The Language of Fanfiction

The Language of Fanfiction Fanfiction is a exactly what it says on the tin- fan fiction. The whole idea of fanfiction is where a fan takes a show or a book, a film or cartoon and manipulates the characters to their imagination and creates a story out of it. Near enough everyone knows EastEnders, so take two characters and write about them, or write about a storyline that could have gone differently, once you have done that, you have created a fanfiction. Now, fanfiction is relevant to language as there is a whole lexical register to 'learn' and use. For example, there are blendings of characters' names to show what pairing they are. For example, the Christian and Syed storyline (in Eastenders) would be known as 'Chryed' to those that like this pairing. But, not only are there front and backend clippings and blendings, but there are other words to categorize some of the fiction and what is in the fiction. 'Mary Sue' is a character made that is basically the author in their own story, 'Marty Stu' is the male equivalent. The types of fic fit into genres like romance, humour, hurt/comfort and drama, they are pretty self explanatory. Then there are 'drabbles' and 'one shots' that are structures of fictions. Drabbles are fictions that only contain a set amount of words, while a one shot is as long as you want it to be but is complete when it is posted. Whilst the lingo is pretty helpful and useful there are more parts of writing a fiction you have to look at, for example, you need a plausible storyline, you need to make sure the characters you are manipulating are reasonably 'IC' (in character). Perhaps something that would help would be theories that influence the language of writing. Tzvetan Todorov theorised that there a five stages of narrative; a state of equilibrium at the outset; a disruption of the equilibrium by some action; a recognition that there has been a disruption; an attempt to repair the disruption; a reinstatement of the equilibrium Whilst Vladimir Propp thought that the characters in the narrative have a set job and function in the fiction. For example, the villian would create a quest for the hero, ultimately making the point of the fiction. The two theories differ but both of them have good qualities, maybe a mixture of both of them and your favourite characters would inspire you to create a fanfiction of your own? Just mind the lexis fanfiction uses, it's easy once you have a general grasp on it J April Sources http://www.watershed.co.uk/east/content/narrative.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A632062