Turning Severus Snape’s life upside down - Motivations and reasons behind reading and writing fan fictions
For as almost everyone knows at least the name Harry Potter, many would be surprised to know how many versions besides the original canon exist. Some fans even go so far to make it their mission to rewrite all seven books through the lens of other characters. One of the longest stories of that kind written in German can be found on the website FanFiktion.de, consisting out of 629 chapters and more than 4 million words at the moment with the author still working on it. Such narratives are called fan fictions and are, as already in the name, written by fans. All stories are as unique as their authors and so are also the motivations and
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In addition, the fan fictions must not be crossover stories, a term which refers to stories that include characters from other fan cultures. To give an illustration, a Harry Potter fan fiction which includes characters from Game of Thrones would be called a crossover story. Furthermore, the story needed to meet the status of a complete story. Other factors were not actively included, to ensure a random and objective choice. Firstly, a fan fiction from the website archiveofourown.org was chosen. Something in the depths of the dark is a so-called OneShot, a story capturing only a single moment. It consists of only one chapter, in total only 3453 words, and includes a personal statement of the author with the username LullabyKnell. It was published in 2016. Secondly, a fan fiction named The Moment It Began, consisting out of 125 chapters, was chosen. Cynthia Hilston, the author, has also published own books. She published The Moment It Began in 2007 but updated it until 2016; at least according to the online information which are available on her profile on fanfiction.net1.1 Nevertheless, the story is labelled as complete. Both stories share the fact that they play in a AU, shortened for Alternative Universe. Such a label in the description and summary of the stories points towards the fact that the authors made major changes in regards to the original canon. Due to pure luck, both stories relate to each other and are partly connected, as will be discussed in a later part of this