An online fanfic whose chapters are spaced with wider updates each time. While this may be the result of a writer working for an overall better product, there is a higher chance of the writer getting derailed by work or personal life. Eventually the fanfic stops updating, and the reader is left forever wanting. The death knell comes when, rather than simply coming out with a new chapter, the author just reassures the audience they ''haven't'' given up. Although the fanfic in question may update again - sometimes just so the author states outright that it's a Dead Fic or on Permanent Hiatus. (Or in that matter leaving a note at the end of a chapter and telling what was supposed to happen.)
Granted, this happens all the time, and fanfiction.net is littered with the dead, many of which only have one chapter. After all, fanfiction is the province of amateurs, and when it's not a living, you have any reason to drop the fanfic - interests may change, Real Life may take over, et cetera. But the pain implied in "Dead Fic" is a fanfiction that's superbly well-written, that enhances the canon it was based on, that was clearly the work of love and devotion, that is left to dwindle and die alone despite reviews