Fan fiction is a lot older than most people think. Arguably, the most celebrated self-insert fan fiction is Dante’s Inferno. Before 1938, the word fan fiction wasn’t in the dictionary. The word was introduced as a derogatory term against amateur writers creating “lesser” works based on books, television, and film. Over time, the word has evolved to become much more neutral. 

Nowadays, it’s common to meet someone who reads and/or writes fan fiction and publishes it online or in print. While some people despise it and think of it as a lesser form of writing, it’s often seen as an extension of a fan’s love for a piece of media. 

Fan Fiction in Literature

Before copyright laws were put into place, many authors took inspiration from other writers. Shakespeare was one of these writers. For example, Romeo and Juliet was inspired by Arthur Brooke’s Romeus and Juliet. Brooke’s work was published in 1562, two years before Shakespeare’s birth. 

After copyright laws entered the world, many authors got around these laws by writing pastiches. Some of the more prominent examples of this came after the international outcry against Arthur Conan Doyle when he decided to kill Sherlock Holmes. Many fans drowning in grief rallied against the author to the point where he caved and wrote more stories. To this day, many authors celebrate Conan Doyle by creating more adventures for Sherlock. 

Birth of the Modern Fan Fiction

In the 1960s, Star Trek took the world by storm. The show’s popularity inspired many fans to develop their own stories using the characters. This was before the advent of the internet, so fans came together to develop their communities and published fanzines. It is believed that the first slash fan fiction came from the Star Trek fandom featuring the pairing of Kirk/Spock. These fanzines were usually sold at conventions.

Fandom communities like this one soon popped up for various pieces of media. As technology advanced, fans moved to the internet.

The Rise of the World Wide Web

When the Internet became available to the masses, forums, webrings, and websites popped up. This allowed more people to connect and create accessible spaces to write fanfics. In 1998, Fanfiction.net was launched. It allowed people all around the world to share their fan fiction as long as it followed a set of rules. Splinter sites that focused on specific fandoms also launched around the same time. 

LiveJournal was also a popular alternative to Fanfiction.net. LiveJournal allowed users to post content restricted on Fanfiction.net. On LiveJournal, users could post adult content, content about works from writers who despised fan fiction such as Anne Rice, fanfics about real people, and polls. LiveJournal also allowed for fanart to be posted alongside fanfics.

Fanfiction.net soon lost popularity due to the site’s purging of adult content. In doing so, fans fled to various websites. By that point, Quizillia, Dreamwidth, Wattpad, Lunaescence, Quotev, Tumblr, Twitter, DeviantArt, and various splinter fanfic websites were operational. However, LiveJournal remained popular. 

After LiveJournal was bought, the new Russian owners started purging accounts and removing sensitive content to accommodate Russian users. As LiveJournal lost popularity, people migrated to Tumblr. Tumblr’s tagging system and social media features allowed it to become a space where writers could directly connect and share with other users.

However, the wheels of fate soon turned on Tumblr. Just like Fanfiction.net’s purge, Tumblr’s NSFW purge caused a mass exodus of people to move their writing to Archive of Our Own.

The Current Hub

The current fan fiction hub is Archive of Our Own, or as it’s more commonly known, AO3. 

AO3 serves as an archive for every possible fandom to share their works. There are no restrictions on fandoms and content here. With over 14,720,000 works, AO3’s organization needs to be detailed. The site’s main feature is a detailed tagging system that allows writers to tag every content warning, character, pairing, and rating in their work to let readers know what they will be getting into. 

While AO3 doesn’t have a social aspect, most people nowadays have multiple social media accounts to connect with fandom across different spaces. This makes it easy for fanfics to circle throughout these spaces without altering the archive’s purpose.