Fanfiction (fanfic) is a story written by fans using characters and worlds from an existing work: a book, TV show, anime, movie, or game. The setting is borrowed; the plot, pairings, and "what ifs" are the fan's own.
A ready-made idea to start: «Write a Harry Potter fanfic where the Sorting Hat puts Hermione Granger in Slytherin and she has to survive her first year among her new housemates.»
Generate this storyPut simply, fanfic is what happens when a story ends and readers aren't done with it. Someone wants the missing scene, the happier ending, or the romance the show only hinted at, so they write it.
Readers were rewriting other people's stories long before the word existed. Sherlock Holmes fans wrote their own cases while Conan Doyle was still alive. Modern fandom, though, starts with Star Trek: in 1967 the fanzine Spockanalia printed fan stories, and soon fans were typing, photocopying, and mailing zines across the country.
FanFiction.Net opened in 1998 and gave anyone a place to post. A whole generation of Harry Potter, Naruto, and Lord of the Rings writers learned the craft there.
Millions of people read and write fanfic, and some of it crosses into mainstream publishing. Fifty Shades of Grey began as Twilight fanfiction, and Anna Todd's After started as One Direction fic on Wattpad.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Canon | The official source material: the books, episodes, or game. |
| Fanon | Ideas fans repeat so often they feel official, even though they aren't. |
| Fandom | The community around a work, and the work itself as a space. |
| Ship / pairing | Two (or more) characters fans want together. To "ship" is to root for them. |
| AU | Alternate Universe: the same characters in a different setting, era, or world. |
| OOC | Out of Character: a character acting in ways canon wouldn't support. |
| Fic / fic writer | Short for fanfiction, and the person who writes it. |
For more depth, see our posts on canon vs fanon, types of AU in fanfiction, and what OOC means. The rest of the jargon lives in our fanfiction slang glossary.
Short answer: fanfiction sits in a legal gray area, and most rights holders tolerate it as long as nobody makes money from it. This is general background, not legal advice.
Fandom's working rules: don't sell fanfic, credit the source, don't copy large passages of the original, and respect an author's request to stay away.
Check the rating and warnings before you start. Our guide to fanfic ratings explains what each rating means.
If the blank page is the problem, try the Fanficia generator: type your idea, the AI drafts the first chapter, and you continue, edit, and publish it. Here's one to start with: Hermione sorted into Slytherin. For the full walkthrough, read how to write a fanfic from scratch.
Written by the Fanficia editorial team: drafted with AI assistance, edited and fact-checked by a human. How we write: editorial policy
Describe the idea — the AI drafts a chapter and you stay the editor.
A ready-made idea to start: «Write a Harry Potter fanfic where the Sorting Hat puts Hermione Granger in Slytherin and she has to survive her first year among her new housemates.»
Generate this story →A practical comparison of the best fanfiction sites in 2026, what each one does well, and a quick filtering system for finding fics worth reading.
56 concrete fanfic ideas and prompts, sorted by trope (enemies to lovers, fake dating, found family) and by fandom, each with a one-click link to start writing. Plus a five-step method for finding your own.
What Y/N stands for, how reader inserts differ from imagines and preferences, how to write second person well, and which fandoms have the most x Reader fics.
A complete fanfic tropes list: 54 romance, emotional, plot, and AU tropes, each explained in a line or two with a fandom example.
The Fanficia blog is written by the Fanficia editorial team. We draft with AI assistance; a human editor checks the facts and fandom terminology, rewrites the text and signs off on every post. Spotted a mistake? Email support@fanficia.com and we will fix it and update the article date.
How we write: editorial policy →