Fan fiction is an element well apart in the geek culture, and often criticized by fans who think that nothing beats the original masterpiece. But what are the challenges of fanfiction, and are we right to reject it ?

Just a few months ago, your faithful servants agreed easily with popular opinion who thought fanfiction have no great interest since they make use of work already completed to convert or extend it, while nothing is like the original work that we all love. But curiosity is, in our opinion, an important quality, and it is essential to know well something before criticize it. Thus our steps have guided us towards the vast and mysterious universe of the fanfiction, and this is where we bring you today ...

First of all, what is a fanfiction?

A fanfiction, according to our friend Wiki is "a story that some fans write [or depict in the case of web series] to extend, amend or even completely transform a media that they love (novel, series, game, manga, movie or even celebrity). A fanfiction resumes, developing differently, the classic themes of the original script or the "canon".
Writing a fanfiction allows the reader or the viewer to stage what he would have wished to find in the original work."
So far, nothing new, in fact. We have the elements we already knew : taking an existing work and transforming its initial plot, the "canon", by extending, modifying, or by returning to its origins.
But Wiki always loves details, and would like to give us some more information: "The fanfiction often focus on the characters: they explore in depth their psychology, stage their relationships with each other, add or deepen ballads, highlighting secondary characters, introduce new characters in the frame. They can also take ownership of the universe invented by one (or more) author(s), developing or using it to make new characters or themselves live in it (self insert). "
Here it becomes interesting, because we are told that we may encounter new characters, created from scratch by the anonymous authors of these fanfiction. Also, we notice that we could learn more about characters that we think we knew but we could possibly regret not knowing more (Luna Lovegood fans know what I mean ...).

But here is an interesting fact : the possibility to deepen the knowledge we have of our favorite characters, and even their universe in general. Where the author (or the creator of the work) will attempt to extend its universe to its maximum, it will always lack of small details, elements that titillate our curiosity, push us to question, and fanfiction, well beyond the fans’ theories, provide new answers (sometimes very exciting!) to our questions.
Moreover, since we are talking of characters, we can note that turning the story of a protagonist, fan fiction can sometimes offer us an alternative to the path that we may have disliked, or that we would have liked to see in another way . That protagonist ends up dying and you would have liked him/her to survive ? Another character marries a character you do not like ? Another character travels to that point while you would have liked him/her to stay where he/she was ? No problem ! The world of fanfiction is vast, possibilities are infinite, and minds that create them are full of imagination!

In sum, the fanfiction allows, in many cases, to plunge us into a world that we know, but where we would like to deepen the intrigue, push the limits, or discover in a whole new way. She is to the original work its ultimate sublimation, its climax, and it would be a huge mistake to not pay attention to it.

Moreover, it is important to also look into the origins of fanfiction. Because if today many sites identify millions of fanfiction worldwide, the origins of the genre are in fact ... the bases of literature and art in general. Indeed, if we now enjoy a variety of different work, many of them are often rewriting of stories Human tale from his first steps on Earth. So wasn’t there a bit of Hamlet in the Lion King? A bit of Romeo and Juliet in Twilight ? And even many of Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies ?

Many modern works freely take root in older works (voluntary or not), such as Game Of Thrones, which is loosely based on the War of the Roses (that took place in the UK in the XVth century) but also the history of the Kings of France. Star Wars is also inspired by the past and include some passages of the Bible, the film Metropolis by Fritz Lang, the Legend of King Arthur and many other works. But it even happens that writers make reference to that eternal principle of rewriting, as when J.K. Rowling tells the story of the three brothers and the Deathly Hallows and it corresponds -strangely- to the path of Harry Potter, Severus Snape and Albus Dumbledore themselves! The play The Cursed child that was written to follow the adventures of the Survivor also takes a similar narrative scheme.

Thus, it might be a bit cheeky to criticize unashamedly a genre that seems new, while we base our culture on many rewrites and works for centuries.

So to all of those who read, write, or even think to create works of fanfiction, whether they are novels, videos, short films, games, manga, or even comics, please do not stop. The imagination is an inexhaustible source of joy, and if yours is verdurous, enjoy and let us enjoy too. We strongly hope that one day you will have the same luck, as few writers, to be known around the world for having extended or developed a story you love...

If you liked this article, please share it around you, to make a little change in opinions on fanfiction. And if you've ever read or written a fanfiction that you like, let us know ! We will identify it in our encyclopedia ! For more simplicity, we invite you to send your suggestions to the following email address: camille@pausegeek.fr stating "Fan Fiction" in the subject!