Fan Fiction Chapter 2: Types of Fan Fiction

Believe it or not, there are different types of fan fiction, and like everyone else, I had to learn the difference by simply immersing myself into all kinds of stories. It is the diversity of fan fiction that is one of the things that really gives it brilliance. And I have found over many years of being both a reader and writer, that each author has their specialty. Now, let us begin.

The One-Shot

In the world of Fan Fiction, this is the equivalent of a short story. Only a single chapter long, one-shots can be anywhere from a few hundred words to a few thousand. Normally, it includes only a few characters from the original story, generally focusing on the choices or actions of a single character rather than a large event that requires many chapters to tell. One-shots are used as "reaction stories", at least, that's what I like to call them. They take place after a big event in the storyline, and focus on how a character is reacting to that event. This is not always the case, but for most one-shots, this is the type of story it is. For example, some of the best one-shots I have read for "Stargate: Atlantis" take place after the storyline of the episode "Sunday" from Season 3. All of the one-shots focus on how the characters are dealing with the death of Dr. Beckett, most of them from either John or Rodney's point of view.

The Original Character (OC)

The name of this type of fanfic could be confusing. An original character story actually focuses on an OC created by the fanfic author, not an original character in the fandom. This is the most popular type of fan fiction. Most stories you will find will be of this variety. Authors will create a character of their own creation and pretty much throw them into the story, and most likely, events will change and the story will be altered because of the presence of that one person. Now, because these stories are the most you will come across in fan fiction, it is also where we run into the problems with fan fiction. When it comes to OC stories, there are the good ones and the terribly bad ones, usually with nothing in the gray area in between. The good and well written stories remain to good stories, where as the bad and terribly written original character stories fall into a different category entirely....these are called Mary Sues.

The Mary Sue

These are the fanfics you want to stay away from. There are basically the stories that give fan fiction a bad name. I like to call these the "wannabe OCs" for a couple different reasons: 1. the author is trying to be a good writer and 2. the author is just writing themselves into the story. That is the essence of what a Mary Sue is: the author is writing themselves into the story. This is why we, the talented authors of Fan Fiction, call this kind of character a Mary Sue. Basically, they are a cookie cutter character based on the author with no flaws, plenty of superpowers, some sort of "dark past" and they always get the guy (or girl) in the end. They are sorry excuses for stories.

Telling the difference between an OC and a Mary Sue

99% of the time, when trolling for a fanfic story to read, you can tell whether it's going to be a true OC story or a Mary Sue by simply reading the synopsis. You want to look out for certain kind of plot lines and character adjectives to be able to tell the difference. For an example, I will troll through from Harry Potter fan fiction and find a good OC and a Mary Sue.

Can you tell the difference: (I changed character names so the authors won't get pissed)

1. Jamie Donnelly has an awful life; and it's just about to get worse. The Slytherins think it's funny to poke fun at her as they know EVERYTHING that goes on, and the boy she loves makes out with every other girl but her. How will it turn out?

2. “We all love to keep secrets, it has the appeal of making one feel infinitely important.” But can we keep them? Lucius Malfoy/Narcissa & Lucius/OC.

It's obvious that #1 is the Mary Sue, and #2 is the good OC. I have actually read the entirety of the #2 story, and it's fantastic. Where as I would have no interest to read #1. Which one would you read? I think we all feel the pull towards #2 instead of #1. There is something about that peek of dialogue rather than the description of a character that has been abused all her life and finally finds true love. Which one appeals more to you?

That is how you can learn to tell what a story has to offer through the couple sentence synopsis.

The Alternate Universe (AU)

The AU is a particularly fun variety of fan fiction. It is a story that uses all the regular characters of a fandom, but places them in a world we, as the reader, are not used to seeing them in. Or, it can simply be a completely different situation of events. There are many different ways a story can be an AU. But to qualify, the story must put the characters in a situation that we are not used to seeing them in. To help you understand this, I will give you three examples of the most popular types of AUs.

1. a Backwards World AU: going back to Harry Potter, this story is a great example of a backwards situation. What the author did was change one little detail of the Harry Potter story, which changes EVERYTHING. In a world where Voldemort controls Azkban, Harry's parents are still alive, Lupin is the Headmaster of Hogwarts, and Dumbledore the Minister of Magic all because Sirius became the Potter's Secret Keeper and refused to tell Voldemort where they were hiding. This definitely qualifies as an AU. This being another story that I have personally read, it is one of the best fanfics out there:

"Promises UnBroken" by Robin4
Sirius Black remained the Secret Keeper and everything he feared came to pass. Ten years later, James and Lily live, Harry attends Hogwarts, and Voldemort remains…yet the world is different and nothing is as it seems. AU.

2. a All Human AU: For scifi/fantasy fandoms that have different races, monsters, vampires, werewolves, and many other things, there is a popular type of AU where an author makes all the characters human and places them in our regular world, in regular situations and All American love stories. No matter how "lame" and typical this kind of story can seem, I have read a large number of good ones. Here is one of the best from Twilight fan fiction:

"The Red Line" by WinndSinger
Edward is an exotic male dancer. Bella is a college student studying psychology and needs a subject to do her thesis on. Bella pays Edward to belong to her for 2 weeks so she can study him. Things soon get very interesting between them. AU.

3. Fanfiction University: This type of AU was made popular by fanfic author Camilla Sandman back in 2002 when she wrote the first Fanfic University fic and spawned a craze for them all over fandom. In a story that is a brilliant parody and satire story, her character, Miss Cam, rounds together all the Lord of the Rings fanfic authors for training. Only once their training is complete, can they write official LOTR fan fiction. I have read many of these stories and they are HILARIOUS. But here is the original:

"The Official FanFiction University of Middle Earth" by Camilla Sandman
The fic that spawned miniBalrogs, Elrond's Naturally Nine, the Morgoth/Sauron feud, Urple, the WitchWall and finally, Gimli got the girl. AU


The Fall in or out of the Verse

This is another particularly fun type of fan fiction to read and write, but, you have to be careful. These types of fanfics can easily become Mary Sues. However, they are ridiculously fun none the less, and sometimes, extremely genius. This is a story where someone from our world falls into the story, or someone from the story falls into our world. Yup, exactly what it sounds like. I'm pretty sure you don't need any examples to understand this one, but for the hell of it, here you go:

1. "Raining Dreams" by Amaya Rayne: We all dream of falling into Middle-earth, but what when Middle-earth falls on you? Expect the unexpected!

2. "From Earth to Star Wars" by Meagan and Sasha: What if someone from Earth traveled to the Star Wars Galaxy to discover she was Force Sensitive and met Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

The Drabble

The drabble story is very similar to the one-shot, but can be a little different. It is either shorter than the one-shot with only a couple hundred words or less, or you can run into the term "series of drabbles" or "series of one-shots". It will be multi-chapter story that is basically just a group of short drabbles or one-shots. One of the best examples I can use is from the Stargate: Atlantis fandom. A author did a one-shot/drabble for every episode of the SGA series which includes an original character:

"Snacks" by moms2398
Series of episode tags that involve Atlantis' Food Services Chief. NOW COMPLETE TO FINALE!

The Crossover

I'm fairly sure that this kind of fanfic is self explanatory. Yes, it is a story that involves 2 or more different fandoms coming together into one story. It has become a steadily more popular over the years after this uprising of young adult fantasy. Although there are many crossovers that leave me scratching my head, many can be a very fun read. Here is an example for you. A Vampire Diaries and Twilight crossover:

"Comatose" by Luna Shade
After Edward left her, Bella is saved by her old friend Lexi and the two go to Mystic Falls for Stefan's birthday. But what happens when Bella meets Elena and Jeremy Gilbert? And why are the Cullens in Mystic Falls?


There is it boys and girls. All the different types of fan fiction laid out for you so just maybe, the chaos that can be fan fiction fandoms, can be easier to understand. Perhaps I should have done Chapter 3 first, because it may make this chapter easier to read. LOL. Chapter 3: The Language of Fan Fiction will be up this weekend.