Dictionary of Fiction

The world of fiction has many exclusive words in its vocabulary. This list will try its best to define those words for both referential and educational reasons. To stay true to its name, this list will include words pertaining to fandom such as "ship" and "fanfic".

B
Backstory - The life someone led before the story began.

C
Canon - The official set of facts and events relating to a franchise. We have a page about this.

Chick flick - A movie mostly targeting a female audience.

Cliffhanger - A moment that sets up for a later dramatic continuation.

Crackfic - An otherworldly fanfic that got its name from crack cocaine.

Crossover - An installation to one franchise in which at least one other franchise is involved in a collaborative project between the two franchises' creators.

E
Exposition - The act of explaining to the audience what is going on, what happened before, or what will happen through the characters.


 * ...dump - Slowing the story down with telling the audience what's happening in the story.

F
Fan - A person who enjoys a franchise and is a part of its regular audience.


 * ...base - The entirety of a franchise's regular audience.
 * ...boy - A male fan.
 * ...dom - A section of a fanbase made of like-minded individuals. This is often confused for "fanbase" and is what leads to people to use the two terms interchangeably.
 * ...fic - Short for "fan fiction".
 * ...girl - "Fangirl" has more than one sense:
 * As a noun, a female fan.
 * As a verb, to mindlessly gush about a franchise or character, often annoying others who disagree or are outside of the fandom.
 * favorite - An aspect, often a character, that the overall audience most heavily enjoys.
 * fiction - Also shortened to "fanfic". A non-canonical story written by a fan that takes place in an established franchise. Although not all are, fanfics are best known for having characters be in sexual situations.

Friendfic - A fanfic in which two characters who aren't canonically friends are such.

G
Grawlix - Symbols that replaced profanities, often in comics. "Grawlixes" is the plural of this term.

I
Installment - An individual addition to the franchise such as one book, movie, TV episode, or game.

L
Lampshading - Referencing an UnTrash with the purpose of either shaming it for being a bad one or to justify playing it. We have a page about this.

Line - A single word, phrase, sentence, or paragraph spoken by a character.

M
Magnum opus - The peak of a creator's work that may often be considered a masterpiece.

O
One-liner - A short joke that fits into a single line.

P
Prequel - The continuation of a story that happens before the original installment. This can happen to reveal characters' backstories or add depth to those backstories without blandly having those characters go on about what their life was like in the past to the audience.

R
Reboot - The continuation of a franchise that has the same characters (possibly with significant changes) in a different setting after the original is concluded.

S
Script - A document that outlines the plot, characters, their lines, and events in the plot.

Sequel - The continuation of a story that happens later in the universe's time.

Ship - "Ship" has more than one sense:

Spin-off - An installation to a franchise separate from what could be considered its main line of installations or that sees at least one character from the Main Cast in a new setting.
 * As a noun, the man-made, fan-made non-canonical relationship between two characters, typically a romantic or sexual one.
 * As a verb, to pair two characters in a relationship.

T
Tearjerker - An installation that tends to or is said to be capable of making its audience cry.

X
x - "x" has more than one sense.


 * Put between the names of two characters in a classic fanfic.
 * Indicates the collaboration of at least and usually two entities, such as franchises or companies.