Where did fanfic come from?
Fanfic has, in a lot of ways, been around forever. If you take an expansive view of what fanfic is, you could easily argue that Dante’s Inferno is just self-insert Bible fanfic. It is in human nature to tell stories, and retell them, and then tell them again. Fanfic is just a very modern term for retelling old stories with your own spin. I think that contemporary fanfic is also inherently tied to community, fandom, and sharing that fic. It’s not necessary that fanfic be shared, obviously, but I think that it’s a major component when judging where contemporary fanfic started.
