Fanfiction 101

Fanfiction - you either love it, or you hate it.

Or rather, to the world of fanfiction!

Or both. Or you can hate loving it. Or love hating it. It's possible. Trust me.

Of course, I will discuss Harry Potter fanfiction here! And yes, I know, most of you already know /everything/ about it, but hey, it’s nice to go back to the basics for once.

DEFINING FANFICTION – a trip to urbandictionary.com:

“Fanfiction is when someone takes either the story or characters (or both) of a certain piece of work, whether it be a novel, tv show, movie, etc, and create their own story based on it. 

Most people think fanfiction is just a way of letting someone’s favorite characters having sex. And yeah, I’d be lying if I told you that most fics are decent, well written pieces of art. But most of you who also have been spending way too much time reading fanfics would agree with me when I say that there are some great stories on there as well!

So, I could tell you everything about fanfiction, or I could tell you to go out and find out about it yourself! I’m going with the latter. Really, even if you already know a lot about fanfiction, try to find some new ships to read about. I, for example, set myself a goal to read about as many different ships as possible. Yes, even the bad ones. You might end up liking ships you hated before! Although some might dislike that.. *cough* people like me *cough* 

Hermione is done with it, guys!

I suggest you go to fanfiction.net, since it has a lot of fics, a useful search engine and mainly because it’s the site I use. Enough said!

Here, mainly for the newbies, some words you definitely need to know when you start reading fanfiction:

Ships: a ship, from the world “relationship”, stands for a pairing. Most ships also have a ship name, for example James and Lily is named Jily. Knowing that, it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out what Romione or Hinny stands for. And then you also have the “weird” ones.. Yes, I’m looking at you Weasleycest and Malfoycest shippers. And "cest" as in incest. So yeah. No hate, though. 

Canon: a story that is true to the original.

Headcanon: a story/detail of a story which is made up by fans. Like, Harry is sorted into Slytherin and BAM, it’s Drarry time.

AU: alternative universe: some aspects of the story are different from the original book, movie, etc. It could also be a whole different universe, for example, there never was a school called Hogwarts, and Harry meets Ron at .. uhm.. the pub or something. It's all possible!

Fiction ratings – these are used on fanfiction.net:

·         K: Story is suitable for all ages – aww, cute stories

·         K+: children over 9 years of age – cute

·         T: teens, 13 or older – getting somewhere

·         M: older teens, 16 and older – yup, there it is

·         MA: 18+ * - well..

*MA has been banned from multiple sites, also from fanfiction.net.

Cross-over: Two different stories are combined in one fic. For example, Voldemort and Sauron are working together. Or the Criminal Minds cast solving a murder at Hogwarts. Or maybe a Portkey takes Harry to Camelot. Everything’s possible! And with everything, I mean e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g..

Slash: gay sex – or just homosexual pairings.

Different worlds: in the Harry Potter fanfictions you have the following worlds/era’s:

·         Pre-Hogwarts: what happened before Hogwarts; Harry’s life at the Dursleys.

·         Hogwarts: this one should be pretty clear.

·         Post-Hogwarts: what happened after the Second Wizarding War

·         Founders: about the Hogwarts Founders

·         Marauders: James, Sirius, Remus, Peter, Lily, Regulus, etc.

·         Next generation: Scorpius, Lily Luna, Albus Severus, Rose and so on.

Lots of feels. 

OTP: One True Pairing, or in other words: someone’s favorite ship. As in, thinking about it 24/7, making fan art, writing fanfictions and of course, crying when you think about it. The life of a fangirl isn't easy.

Fluff: fanfiction with lots of romantic, happy, cute content. Not like smut (sexual/erotic), angst, etc.

POV: Point of View, that is understandable, right? 

Gen: when a fanfiction is described as “gen” it is written for a general audience. Without slash, headcanon, etc. –  ah, I didn’t know this before.

NC-17: this is originally a rating system for movies, but you’ll definitely come across this when you’re reading fanfiction. It can be compared to M-rated fanfiction. 

Mary Sue: a character, usually female, who is perfect in every way. They usually get in a relationship with the main character, or help them. A Mary Sue is usually written by a beginning author, and many readers describe them as “annoying”. A male version is called Marty-Stu or Gary Stu. - you should all thank my friend for this information.

Chickron -  I ship it

So, that was that, And yes, there is so much more than what I mentioned in this blog, but this is what you really need to know. Next articles could be about “weird ships”, “best/worst fanfictions”, and so on. You’ll just have to wait and see. 

Not that I would like to read weird ships, of course.. No. Not in the slightest. *nervous laugh*

"Weird ships are cool!" - my dear friend, who's also going to be my beta reader. Thanks in advance!