For most people, the Back to the Future films ended in 1990. For many of the series' fans, however, the adventures of Doc Brown and Marty McFly continue to this day. So do the adventures of Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, Captain Kirk and Spock and the lives of dozens of other well-known and loved characters. All of this is made possible by fan fiction.

Fan fiction is a writing genre in which fans of a series or film construct original writings that continue adventures with the same characters or settings. Quality varies from story to story and author to author mostly because those writing the stories are better fans than writers. In some cases, the fan fiction outshines professionally published series continuations, such as novels for the Star Wars series. There is both an added passion for the story and its characters -- after all, fan fiction writers keep the two alive years after the original creator has moved on to other projects.

Although one can find fan fiction in about almost every film or series genre, it's a writing genre that enjoys mostly an underground reputation, despite the fact it has been alive for almost 30 years. Usually "Star Trek" is blamed, or blessed, for starting it. These self-made tales cropped up at science fiction conventions in the 60s and were passed around as mimeographed and self-published stories.

Wisconsin-based writer Mary Jean Holmes is one of those who has been around since the genre's early days. "I've been aware of [fan fiction] since the 8th grade, in 1966, when groups of kids at the school I attended used to write and trade stories in their genre of the moment," she explains. "At first 'Man from UNCLE' and later 'Star Trek'." Having written more than fifty fan fiction stories, almost half of them novel-length, in five different genres that include Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Ghostbusters, and Back to the Future, Holmes boasts impressive credentials. Interestingly enough, her reputation in the "fanfic" world is such that recently, on E-Bay, a copy of her out-of-print "Quantum Leap"-Back to the Future crossover, "OUTATIME," sold for more than one hundred dollars... when one can download the story for free off the Internet.)

Eventually, the homespun tales -- mostly revolving around "Star Trek" -- were mailed from fan to fan, and the "fanzine" was born. Most were published by fans and sold at cost directly to the audience. Holmes herself learned of fanzines in 1972, during college at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, when she helped publish one sponsored by her school's English department.

"A member of the [fanzine] staff was familiar with several fanzines being published in other parts of the country by science fiction clubs," says Holmes. "Most didn't feature fan fiction, but several published occasional short stories and poetry based on books or television, primarily Lord of the Rings and 'Star Trek.' "

Holmes began to publish her own quarterly fanzine, "Shadowstar," in 1979, a year after she started to write her own fanfic. "Shadowstar" continued for 15 years before escalating publication costs put a stop to it. Most fanzines have now moved to the Internet.

The blueprints used to construct fan fiction can vary from writer to writer. Some writers believe that any interpretation for their genre is good; others stick with the bare basics. Holmes considers only "what is shown in the films" canon for film-inspired genres, and in television-based genres she uses, "the premise as it was set forth as early as possible, and what seems to me to be the episodes that follow the most logical sequence of events faithful to that premise." Some fans also use the original screenplays (and various screenplay drafts), as well as the novelizations of the film/series (if there were some available), book series (if they exist) and even animated series (if they were made). Sometimes, a particular writer's fan fiction is looked upon as canon by the fans -- a surreal experience for the fan who wrote it. Holmes has had such responses to her work, but doesn't mind.

"I find this flattering," Holmes says, "because it tells me I did the job right and created something believable, but also a touch disconcerting, since I am not official and probably never will be."

What moves a person to start writing fan fiction? Many aspiring writers believe it's a dead-end place to use their talent. Fan fiction is rarely acknowledged by professional writers or publications. Because of copyright laws, none of the stories can be published professionally. Few people in the entertainment industry admit to perusing it, thus one cannot be "discovered" as a writer that way. In short, it is a misunderstood and little respected writing genre, one that most people would be hard pressed to take seriously. Some believe that those who write fan fiction lack the creativity to establish their own world and instead must "borrow" from others.

Holmes remembers that "in the early days of fanfic, the fans wrote for two reasons: because they loved the movie or TV show and wanted to read more adventures, or they wanted to learn more about the characters, but this was not being fulfilled by professional sources." Holmes says she wrote original fiction years before taking a pen to fanfic, though she admits that it's more difficult to write the latter than the former.

"In original fiction, you have the freedom to create everything just the way you choose," she says. "In fan fiction, if you're going to do it well, you have to tell the story within an already established framework. Characters have to be completely accurate, or the fans will object. Exhaustive knowledge of the universe is a must, or the fans will tell you everything you did wrong and the plot must be believable within the context of what has gone on before. You can't change things simply to suit your whims, or the story will cease to belong to the genre in which you're writing. And if you're going to do that, why bother?"

The instantaneous interaction of the Internet has given fan fiction new life in recent years. A recent search on Excite using "fan fiction" as a keyword turned up more than 31,000 hits with pages containing the craft.

"Strangely enough," Holmes observes, "with the advent of the Internet and the ease of web publication, the quality [of the work] began to drop again, since web publishing is cheap and requires only the knowledge of how to put up a web page to be accomplished. [Unlike a fanzine], without the need to go through a publisher and an editor, a great deal of low-quality work is appearing, which is possibly why certain license holders, such as George Lucas, have placed a ban on web fiction based on their material."

The move to the Internet has also made the copyright holders nervous. In the past, it was easy to look the other way when it came to fan fiction, as it was usually only read deep within fan communities and not so much by mainstream audiences. Now, since more fans are getting on the 'Net and stumbling across writings about their favorite characters, fanfic poses a threat to the series genres by blurring the lines of what is "real" (established in the films/series) and what is "made up" (created in a fan's work).

In 1994, the company TSR Inc. started devising ways to prevent fans from creating unapproved Dungeon & Dragons worlds and stories. Two years later, Paramount went after several fan sites for "Star Trek," warning them about posting copyrighted photographs, scripts, characters, etc, on their personal pages. The fans who publish fan fiction on their web pages often include disclaimers stating that they do not own the characters, that they are not "official" tales and so on. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't. It depends on which studio owns the rights and how interested they are in potentially alienating their core group of supporters.

Although most of the creators know about fan fiction, few, if any, will admit to reading it. "George Lucas used to [read printed] Star Wars fan fiction, until it became so popular. He couldn't possibly keep up with it," Holmes recalls. Lucas is a minority, however, as Holmes points out. "Other creators have deliberately avoided reading fanfic because they don't want to face possible accusations of plagiarizing a fan's idea, should they use something similar in a future work in the genre."

Statistically, most fan fiction authors are women. It's an interesting twist, considering the roots that fanfic has in science fiction -- and most science fiction fans are stereotyped as male. Holmes agrees that women do have a "strong preference" for fanfic, and offers a theory on why this could be.

"Men and women tend to express themselves in very different ways, men more through action and women through feelings," she says. "Fiction writing is a very emotional means of communication and since fanfic is often a means of expressing the way in which one was touched by another person's work, it's not surprising that more female fans would choose to use this outlet for expression."

But why do fans express themselves in this way? The director of media studies at MIT, Henry Jenkins, believes he knows why. In the August 18, 1997 issue of the New York Times he was quoted as saying that "fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of owned by folk."

"That's actually a rather insightful remark," Holmes says of Jenkin's comment. "In the modern world, a great deal of the new mythology is being created by movies and television, and it is fiercely licensed for the protection of profit. But I believe that in some way George Lucas recognized the need for society to participate in what it accepts and refashions into its new myths when he permitted Star Wars fan fiction to be written and published [as opposed to fanfic published on the Internet], with a few simple rules to prevent things from getting out of hand.

"I wouldn't say that it's specifically the licensing of these new myths that has caused the degradation of myths and legends," Holmes continues, "but rather the shrinking of the world, where the breadth and richness and variety in the tapestry is dwindling because so many people in so many places are acquiring the same heroes, the same myths, the same legends. fan fiction, in its ability to allow many different people to look at the same thing and tell a thousand different versions of 'what if?', puts back the diversity that was squeezed out in the shrinkage."

Regardless of why fans write their own fan fiction, the trend is gaining momentum rather than losing it. With the increasing ease of story availability on the Internet, the genre will surely continue to grow, even if it upsets the creators of the characters. Those who have written fan fiction for years still find new directions in which to take well-loved characters. Holmes herself has no plans to stop doing so as long as the ideas keep coming.

"Inspiration, which sprang from being touched by another person's work, is what first prompted me to write [fan fiction]," says Holmes. "In that touch came the feeling that there was more to the story and its concept than had been shown in the original work, more stories to be told that I couldn't help but feel I had to tell."