date from the 70s, which took up the universe of the television series Star Trek, and were published in fanzines such as Spokanalia.

Background

The idea of taking up the creative universe of someone else's work (characters, rules of the fictional universe, main plots) and developing them beyond the original is something as old as literature itself. Thus, classical literature is full of continuations and adaptations, such as the Homeric sagas (based on the Odyssey and the Iliad) or the revisions of the Oedipus myth by Euripides, Sophocles and Aeschylus. Likewise, from a merely conceptual point of view, fanfiction can be considered as the contemporary adaptation of the literary genre of pastiche.

In modern literature, apocryphal continuations of successful works abound. For example, both Lazarillo and Quixote had anonymous continuations, as would happen later with Alice in Wonderland or with the Sherlock Holmes stories. However, unlike contemporary fanfiction, in these cases the continuators were authors with artistic and/or economic pretensions, which most current fanfiction authors lack.

Authorship

Kristina Busse and Karen Hellekson in their book The Fan Fiction Studies Reader, characterize the subjects who write fanfiction:

Since its inception, the media of fanfiction have been a female company, if not a feminist. We placed the beginnings of the media of fanfiction through a 1967 mimeographed fanzine called Spocknalia, which was edited by women and contains fictions and non-fictions made by them (Coppa 2006). Since then and so far, especially in the last decade, many of the fandoms are mostly composed of women.

In other words, the world of fanfiction is one managed by women from its origins until today, since they are the main producers and consumers of this type of literature. Especially that which includes male homosexuality, this may be due to the desire for equality in a relationship, excitement, sensationalism and exploration of sexuality, as Busse and Hellekson say. However, they, like other Fan Fiction connoisseurs —Joanna Russ— cited in her book, recognize the objectification that gay men suffer in the world of fanfiction.

Likewise, another characteristic of those who write fanfiction, whether or not it is gay-themed, is to follow what is already established in the cultural product on which it is based, as well as the conventions of traditional narrative. However, there are authors who mix lyrical —songs, poetry— and the prose in their text or that they limit themselves to doing the first, always without obtaining economic benefits.

But despite the latter, there are fanfiction authors like Cassandra Clare and E.L. James who, thanks to the success of his fanfics, became published and left the world of fandom to enter publishing. In which they had to change certain aspects of their fanfic so that it would not violate the copyright of the media product on which they were based and thus be able to make a profit.

Fiction-mania

Ficción-manía is the term that some Spanish-speaking scholars are beginning to adopt to refer to fanfiction. Since the Latin root “fan” is a contraction of “fanaticus” (the one that cared for a sacred place), and has a religious origin of “fanum” (temple), from which “profane” comes, in order to highlight two facts: it is not a word of English origin but a Latin one and it has a religious ancestral origin.

Fandom

They are subcultures that are organized and motivated by appreciation for a cultural product, thanks to the internet, the members of the fandoms have become closer and carry out activities such as collecting images, searching for information, writing or reading fanfiction, etc.

Also, each fandom has its own vocabulary created by its members, for example, the one from the television series Supernatural invented the term Ackleholics to name the fans of actor Jensen Ackles. Likewise, they founded their own Wikipedia page dedicated exclusively to the series and everything related to it such as the characters, actors and information of the chapters.

This is because, as María del Mar Guerrero Pico says, the fact that the fandom objects were television series —Star Trek or The Man from U.N.C.L.E— opened up other creative and distribution possibilities for fans. For example, create fanarts, editions of videos and images, which in the 70s and 80s were sent by mail. Later, with the advent of the internet, fanworks became more elaborate due to Photoshop tools and have a worldwide reach.

Likewise, another benefit that the internet brought was a greater rapprochement between fandom members, since now they are no longer forced to wait long periods of time for an answer. One of the first digital media used to communicate was LiveJournal because it was free, available to anyone, and easy to use. Through that website, various fandoms established themselves as ever-growing communities.

In that same place, people shared images, videos and information related to their fandom, however, soon began an exchange of personal data between members of the community, which led to the organization of conventions made by and for fans, this with the purpose of expanding the community. An example would be Hunters Heaven, a group in Chile that organizes events to discuss the Supernatural series.

Basics

• Canon: It is the source material. Some people have different ideas of what is "canon"; for example, many Harry Potter fans do not consider the published books to be canon, while other fans include the additional information that author JK Rowling has provided about the magical world of her in her personal Twitter account.
• Fanon: These are the pieces of information that fans create to complement the canon.
• Headcanon: A branch of the "fanon" that is actually called "headcanon". That is when someone invents a data that can be or not well received in the fandom, but that still keeps with it.
• Fannish: An adjective that describes something related to fandom or has fandom features.
• Shipping: Perhaps the most popular activity of a fandom, the shipping involves a fan pairing romantically either two fictitious characters or real people. Those who perform this practice are known as “shippers”
• OTP: It is the abbreviation of "One True Pairing". This term is usually used by a fan to refer to your favorite couple, whether canonical or not.
• OT3, OT4, etc.: It refers to polyamorous relationships.
• Fanfiction: This is a written fiction about an existing work. This previously existing fiction can be practically anything, whether it's books to video games.
• Fanworks: These are things you do in honor of a cultural product, such as fanarts, cosplays, fanfics, editions of images and video, etc.
• BNF: It is the abbreviation of “Big Name Fan”. This refers to the most outstanding fan in his fandom, mainly for producing some fanwork that is of the liking of much of the community.

Validation

Those who write fanfiction are often ignored or ridiculed by society due to the issue of “plagiarism” and originality. This causes both the authors and their works to be considered unreliable. However, in their own fandoms most authors have fan groups that respect and appreciate their work, making them important parts of their virtual communities.

However, there are those who manage to leave the fandom and go to the publishing world. An example in Latin America would be the Chilean writer Francisca Solar, who in 2003 published her Harry Potter fanfic entitled The Twilight of the High Elves, a text that received millions of views and put her in the crosshairs of various publishers. In 2006 she became the youngest writer in her country to achieve an international publishing contract with "La Séptima M", an unpublished thriller-paranormal novel. She currently writes for various publishers such as Grupo Planeta and Random House and has been published in up to 16 countries.

Another example of a Latin American author who goes from fanfiction to publishers is the Mexican Andrea Chapela, who after the success of her fanfic worked with Ediciones Urano between 2008 and 2015, where she published an anthology of short stories, later she was a FONCA grantee in 2016 and currently resides in Madrid in a student residence.

Both authors — and many others like Cassandra Clare, E.L. James and Anna Todd— leave the world of fandoms and fanfiction to be able to enter the publishing world without being accused of plagiarism or lack of originality. In the same way, they write other non-fanfiction texts that allow them to validate themselves as authors, such as Francisca Solar, who wrote detective stories that were awarded prizes by the PDI and the Cultural Corporation of Spain, in November 2014.

Homosexuality in fanfiction

Most of the author population as readers in fanfiction are women who prefer texts about male characters in a homosexual relationship. However, fics with female characters in a romantic relationship have a fewer works on pages such as fanfiction.net and Archive Of Our Own, despite the fact that since 2015 there has been an increase in production.

Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse state in their book The Fan Fiction Studies Reader that most fanfiction authors objectify and even idealize gay men. fics become a reflection of the fantasies of authors as well as readers. However, although fanfiction represents an artistic medium in which queer culture can be explored, Liza Cole warns in her article “Fanfiction: Coding homosexuality as a teenager” that young people often reach to fall into the fetishization and hypersexualization of gay culture.

This is why, says Cole, people and cultural products come to see homosexual relationships as a means of satisfaction for heterosexuals and force them to fit into a heteronormativity. Despite this, Liz Cole concludes in her article, there are products like Yuri On Ice that seek to show the viewer another way of looking at homosexual relationships.

Referenced works

Numerous series of all genres have this kind of works. For example, on fanfiction.net, Wattpad and the Archive of Our Own there are fanfics about the following cultural products:

• Series of Japanese manga and anime.
• Television series.
• Theater works
• Books and literary sagas.
• Films and film sagas.
• Western cartoons and comics.
• Video games.
• Celebrities
• WWE fighters.
• Singers, singers, composers, musicians and artists.

Genres

The conception of "genres" in fanfiction is controversial. In general, when talking about "gender" of a work of fanfiction this does not refer to a traditional literary classification of the story itself. Almost all fanfictions participate in the literary genre of narrative, although it is also common to find them in verses or other forms (without the narrative ceasing to be the main one).^{[citation required]}

There are times when the conception of "gender" it refers specifically to the sources (that is, the television series, film, etc. on which a certain story is based) of the texts. For example, a Harry Potter or Twilight genre fanfic.^{[citation needed]}

However, the most common use of "gender" in fanfiction it refers to the theme or plot of the story. The source from which it starts is called fandom or simply named as "fanfic de X" (where X is the series). At this point there are also differences, since the genres can be based on the common classification of literature as romance, adventure, comedy, action and others, or genre cinema (crime, humor...). There are different positions on whether these types of fanfiction constitute their own genre, a subgenre within a classic genre, or simply a particular manifestation.

This list is taken from the Fanfiction.net page, which is one of the first pages created to host fanfiction:

• Adventure (adventures): It treats the exploits of the protagonists in a plot that usually contains travel, searches and dangerous circumstances.

• Angst (angustia): Stories that are based on the emotional suffering of the characters and which could be called tragedy
• Crime (crime): The story revolves around a crime, criminals and their motivation. They are often associated with the police novel or detectivesca, however, this genre pays special attention to the actions of those who act outside the law, which marks a fundamental difference with other stories that could easily be located in the “Mistery” category.
• Drama: It narrates the joys and disadvantages of the characters. There is a slight confusion that relates to drama only to the desolating component of tragedy and angst, which is not entirely true, as it also reflects happy events. It is very common to see it mixed with the “romance”.
• Family (family): The plot unfolds around the theme of family life, dealing with the conflicts of its different members from one or several different perspectives.
• Fantasy (fantasy): It gathers the elements of fairy tales, where magic and sorcery exist, and involves imaginary or folklore beings such as leprechauns, dragons, monsters, etc.
• Friendship: It focuses on the friendly relationship of two or more characters. It may contain touches of “Romance”, although they would take place in a background.
• General: Texts that do not have any couple, i.e., focus on a single character, whether in your daily life, a problem that complains to you, or a special date.
• Horror (terror): The main objective is to cause fear in the reader. It therefore describes situations that may be futile or disturbing.
• Humor: Describes comic or laughable situations. This genre almost always accompanies another, complementing it, giving a fun and unfailing touch to the fic, either to amenize the plot or by simple whim of the author.
• Hurt/Comfort (H/C): Usually one of the protagonists physically or emotionally and another, perhaps his partner or romantic interest, will help you feel better at the end of the story, comforting him.
• Mystery (mystery): Stories whose objective is to solve a mystery or riddle.
• Parody (parody): It focuses on placing the characters in peculiar situations that imitate some already known work. This genre, despite the freedom it offers to the writer, is not always so easy to handle, as its charm lies in developing a satire without altering (too much) the original personalities. Here are many times the so-called CrackFic.
• Poetry (Poetry): Written in verse or prose. They are more of the lyric genre than narrative. Here are the poems or Songfic.
• Romance: A narrative text that involves the characters in the wonderful and unusual. However, most of them relate to loving topics.
• Sci-fi (fiction science): Stories that develop a context different from reality, where the facts are explained by a rational or scientific basis.
• Spiritual (spiritual): It involves the characters with matters related to the spirits and the “beyond”.
• Supernatural (supernatural): Situations that are beyond what science can explain. This genre includes stories that include creatures with superhuman powers (such as vampires, licanthropists, angels and demons); paranormal events such as mental or psychic powers; or themes such as occultism and magic (black or black). It relates very well to the “Horror” category because of its usually darker character than the “Fantasy” genre.
• Suspense (suspense): Keeps the reader to expect something. Intrigue is the main element, eventually giving a coherent explanation as resolution.
• Tragedy: Never ends in happy ending, either by the death of a character or by some other unfortunate fact..
• Western: Stories set in the distant American West. Cowboys, Marshals and Indians abound in these types of stories

From what was done by fanfiction.net, other pages like Amoryaoi.com and slasheaven.com created their own genre lists, as well as Wattpad, which coincides in some genres with the rest of the pages like adventure, poetry, science-fiction, suspense, spiritual, humor, mystery, however, he introduced new genres to his page such as historical novels, horror and action.

On the other hand, pages like LiveJournal, Blogspot and Archive Of Our Own do not manage a list of genres, the first two because they are not dedicated exclusively to the production and distribution of fanfiction, while the last one prefers to use tags (labels) for the convenience of its users.

According to the length of the fanfic [citation needed]

• Drabble: story that should not have more than 100 words. However, this definition already admits writings of between 100 and 500/600 words. Although a vineyard is the intermediate term between a drabble and one one-shot. They are usually more than 500 words but less than 1000, since more than 1000 is already considered as the last mentioned.
• Vineyard: consists of 500 to 1000 words. It's an intermediate point between drable and one-shot.
• One-shot: it has more than 1000 words, it does not usually have more than one chapter, or continuation.
• Fanfic: it has more than 1000 words and has more than two chapters.

Because of the content they have

• Crossover (X-over): Crossing. Crossovers mix two or more different series. In it, characters from different works interact with each other.
• Fluff and Warm and Fuzzy Feeling (WAFF): Smooth and warmth (WAFF in English). The fluff and WAFF fanfics (Warm and Fuzzy Feeling Abbreviation) are romantic stories with happy ending, which aim to induce this kind of comforting sensation in their readers.
• Side-Story (parallel story): fanfics created around the author's invention characters that tell his own story, and they relate tangentially to him or the protagonists of a series, film or anime. Its function is generally to explain in a plausible way the fundamental facts large or small that are not explained in the line of the script. The parallel story is hooked to the known end, but it often happens that the authors extend it to give a auction of their preference or the widespread preference of fans.
• Real People/Real Person (RP): Real people/Real person. A variant of fanfiction is the stories about real people. They are usually public characters such as actors, singers, politicians or other famous faces, about which fictional stories are written but inspired by their personal life (real or imagined). This kind of fanfiction is subject to controversy. Many fanfiction authors estimate that it is immoral to write about real people. Given also the frequent erotic nature of the accounts, damage to the public image of the person must also be estimated. The defenders of Real People/Real Person, on the contrary, claim the right to exercise their creative freedom without legal or moral borders. Within this category there is RPS or Real People Slash/Real Person Slash, slash or homosexual accounts about real people. Here, the issue of controversy is accentuated even more because many times the person on which it is written is heterosexual.
• Songfic (Canciónfic): fanfic usually written in prose and inspired or governed by a song. It is usually short or the size of this letter. This type of fanfics shows some scenes of a story according to the lyrics of a song. Whether it's just a few verses in the middle of the story, the whole song, splitting the fic in different parts and giving more consistency to the story, or selecting a part of the song, and line by line going interspersed with the story.
• Spamfic: fanfic "baby" or spam. It tends to be short and generally meaningless. They are extravagances and madness of the author, ideas of the moment, most of the time with a meaningless plot, and even, in some cases with a non-existent plot.
• Podfic: Derivado del podcast. These types of fanfiction they consist of uploading an audio of the text, usually recorded by the author's voice. However, its Spanish production is less compared to English. For example, in Archive Of Our Own there are 12 podfics in Spanish, while in English there are 26239 podfics, showing that it is a popular genre in that language.
• What Plot? (PWP) - ¿Trama? What plot?-: a classification for fics that tend to have no argument and its purpose is to show the character in a particular action or situation without much justification (having relationships, etc.).
• Crackfic (CF). Considered by some as a variant of spamfic, specific situations of books, films or actual experiences of famous people are taken as a parody, which is mostly related as short stories. Also, situations are often created that are not necessarily based on the original plots and are deliberately triggered although consistent with the original argument and personalities of the characters. Couples created, formed or shown in these accounts are often called crackpairing, which do not follow the original canon of the series, as well as the plot of the fic.
• Alternate Universe (AU) (Universo alterno): the characters of a series are used, but placed in a different story or context. They usually maintain the character and original description of the characters, but the story changes completely or partially. In this case they are also called über. An example of this kind of work could be Warner Bros' film. Cinderella Story.
• "What if..."or "what if..." are stories that try to respond to such a premise, which can be moderate (does not imply a total change of the fictitious universe) or radical.
• Rapefic (fiction of rape): the one who describes the explicit or implicit sexual rape of a character. He's associated with Lemon.
• AddOn: as the express title, this fic is an "added" to something already existing, similar to inventing a new chapter to a series or a written novel.
• Darkfic: it is focused on adult or mature people. Them darkfic they are mainly responsible for exposing the "dark side" of the characters, proposing topics of tension, death, dementia or other psychological disorders, suicide, corruption, depravity, addictions or other topics that reflect cruelty and human misfortune.
• Mary Sue or Gary Stu: a new character, without apparent flaws, created by the writer who writes the story that breaks into the story, attracting attention and even the romantic interest of the original characters and becoming the center of the plot.
• Character x Reader: as the name indicates, a relationship (mainly romantic) is described between the character of a fictional universe and the reader himself. They are usually written in first or second person, and the reader's name is written as "T/N" (Your Name, Y/N, Your Name) or simply writes another name for the reader.
• Character x OC: It means Character x Original Character. The writer creates a new character to relate it to someone within the fictional universe. It can be very similar to "x Reader" although in this one is not used the second person but the third or the first in some cases.

By the age of the reader

It is used to inform the reader of the degree of violence, sex, rudeness, etc., that the text includes. This classification tries to imitate the classification by ages that are handled in the field of cinema. However, they tend to vary depending on the platform on which they are used.

• Fiction Rated B or Supplementary (1+): recommended content for preschool and children. The Fiction Ratings site subdivide this classification in two categories: K and K+.
• Fiction Rated: K (5+) or G: content free of rude language, moderate violence and adult themes, although with a more complex and elaborate plot than the previous classification. Recommended for all ages.
• Fiction Rated: K+ (9+) or PG: content with a lower degree of violence, insinuations of rude language and absence of adult topics. Recommended for children over the age of 9.
• Fiction Rated T (13+) or PG-13: not recommended for children under 13 years of age for containing violence, slightly rude language and suggested adult topics.
• Fiction Rated M (16+) or NC-17: not recommended for children under 16 for containing scenes of violence, rude language, mild adult themes and explicit situations.
• Fiction Rated MA (18+) or R: not recommended for children under 18 years of age to contain explicit scenes of violence, deliberate use of strong and rude language, adult topics treated in a detailed manner and strong scenes.

Relationships

A considerable part of the world of fanfiction revolves around platonic, romantic, or sexual relationships between characters, usually those not covered in the original version and often described in explicit detail. In addition, within the fanfiction referred to relationships, a large percentage is made up of homosexual relationships, with couples formed by men being the most common. This type of fanfiction is called slash. In the case that the relationships are between two women, it is called femslash.

Fanfic about couples is usually denoted by writing the names of the protagonists separated by a slash (/), by a lowercase X, or by merging the names of the two characters (for example "A/B", "AxB" or "AB").

Relationships between characters

• Slash: homosexual relations between men. Also included are the terms derived from Japanese: shōnen ai "Love of boys, it is given unexplainedly" and Yaoi "when it is given explicitly.
• Uke: term from the sleeve. It's the passive part of the relationship.
• Seme: opposite term uke. It's the active part of the relationship.
• Suke: is the term that combines Me. and uke. This is the character who can act as both active and passive in the relationship.
• Femslash: homosexual relations between women; the term “saffic”. The terms derived from Japanese are also incorporated: shōjo ai "Love of girls, it is given unexplainedly" and yuri "when it is given explicitly.
• Teko: is the term that combines tachi and neko. It is the character that can act both active and passive in the relationship.
• Lime: situations of certain sexual tension and little explicit friction.
• Lemon: explicit sexual situations.
• Incest " Twincest ": (Incest & Twinsyncest) - romantic relationships between brothers and relatives.

Linguistic considerations

All the words related to the universe of fanfiction undergo variations and are written in many ways.

Being an English word, the term fanfiction can undergo gender vacillations (la fanfiction or el fanfiction) or be translated literally as fanfiction. Abbreviations can also develop variants (ff and ffic, fanfic and fanfiction, etc.).

In manga and anime fanfiction, there are specialized terms whose use is very common, often carried over into Western fanfiction. Explicit sexual relations are known as lemon (lemons). This term comes from the work Cream Lemon, one of the first hentai works, as well as Lemon People magazine. "Lime" (lime) is a milder version of “lemon”, with sexual relations, but without necessarily being explicit. The terms shōnen-ai, yaoi, shōjo-ai, and yuri are also often used to classify fanfictions with homosexual relations.^{[citation needed]}

Cultural and literary consideration

Despite the number of stories disseminated, for the general public fanfiction is still unknown or treated as a minor literary manifestation; This consideration is influenced by both the limited prestige of the source works (within the so-called popular culture) and the literary quality of the resulting stories.^{[citation required]}

Its defenders, however, point out that many renowned writers have used characters and universes from other authors throughout history, and that any writer develops his style by copying those he most admires. Here the argument that fanfiction is a way of connecting the classical oral tradition with the "myths" from other supports. Henry Jenkins, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an expert on the subject, supported this thesis as early as 1992:

Fanfiction is a way in which culture repairs the damage caused in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of belonging to the people

Jenkins, Henry (1992):

On the other hand, fanfiction is used as a learning tool in writing, especially in English-speaking countries and still experimentally. For some, the fact that there is continuous feedback between the author and the reader and that they point out the author's shortcomings, how problems to follow the dialogues are very useful to learn to write correctly, to create entertaining stories and solid and charismatic characters. Those who use it consider that it can be especially positive for adolescents, because they are the ones who come closest to this type of expression (although today there are authors of all ages). However, some distance themselves from this view because saying that fanfiction is a learning tool presupposes that original fiction is worth more or costs more effort than fanfiction.^{[citation required]}

Many fanfiction authors are on the margins of this debate, since for them the activity they carry out is mainly social or recreational and not literary.^{[citation required]}

Fanfiction in Spanish

Due to the advent of the internet, fanzines began to be published online, in addition to making writing and distributing texts easier and reaching a larger audience. With this, the contents dispersed at a greater speed, reaching other parts of the world, as well as languages.

So when between 1990 and 1995 the internet reached a large part of Latin America, first to Spain and then to Mexico, the result was that pages like fanfiction.net began to publish fanfics in Spanish since the year 2000. From that moment on, the production in Spanish would grow every day, for example, Harry Potter has 56,000 fics in Spanish.

However, as Lizbeth Alcibar Vázquez says in The strange world of fanfiction: A story, thousands of authors, there is not much research in Spanish on the phenomenon of fanfiction or fandoms or everything which implies these, despite the fact that there are approximately 110, 661 texts in Spanish only in fanfiction.net.

Spanish-speaking reception

In the Anglo-Saxon world, there is already an extensive secondary bibliography, with studies dedicated to the analysis of fanfictions from different points of view. However, in the Hispanic world, the study of fanfics is relatively new, although pioneering works such as those of Carmen Morán, Alberto Martos García or Eloy Martoz Núñez can be cited.

Terminology

Most of the structures typical of fanfiction have names in English, and usually also an abbreviation (eg: H/C as an abbreviation for Hurt/comfort). Almost all the terminology used within the fikers community has been created by fans, and to date there is no official compilation that puts all the terms that have to do with fanfictions within the system.^{[ citation required]}

• Point of View (POV): point of view. The situation is explained from the point of view of one of the characters. You can alternate throughout the writing. It is used by putting 'POV' and the name of the character that narrates, which makes it automatically passed the narrative to first person. A remarkable example can be the epilogue of Stephenie Meyer's novel Eclipse.^{[chuckles]required]}
• One True Pair (OTP): the real couple. It is used to refer to those couples that "are meant to be together", that is, the favorite couples of fans or the writer of history and that are the axis of this generally. This term is very linked to the so-called shipping.^{[chuckles]required]}
• Out of Character (OoC): Out of character. In several accounts it happens that the author changes the personality of the character itself radically to develop the story (a charitable killer, an arrogant person making himself sympathetic...).^{[chuckles]required]}
• Original Character (OC): original character. Unpublished character of the author inserted in the story to give coherence to this or the simple fact of representing himself or a character of his invention in it, whether male (OMC) or female (OFC).^{[chuckles]required]}
• Disclaimer/Declaimer: Disclaimer. Legal information, usually at the beginning of the story, about the copyright (copyright) of the work of which it is written, is usually a denial of ownership of it, making reference to its creator or real and/or original owner.^{[chuckles]required]}

Beta Readers

A beta reader (also betareader, or reduced to beta, formerly pre-reader or pre-reader) is a person who reads a written work, usually fiction, with what has been described as "a gaze critique, with the goal of improving a story's grammar, spelling, characterization, and overall style before it is released to the public." The author or writer, who can be referred to as the alphareader, can use various "beta" before publishing his work.

The term "beta" is a software industry appropriation using the terms "alpha" and "beta" for internal works in progress and works yet to be released to the public, respectively (even if the "beta" version continues to be tested internally). While use of the concept and term is more common among fanfiction writers, it is growing in popularity among novelists, to the point where some have thanked their beta readers (sometimes even referring to them) in their posts. thanks. A beta reader, who may or may not be known to the author, can help as a spelling and grammar checker or as a traditional editor, working in the "flow" from the prose In fiction, the beta version could highlight plot errors or problems with continuity, characterization, or believability; In both fiction and non-fiction, the beta can also help the author with fact checking. Other types of writing groups have been known to use the French term, critiquer, or the informal, shortened version, critter in the same context as beta reader.

Media

In 1998 the website FanFiction.net was created, dedicated exclusively to the production and distribution of fanfiction. Two years later, it would begin to have records of texts in Spanish, being the first made in the Harry Potter fandom. In 1999, the LiveJournal page was created, which did not emerge as a website where it could be published. fanfics, but as an online journal. However, Internet users at some point gave it another use.

Something that also happened when Facebook was born in 2004 and Tumblr in 2007. Web pages that started as media and soon acquired other characteristics similar to those of a file.

On the other hand, there are also pages dedicated exclusively to reading or writing fanfiction such as Archive Of Our Own, officially launched in 2009 and Wattpad in 2006, which together with fanfiction.net are the websites with the most fics in their inventory. There are also exclusive pages for gay-themed fanfiction, such as Amoryaoi which began in 2003 and Slasheaven.com in 2004.

The most recent page is Kindle Worlds, an Amazon spinoff, which was created in 2013 and its purpose is to legitimize fanfiction. This through a contract with publishers or companies that own media products, this agreement says that the owners of the product will be given a percentage of the profits generated by the fanfiction and the authors of these will be paid by their readers when they purchase the text.

This idea that the reader pays for the fanfiction of his liking was already implemented in 2018 on Wattpad, but only for those texts that are original, that is, that are not fanfics or derived from any cultural product.

Legal aspects

Under current copyright, intellectual property, and copyright laws in most countries, the owner of the rights to a work has the right to control or restrict the publication of derivative works, even if they do not receive ownership of those works. plays. The owner of the copyright of an original work (film, series, etc.) would then have legal power over the distribution of fanfiction.^{[citation required]}

However, it is often up for debate whether fanfiction is a derivative work, or even to what extent it causes harm. In this area, there are a number of considerations that extend beyond complex legal issues. For example, the power of a threatening letter from a wealthy entity to an individual who can hardly afford good legal representation is enormous. On the other hand, there is the controversy and bad publicity generated by attacking fans, which causes a large company to think twice before taking legal action against fanfiction.^{[quote required]}

Fanfiction usually has in its favor the fact that it is published amateurishly and without profit. Although copyright law indicates that rights violations occur even if there is no profit motive, this fact is important because it reduces or limits the damages that a judge can find, and also allows some type of defense, under fair use. of copyrighted material.^{[citation required]}

Big studios generally tolerate fanfiction. One notable exception is Lucasfilm, which has sued various websites due to their non-commercial nature. Some studies, in addition to turning "the blind eye" they even promote derivative works, because they think it helps keep fans interested. J.K. Rowling,^{[citation needed]} for example, says that she loves fanfiction of all kinds (although those more obscene stories are somewhat questionable), as long as the name of the author and are not attributed to her. Douglas Adams has also shown appreciation for fanfiction based on his work, to the point that some say there are scenes in a book of his based on fanfiction.^{[citation needed]}

At the other extreme is Anne Rice, who prevents any fanfic of her characters (most of them coming from her book Interview with the Vampire) and has actively pursued any derivative works involving any of her books. Other authors also do this to protect their intellectual property and the distortion of the universe that they create in their works.

Creative commons

Creative Commons (CC) is a US-based non-profit organization; whose objective is to allow the exchange and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools. In the case of fanfics, it protects writers from breaching Copyright terms. In Mexico, this initiative has already begun to be applied.

Organization for Transformative Works (OTW)

It is a non-profit organization, run by fans and for fans, with the purpose of providing access and preserving the history of fans and their culture. Which aims to preserve the stories and other works that fans create, since one of its foundations is that "the works are transformative, therefore they are legitimate."

Among the many services offered by this organization, there is legal help for the legal problems that fanfikers face.

Currently, more than 3 billion fan-created works are found on this platform. The organization's platform is in several languages in order to reach a wider audience.

Cultural Impact

The production of fanfiction in certain fandoms —such as Harry Potter— is increasing every day, either publishing one fic a day or even more by the same author or by several. This wide production means for several authors like Orson Scott Card free publicity for his books and he believes that those who prohibit fanfiction from their works are missing a great opportunity.

Some authors who oppose their works being used for the creation of fanfiction are the following, who appear on the page fanfiction.net:

• Anne Rice
• Archie Comics
• Dennis L. McKiernan
• Irene Radford
• JR Ward
• Laurell K. Hamilton
• Nora Roberts / JD Robb
• PN Elrod
• Raymond Feist
• Robin Hobb
• Robin McKinley
• Terry Goodkind

In The phenomenon of fanfiction, Anna Cruz Martín's thesis, she states that thanks to fanfictions, television series producers and scriptwriters observe what their audience likes, He even says that to write a chapter they are inspired by some fics. On the other hand, there are scriptwriters who are prohibited from reading that kind of text so as not to be accused of plagiarism.

For example, Robert Singer, producer of the Supernatural series, has given an interview where he talks about his controversial 200th episode, where he talks not only about fanfiction but about the homosexual relationships that fans see and which are They do various fanworks.

On the other hand, another way in which the impact of fanfiction is seen is in the numerous authors who began writing fics, the communities created by fans such as Hunters Heaven in Chile or the Incantatum bar in Mexico City that is inspired by Harry Potter and will hold a Winter Ball based on the one described by J.K. Rowling in the fourth book of her saga.