terms you should know
| Angst: Characters suffer through torture, emotional trauma, etc. Anime: “animation” in Japanese; aka Japanese cartoons ATG - Any Two Guys: A slash term meaning that the story in question could have written about any couple. A fic that may be lacking in characterization. Often used to describe bad PWPs. If you could do a search and replace with any other two character's names, you are reading a ATG fic. Beta: Someone kind enough to read your recently completed fic and give you their opinion on it, and also with any luck suggestions for improvements. Using a beta reader is the number one thing an author can do to improve her or his fic. The suggestions a Beta reader may make include simple things like spelling and grammatical corrections, but also more complicated topics such as characterisation, cutting or adding scenes, and so on Challenge: An invitation by a member of a mailing list or message board, to the other members to write a fic including certain elements. Com: comedy Continutation: A fanfic which follows on from the end of a series or movie. Male pregnancy: a type of story in which, as the name implies, in defiance of biology and good taste, one of the blokes gets pregnant. Mary Sue: An original character in fanfic who is believed by the reader to be either the representation of the author, or the representation of who the author would like to be. OOC: Out Of Character. Round robin: A fic written, not by just one person as is usual, but by a group. One person starts off and writes the first bit, then hands it to the next person, who writes the second bit, and so on until it's finished. Like all fic, round robins vary a lot in quality, added to which, they do tend to have rough transitions between the parts and not usually have the benefit of a beta reader, but they are fun to do and are often fun to read. SI: self-insertion; see Mary
Sue
Shouta (Shota)/Shoutacon: A romance story (usually, but not always sexual in nature) in which at least one of the participants is a young boy. The age cut-off is about 15 and can overlap territory covered by the term shounen ai, which is generally considered sweeter, less graphic, and more acceptable.
Slash: A type of fic, often written by women, involving romantic or sexual involvement between two major canon characters of the same gender, originally mainly M/M (male/male) but lately shifting to include F/F (female/female) tales too. The term "slash" comes from the slash (/) placed between the names of the characters involved. Also called "alternative fiction". Pure sweet romantic slash is sometimes lumped under the term mook.
UST: Unresolved sexual tension. When you know they want to, but they don't. Vanilla: A slang term for sexual activities that do not involve the use of BDSM. |