Revised Fan Fiction sticky., Please read this before posting. Options

[Alexander]

The amount of stickies in this section had grown quite a bit over the past few years, so here is the new and improved Fan Fiction section sticky.


This section is meant for posting Elder Scrolls related Fan Fiction, even so, if you have Fan Fiction not related to The Elder Scrolls, we'll welcome that as well. Non fantasy related Fan Fiction may be removed at a moderator's discretion.

The entire forum is a 13+ forum. That means that anything on it should meet those requirements. Censor avoidance is not allowed in a story. If you feel your story simply cannot go without adult content, please make sure to contact a moderator or administrator before posting the story to make sure it meets the requirements for an exception.

Please do not create a thread solely to announce a future story, nor for the sole reason of asking advice on a story that already has a thread.

Polls are also frowned upon in this section so before posting it, please make sure the poll actually adds something.

[Alexander]

Replying to stories.

We've lost some balance recently in replies, which is to be expected as new people join. I'm not going to criticise people for replying, but we have our own way of doing things at this forum. We've been running for years now, and all our older members have come to an understanding. So for the benefit of everyone, this is what I suggest. For every story you reply to, try to incorporate the following.

Something you liked about the story.
Something that could maybe be improved.
A positive mention to the author for taking the time and effort to share their work with us.

Dead easy, and it won't take any longer than before to reply. Someone criticised us recently for being a "warm fuzzy forum". You know what? We are, and we like it that way. We want to help people to improve and we want to encourage. I can see no reason why we can't do both at the same time.


As a minimum those three points are what I'd like to see. If people want to go into more detail than that, great, go for it! If every post has those three points though, we're getting a balanced take, even in a short reply - which should stop the "great, well done" posts. Minimum, not maximum. Any posts that do that, and go into greater detail as well I'll be REALLY happy with.

Now aside from that, we've noticed there has been an increase in requests for critical replies to stories. We believe we've come up with a good compromise between the way we're used to having this done and the requests.

As you might have noticed there's a new sub section titled "critical reviews". If anyone wants a more critical view or review from members then what we're used to here, then you're welcome to post your story in that sub section. It's entirely voluntary. Some guidelines will be posted in there going into this further.
I'll note though, critical does not mean brutal or containing personal attacks.

[Alexander]

Creating your story;

First, you need to have some ideas in mind- who is the character (or characters)? What do you want to happen? If you are writing a fan-fic, the setting is already provided, but you can pick and chose the parts of that setting that will be useful to your story.

So, those are your elements- character, plot, setting.

For the character, ask yourself some questions: What is he/she doing here? Does this individual have any particular traits that make life easier/harder (bad temper, prejudice, wit, charm, etc. How aware of events is the character? Is s/he cluelessly stumbling from one misadventure to another, driven by circumstances? Or does the character have a purpose, one that drives him forward against all obstacles?

What point-of-view do you want to write in First person narrative-

"I had not intended to kill the annoying little Bosmer, but his constant chatter left me no choice."

Third person narrative- "Psmith had made up his mind. If the stupid elf didn't shut up in the next five seconds, there was going to be blood upon the floor. And it wasn't going to be Psmith's."

Do you want to be humorous, dark, darkly humorous?

The main thing to do is to pick an event, preferably a startling or exciting event, and throw your reader into the action. Write in a style that you like to read. Think about your favorite stories and about what makes them enjoyable. Most of all, write down EVERYTHING, right when you think of it. Then, before you post, makes sure what you have makes sense, moves the story along, and leaves the reader wanting to know 'What happened next?'

[Alexander]

Editing assistance;

For those of you writers who think you need some assistance with editing your stories before posting them.....

Feel free to PM me and I´ll try to help you.

We have quite a few very skilled experts here, who almost certain will help you out, if they´re asked to..

[Burnt Sierra]

The Critical Reviews section has been closed, and all the stories in there have been moved either to the general fanfiction area, or to the sub-forum of the specific writer.

A pity, but it was never really used - best to free up that space for something else.

Burnt Sierra