Council of Elrond

Welcome Guest
Username: Password: Register

Forum Home » Tolkien Related Discussion » Fanfiction & Poetry » CoE Fanfiction Updates- please read

Author	Topic:

~nólemë~

Fan Creations Admin & Creations Forum Moderator
Posts: 10423
Send Message

CoE Fanfiction Updates- please read
on: April 13, 2011 11:57

Hi everyone, I'm the new Fan Creations Admin. I'm establishing this thread to inform you all about any recent changes, updates and backlogs.

So far, the changes are the following:

CATEGORY
- we have a new category for stories about The Hobbit.

CHARACTERS

- basic character list is now available for the Silmarillion category. All authors with stories already posted in the Silmarillion category can upload the characters from the list to their story summary.
If you are writing a Silmarillion story (or have one in the archive) with canon characters that are not in the list, please contact me and I'll add them

(however, please don't ask for character inclusions if you are planning a story without actually having started writing- we don't want readers to click on a newly added character only to find out there are no stories with them

)

I'll also add new LotR (canon) characters on request for your existing/in-progress LotR fanfic; just drop me a note, either here or by PM.

GENRES
- we have two new genres from now on:

1. Drabbles for 100-word stories that have a depth/meaning to them. You can also submit double drabbles and drabble series for this genre.

2. Slash for stories that contain slash (same-sex pairing). It is no longer necessary to mention slash in the story summary, but whether you write graphic or non-graphic (implied) slash, submission of the story with the appropriate genre label is required, since there are readers who wish to avoid this type of fiction.

SUBMISSIONS

- I have taken care of all past sumbissions. If you wish to submit new fanfic to the CoE archives, go ahead

- The Submission Rules have been updated. Please check them out. The most important changes involve:

- correct spelling and grammar of Tolkien realia is now in the list of grammar/spelling requirements. If you are not sure about the correct form or spelling of something from Tolkien's world, please check out Tolkien's works, or the guide linked in the Submission Rules before submitting your fanfiction.
Some of the notorious mistakes are e.g. the singulars and plurals for races and kindreds ('one Teler', not 'one Teleri', 'one Adan', not 'one Edain').

- stories that deviate from book or movie canon in important aspects will be required to be submitted into their own category (Non-canon/AU).
...If e.g. Boromir survives in your story or Sauron wins the battle before the Black Gate, your story is an AU (clear contradiction of the storyline- a 'what-if' scenario resulting in a different plot from the one in the canon).
...If your Aragorn marries an Original Character, or your Arwen has a sister, it is non-canon (deviates from important facts, but has no crucial impact on the original book plot).
...If, however, your Frodo speaks slang, or if your Celeborn is blonde, these are minor details that are perfectly fine in LotR movie/book category.

-------

That's it for now.

If you have any suggestions, requests, questions or problems, please contact me, either in this thread or by PM. I'll be looking forward to your feedback.

[Edited on 17/6/2011 by ~nólemë~]

----------

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit

~nólemë~

Fan Creations Admin & Creations Forum Moderator
Posts: 10423
Send Message

RE: CoE Fanfiction Updates- please read
on: April 26, 2011 10:31

Now available:

- Moving stories from one category to another (e.g. from LotR Books to Silmarillion etc.). Contact me if you feel your fic is in the wrong category.

- Nasty review deleting. If you received a flame or a generally mean and unconstructive review for your story, drop me a note.

Also open is main character adding into the list of characters- for those who either already have a story in the archive or have started writing it. (see above under 'Characers')

- a FAQ-style guide on writing fanfics on CoE (see topped threads)

- tips for reviewing on CoE (see topped threads)

---------

Will be available in the future:

- word count in fanfic summary

- completion status in fanfic summary

[Edited on 17/6/2011 by ~nólemë~]

----------

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit

Malinornë

FAQ Admin, Quenya Moderator & EldameldÃ«
Posts: 1205
Send Message

RE: CoE Fanfiction Updates- please read
on: April 28, 2011 02:37

Could you please add the following characters to the Silmarillion category:

Eöl
Aredhel

Thanks! Will upload fic with them in a minute.

ETA: Fic submitted

But, for now it has both characters as 'Celegorm', since I didn't understand what to do to leave this blank until the new characters have been added. Could you please correct this if the story is accepted? Thanks!

Edited again: Please add 'Bilbo' to the list of characters for The Hobbit.

[Edited on 28/4/2011 by Malinornë]

~nólemë~

Fan Creations Admin & Creations Forum Moderator
Posts: 10423
Send Message

RE: CoE Fanfiction Updates- please read
on: June 23, 2011 11:16

An appeal to all our fanfic authors - when you get the acceptance letter in your mailbox, please open it and glance at the contents before deleting it. Sometimes, I ask a question in it related to your fic, or ask for a minor edit or category/genre change, and would appreciate your feedback.
Deleting the acceptance email without looking at it will result in me making said suggested changes to your fic (such as category or rating change), and although I'd inform you of having done so via PM, it's unnecessarily time-consuming.
So please, look briefly at your acceptance emails to see if something's attached there.
Thanks.

----------

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit

~nólemë~

Fan Creations Admin & Creations Forum Moderator
Posts: 10423
Send Message

Re: CoE Fanfiction Updates- please read
on: March 06, 2012 03:32

Hello all,
welcome to the new version of CoE. Here's where I'll post Fanfiction related changes and updates. As the conversion is a complicated process, and CoE has many other sections to cover, you may find some features missing at the moment. But rest assured - most of it will be back eventually.

Stuff that is going away for good:

- Pick-your-path stories

Stuff that is going away, although it may re-appear later if there's general demand:

- round-robin stories

Stuff that is inavailable at the moment, but will be coming back as soon as time allows:

- automatic emails informing fanfic authors that their submission has been accepted / declined

- fanfiction search sorting

- some now-outdated links and information in fanfic Submission Rules and introduction paragraphs. I will be going through them in the near future.

Also, some of you may find weird characters for e.g. a quotation mark or 'ë' in your fics. I've also noticed some fics lacking reviews they previously had. The problem will be looked into soon.

Enjoy roaming our new CoE, and feel free to voice here (or, better still, in the site move question thread in the CoE Announcements forum) any fanfiction related questions that you may have. (while bearing in mind that features are gradually being added and updated by Rivka)

----------

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit

~nólemë~

Fan Creations Admin & Creations Forum Moderator
Posts: 10423
Send Message

Re: CoE Fanfiction Updates- please read
on: March 08, 2012 02:39

Hi guys, just informing our authors who have sent (or are planning to send) their submissions to our fanfic section:
there may be a slight backlog spanning over the next few days, as I'm testing stuff in the fanfic section and need to report any problems I may encounter first. After that's done, I'll get to the pending submissions. Thanks for your understanding.

Submission Rules are fixed and updated now, as is Writing Fanfic on CoE- an Easy Newbie's Guide, general intro paragraphs in the fanfic section, and Fanfiction Help.
Once I'm done with the fic testing, I'll update the info in this thread's posts.

----------

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit

~nólemë~

Fan Creations Admin & Creations Forum Moderator
Posts: 10423
Send Message

Re: CoE Fanfiction Updates- please read
on: March 11, 2012 03:59

Backlog in incoming stories cleared. All waiting stories are validated now.

Now, there are a few issues that some of you may encounter in fanfiction. They will be dealt with within the next few weeks, so please stay positive and patient.

The known issues are:

- weird characters showing in some fanfics
- noone can edit or delete fics and reviews at the moment
- update date is not showing and stories that got new chapters are not moved to the forefront automatically (chapter adding itself works fine)
- only one character currently shows up in the Character list, although more can be added via the administration area. If you wish for more than one character to display in your story's character list, drop me a PM and I'll add the missing characters.

----------

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit

Starz

Council Member
Posts: 1
Send Message

Re: CoE Fanfiction Updates- please read
on: May 25, 2012 12:35

How goes the problems with the edit/delete?
I am ready to upload a reconstructed version of a fic and tried to delete the old one...

~nólemë~

Fan Creations Admin & Creations Forum Moderator
Posts: 10423
Send Message

Re: CoE Fanfiction Updates- please read
on: May 25, 2012 04:31

Unfortunately, due to a real-life hindrance, Rivka hasn't had time yet to do any fixing in fanfic. Which means that all that I stated above still holds, except I've discovered that fic editing and deleting can be done upon request by the admin in the admin area.
So if you'd like your fics deleted or altered, Starz, please drop me a PM with the details. If you'd like to send a longer text for me to substitute for the old one, it would be better to send it as a new fic: one loses the formatting in PMs, whereas with a real fic submission, I could just copy the text from the new submission (which I'd subsequently delete) and paste it into the old one.

-----

All authors submitting fics should be aware that one still cannot edit or delete their own fic, and that if you tick multiple characters in your fic's profile, only the alphabetically first one shows up in the admin area, and in the validated fic.
You, can, however, send me a PM with the character list, and all characters can be added through the admin module. Same goes for edits in fanfic text. Only the admin can edit fics at the moment.

Thanks for your patience everyone, and please hang on a while longer. Hopefully the fic area gets fixed in the near future.

----------

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit

~nólemë~

Fan Creations Admin & Creations Forum Moderator
Posts: 10423
Send Message

Re: CoE Fanfiction Updates- please read
on: June 03, 2012 01:11

Info to all authors, especially those of very short fics. The following rule has been added to our Submission Rules:

5) Length:

- Story: The minimum length of a story is 100 words for drabbles. (For definition of a drabble, see below) Stories of other genres must be longer than 100 words.

- Chapter: The minimum length of a chapter is 100 words for drabble series (see below for the CoE definition of drabble), longer for regular chapters. A chapter should ideally not be longer than 2000 words, for the sake of not cluttering the incoming stories box, but this is not a requirement.

Drabbles are 100 words long mini-fictions. Drabbles accepted on CoE must be meaningful, pointed, concise, and set in Tolkien’s universe. AU, Non-canon and crack drabbles are not accepted.

Whether reflections or action, drabbles are rather difficult to write because of the point they ought to make; a 100-word description of how a pretty elf-maid is picking a dress for her approaching wedding to Legolas, is not likely to get accepted as a drabble.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask here, or PM me.

----------

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit

~nólemë~

Fan Creations Admin & Creations Forum Moderator
Posts: 10423
Send Message

Re: CoE Fanfiction Updates- please read
on: August 13, 2012 04:57

There have been some questions and issues of late concerning the following points in CoE's Submission Rules: 1) plagiarism and quote referencing, 2) fanfiction ratings.
I addressed the former in the 'Writing Fanfiction on CoE' thread, and am reposting it here:

16. "Why are you so strict about quote referencing and plagiarism? If I just have a single movie/book quote in my fic, do I still need to reference it?"

Yes, you do. Especially if it's a unique quote, such as "Fly, you fools!" or "I choose a mortal life.", and if it's used in the same situation as in the book/movie.
By posting a fic, you claim authorship of all you wrote. If you use someone else's direct quotations (another fanfic author's, Tolkien's, movie scriptwriters'...) and you are aware of it, they need to be clearly referenced. Otherwise you (mis)lead the readers to believe you are the author of these quotes - in other words, you plagiarize.

- Examples of proper quote referencing: footnotes saying "All quotes in bold are from Peter Jackson's The Two Towers movie." or "All text in italics is from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books."

- Examples of insufficient quote referencing: footnotes saying "Some quotes in this story are from the LotR books." (which quotes?) or "The song I used is Galadriel's Lament." (book and author missing)

Just like you wouldn't use the latter examples in an academic essay for school, please extend the same courtesy to the authors of the quotes you knowingly use in fanfiction.

Any questions - feel free to ask.

----------

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit

Erucenindë

Head Of OromÃ«
Posts: 3311
Send Message

Re: CoE Fanfiction Updates- please read
on: August 13, 2012 05:35

I do have a question... more of a, "is this ok?" question.

In a story I just wrote, I used quite a few quotes. I made sure to reference them accordingly. I also used what I would call indirect quotes... the sentences were different than what was originally said, but they were close enough that I didn't feel like I could call them my own. So at the end of my chapters I said that all direct and indirect quotes were from ____. I italicized everything that was direct or indirect. I'm assuming that is ok, since it's better to be safe than sorry?

Also, is there a better way to indicate quotes other than italics? I find them distracting to the overall flow of the story.

~nólemë~

Fan Creations Admin & Creations Forum Moderator
Posts: 10423
Send Message

Re: CoE Fanfiction Updates- please read
on: August 13, 2012 03:07

As for direct quotes, bolding or italicizing the quoted text seems to be the easiest way to mark material that isn't yours. Numbered footnotes or asterisks can be used as well, but in my experience, they annoy the reader more by making the text look like an academic essay.

//Furthermore, I am not sure that numbered footnotes are even doable on CoE.//

As for indirect quotes, CoE is pretty benevolent here. We don't require these to be italicized or bolded. However, basically copying an entire stretch of text (from books, movies, other fanfiction...) with just a few words changed, belongs under the 'plagiarism of the movie script' rule, and is not accepted.

To be specific:

- acceptable: "Arwen said she chose a mortal life. Then she proceeded to give him the Evenstar, despite his protests, and in the end he yielded to her wish."

- unacceptable (unless referenced): "Arwen said she chose a mortal life. She gave him the Evenstar. He objected saying she couldn't give him that, but she answered it was hers to give to whom she would, like her heart."

Too few words are changed in the latter example to differentiate it from the movie. The beauty of fanfic is in creating one's own plots and dialogues (or cleverly blending it together with the original), not copying from another source. It makes one look like one doesn't have any new story to tell.

Hope that answers your question, at least as far as CoE fanfic is concerned. Other sites follow their own quote referencing rules which are in some cases more benevolent than CoE, in other cases stricter than CoE.

----------

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit

~nólemë~

Fan Creations Admin & Creations Forum Moderator
Posts: 10423
Send Message

Re: CoE Fanfiction Updates- please read
on: August 22, 2012 06:39

The following has been added to our 'Writing Fanfiction on CoE' thread; if you find yourself unsure about what rating to use in your fic, you may find this handy:

GUIDE TO CoE FANFIC RATINGS

CoE uses the following movie-based ratings: G, PG, PG-13, R, and NC-17. To better adjust these ratings to fiction and to help authors unsure of which rating to employ, CoE offers the following specifications:

G - suitable even for children. No potentially offensive or disturbing material.

PG - some of the content may not be suitable for younger children. May contain mild expletives and mild swearing, mild violence, mentions of character death(s).

PG-13 - some of the content may not be suitable for children under 13 and sensitive teens. May contain expletives, moderate swearing (nothing sexuality-oriented), moderate violence (including blood), delicately handled character death(s), mild hinted-at sexual content. No disturbing topics (rape, drug or child abuse, self-harm...).
- a PG-13 rated chapter in a lower-rated story needs to be labeled in the opening of said chapter.

R - content that may not be suitable for teens under 17 and sensitive readers. May contain expletives, swearing, violence, character death(s), non-graphic sexual content. May contain mentions of disturbing topics.
- an R-rated chapter in a lower-rated story needs to be clearly labeled in the chapter's opening.

NC-17 - suitable for adults only. Contains strong profanity including sexuality-oriented vocabulary, graphic violence and graphic sexual content. May contain disturbing topics (torture, abuse, rape, self-harm...).
Please note that CoE does not accept NC-17 rated stories. A single NC-17 rated chapter is acceptable if its use is truly warranted; this means mostly canon plots. To use an example - graphic violence in a chapter describing the Kinslaying at Sirion is acceptable; graphic torture of your Original Character at the hands of Orcs in a made-up plot is not considered warranted, and toning such chapter down to at least R is recommended.
- a NC-17 chapter must be clearly labeled in the chapter's opening.

CoE tolerates one higher-rated chapter per story (such as a PG-13 or R chapter in an otherwise PG story). If two and more chapters are rated higher than the rest of the story, the overall story rating needs to be changed to the higher rating.

----------

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit

~nólemë~

Fan Creations Admin & Creations Forum Moderator
Posts: 10423
Send Message

on: August 13, 2013 07:35

To all fanfic authors submitting to CoE - EDITED:

Please bear in mind that BB codes (i.e. codes looking like this - [/b], [/i]) don't work in submitted fics. For bold font and italics, please use the HTML codes (these ones - , or also , ) instead.

[Edited on 08/22/2013 by ~nólemë~]

----------

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit

~nólemë~

Fan Creations Admin & Creations Forum Moderator
Posts: 10423
Send Message

on: September 22, 2013 04:58

There's a glitch in the fanfic submission form that allows the author to submit a story without selecting a category or genre. Just so there is no misunderstanding, 'category' (Hobbit / LotR movie / LotR book / Silm. / AU, Non-canon) is compulsory for a fic to have, otherwise I cannot publish it. 'Genre' is advisable to select, for the convenience of your readers, and required with slash fics.

----------

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit

~nólemë~

Fan Creations Admin & Creations Forum Moderator
Posts: 10423
Send Message

on: May 28, 2014 05:08

The Mary Sue test (link in Submission Rules) that CoE uses, has been updated to include this:

Additional criteria used on CoE:

35) Does she steal other characters’ lines and roles?
36) Is her name also your username?
37) Is the story written in first person?
38 ) Do many males fight over her, or are many males around her strongly attracted to her?

[Edited on 05/28/2014 by ~nólemë~]

----------

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit

~nólemë~

Fan Creations Admin & Creations Forum Moderator
Posts: 10423
Send Message

on: June 27, 2014 02:13

It seems the reviews (aka comments) are working now, so I'd like to say a big "thank you" to all who submitted CoE fanfic reviews of late, whether they've been published yet or not. Namely, a "thank you" goes to the members Dragonwings, Larien Arnatuile, and Johnson4466, whose reviews I've noticed in the recent comments section. Remember folks, authors love getting reviews - any reviews, although the longer, the better - so if you read a fic on CoE and the only reaction you can think of is "hmm, good story", I'd say go ahead and post it. Reviews are a big motivation for authors to keep writing and improve, so keep them coming.

----------

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit

~nólemë~

Fan Creations Admin & Creations Forum Moderator
Posts: 10423
Send Message

on: January 03, 2015 02:55

To fanfic authors who submit their work on CoE: there's a backlog in fanfic that I'm slowly going through. It may take a few more days. Thank you for your patience.

----------

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit

BlueberryMuffins76

Council Member
Posts: 403
Send Message

on: January 04, 2015 06:26

I thought you were likely busy with the holidays. Don't worry about the backlog! I just got excited about my fanfics!
By the way, are you going to do the Fanfiction of the Month this year? I noticed this past year there weren't really that many new stories.

"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13, NIV I'm a fanfiction writer and appreciate reviews! Check me out at https://www.fanfiction.net/u/6434280/BlueberryMuffins76

~nólemë~

Fan Creations Admin & Creations Forum Moderator
Posts: 10423
Send Message

on: January 05, 2015 02:04

Fanfic of the month was an experiment to draw more attention to the fanfic section, but I didn't see much point in continuing it in months where the number of submissions was low. I may revive it now that there are more submissions though.

----------

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit

~nólemë~

Fan Creations Admin & Creations Forum Moderator
Posts: 10423
Send Message

on: January 12, 2015 06:50

The fanfiction backlog is cleared, submissions are open again.

----------

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit

~nólemë~

Fan Creations Admin & Creations Forum Moderator
Posts: 10423
Send Message

on: March 31, 2015 07:36

CoE has fairly strict submission guidelines regarding spelling, punctuation and grammar. I don't make a fuss about a few mistakes in submissions and just correct them before I click Publish - but. I've been seeing the following two mistakes a LOT of late, made by multiple fanfic authors. If you're an author who submits on CoE, and your submissions contain these, please make sure you get them right next time.

- the correct past tense for 'ask' is 'asked', not 'ask'. Same for all verbs ending in 'k'.

- the correct punctuation for direct speech.
Correct: "Hello," he said.
Wrong: "Hello." He said.
Folks, 'he/she/etc said/asked/etc' and what they said/asked/etc are one unit, they belong together. They're not separate sentences. It's exactly the same structure as this: "Nothing he said" (or with a more contemporary word order: "He said nothing." ) Now, would you write "Nothing. he said."? You wouldn't. Please do the same for your direct speech in fanfics. It helps me a lot, since they're usually full of direct speech, and I just don't have the time to correct all of it. Thanks.

[Edited on 04/01/2015 by ~nólemë~]

----------

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit

Ireth_Telrunya

Council Member
Posts: 906
Send Message

on: April 14, 2015 04:05

I've been looking for the link to the Submission guidelines, but it seems to have disappeared. :/ Help?

Far over the Misty Mountains cold, to dungeons deep and caverns old. We must away ere break of day, to claim our long forgotten gold.

NenyaGold

Legend of Lothlórien & Head Chocolate Thingywidget of Yavanna
Posts: 14318
Send Message

on: April 14, 2015 06:24

Ireth, if you click on Fan Creations under the Main Menu on the left side of the screen, then click Fan Fiction, the guidelines are under Add Story near the top of that page where you see Main | Recent Stories | Your Stories | Add Story | Help .

"He had a ring, a golden ring, a precious ring." ~ from The Hobbit

Ireth_Telrunya

Council Member
Posts: 906
Send Message

on: April 14, 2015 08:36

Thanks, Nenya!

Far over the Misty Mountains cold, to dungeons deep and caverns old. We must away ere break of day, to claim our long forgotten gold.

~nólemë~

Fan Creations Admin & Creations Forum Moderator
Posts: 10423
Send Message

on: July 10, 2018 05:57

I've been MIA of late, apologies about that to everyone who has submitted. I'll start going through the incoming fics later today.

----------

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit

~nólemë~

Fan Creations Admin & Creations Forum Moderator
Posts: 10423
Send Message

on: November 06, 2018 10:12

What's new in fanfic this Autumn?

- I'm fully back, the backlog has been cleared, and fics should now be published promptly. Important: There have been a few downtimes for the site in the recent months, so if you find your fanfic submissions missing in our archive, just submit them again please; as long as tehy meet our rules, they will be published.

- We now have a fanfic filtering option! It's a small tool since we're a small archive, but it now allows you to search and sort in the respective folders by: update/publish date / character / rating / genre. If you've ever wished to read, say, all humorous Aragorn fanfics or all angsty fics featuring Pippin, check it out!

----------

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit

Members Online

UserOnline

Messages

Forum

Welcome Guest