Real person fiction: Encyclopedia II - Real person fiction - Description

Real person fiction - Description

In general, the authors seem to adopt the public personas of the celebrities in question as their own characters, building a fictional universe based on the real-life histories of their idols. Information from interviews, documentaries, music videos and more are hungrily assimilated into the "canon" on which the stories are based. Communities of writers can reinforce each other, building collective archetypes based on those public personas. Communities also develop their own ethics on what sort of stories are acceptable -- some are uncomfortable with slash fiction, or with mention of the celebrity's real-life families, or with so-called darkfic (stories involving suicide, murder, rape). Like most fan fiction, the RPF genre has stories ranging from innocent to adult.

Unlike many of the writers who work with commercially-presented fictional characters (Star Trek, Star Wars, etc.), a number of RPF authors began writing on their own, without any awareness of a larger fanfic community. A very common reaction among newcomers to an RPF community is "I thought I was the only one who wrote stories like this!" This reaction is common in the overarching fanfiction fandoms as well, both FPF and RPF. Many are completely unaware of the media fandom's taboo towards Real Person Fic, where it was acceptable to write about the characters, but not about the actors who portrayed them.

Portrayals of actors in RPF stories are often heavily influenced by characters the actors portray. This is particularly noticeable in Lord of the Rings RPF, where Viggo Mortensen is frequently shown as taking an Aragorn-like leadership role, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan as lighthearted Hobbit-like pranksters, and Elijah Wood as more physically fragile and emotionally vulnerable than his colleagues.

Based on discussions on FanDomination.Net, between one fifth and one third of these stories may take the form of a "Mary Sue" story. This type of story features an original female character. The character may outshine the band, become a new member or be involved with a member of the band. Because of the focus on the original character and poorer writing that does not make these original female characters engaging, these stories are frequently labelled Mary Sues in some communities.

Additionally, a small number of people in some communities are under the belief that a celebrity is involved in a real relationship with another celebrity, and go as far as to spend large amounts of time searching for proof of this relationship. Writing RPF stories is one way to put forth a theory or "prove" that a particular pair of celebrities are in a relationship. A well-known example in fanfic circles is the "Dom-Elijah" complex of speculation and stories built around a supposed relationship between Dominic Monaghan and Elijah Wood, two actors from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.

Politician fic is more often used as a form of satire, or to highlight the underlying biases or attitudes of the politician being portrayed.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Description", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki