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Has there ever been a Fanfiction "non"fiction?
I've been working on a rather strange project for the last few years which is a fanfiction covering around six hundred years of the pokemon universe. A kind of documentary, but still written as a story. As part of it though i've been putting together a piece that is still about the pokemon universe, but it is written as non-fiction for the universe as in this would be a a book they read. Something akin to magical beasts and where to find them for the harry potter universe.
I'm curious if anyone else has ever tried this. It has been a daunting task and I'm curious if I'm the only fool who thought to do it with fan fiction. |
Do you mean something along the lines of Cutlerine's Coriolanus Rowland's Guide to Pokémon Husbandry? That's a fic written in the style as if Rowland is writing a book to be read in the Pokemon world.
I'm sure there are others, but that was the first one I thought of. |
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Yeah pretty much what I'm talking about. Something actually intended to be a reference book (encylopedias, guides, etc.) in the fictional universe. I might just look into this as beyond seeing something similar to what I'm working on I quite like the premise. |
I've been working on a Universe Bible for my own Pokémon setting since about 2012 (which I have started publishing recently here in PC), and I think I know some people who have been at that for even longer.
There's also stuff like the "Pokédex Extended Fanon Edition" which is a collection of encyclopedic articles on the various species and has been going on since about at least 2010, written fully in-universe. Some modern stuff like "Trainers of Unova" and "Trainers of Hoenn" blogs are written in the style of an in-universe documentary or a similar pseudo-epistolary format. Even newer but far less known is the "Ethics Guide for Pokémon Trainers". Who knows, there might be a good lot of stuff like this around, but since there is not something like a "non-fiction" archive or tagging system as there are many for fanfiction... they are sometimes hard to find and gauge. Bottom line you are not alone~ So I wouldn't call your project "rather strange" but "rather welcome". Go with it! And if it feels daunting by all means ask for help~ I'd surmise there is a lot of "underground experience" going around creating stuff like this. |
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As for help I've been very tempted to put out a call and try to make this a group project, but at the same time I know I've made some rather large leaps and bounds in editing the lore. People eating pokemon, the sentience of pokemon, heck even just making a definitive origin to the pokemon league challenge. I don't want to refuse anyones ideas, but at the same time I'm not changing most of mine. I'm kind of at the slog point where I have enough done that I have defined the largest most important things, but there are so many tiny things to cover, and then theres the fact that I have the novels to go along with it all. It gets very hard sometimes to even sit down and write for them. I've been running off to an original work just because it has zero relation to pokemon and I need a break from it. All in all good to know there are others out there to gain inspiration from. |
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Anyways, yeah everyone else gave examples of fanworks that are not of the regular written prose and I'm totally fine with you trying something different. |
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It has been very tempting to put them out and get feedback, but I know they just aren't ready right now. Just in the last month I've been desperately trying to help diverge the two stories I'm working on right now as the cast has been terrifyingly similar (Male lead brash because he'd rather give his life for good than let anyone else risk theirs, female support has to reel them back and provides a lot of the reason the character is doing what they do, male support buddy friends kind of character who isn't nearly as strong as the lead but does what they can, and male support old mentor who teaches all of them.) Then on top of it I realize its basically the Harry Potter cast (curse that really good balance of 2 guys one girl!). I think that may well be my Achilles heel to project right now just not diverse enough characters for the main cast of the novels. Probably be a couple months of me trying to retool those then I can get back to progress. Maybe I'll just post a solid summary of the characters see what people think if they are really too similar or if I've just over simplified it in my head. |
A sort of sneak preview, if you are interested in something like that, can help catch some good eyes in particular when it comes to the potential of getting beta readers. Your idea of posting the character summaries is also good in that it'd allow you to catch potential issues before the characters are set in stone.
All in all, I'd suggest getting at least one long-term reviewer or, as I call myself in this task towards a fellow writer, "consulting worldbuilder". It's always good to have a second set of eyes who are at least familiar with your cast, setting, concepts and flow of thought. |
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Usually I'd consult with friends at college or my older brother, but summer makes everyone very busy around here. |
In literature, what you're talking about is referred to as "a story within a story," or a "nested story." This is usually used as a literary device to convey an idea or serve as an example, but it doesn't have to.
Another sort of example I might suggest along with the ones already mentioned is Bill's Pokedex. It isn't a traditional fan fic in that it's a Tumblr full of Pokedex entries, as written from the perspective of Bill, the creator of the PC storage system. I hope some of this proves useful, and you figure out how you want to go forward with it. :) ~Psychic |
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There is some personality given to the piece as it is written by a single person who has collected all of this info over their lifetime, a kind of nod to how we capture and collect pokemon. Even then it's written with a rigid analytical style meant to be taken as non-fiction in a fictional universe. |
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