Fan fiction in the context of "Fan labor"

Electronic literature or digital literature is a genre of literature where digital capabilities such as interactivity, multimodality or algorithmic text generation are used aesthetically. Works of electronic literature are usually intended to be read on digital devices, such as computers, tablets, and mobile phones. They cannot be easily printed, or cannot be printed at all, because elements crucial to the work cannot be carried over onto a printed version.

The first literary works for computers, created in the 1950s, were computer programs that generated poems or stories, now called generative literature. In the 1960s experimental poets began to explore the new digital medium, and the first early text-based games were created. Interactive fiction became a popular genre in the late 1970s and 1980s, with a thriving online community in the 2000s. In the 1980s and 1990s hypertext fiction begun to be published, first on floppy disks and later on the web. Hypertext fictions are stories where the reader moves from page to page by selecting links. In the 2000s digital poetry became popular, often including animated text, images and interactivity. In the 2010s and 2020s, electronic literature uses social media platforms, with new genres like Instapoetry or Twitterature as well as literary practices like netprov. Although web-based genres like creepypasta and fan fiction are not always thought of as electronic literature (because they usually manifest as linear texts that could be printed out and read on paper), other scholars argue that these are born digital genres that depend on online communities and thus should be included in the field.

A fan or fanatic, sometimes also termed an aficionado or enthusiast, is a person who exhibits strong interest or admiration for something or somebody, such as a celebrity, a sport, a sports team, a genre, a politician, a book, a television show, a movie, a video game or an entertainer. Collectively, the fans of a particular object or person constitute its fanbase or fandom. They may show their enthusiasm in a variety of ways, such as by promoting the object of their interest, being members of a related fan club, holding or participating in fan conventions or writing fan mail. They may also engage in creative activities ("fan labor") such as creating fanzines, writing fan fiction, making memes, drawing fan art, or developing fan games. Some excessively avid fans are called "stans" (a portmanteau of stalker and fan).

The canon of a work of fiction is "the body of works taking place in a particular fictional world that are widely considered to be official or authoritative; [especially] those created by the original author or developer of the world". Canon is contrasted with, or used as the basis for, works of fan fiction and other derivative works.

Fan art or fanart is artwork created by fans of a work of fiction or celebrity depicting events, character, or other aspect of the work. As fan labor, fan art refers to artworks that are not created, commissioned, nor endorsed by the creators of the work from which the fan art derives.

A different, older meaning of the term is used in science fiction fandom, where fan art traditionally describes original (rather than derivative) artwork related to science fiction or fantasy, created by fan artists, and appearing in low- or non-paying publications such as semiprozines or fanzines, and in the art shows of science fiction conventions. The Hugo Award for Best Fan Artist has been given each year since 1967 to artists who create such works. Like the term fan fiction (although to a lesser extent), this traditional meaning is now sometimes confused with the more recent usage described above.

New Adventures of Alice is a novel by John Rae, written in 1917 and published by P. F. Volland of Chicago. It is, according to Carolyn Sigler, one of the more important "Alice imitations", or novels inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice books and is one of the earliest known examples of fan fiction.

The book opens with a little girl, Betsy, wishing for another Alice book. She passes into a dream, and finds in the attic a book which begins with Alice reading Mother Goose rhymes to her kittens, leading to further adventures.