Workshop 2 - Learn The Jargon

Learning The Slangs!

One of the first troubles I had when I started to work with fan fictions (and I talk about the genre as an all, not only the Beatle stories) was the jargon used to define and classify the stories and the characters. It's a code of their own. So, I prepared this small glossary of Fan Fic Jargon. You never know when you might meet one of them.


  • Crossover
  • A crossover is when you place two characthers from different places in a same story. In our case here, different bands. So yes, you can mix Beatles and Stones, or The Monkees or...well, whatever your mind allows you to. A time-travel crossover would be a meeting between charcthers of different times ( think about Oasis ).


  • Slash
  • Usually placed as a "//" after the title of a story, it means that the chapter or the story has adult content (I'm talking about the hardcore stuff here). You see this more on directories, not much on the Beatle circle of stories, but...you never know.
    The story of the slash came as a way to fool the safety sites or eventual mothers that were wandering to see what their children were watching. Nobody would ever know, right? ;)


  • "The salt of Earth"
  • I don't think this is used anymore, but a "salt of Earth" is the supporting characther that makes all the difference in the story. It might get involved with the main charcther or might help the hero, or even be the one with the funny bone in the story ( there's one in every crowd! ). His/her presence makes the story good - not to mention he/she can be a great scapegoat whenever you are under a writer's cramp!


  • Mary Sue
  • The kind of female characther that nobody can stand in a story. Mary Sue is the typical "damsel in disgrace", always in troubles or always above troubles, that seems to be only there to fall in love. Nothing against the "fall in love" part, but if you want the story to win some good points in the readers' concept, try to avoid the Mary Sue concept.


  • Realism
  • The word says all - keep History and dates and information as they are. Some fan fics do it, some ( good part of them ) don't. Feel free to follow whatever you choose. Remember - it's fiction.


  • Scrap Off
  • Take out from History one fact or characther that you don't like or that you think that will bring trouble to the development of your story. Most of the time, girlfriends and wives are "scrapped off", or else there wouldn't be a story most of the time. Be careful - if you "scrap off" too much you might end up with no background to lean your story on. It's always good to leave something from reality on the text.


    Copyright, February 1999; Nowhere Land Beatle Fan Fiction Club.