New Board Fan Fiction UPDATE

[margaret1234]

I am just about to post this message on the new board, but thought I might as well post it here as well, so that if you do not happen to be visiting the new board just yet you will have a chance to read here as well.


PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO READ THIS MESSAGE

At the beginning of August 2008, in an attempt to tidy up the fan fiction section area to make life easier for the reader in identifying ongoing or finished stories, and particularly for new people coming on to the old D C Message Board, Krystal kindly at our request split the fan fiction into two sections…..Finished or Unfinished. This was fabulous as this made the finding of current stories so much easier. As we now have a brand new board and therefore a new beginning I am sticking this message at the start of the FAN FIC Section as a reminder to established members and as a guideline to new members as to the protocol we should all be working to in an attempt to keep the Fan Fiction sections easy to understand and to make access to ongoing stories effortless..

We have some wonderful writers on this board with varying styles and many different ideas who give us many pleasurable hours of reading, and I for one look forward to many more hours of being entertained in this way. So let’s all pull together and make this an even nicer area to visit.

Guidelines

Fan Fiction – First Sub board. “ Stories In Progress.” This is where all new stories should be posted, whether they be long, medium, short, or one shot stories. No poetry or verses here please, there is a specific section for these. All authors should stipulate in the title heading whether their story is “In Progress” or “Completed” as the case may be. If you fail to do so you will get a polite reminder. If possible, I would like all authors to stipulate their word count at the start of every story wherever possible. If you have completed your story before posting this should be possible. However, if you are writing your story as you go along, then when completed please go back to your first post and add the total word count there. This should hopefully help Lucy when she gathers in all information needed for her end of the year FAN FIC awards and only takes you a few seconds.

Note: we now have an unlimited number of pages allowed, so all stories can be completed under one thread. This is a big improvement.

While on this subject…… please do not post individual chapters under separate threads. If the chapter is something following on in the same story they should be posted consecutively in a continuous thread.

As we will have a fewer number of threads, I am changing the format for completed stories………as soon as I see a completed message I will move the story to the “ Completed Stories” sub board under this section. Whatever date they are completed they will remain there until the end of the current year so that members can refresh their memories if they wish before voting for Lucy’s Fan Fiction awards at the end of any given year. At the same time this will be a ready made list for Lucy to work from if she wishes to use this for that purpose. A year will start from 1st January ending 31st December.

At the end of each year all completed stories will then be moved over to the Fan Fiction Archive section

Any unfinished story will also be moved to the Fan Fiction Archive section if it has not been updated after a 4 month time lapse from the authors last post. This will apply to everyone whose story falls into this category. Non completion of a story is absolutely frustrating to the readers; having read a story so far only to find it has no end is just not fair. So, I would please ask everyone not to post at all if there is any doubt that you may be unable to finish. There may of course be unforeseen circumstances that dictate that you cannot finish, but in this case a quick note added to your story saying you cannot finish would be courteous and the readers would understand. If after a further two months, the author has made no contact……the story will be removed from the board.

I wish all authors happy writing.

Thank you for taking the time to read this message.

Margaret

[Ace]

Sounds fair to me. One question came to my mind though. Lets say someone has written a story and for some reason abandoned it and it has been moved the the archive. And about a year later that person remembers that story and is ready to finish it, maybe write it over from the beginning or just add more chapters. What then?

Ace

[margaret1234]

Ace, if a story is moved to the Archive Section because the author has obviously lost interest in keeping the story going.......it will only stay in the archive for a further two months, and will then be removed. The whole idea of tightening up in this area is to try and ensure that we only have authors posting stories that will be completed. An unfinished story will not be there a year later.
If, a story is moved to the archives after 4 months and the author can come back to me within the next two months, saying she wishes to resume her story......then I will move it back to stories in progress. If one happens to write it again from the beginning, then it becomes a new story in progress, even if it has it's original title.

I am not being deliberately awkward here, but I am sure you will appreciate that fan fiction fans deserve to be reading something that will be finished and not be left in mid air until such time an author feels like she might wish to pick up from where she left off.

I would suggest that all authors should keep copies of their own work, (and I imagine most do) and not rely on the board to keep unfinished stories just in case someone feels like coming back a year later.

Margaret

[lucymalta]

Ok, so an unfinished story will disappear from the archive after a particular time period, but will finished stories remain on the board? Or will they disappear after a particular time too?

Lucy

[margaret1234]

Lucy.....finished stories will remain. No problem in that area. An archive of finished stories will be a lovely library of stories for new people to go and read and for some of us to re read our favourite stories.

Margaret

[Ace]

Thank you Margaret. I know you are not deliberately awkward and neither am I. I just didn't understand, but now I do. ;D So yay.

Ace

[margaret1234]

Ace, I know you were not .....I just went into answering your question in detail in case anyone else had the same question as yourself.

Margaret

[deborah]

margaret Thank You for the clarification. I am a fan. I like to read the fanfics. I am not good at expressing myself for any length of time, in thet I mean I tend to sound illiterate when I go into a lengthy review. So they will probably be short; and sometimes not make much sense. So everyone keep up the good work and the good stories coming.

Deborah

[margaret1234]

deborah.......you do just fine, we would all rather you say a few words than none at all.


2nd UPDATE

All existing stories in progress have now been moved. The following stories are those that I picked out as still ongoing although a couple of them are getting close to the 4 month lapse of non posting by the authors.

1. NV's ..................................... Lessons Learned
2. Dr Anna McBreadle.(Sam)......Family Values
3. Ace........................................One of Their Own
4. Anastasia..............................Two Worlds
5. Dalet.....................................Last of the Gods
6. Laqi Caine.............................Ether Surfing

Please Note...... we will be moving all this years completed stories over to the the new board archive section. This will take a little time so I would ask you please be patient.

Margaret