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News
Author Want-A-Be's.... |
| SIYE is always on the lookout for new, well written stories. That is what keeps our members happy. However, at the moment, the SIYE staff is drowning in poorly penned drivel. To write a GOOD story, you must have a plot, believable characters, location and a basic knowledge of grammar and punctuation. JKR has already bequeathed two of these important parts – believable characters and a wonderful location. Why mess with a good thing? Why make Ginny a bed-hopping, drunken slattern? Or, Harry a frightened, mean drunk who likes to beat up little-old ladies? Both of the above characters are so far from the well written, well-rounded characters of the Harry Potter series as to make them laughable and very unbelievable. Okay, so you say that SIYE doesn’t have a rule against destroying the character of our beloved Harry and Ginny. Well, in that case, you are correct. However, we also don’t have to validate the story. That is our prerogative. This is a privately owned site, and we can say, ‘No thank you!’ PLOT: You must have one. Every short story, poem, novel, biography, and text book has a plot. In textbooks, it is to educate the reader about the subject; in biography’s to give you an in-depth picture about the subject; and in short-stories, poems, novels, or any fiction type of story, it is what drives the characters. GRAMMAR and PUNCTUATION: Every word processing program I have ever seen has had a spell check program. USE THEM!!! You are not writing a text message. They will tell you about misspelled words and give you suggestions for punctuation. THEY ARE NOT PERFECT! They cannot tell you that you’ve used the wrong word, as in there, their or they’re. The computer can only tell you that what you have written is spelled correctly. This is where a proof-reader or Beta comes in, preferably both. You should always proofread your story before sending it to a Beta. Finally, we come to SIYE’s posted rules. Read them before you put pen to paper, or fingers to keypad. Read all of them. It is only one page, but they are all important. Today I received emails from people whose stories were returned because they violated one of SIYE’s rules. They were complaining that the rules weren’t posted. The first was about Harry/Ginny dying in a one-shot. This is rule #8 under Entries Not Allowed. I know that it is at the bottom of the page, but the last rule is as important as the first one. The other was about summaries that read, ‘read and find out’. Again, I must direct you to rule #8 – this time under the General Rules category. If you want to post a story on SIYE, I ask you to begin by following the rules . Next, develop a well thought out plot and believable characters. Then, before you post it, find a Beta. When you do these things, the validation process is effortless. Professor Scroll Head Administrator VP of Content |
| on 2008.01.12 - 11:11PM () |
Comments
Victor Aagaard came out of the woodwork on 2008.01.15 - 06:11PM to say:
I laughed... and then I stopped laughing and hoped this wasn't me.
GREYWOLF came out of the woodwork on 2008.01.21 - 11:43AM to say:
I agree. And I must ask, why are these stories being allowed on the site? I have recently read two stories in which the authors are having H/G behave not just OOC but down right ugly. I do not want to read stories like that. Professor Scroll please reply.
Professor Scroll came out of the woodwork on 2008.01.22 - 06:43PM to say:
GREYWOLF They are on the site because we don't have a hard rule against them. In the beginning, we didn't think that we needed one. Everyone that came here loved the characters and wrote stories keeping faithful to them. Lately, I've seen a shift in this. I'm not sure if it is because JKR has finished the series, people are tired of staying true to the characters, or whether it has to do with the age of the new authors. There seems to be a huge lack of respect for Harry and Ginny right now. The thing is, can SIYE ban stories because the writer has them OOC? That would be a bad as the woman in Atlanta, Ga that is trying to have the series banned from the school libraries. These writers need educated as opposed to banned. If enough readers tell them constructively through reviews maybe they will learn.
Thought_Away came out of the woodwork on 2008.01.22 - 11:34PM to say:
Just thought you should know, but Rule #4 under Entries Not Allowed needs a bit of a proofread. Making sure the rules themselves are written in good grammer should help you guys get a little more respect. It's nice to see a site like this one that is trying to provide readers with GOOD fanfiction.
GREYWOLF came out of the woodwork on 2008.01.23 - 09:44AM to say:
Professor Scroll, Well you're the boss, but I must say I disagree. If a parent feels something is inappropriate for their home, they are perfectly at liberty to ban it, in their home. SIYE has the same right, and there are, after all, other sites. Is not this the job of the moderators? At the very least could we not have a new warning label? Then at least we can avoid these stories.
Professor Scroll came out of the woodwork on 2008.01.26 - 12:07AM to say:
Greywolf After leaving my post, I decided to discuss this futher with the Admins.
The problem that I see is in writing the rule. How far OOC do we allow. There are some very good stories on SIYE that have them just slightly different. They are listed as AU.
However, I have given the staff the right to refuse a story when they believe it is too outrageous.
We are already discussing the need to expand on the warnings.
Macsr71 came out of the woodwork on 2008.01.15 - 01:14PM to say:
Thank you for the following: Why make Ginny a bed-hopping, drunken slattern? Or, Harry a frightened, mean drunk who likes to beat up little-old ladies? That one story just made me sick so I hope that this will....fix....it..from happening again Martk.