Fanfic Rules

[Clare]

These, as far as I remember, are the rules for the Fanfic forum. I know I'm not a mod, but someone did ask for a list of official rules and maybe someone who is a mod could sticky this.

1, Stories must be a reasonable length. One page is the absolute minimum - anything shorter than this will get locked as Spam.

2, Post each chapter in a separate thread. This makes it easier for people to keep track of your fic and has been a rule since the days of the UBB. If you want to preserve early chapters, there are two things you can do:

A, Build your own website and post the stories there. All you need to do this is a grasp of HTML and an account with a web-hosting company - a free account will usually give you something in the region of 15 - 25 megabytes of server space, but you must be prepared to put up with adverts.

B, Join a site such as http://www.fanfiction.net . Membership is free and you can post stories with anything up to an R rating, providing they aren't lists, MSTs, about real people, using the Review system as a messageboard and so on.

3, All fics on this forum must be based on "Yu-Gi-Oh" or "Yu-Gi-Oh GX". Work for other fandoms belongs in the main Fanfic forum, as does original fiction.

4, No plagiarism. Plagiarism is the act of copying someone else's plot, characters etc and pretending that you thought of them. Basic themes are open to everyone, but you must interpret them in your own way. If you want to use a non-canon character you didn't create yourself, ask his or her creator - the latter's decision is final and no means no.

5, No topics asking people to create characters for your fic. You must invent all original characters yourself.

6, Only mod-approved add-ons are permitted. Any that are started without permission from a mod will be locked.

7, There is a difference between constructive criticism and a flame. If you genuinely feel a story needs improving, say why it needs improving. But don't just go round telling people their fics "stink", "suck", "are stupid" and so on - being rude about other people's work is not going to win you many friends. For the same reason, don't give someone a bad review just to get back at him or her for criticising your work.

8, Bad language must be kept to a minimum. Only mild swear words such as "damn" or "hell" are permitted and even those should be used sparingly. Excessive swearing is not big and nor is it clever.

9, Violence is allowed provided it isn't too graphic - while it is acceptable to kill off a character by violent means, you should avoid going into too much detail. Also, if there are violent scenes in a chapter, include a note warning people of this.

Much the same principle applies to romantic scenes - sex should be implied, not shown in all its glory.

10, It is strongly recommended that you do each of the following:

A, Read Advice for Aspiring Authors
B, Avoid cliched plots such as "kid who wants to be the world's greatest duellist"
C, Write in prose instead of script
D, Make sure your spelling, punctuation and grammar are of a reasonable standard.

11, The other messageboard rules - see here - also apply on this forum.

[Dirk Amoeba]

Glad you put up the rules, but I have a comment.
2, Post each chapter in a separate thread. This makes it easier for people to keep track of your fic and has been a rule since the days of the UBB.
I think an exception should be made if multiple chapters of a fic are being posted on the same day. THis way, the forum won't get cluttered with needless topics (Back on the EZBoard, when we had the Pokemon Fanfic board, we had a similar problem with Rose III by Kurai).

[MonkeyMasterTao9]

Well, ya know the one "Yu-Gi-Oh! Revival of the Pegasuses" I made it 1 and a half pages long. Wait! Do you guys mean one thread page long or one Microsoft Word page long? I'm confused!!!

[SplatPlaintiff]

1. Stories must be a reasonable length. One page is the absolute minimum - anything shorter than this will get locked as spam.
Yes, clarify what one page means. Like this dude above me said, is it one page on Microsoft Word? You can't really have "pages" on a board. Does a page take up the whole computer screen, or what? Mmm... :confused:

[RobbieBond008]

It means that stories must be AT LEAST 1 page on Microsoft Word or another word processing program. Also, they must be at decent font size, which I think is considered size 12. Not sure though.

[Serpent King]

Whoah, I never knew there was rules, i thought writting was the only thing that you could do freely, but i guess not.

[Clare]

Serpent King, we have these rules to discourage Spammy "fics" and to make sure things are kept appropriate for the board's younger members. But they still leave plenty of scope for storylines - within reason, you can use any plotline you want.

If you have a problem with these rules, you're quite welcome to leave.

Since that particular post was borderline bashing, I feel it might be an idea to introduce a rule banning comments like "These rules suck!" and accusations of "censorship". If I remember rightly, you're not allowed to bash the rules that apply on all the forums - and you shouldn't be allowed to bash local rules either.

[SpringChocobo]

Why does 1 page have to be the mininum? What about chapters?

[Clare]

If I remember rightly, the "one page minimum" rule was introduced not long after this board moved from UBB to EZBoard. In those days, there were separate forums for each major fandom (plus a General Fanfic forum) and the mods on the "Pokemon" Fanfic forum introduced that rule to discourage ridiculously short chapters. Now that all fandoms have to share a fanfic forum, it's only fair that the same rule should apply to everyone.

[Village Dag]

With major cursing, do you mean the strong words used constantly or the strong words used period? That'd be a great help.

[Clare]

Strong words used constantly - definitely not allowed.

Strong words used occasionally - only if absolutely necessary for the context.

In any case, you need to bear in mind that the language filter is here for a reason.

[kaze950]

So, if we have a fanfic with say, 50 chapters, we have to post each chapters on a serparete page? Or can we have, like a thread saying

"Yugioh Fanfic chapters 1-4"?

Cuz, 1 thread per chapter, it would be really weird and flooded. I haven't even seen another board with the same rules

[WildWill]

The rules were written a LONG time ago when the boards were differently. Besides, this board isn't modded all that strictly anyway. If you want to post more than one chapter per thread, that's fine with me, just don't go too nuts.

[Wardog369]

How much is to much when it comes down to violence here? I need to know for my existing story.

[WildWill]

I would say that PG-13 is about as far as we want to see here in terms of violence. R is definitely out. If it would get you an R rating, then no dice.

[Near]

About the 2nd rule, can you just save space like
Creating a topic and then post empty posts after it
to make room for the next chapters and then edit the posts
when you have the chapters ready?
That would save a lot of topic and room here..

[WildWill]

HELL NO. Do that and I'll see to it you get some time off.

The rules are in place for a REASON.

[Yūgi's Black Magician]

HELL NO. Do that and I'll see to it you get some time off.

The rules are in place for a REASON.

WildWill, may I ask WHY we need to post in seperate threads? As somebody who uses the auto-subscribe for all threads he posts in, I hate not being immeadiatly warned when a new chapter is posted/new reply.

Uh...yeah...

[WildWill]

That's been covered already. Honestly I don't particularly care one iota what you guys do in this forum, as long as you're not breaking any board rules. I'm not going to be reviewing this forum, the other YGO mods will be.

[MasterDeath]

I don't know why but I was finished editing the post that would have been chapter 1 of the fan fic I was making, but whe I submitted it, it said Invalid and to contact an administrator. Did this happen to anyone else?

I'm putting this here in case my topic with this question gets lost.

EDIT: After shortening it a bit and changing the story a little bit to make it shorter than what I planned, it finally went through.

[trueliesaa]

um... I think it's great that y'all discourage plagarism, but seriously, we can't read every fic posted here... what happens if we put up an idea that we honestly believe is original, and it just so happens someone else has already done it... that's not our fault for being uninformed...

I'm thinking of putting an old fic from fanart here, by the way... it may have been done before... it is about the struggle to keep the friendship alive between a red-eyes and a blue-eyes... quite touching I think, but that's off topic...

[Blue-EyesMetalDragon]

Have you ever heard of "Turnitin.com"? It's a site made for schools to test students against internet plagerism. My teacher showed us all how it worked using a test paper. It pulled a 12% plageriazed rating.

that 12% was all chance statements.

Now, in all seriousness, unless you're posting something so un-unique and thus boring, you're not gonna hit plagerism. If you do, someone will gladly tell you, trust me. And trust me here too, it hasn't happened since I've been here, or in any history I know of this board.

Making a mountain out a molehill, pal

-=BEMD

[Duelist of Gilfer]

CAn someone help me with my fanfiction.net account. I do not see my story anywhere.

[JeNoVa]

I dunno if this has been asked, and I've never posted a fan-fic before, so here's my question. In regard to Question 2, is it alright if at the end of the chapter we post the link to the next chapter so instead of searching it out they can just click and go to it?

[Blue-EyesMetalDragon]

Yeah, but don't post multiple chapters in one day.

Also, out of experiance, I think it's better to set up a table of contents in the first chapter, as opposed to an endless amount of links.

-=BEMD

[JeNoVa]

Thanks BEMD

[E-hero cyberblaster]

1. question about rule 6, "Only mod-approved add-ons are permitted. Any that are started without permission from a mod will be locked."

do that mean we have to send our fic to a mod and then he will check if its ok or what??
sorry if its a stupid question, i just dont get it

[Hoitash]

i would like that rule elaborated.

[Swmystery]

As would I. What exactly is an add-on, anyway?

[Clare]

An add-on is basically a fanfic where someone starts a story, then allows other people to jump in and continue it with their own ideas. As I recall, they were banned back in the days of the UBB because they tended to get out of control and people would start fighting over which idea should be used. Later, when the board switched to EZBoard, some mods started official add-ons, which continued as long as they were kept under control and didn't become inappropriate for the board.

As for starting add-ons, I would definitely check with the mods first - preferably including a set of rules and a basic outline of the plot. But don't expect too much - there haven't been any approved add-ons here for a long time. At least that's the way I understand it, but maybe one of the mods could clarify the situation.

[Blue-EyesMetalDragon]

The only way I can see add-ons working is if users send thier ideas to one user and he or she decides whether to use it or not. Rules would have to be in place to avoid favortism, like having the posting user change every chapter.

Nonetheless, they are complicated and make more messes than amusment.

-=BEMD

[FallenDreams22]

or, if you have a sig... post the links there... makes it a lot easier...

[Flare Phoenix]

Sorry if this has already been asked and anwsered, but is there a maximum length that a chapter can be? I mearly ask because a one page minimum seems doesn't seem like much (except if its a one shot, I guess) and I've had chapters that span over 10 pages myself (I believe my record was 16...)

So any maximum length (aside from something obvious like 2 million pages been too much or something like that)

[Swmystery]

Sorry if this has already been asked and anwsered, but is there a maximum length that a chapter can be? I mearly ask because a one page minimum seems doesn't seem like much (except if its a one shot, I guess) and I've had chapters that span over 10 pages myself (I believe my record was 16...)

So any maximum length (aside from something obvious like 2 million pages been too much or something like that)

There's no maximum limit that I'm aware of other then that which writers impose on themselves. You could concievably write a 20+ page chapter if you could keep your readers interested for that long.

[Blue-EyesMetalDragon]

Just be aware that twenty pages won't fit into a single post. You'll need to seperate the chp by 'parts' into seperate posts on the same thread.

Or, you could just make it two chapters.

-=BEMD

[16Monarchs]

1. Do we have to follow the banned?
2. Do we have to make a website to keep all of our Chapters?

[Swmystery]

1. Do we have to follow the banned?
2. Do we have to make a website to keep all of our Chapters?

No, to both. Invent your own banned list to follow your own fiction, and just create a table of contents in your first thread to act as a reference for your readers.

[16Monarchs]

Thank You.

[seighart]

I have a question (and I think its really a noob question) I'm trying to find out how you guy create hyperlinks.... i'm trying to figure that out for my fanfict.

Also, what if we accidently copied? I mean people sometimes get the same ideas?

[Swmystery]

Also, what if we accidently copied? I mean people sometimes get the same ideas?

Most ideas have been done before. Provided you don't steal someone else's fiction and claim credit for it you should be ok.

[Blue-EyesMetalDragon]

I have a question (and I think its really a noob question) I'm trying to find out how you guy create hyperlinks.... i'm trying to figure that out for my fanfict.


You should see a little pic of a globe and a chain link when you post or edit a post. Click that, type the URL, press enter, then type what you want the link to say.

[ URL="http://www.google.com"]Example[/URL ]

(Remove the spaces in the "URL" brackets.)

-=BEMD

[Bobby Mercer]

Here's a question I need clarified. Maybe I've overlooked it, but is there a rule that bans the mentioning/the use of alcohol and tobacco by characters? Obviously it'd be a problem if the character is constantly shooting up something like heiroin all the time, but the occasional cigarette/shot of something isn't too outlandish here is it?

[Swmystery]

Here's a question I need clarified. Maybe I've overlooked it, but is there a rule that bans the mentioning/the use of alcohol and tobacco by characters? Obviously it'd be a problem if the character is constantly shooting up something like heiroin all the time, but the occasional cigarette/shot of something isn't too outlandish here is it?

Not that I'm aware of. Probably a fair idea for you to be paranoid, but I seriously doubt you'd have anyone call you out if you had a character smoke or drink. Certainly the mentioning of such things is fine, and I can't see why somebody doing it would be a problem.

[Klevis13]

A noob question. Are you allowed to use characters from the anime for the whole of your Fic (like lets say Bakura and Mokuba. Minorish characters)?

And also with the add ons are you allowed to as your viewers what should happen next and have a vote. Like

a. Should Yugi attack kaiba's Ultimate dragon and kill him?
b. Should Yugi stop his attack and forfiet the duel?

Are viewers alowed to vote?

[The Quiff]

You are allowed to use them, but keep in mind the canon and personalities associated with such characters. For example, you're not going to make mincemeat of Kaiba in a duel, and Kaiba isn't going to just dignify a random character that is a stranger to him with respect.

As for add-ons, that has yet to be resolved. I would say that, right now, it's best to avoid them, as all they will do is cause headaches for authors and moderators alike.

[Swmystery]

And also with the add ons are you allowed to as your viewers what should happen next and have a vote. Like

a. Should Yugi attack kaiba's Ultimate dragon and kill him?
b. Should Yugi stop his attack and forfiet the duel?

Are viewers alowed to vote?

If what Quiff meant wasn't what you meant, it kind of works like this: as the writer of your fiction, you have all the control. You decide how much of that control you want to delegate to your audience. For any basic fiction, if you want to let people vote on issues, by all means do it. If you don't, don't. It's that simple.

[Blue-EyesMetalDragon]

From my understanding, add-ons are not allowed. Not worth the trouble since users cannot start polls on pojo.

-=BEMD