Category Descriptions
For more detailed descriptions of each category, visit Fanlore.org, the Fanspeak Dictionary, or The Ultimate Guide To Fanfiction and Fanfiction Sites.
Action/Adventure
Fanorks focused on suspense, tension, danger, and/or excitement. In literary terms, adventure is considered a subset of action, one that focuses on danger and the removal of the protagonist from their normal life. In fic, action/adventure are often paired together.
Adult
Fanworks containing mature content of some kind, often graphic sexual content or violence.
Alternate Universe (AU)
Fanworks which change one or more elements of the source work's canon. Broadly, an AU may transplant a given source work's characters to a radically different setting, shift the genre in which their adventures occur and/or alter one or more of their professions, goals or backstories.
Angst
Fanworks which are intended to provoke the feeling of unrest and uncertainty in readers. Typically very dark, involving torment of the characters, depression and sadness.
Contemporary
Fanworks set in the present day.
Crossover
Fanworks in which two or more fandoms are combined in some way.
Drabble
Traditionally, a drabble is a fanwork that is exactly 100 words long
Drama
Plotty fanworks with elements of tragedy, melodrama and action-adventure, and sometimes comedy and horror. It differs from action/adventure in being more character driven and cerebral, and less action oriented.
Ficlet
A very short story, usually fan fiction but sometimes original fiction. The term is commonly applied to stories under 1000 words, although there is no hard and fast rule about how long a ficlet can be.
Fluff
A fanfic without angst; any pleasant, feel-good story. Fluff may lack plot; however, unlike a PWP the focus is not sex, but displays of affection between two or more characters, whether their relationship is romantic or not. It may also indicate a mood piece with warm, uplifting descriptions.
Historical
Fanworks set in the past.
Humor
Comedy can be used as the base genre of fanworks, but is often just touched on to lighten the tone. On the other hand, there is also dark humor which purposely makes light of something generally considered to be horrible.
Meditations A written discourse expressing considered thoughts on a subject.
Parody
A parody is a work which is created to imitate and/or make fun of or comment on an original work—its subject, author, style or some other target—by means of satiric or ironic imitation.
Poetry
A poem is usually a vignette, a snapshot of one specific moment or image or idea that is explored in depth with language.
PWP
Porn without plot. This is a piece of fan fiction that contains no other action than an overt sexual act between the characters.
Romance
A genre describing narratives that are focused on the tension between two (or more) characters before the ultimate cultivation of their relationship; or the dynamic between two (or more) characters after this relationship is already established.
Sci-Fi
Science Fiction is a genre of the fantastic that is characterized by an interest in science, technology, and the future (or the past).
Slow Burn
Fanworks where the characters very slowly fall into a romantic or sexual relationship.