The Fanfiction Code
by PhoenixStorm

Creating stories about real characters or ink characters seems easy, but it actually is a complex job, because you need to know everything about your fandom and, above all, the terminology of the fanfiction's world.

This article is where you can find all those expressions that you don't know and that could be really useful to help you kickstart your career as a fanfiction writer. 

Do you know what a  Mary Sue is? What about an RPF? If not, you should brush up on your fandom terminology.

Fandom is all about participation, so knowing the common tongue will help you understand the type of fic you're most likely to enjoy writing. Each fandom has it's own OTP, ships, and cool buzz words. Learn to talk the talk before walking the walk.

Based on the 'Length of the story':

Dribble (or half-drabble): it's an extremely short story that has about 50 to 55 words.

Drabble (Pure Drabble or Perfect Drabble): is composed of exactly 100 words, not one less, not one more.

Ficlet: A Ficlet is similar to a Drabble in terms of length but is not as strict, it could have 90 to 110 words but this wording is usually used for stories under 1000 words.

Vignette: is a really short story from 500 to 1000 words that focuses on a specific scene or moment, on a character and his thoughts and emotions or so.

Double Drabble (drouble or droubble): this story has exactly 200 words.

Triple Drabble (trabble, tribble or trouble): a story that has precisely 300 words.

Drabble-shot: a hybrid between the drabble and the one-shot. This kind of story is a one-shot composed of drabbles (with 90 to 110 words) placed one below the other and separated by titles or empty spaces. Usually, the plots are all intertwined and connected together.

Flash-fiction (or flashfic): a story between 100 (someone says 500) and 1000 words.

Pure Flash!Fiction: a short and precise story consisting of exactly 500 words.

Super Flash!Fiction: a story too short to be a flash-fiction and too long to be a drabble. It has 300 to 500 words at most.

One-shot (OS) or Standalone: a story that begins and ends in one chapter. There are no limits for the length or quantity of characters but the fanfiction must have more than 1000 words to be considered part of this category.

Song-fiction: a sub-group of the one-shot, it's a story with a plot based on the lyrics of a song. One of the characters can even sing the specific song or write it or the lyrics can be inserted within the text of the story.

Drabble/Flash-fiction/One-shot collection: a work with multiple chapters that are actually composed of drabbles, flash-fictions and one-shots. This typology can have even more than 100 chapters but each of them must tell a story that begins and ends in that chapter.

Short Stories: An average short story usually has at least 3,500 words and no more than 7,500. Traditionally, short stories were meant to be read in a single sitting. They are usually published individually in magazines and then collected and published in anthologies.

Novellettes: A novelette is also a narrative fictional prose. Back in the day, the term "novelette" referred to a story that was romantic or sentimental in character.  A novelette is longer than a short story, but shorter than a novella. The word count is usually between 7,500 words to 17,500 words.

Novellas (long fiction): a story with 17,000 - 40,000-word count.  A novella is longer than a novelette and is sometimes called a long short story or a short novel. Its length constraints mean you'll find fewer conflicts in a novella than you will in a novel, but there will also be more nuance and complication than you'll find in a short story. Novellas are more often focused on one character's personal and emotional development rather than with large-scale issues.

Novels (Epic fiction ;) ): The novel is one of the more common works of fiction that we encounter. A novel often involves multiple major characters, sub-plots, conflicts, points of view, and twists.The word count of a novel is really debatable. This is because different genres have different requirements. However, a novel is usually no shorter than 40,000 words.

Based on 'Genre':

Angst: a fanfiction with dark themes (physical or psychological violence, pain, death, etc.), it tells sad and dramatic moments of the characters' lives creating anxiety to the reader. Usually, it ends in a bad way, with someone's death or a break up of an important relationship.

Fluff: a soft fanfiction that contains a moment of sweetness and lightheartedness.

Gen (or Genfic): this kind of story can include multiple genres so is impossible to classify it with only one category and this tag is also used to indicate that the author concentrates on the plot and doesn't talk about romantic or sexual relationships.

Introspective: fanfiction where emotions and thoughts of the characters are the most important thing. The author has to concentrate on them a lot during the writing.

Nonsense: a story without a real plot that connects all the events and facts, is usually funny or irreverent.

Parody: funny and comic story that reworks the real facts of a fandom to make the reader laugh.

Slice of Life: this genre tells about simple moments of the protagonist's daily life.

Smut: fanfiction that contains explicit scenes or sexual themes. Pornographic contents are prohibited on Wattpad according to the Content Guidelines 

Based on 'Type of relationships between the characters':

Crack Pairing or Crack Ship: an unusual or impossible couple.

Crossover pairing: a couple consisting of canon characters from different fandoms.

Doomed ship or doomed pairing: a couple destined to never become canon or real for various reasons.

Enemyhet/slash: a relationship between two characters that hate each other and are enemies in the canon story.

Het, No-Slash or M/F: used for heterosexual relationships.

Shonen-ai: a tag to indicate homosexual relationships between not-real men (manga or anime characters etc.), if the story talks about the sexual aspect of the relationship too then is called Yaoi.

Shoujo-ai: a tag to indicate homosexual relationships between not-real women (manga or anime characters etc.), if the story talks about the sexual aspect of the relationship too then is called Yuri.

Slash: it indicates homosexual relationships. M/M - between men; F/F - between women. 

Based on 'Warnings':

AU: alternative universe. In an AU fanfiction the characters of a canon story or a fandom are in a universe or environment totally different from the original one. There are so many types of AUs that you can't even count them, but you will find what you prefer (Ex. Elf AU where the characters are elves, High School AU, in which the story is set in high school, Historical AU, the whole plot and the protagonists are moved to another historical period, Fix-it AU, where the fan-writer changes something that he/she didn't like in the original story like the death of a character etc.)

AR: alternate reality. This tag means that the characters live a whole different existence than the canon one. Their lives are not the same and their personality traits change accordingly with the choices they make and events that happen in that new reality, thus they are often OOC characters (i.e. Harry Potter becomes the Dark Lord).

AT: alternate timeline. The story follows canon events till a certain point then it diverges due to different choices made by the characters, occurrences, or non-occurrence of events in the original story (i.e. the characters of Narnia decide not to cross the wardrobe portal ever again).

ABH: Anywhere But Here, tag used for a fanfiction written in second person. Stories with this warning are called reader-fics and the reader is the protagonist of the chapters.

Accusation fic: indicates that in the story the author focuses on punishing a particular character that behaved in a way that the author doesn't approve of.

Adoption Fic: fanfiction in which the orphan character is adopted by someone and has a different personality from the one he/she has in the original work (for example Harry Potter adopted by the Weasleys).

Aged up: tag indicating that one of the protagonists is older than his/her age of the canon story (usually used in futurefics).

Alien Romance: term used by Jacqueline Lichtenberg for stories where a human girl falls in love with an alien.

Animal transformation: one or more characters are turned into animals.

Anthropomorfic: word describing a fanfiction in which objects, creatures or abstracts concepts are brought to life and have their own thoughts and feelings.

Apocafic: Apocalypse fic, term used for a story set in an apocalyptic situation.

Authorfic (or Self-insert): indicates that the author is one of the characters and interacts with the other protagonists of the story.

Bad Ending or Unhappy Ending: the fanfiction doesn't have a happy ending.

BAMF: Bad Ass Mother Fucker, indicates that one of the characters has a strong and firm personality which could be different from his/her original personality. It is used both in a good and in a bad way, it depends on the sympathy or antipathy that the author feels towards a character.

Band Fic: tag used in fanfiction where the protagonists are bands or rock singers.

Bandslash, Boy Band Slash or BBS: used in story about musicians or bands whose members are homosexual in the fanfiction.

Barbarian: term used for AU fanfictions and fanworks to indicate that fandom characters are inserted in a different historical context, usually at the time of Vikings or Celts, and often you can also find fantasy elements (this is also called Historical AU).

Bed Sharing or Gen Bed Sharing, Poly Bed Sharing: term used in fanworks to indicate that two characters share the same bed to sleep and/or talk and finally confess their feelings for each other. In the Poly Bed Sharing the characters are more than two and share the same bed.

Beastiality: indicates a relationship between humans and fantastic creatures. Usually, the characters are a human and a human who can transform into an animal while maintaining his cognitive abilities. However, bestiality as a sexual relationship between a human and a common animal is prohibited on Wattpad.
More information on Beastiality and prohibited contents can be found on Wattpad Content Guidelines.

Beverage Warning or Don't Drink Anything While Reading This: warns the reader not to read while he/she is drinking, because the fanfiction is so exhilarating that it will let out of the nose whatever the reader is drinking.

Bodyswap: in the story, two or more characters exchanged their bodies thanks to magic or inexplicable events.

Bondage, BDSM or SM: warning used when there are bondage scenes, sadomasochism or sexual kinks.

Bromance or Brotp and Womance or Sisotp: Bromance/Brotp is a tag used to indicate a strong friendship between two male characters (even if sometimes is also used for friendship between a male and a female character) and Womance/Sisotp is a tag for friendship between two female characters.

Canon AU: fanfiction set in AU or parallel realities already present in the original work.

Canon Compliant: describes a fanfiction in which the author gives space to his/her imagination, but tries not to contradict the plot of the original story.

Canon Sue: indicates that a specific character is the Mary Sue of the original author or if it's not it in the original work, it became the Mary Sue in the fanfiction.

Character Bashing and Hero Bashing: warning for stories where the writer, because of pure dislike for one or more characters, makes their life impossible. The characters in question, in fact, face various difficulties, are derided or suffer violence in the chapters of the fanfiction. In the Hero Bashing it is the hero of the story that faces all the injustices.

Character Study: term used in a story to indicate that one of the characters is deeply described and studied.

Chatfic: used in two cases. The first, fanfictions are created and written in group chats; the second, the fanfiction is written in the form of a chat.

Cloning or Coded: used when one or more fanfiction characters are similar and/or inspired by other original characters or people who actually exist.

Cookie: very short fanfiction or extract taken from a longer story of the author, is used as a teaser.

Crackfic: warning for fanfiction that starts from a ridiculous or not so important premise.

Crossdressing: the characters dress up as the opposite sex.

Crossgen: one or more characters are of the opposite sex compared to how they are in reality.

Cross-generational: wording used for a fanfiction in which two characters who have a relationship belong to different generations or have a large age difference.

Crossover: fanfiction where characters from different fandoms meet and interact with each other.

Daddy/Mommy: indicates a particular relationship between a fragile character who needs attention with an older character (or behaving like he/she is older) very protective against him/her.

De-Aging: tag for a story in which an adult character returns to be a child.

Death or Deathfic: warns about the death of an important character, usually the protagonist.

Denialfic or Retcon (or also Fix-it): in a fanfiction with this tag, the events of the original work are changed or completely ignored. It's a kind of AU.

Disability fic: makes it clear to those who read that one of the characters of the fanfiction has a disability.

Dom/Sub: relationship in which a character submits the other after having entered into an agreement that defines the dynamics between the two. It can be applied to various contexts and is consensual.

Don't Like, Don't Read: used when in the story the author talks about delicate topics as relationships between characters of the same sex, kinks, violence or other themes that maybe the reader doesn't want to read or deal with.

Endgame: term borrowed from the gaming fandom, is used in a fanfiction that contains more ships to make clear which of these will become the protagonist and will have a happy ending (ex. Endgame Larry, Harry and Louis will have a happy ending).

Epistolary fic: is a type of fanfiction whose chapters are letters that two or more characters write to each other, usually these characters are involved in a love story. Letters can also be replaced by e-mails or text messages. Other versions of this typology are written in diary pages, newspaper articles or in all the ways mentioned before.

Established relationship or ER: wording used in a story that focuses on a certain pairing that is supposed to be romantically involved from the first chapter.

Everybody Lives: indicates that in the fanfiction, unlike in the original story, all the characters survive and have a happy ending. It can be considered a Fix-It AU.

Extended universe or EU: it is a kind of extension of the AU, this term indicates the fanfictions that take in consideration the material of the original story that comes from different sources. For example, the fan-writer adds characters and/or events mentioned in the comics, in the videogames, in the TV series, in the movies or books that aren't present in the canon story.

Feghoot: term used in the science-fiction fandom to indicate a short story that ends with a pun.

Fill: word indicating a fanfiction written and created from a prompt, a request on a specific topic or theme.

FPF: Fictional Person Fiction or Fictional People Fiction, tag used for a story in which the protagonists are book characters.

Frame story: fanfiction where a character tells a story inside the story.

Furry: the protagonist is partly animal or has the characteristics of a specific animal.

Fusion: tag for fanworks where characters from a fandom are placed in the universe of another fandom as if they had always been part of it in the original story.

Futurefic or Post-Canon: wording for a fanfiction set in the future compared to the time of the canon story.

Gender Bender: fanfiction in which the character changes sex.

Ghost!fic: the fandom characters are represented as ghosts.

Grovelfic or Apologyfic: word for fanfiction in which a character realizes he/she has badly treated another character and apologizes to him/her, something that in reality doesn't happen in the original work.

Happy Ending: in the story we find a happy ending.

HBIC: Head Bitch In Charge, word used in fandoms to indicate a strong female character who is not afraid of anything, is used in an affectionate way.

Heat Fic: is the name given to a fanfiction in which there are some were-animals (humans that can turn into animals) and that at some point go into heat for biological reasons that they can't control.

Height Rule: wording or "height rule" for which in a slash fanfiction the "active" is the tallest character.

Hiatus: in the TV series is the pause of time between one season and another or between an episode and the other or it can be the pause between the release of a book and its movie; in a fanfiction it indicates a pause that the fan-writer takes for some reasons leaving his/her fanfiction pending until a certain date.

Holidayfic: holiday themed story. Some of these fanfictions are set during the days of religious holydays like Christmas etc.

Hurt/Comfort or H/C: the characters live painful situations but find comfort and help each other.

IC: In-Character, used to indicate that the personality of the characters is the same as the personality they have in the canon story.

Imagine: short fanfiction in which the reader gets in touch with his favorite idol or book character.

Incest: warning for incestuous relationships in the fanfiction.

Issuefic: there are three types of it. In the first one, the story talks about social problems such as homophobia, the use of drugs and similar. In the second one, the author talks about personal problems and faces them. In the third one, the writer uses his own story to answer the story of another author or to give his/her own opinion on a topic treated by others, just like a debate.

Kidfic: fanfiction in which the characters are children. The protagonists can be idols or canon heroes and heroines brought back to their childhood, sons and daughters of canon characters or new children characters completely invented by the author.

Kink: the word kink in the fanfiction world indicates that particular sexual tastes are present in the story, but in fandom it is also used to indicate preferences regarding plots or elements.

Lemon: fanfiction that presents explicit sexual acts.

LGBT+: indicates a story that has LGBT+ characters or themes. [LGBT+ stands for: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender/Transsexual. The "+" stands for everything else, including (but not limited to) Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, Aromantic, and Pansexual; you can find more specific definitions at @lgbtq profile)

Lime: fanfiction that presents erotic moments that aren't described in detail and that never reach the sexual act.

Mary Sue and Gary Stu or Marty Stu: used to warn the reader that the female character of the story is practically perfect, has no flaws and is used to fulfill the wishes of the author. Gary Stu or Marty Stu are the male version of the Mary Sue.

Metafic: wording for a story where the protagonists speak with the author or where they know they are fanfiction characters.

Mirror Universe: originally from Star Trek, is similar to the AU but in this typology the characters have characteristics and personalities opposed to those they usually have, it is usually used in darkfics.

Missing moments: Used in a story with additional information and scenes that have never been told in the original work.

Missing Scene: used mainly for fanfiction on TV series or movies, it makes the reader understand that in the chapters there are events created by the author him/herself and therefore never seen on the small or big screen.

Missing Year: is a story that speaks of what happened between one event and another or between one season and another of a TV series or a movie. The writer with his/her fanfiction and his/her imagination tries to fill the void and the temporal holes left by the original work.

Mpreg: story in which the theme of male pregnancy is treated.

Next generation or next gen: warning for stories whose protagonists are the children of the characters of the original work, this wording can be associated with futurefics or kidfics.

Non-con and Dub-con: Non-con is used if non-consensual sexual relationships are present in the fanfiction, while Dub-con is used when one or more characters are not sure of wanting to have sex and then a doubt arises about if they are giving their consent (Dubious-con).

OC: original character, warning for a story where a new character that had never been seen in the original story is introduced. It can also be specified with OFC (Original Female Character) and OMC (Original Male Character).

OOC: out of character. The personality of the characters has been completely changed and does not conform to the Canon.

Pastfic: tag for fanfiction set before the canon story. In these stories you can also read about the past and the childhood or adolescence of each individual character and how he/she has known the other characters.

Podfic: is a fanfiction in audio version. The author him/herself and some of his/her collaborators or fans read aloud and record the story and the characters' phrases and create a sort of audiobook.

Poly, Polyamorous relationship or polyship: warning for every story in which there is a romantic relationship between three or more people.

Pre-slash: tag used for a fanfiction in which between two characters of the same sex there is sexual tension but does not trigger the spark and therefore there is no emotional relationship and no sexual relationship.

PWP: plot, what plot?, story where the events revolve around the sexual relationship between the characters.

RPF: real person fiction. Fanfiction where protagonists are people who really exist (actors, singers, athletes, etc.).

RRS: round robin stories, warning used to indicate a fanfiction written by several people, usually each chapter is written by a different person.

Shockfic: type of fanfiction written specifically to provoke a shock to the person who reads it. It is similar to a crackfic but more violent.

Snifflefic or comfort fic: a story ini which one character takes care of another and which gives sweet emotions to the reader.

Soulbond or bonding: warning for fanfiction in which a bond is born between two characters that become best friends or partners, as if they were soulmates.

Spoiler: anticipations on what will happen in the next chapters of the fanfiction. By adding this wording, the reader knows whether he/she should skip any part of the chapter in order to not discover what will happen next.

TAFF: Twisted and Fluffy Feelings or Twisted and Fuzzy Feelings, tag used for a slightly angst or sentimental story.

TBC: To Be Continued, indicates that the story is incomplete and there are still chapters that must be written and posted.

The Cartwright Curse or The Bonanza Syndrome: the fan-writer invents a female character with whom the male protagonist falls in love, only to kill the girl when the author wants and have a tragic ending. The term Bonanza derives from the Western movies in which the male characters loses their wife or their beloved one.

The Hollow Man Syndrome: this wording is used when a character has numerous injuries and each of these can be lethal but he/she survives anyway.

Time Travel: sub-group of science-fiction where the characters travel in time.

Top/Bottom: indicates the role assumed within a relationship, not necessarily related to the personality. A term borrowed from manga is seme/uke, where the seme (or top) is the active character who is usually also the strongest character and the uke (or bottom) is the passive and also the most fragile, docile and sweet of the two. In stories with slash pairs you can find the wording Gyaku Kappuringu, this serves to warn the reader about the fact that the couple is the opposite, the character that is usually seme, is transformed into uke and vice versa.

Triangle: the story contains a love triangle, three characters romantically linked.

TWT: time, what time?, the story doesn't follow a timeline or doesn't fit in a precise moment of time.

Violence or Darkfic: warning that indicates particularly violent and harsh scenes in the fanfiction.

What if?: fanfiction in which something of the original plot of a story is modified and which tells what would have happened if there had been some particular change that would have changed the lives of the protagonists.

Work in progress or WIP: wording that warns the reader that the story is still being written and could, unfortunately, be abandoned and never finished.

Based on 'Other wordings':

! : inserted between a word and a character's name, it indicates that there's a relation between the two nouns (ex. Dark!Harry, story where Harry Potter become a dark wizard). If used between two words, it indicates the typology of the fanfiction (ex. wing!fic).

/ : called virgule, it indicates the typology of the story's couple (ex. M/M, F/F).

A/N: author's note, it's used by the author when he/she needs to communicate with the reader inside a chapter.

Canon: indicates everything related to the characters or the plot of the original story as well as the universe they belong to.

Fanon: indicates new elements imagined by the author of the fanfiction that were not included in the original story.

NOTP: opposite of the OTP, it's a couple that the author hates and that he/she think is never destined to be together.

OTC: one true character, indicates the favorite character of the fan-writer.

OTP: one true pairing, this is a tag used to describe a fandom's most true and possible couple. Usually is also used to indicate the favorite couple of the author.

Pairing or ship: a pairing or a ship indicates the characters who have a romantic relationship, it indicates a couple or more couples of the story. This pairings could be het, slash or femslash and could be canon or not. With the names of the protagonists (ex. RoMione - Ron and Hermione), it indicates the couple that the author wants to create inside the story.

Plot: is the sequence of events of a story, it's like a short summary.

POV: indicates the point of view with which the story is narrated. The name of the person telling the story is always specified before the word POV and is possible to change the narrator.

Prequel: fanfiction set before an already existing story.

Prompt: is short text, description or topic that inspires the author to write a fanfiction.

Rarepair or Unconventional pair: indicates a rare couple of the fandom or a couple not among the most followed or the most used in fanworks.

Sequel: fanfiction set after the original story, it's a continuation of it.

Side pairing: is a secondary couple in a fanfiction. It's not the main one but in the story the writer talks about it too.

Spin-off: fanfiction where the protagonist is a secondary character of another story.

Tags: words used to describe the main contents of the fanfiction.

Timestamp: used to indicate the period of time or the moment in which the story or a chapter is set.

Trope: is the typology of the story, the topics or the themes inside of it.

Verse: short for Universe, indicates in which universe is set the fanfiction.

Y/N: your name, with this wording the author allows the reader to use his/her own name during the reading and therefore to feel as if he/she is really the protagonist of the story.

Rating:

Wattpad, as we know, has two ratings: Mature and Everyone. However, there are more rating categories acknowledged on the internet that can help you better define your story contents; you add them as tags or in the description section of your fanfiction:

For everyone (or G or K): story suitable for all ages that doesn't contain strong contents, swearing or sexual acts. The author can talk of death or suffering but only in a light way.

Rating 14+ (Pg13, Pg15 or T): fanfiction for those over 14 years of age because inside the story the author talks about sexual topics or violence in a light way;

Pg13 or Pg15 are similar to 14+, 13 and 15 years old people can read the story;

T, Teen, indicates the story is suitable for teens.

Rating 16+ (Nc17): story for readers over 16 years old, sexual scenes or violence scenes are inserted in the chapters but are not described in details.

NC-17 means people under 17 years old mustn't read the story.

Rating 18+ or Mature: story suitable for those over 18 years of age. In fanfiction with this rating you can find scenes with sexual themes, violence or similar described in detail and told explicitly – on Wattpad they need the Mature symbol. 

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The Wattpad Tag Ranking allows your story to rank into multiple tag lists (maximum 25), so this code could help you find the best # to describe the content of your story, to reach your ideal fan base.

This dictionary is also meant to be a tool to better understand the fanfiction world, it is a work in progress project and you are welcome to add more terms in the comment section, new or disused, and we will consider to add them to the list.

Many terms could be arguable, let's try and discuss different views in a polite and constructive way, please!

IMPORTANT

Please refer to Wattpad Content Guidelines to know more about Wattpad policy on Content published on the platform, and how and if the terms above can be used on Wattpad!