I'm trying to think of the fancy word given to stuff like Wicked and the Jane Austen spinoffs, and not coming up with it, though.

Well, there's a whole long literary tradition of basically writing fic and there's been a ton of it in the last twenty years.

The first one I can think of is The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys which tells the story of Rochester's wife.

But there's been Ahab's Wife and Foe (Robinson Crusoe from the pov of Friday), Updike's rewrite of The Scarlet Letter etc. etc.

Yeah, Wide Sargasso Sea, H (which was a novel of Heathcliff's lost years) -- there are a lot of them. I think the literary community, since most of them usually deal with classics or the canon in one way or another, usually call them "reimaginings" or something.

So then what is fic? Is it anything that isn't written by the original author? Whatabout once an author is dead but stuff is still "published" by her like V.C. Andrews?

I think in order to be fanfic, it has to be written outside the source material's canon, and probably without official approval. So I'd say the VC Andrews novels written by other people don't count because they're still an official part of the series. But Pride and Prejudice and Zombies definitely does.

(The Dune prequels are fuzzy because they're supposedly being written based on Frank Herbert's notes (I guess the notes he wrote while HIGH ON CRACK) and obviously his estate holds the copyright to the original works and is behind the prequels and they're meant to be a part of the official canonical Dune universe, but ZOMG THEY ARE UNREADABLE DRECK AND I HATE THEM SO MUCH. Sure, Chapterhouse had it's issues, but at least it didn't make stupid mistakes about the main character's freaking origin story.)

t /Dunerant

I'm trying to think of the fancy word given to stuff like Wicked and the Jane Austen spinoffs, and not coming up with it, though.

Pastiche?

Deconstruction?

Pastiche is more an imitation of style, not a new exploration of story elements.

I'm trying to think of the fancy word given to stuff like Wicked and the Jane Austen spinoffs, and not coming up with it, though.

All I can think of is midrash, but that's specific to the Jewish scriptures, right?

That's two different stories, though they're part of the same series by the same author.

I read them so long ago they have merged into one gloriously wacky AU in my head!

All I can think of is midrash, but that's specific to the Jewish scriptures, right?

I think so, although I saw lots of people giving that name to The Red Tent.

Is there any published "literary" fic based on a source material still under copyright? All the ones I can think of are riffing on public domain material, which obviously makes a huge difference when you're trying to get paid for it.