This page serves as a sort of glossary for those who are unfamiliar with some of the words I use in my “Writing Fan Fic” series, and for anyone who has stumbled upon this site accidentally and wants to know what this is all about. Some words may have already appeared, others may have not. This is merely a preemptive measure, and shall be added to as time goes on.
- Antagonist: A character who opposes the protagonist.
- Canon: The original material from which characters are based. It also fits to describe anything that would fit in its context.
- Fan character: A character conceived by an individual within a particular fandom.
- Fan fiction: Stories conceived by fans of a particular fictional world depicted in media that are not part of that world’s actual continuum.
- Mary-Sue: An undesirable form of fan character who outdo the canon characters in different ways to an unreasonable degree.
- Pairing: Two characters who form a romantic relationship.
- Protagonist: The guy you’re probably supposed to root for.
- Ship: To support a particular pairing of characters.
- Slash: A type of fan fiction that has two characters of the same gender involved in a romantic relationship.
- Yaoi: A Japanese term used to describe slash fiction involving two males.
- Yuri: A Japanese term used to describe slash fiction involving two females.