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~nólemë~
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Post Writing Fanfiction on CoE - An Easy Newbie's Guide
on: May 16, 2011 10:22
post-conversion update of the previous thing.

1. "So, how do I know what's accepted here and what is not?"

It's all in the Submission Rules. Read them carefully before posting a fic; stories that don't follow these will be returned for reworking. Any questions on anything in the rules- please contact the admin.

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2. "I want to submit an essay I did for school, it's a character analysis of a LotR character. Where do I submit it?"

Please submit all scholarly non-fiction to the Elrond's Library section.

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3. "Elrond's Library also has a Poems section - can I submit my poetry there instead of in Fanfiction?"

Please don't. The section in Elrond's Library is for Tolkien's poems only.

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4. "I wrote a funny version of song lyrics with Tolkien's characters in it. Is there a fanfic category for this?"

There isn't. Modified song lyrics are submitted to Celeborn's Karaoke Bar in the Humor Section.

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5. "I wrote a really cool script, and a funny '100 things you shouldn't tell Sauron' list. Will they be accepted?"

Not in Fanfiction, as they are not considered fiction stories. Funny lists are published in the Humour section, as are humorous scripts.

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6. "I'm not good at spelling, does that mean you won't accept my fic if it has more than a few misspelled words, as the Submission Rules say?"

That depends on the length of the story and on the admin. Using a spellchecker or finding a spelling-centric beta reader is highly recommended if you know that your spelling and punctuation are lacking.

If the admin is not sure if a misspelling is deliberate or not (humorous fanfic), the story will definitely be returned, and you will be asked to either correct the spelling, or state in a side/bottom note that the misspelling is deliberate. That's done for the sake of not confusing those readers who are themselves not very good at spelling.

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7. "I type awfully..."

Then proofread your fanfic thoroughly before you submit it. An occasional typo is fine, but if your story begins with something like 'Pippen and farimir wer egood freinds', the admin won't probably bother to read further.

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8. "I'm not a native speaker of English. I likely have grammatical mistakes in my fic. Will you reject it?"

That depends on how grave and frequent the mistakes are. If they're few and the text is easy to understand, your fic will still be published.

If the mistakes are numerous and make the fic hard to read and understand, you'll get your story back with a request that you find a beta reader who is a native speaker of English. (You can either look for a beta on the Fanfiction Forum on CoE, or you can try one of the large fanfiction sites, such as fanfiction.net)

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9. "I'm confused about the categories! I'm writing a story which features Aragorn as a kid, and the Orcs kidnap him and Elladan & Elrohir save him. Can you tell me if it's AU or Non-canon or what?"

If your fic doesn't contradict any essential canon information, it's accepted into the 'normal' categories Gap-fillers like the one above are a good example of what doesn't need to be posted in AU/Non-canon unless you want to. Does your teenage-Faramir have a sweetheart in Minas Tirith, or does your Elfwine son of Éomer go on an adventure to Harad? The canon is silent on this, so you can go ahead and post these under LotR Book Fanfiction, or LotR Movie Fanfiction.

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10. "And how about my story about Arwen's sister [name]? Is that AU/Non-canon?"

Yes. If the story contradicts important canon information (in this case, the fact that Elrond only had 3 children), it is to be submitted to AU/Non-canon. Does your Fellowship never go through Moria, is Elrond's wife still in Middle-earth when the Fellowship is formed, or does Merry marry someone else than Estella Bolger? Stories like these should be submitted to AU/Non-canon.

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11. "You mention canon a lot. What do you consider canon information? Anything written by Tolkien? Because I have only read LotR so far, so no idea what the other books say..."

By canon, we mean information in LotR, The Silmarillion and The Hobbit. Don't worry, these three don't overlap much, so unless you're discussing First Age events in your LotR fic, not having read The Silmarillion does not make your story non-canon.

If you don't want your LotR/Silmarillion/Hobbit story in the Non-canon category, it should follow the important information and plotlines in the respective book, or at least not contradict it. Movie-based fiction should follow the movie canon.

Poetry is the only category that does not need to follow canon, as it has a category of its own (but the primary setting should still be Tolkien's world).

If your fic follows other materials such as History of Middle-earth or Unfinished Tales, it is of course also accepted as canon.

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12. "Can you reject my story for being in the wrong category? What about if I forget to add the slash genre label for my slash story?"

If it's the only issue the admin has with your story, then no. The admin will change the category to the appropriate one, or add genre label (if necessary, such as with slash), and inform you of having done so via PM.

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13. "My friends like my Original Character, but I'm afraid that here, she'll be rejected as Mary-Sue. Who decides if she's a Sue or not?"

The Mary-Sue test (link in Submission Rules) and the admin do. We usually accept your OCs, or, if they get close to a Sue, we require minor changes, so be not afraid Basically, it's time to start re-thinking your OC if she's (at the same time) very beautiful, friends with/related to/in love with a popular character, owner of an enchanting voice, a beautiful/strange name and animal(s), and if she's sentimental/tender/emotional, and yet a great and fearless warrior who roams Middle-earth on her own.
- Tenth walkers (OCs who become members of the Fellowship) are generally considered Mary-Sues, and as such are not accepted. The same applies to The Hobbit fanfics.

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14. "I wrote a girl-falls-in-Middle-earth story. Will you accept it?"

Look up the anti-Mary-Sue classic by Boz4PM called "Don't Panic", either on fanfiction.net or storiesofarda.com. If your story is just as canon-compliant and realistic as this one (or even more), we'll be most pleased to publish your story on CoE.

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15. "Do I need to use the < > codes for paragraphs etc.?"

Not for paragraphs, but you need HTML codes for italics, bold, links etc.

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16. "Will my fic be rejected if I don't know the singular for 'Edain' and the adjective for 'Rohirrim'? I've searched, and cannot find those! "

The Submission Rules newly feature a link to a useful language guide by Malinornë. There you'll find the proper terms for Tolkien nation-/kindred-/race-based singulars, plurals, adjectives, and even languages. (the correct words for our example would be 'Adan' and 'Rohirric' )

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17. "I want to have Elvish sentences in my fic, but am just beginning with Elvish. Help?"

You can ask for translations in our language forums. But since not everyone here learns Elvish, your sentences will need to be translated at the bottom of the story/chapter. Also, please don't include *too much* Elvish in your story. That does not contribute to the fic reading well.

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18. "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 knowingly use someone else's direct quotes (another fanfic author's, Tolkien's, movie scriptwriters'...), 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 wrong 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 whose quotes you borrow.

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19. "What is taking my story/chapter so long to get published? The previous one was published the next day!"

The admin probably hasn't had the time yet to proofread your submission. Longer backlogs are announced here in the Fanfiction Forum.

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20. "Okay, I've submitted my story/chapter. How will I know what's happening with it?"

Once your story/chapter is published or rejected, you'll receive a PM from the admin on your CoE account. If your submission is rejected, you will be told what to correct if you want your story published on CoE.

Please bear in mind that rejected stories get deleted from the temporary file about one week after the PM was sent. If you don't have your story saved somewhere and wish to re-work and re-submit it, please PM the admin, and the story text will be sent to you.

Automatic notifications of new reviews for your stories are sent to your email.

***************

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 select, 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 (torture, 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 the 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...).
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.

*****************

[Edited on 08/13/2013 by ~nólemë~]

[Edited on 05/14/2014 by ~nólemë~]
---------- Image "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
Frodo~the~Second
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Post RE: Writing Fanfiction on CoE - An Easy Newbie's Guide
on: July 02, 2011 12:36
At last I have found some guidelines about fanfiction! Thank you for posting this!

~Frodo (the Second)
Beren_Onehand
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Post RE: Writing Fanfiction on CoE - An Easy Newbie's Guide
on: January 04, 2012 10:45
Big help! thanks a bunch
"All we have to decide, is what to do with the time that is given to us"
papples
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on: August 11, 2014 01:45
Not sure if I missed this when I read the guidelines but...

How do you delete characters from your fan fiction, at the part where you are just starting it? Also, how would you add characters that you created?

Should I finalize my fan fiction on my computer writing program (Pages), or should I just type it here? I was thinking that I should finalize it on Pages and just copy/paste it, but I don't exactly know how to do that on a Mac...

Also, thanks for clarifying and going into detail about the guidelines. It's been a big help.

Thanks!
-papples

(I'm a newbie! )

The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it.
~nólemë~
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on: August 11, 2014 02:47
papples said:How do you delete characters from your fan fiction, at the part where you are just starting it?


Since you say you are a newbie (hello, and enjoy CoE! Image ), I suppose you are not talking about deleting characters from a fic that's already in our archive? Well then, just edit them out of the existing text, I suppose.

papples said:Also, how would you add characters that you created?


To the fanfic, or to our multiple choice character list? If it's the latter, CoE only allows canon characters in the list.

papples said:Should I finalize my fan fiction on my computer writing program (Pages), or should I just type it here? I was thinking that I should finalize it on Pages and just copy/paste it, but I don't exactly know how to do that on a Mac...


I've had no experience with Mac. But I believe copying and pasting the text into the submission box should work for everyone. Just remember that if you want to have bold or italics font in your fic, the code to use is HTML.
---------- Image "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
papples
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on: August 12, 2014 08:57
Thanks, ~nólemë~!

1. I should clarify: If you go to the Fanfiction home page (Fan Creations>Fanfiction) and select "Add Story", you can write the name of your story, and then there is a character list below that. I was wondering if I could delete characters that are already there, because some of them won't be in my fic.

2. I meant, adding characters to the fanfic.

Thanks for your help! Everyone is so helpful and friendly here.

-papples
The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it.
~nólemë~
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on: August 13, 2014 05:58
1. The character list is multiple-choice. You select only those characters that you want to use in your fanfic (most authors select only who they want to have as main characters, e.g. Faramir + Boromir + Original Character, etc.).
//By the way, there is a bug in our fanfic module that deletes all selected characters but one. Once the tech staffers are done with more pressing issues, this one will be addressed. For the time being, I suggest you PM me the list of characters you want to use, and I'll add them in through the admin module.//

2. Well, I'd just edit them into the story and then proofread the whole thing to make sure they fit in.
---------- Image "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
papples
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on: August 13, 2014 02:38
Thanks! I'm going to play around with the character list a bit more. I'll tell you how it goes.

-papples
The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it.
StarOfTheWest
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on: January 12, 2024 12:22
Thanks!

How do I submit a story? It’s not cooperating…
Hanasian
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on: January 13, 2024 07:57
StarOfTheWest said:Thanks!

How do I submit a story? It’s not cooperating…


Hello Star of the West. Unfortunately this site is limited in its functionality. The only way to currently submit a story is by posting it in the forum as a new thread. The original post of this thread was summitted twelve years ago in 2011, and is no longer current.

[Edited on 01/14/2024 by Hanasian]
Eighth King of Arthedain - It was in battle that I come into this Kingship, and it will be in Battle when I leave it. There is no peace for the Realm of Arnor. Read the last stand of Arthedain in the Darkest of Days.
~nólemë~
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on: February 04, 2024 10:28
Welcome to CoE, StarOfTheWest, and just as Hanasian says - some of the functions this forum had several years ago, are no longer accessible. Posting stories is one of them. We mods cannot do anything about it, it would require vast adjustments by an IT-savvy admin with sufficient access. The mods and admins who are around have neither, so CoE is not too interactive these days until a major fix comes.
---------- Image "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
Hanasian
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on: March 02, 2024 12:25
~nólemë~ said:"...CoE is not too interactive these days until a major fix comes."


I love your optimism for the future of this site. I kept hoping for something like that to happen on the Arwen Undomiel forum, but it was effectively abandoned by the owner/admin, and when the last mod gave up caring in 2020, the spambots took over the place. I think the domain name expires next month so it will be interesting to see what happens there then. The Tolkien Forums was getting really rusty, but ownership changed and the new blood renovated the old tech and has been really active in keeping the place up. You think something like that might happen here?
Eighth King of Arthedain - It was in battle that I come into this Kingship, and it will be in Battle when I leave it. There is no peace for the Realm of Arnor. Read the last stand of Arthedain in the Darkest of Days.
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