Post #4254956

Fanfiction, as a medium, isn't defined by the fact that it's in conversation with an extant work of fiction. All fiction is in conversation with other fiction. Fanfiction is defined by the fact that the specific extant work of fiction it is in conversation with is the entire reason for reading it. This also informs the structure of the work. In so-called "original fiction", you need to do the work of establishing the setting and characters, it needs to halfway stand on its own, and so forth. WIth fanfiction, it's the opposite; you can assume that anyone who reads it is already familiar, AUs and other modifications notwithstanding. And that is the difference between, say, "an original story based on Sherlock Holmes, who is in the public domain", and "Sherlock Holmes fanfiction."