All right, no idea if I'm stepping over my boundaries or not writing up guidelines of posting Fan Fiction, but I feel that there isn't enough guidelines aside from a small bit about Clopfictions. I'll start off first of all by re-stating the rules about Clopfiction:

Fluttershy wrote:

If the fan fiction you are posting are considered, or you might think be considered, a "Clop Fiction," please note it like so that the beginning of your post.

Code:

[b]The following fan fiction is a Clop Fiction. Please read at your on discretion.[/b]

If your post is a Clop Fiction and doesn't follow these guidelines it will be removed by the administrators or moderators.

Clop Fiction: an erotic fan fiction based off the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic show.

Now that's out of the way I can get to my personal feeling about clop fiction. I don't necessarily hate it, but I certainly don't like it. It kinda disturbs me and I personally don't want to read it. If I come across a clop fiction here by accident that wasn't properly labelled that person will get a severe warning. If I find that they ignored it again I most certainly will ban them. I take my smut and lack there of seriously, so watch what you post. If you are unsure if your fic would be considered a clop fiction or not you could PM me (Or possibly another mane depending on their willingness) to look it over to see if it's a clopfic or not.

OK! Nasty clopfics out of the way, now we can get onto the more important stuff.


Single stories should be contained within a single thread with the title of the story as the subject line. Within the body of the thread it should include at least three things as well as a link to the story.

1. Tags of the Story
   
2. Description of the story
   
3. Characters in the story

Now what do all of these mean and why must I do them you ask? Why darling it's obvious. They're to help people who want to read the fan fiction know if they want to read your story before actually diving head first into it. Let me break them down for you real quick.


Tags are probably the most helpful thing for sorting fan fiction. Tags can literally be anything by definition, that is a sorting tool. What I'm looking for here though are tags that describe what the story inside is. Examples include [Normal], [Random], [Grimdark], [Shipping], [Sad], [Epic], and of course [Crossover]. Quick description of each to make people know what they are getting into, and of course don't feel limited to these. If you feel that something like [Grimlite] fits your story better go ahead, just remember that Tags are meant to help people get an initial feel for the fic.

• [Normal] - An average everyday occurrence for the ponies. No extreme anything. Basically the tag that gets shunted to the side and is there for people who just want to write something along the lines of an episode.
  
• [Random] - This is just wild fun (That I apparently can't do to save my life ><) that isn't really meant to be taken seriously. This can be anything from just a random encounter with a bagel, to stuff that would make Pinkie Pie wonder why the world has gone crazy.
  
• [Grimdark] - the darker side of fan fiction. Most commonly associated with the 'Cupcakes' Fan fiction (As laughably terrible as it was.) that's not really all that Grimdark is about. Grimdark pretty much takes our normal, average little ponies and thrusts them into the real world, or possibly a world that we ourselves can't completely handle. Death is a very real thing here, as are mutilations madness and all sorts of unpleasentries.
  
• [Shipping] - If you don't know what Shipping is, then consider yourself a very lucky student who has managed to hide under a rock from the rest of the fandom. Shipping, in essence, is forcing two characters who are otherwise not romantically involved to have a romantic relationship. You can have shipping without clop fiction, so just keep that in mind. Also keep in mind that, seeing as so far there are a total of about 5 named males expect to see a lot of Yuri in this fandom (That is, lesbian relationships. Fan term Filly Foolers. Yaoi relationships are known as Colt Cuddlers.)
  
• [Sad] - This tag should be really self-explanatory. Sad things happen in this kind of fic, from the death of a beloved friend (Bittersweet), to the death of a family member (Trix and Stones) this is the kind of story that makes you Bawww
  
• [Epic] - Now I'm explaining this one because I don't want to see a million '[Epic]' tags. First off, unless the one-shot is five-hundred pages long (Which would be absolutely ridiculous) it should NEVER have the [Epic] tag. [Epic] should be reserved for those ultra long stories meant to tell some Epic of Pony. Also, if someone writes an Epic Poem of Pony I will give them my internets forever.
  
• [Crossover] - It is exactly what it says on the tin. You're taking one fandom, My Little Pony, and mixing it with some other fandom, such as Lovecraft or Sonic or Disc World.
  
• [Adventure] - It's for stories that are adventures, but not quite long enough to be Epics.

Ok, tags are done now for the next bit.


This one shouldn't be all too hard, it's just a short description of your story. You don't have to go out and explain every plot twist (Actually, it's probably best if you don't) just do a quick summary of what you story is about. Please don't make the description longer than the story (Unless the story is intended to be a flash fic).


Again it is exactly what it says on the tin. This one is a bit trickier than Description though. So here's going to be my ruling, any characters that are ultra important to the story, especially the char it focus' on, should be noted. If you feel you need to keep an air of mystery for a character, or characters, then please note that in this section. But I honestly doubt that you lot will do that too often so I'm not overly worried. If the story has a heavy influence with OC's (Original Characters), please don't list the character's names. We won't recognize them. Rather put in the Characters in Story bit 'OC PONIES', not necessarily in ALL CAPS, but you get the general picture.

And that's all you really need in a one-shot, including the link to the story of course. Feel free to add anything else to the post that you like, such as misc tags (Don't put these in the 'Tag' section though) or an explanation as to why you wrote this fic or anything at all. Also, on titles please keep them PG rated. Colourful language shouldn't be used here, as well as vulgar language. You can use it in your story all you want, just keep it out of the topic title. If you MUST have vulgar and colourful language in the title please censor it out with astorics ****


Now this should go a little faster, as we got most of the definition stuff out of the way in the last description. Submitting a multi-part story is very similar to submitting a one-shot. You post the title as the topic, and you include tags, descriptions, and characters in the story. The difference is that most ponies don't write entire books at a time, but rather work on chapters. As such you can have part one done, but not part two or three. 'But how do I update?' you ask. First of all, don't whine. That's my job. Second off, I'm getting to that, lemme explain something first.

There is a difference between a regular multi-part story, and an [Epic] tag story. It's usually regarded somewhere around twenty and thirty parts. Now no matter how prideful you are of your work, unless you literally are planning on writing a good thirty part story (Or otherwise ridiculously long chapter story) it is not an [Epic] story.

Now, to updating. The procedure should go something along the lines of this. You already have the topic posted in the Fan Fiction section, you go in and make a new post. This will bump your story to the top of the threads and let people know you've posted a new chapter. You then go back to the first post of the thread. Then see that little 'Edit' button above the first post you made? Click that and edit your first post to reflect the recent update. This will significantly help those who are just walking in on your story and are interested. You do not have to write a separate 'Tag-Description-Characters in Story' for each update.

Regarding multi story arcs. If you are continuing a story that you previously had finished, but are time skipping or changing POV or something of the like that makes it a different story all together but it's in the same fic-verse that you have created you have two options.

Option one- Create a new topic for the new story. This is fine just make sure to link any related threads in the first post. Do NOT re-post any stories that already have their own threads. Doing so is just asking for trouble. Link the thread that the story is contained in and NOT the story its self.

Option two- Continue posting updates in the old thread, but make a sub-section for the new story. Basically your post should look something like this:

Quote :

Story Title
Tag
Description
Characters
Chapters (Only if it isn't a one-shot)
---
Story Continuation Title
Tag
Description
Characters
Chapters (Again, only if it isn't a one-shot

Whichever option you chose is up to you.



Now some ponies write, other ponies draw, and other ponies make music videos. Then there are the ponies who WRITE. This section is for them. If you feel you've got a substantial amount of work under your belt, say... five to ten completed stories, then you're eligible for a Prolific Writer Post. Basically it's a collection of all your work so far, for convenience of all the wonderful ponies who use our forum. Once you do this you can either A) Continue to make new topics concerning your latest works or B) Use this uber post to post your latest works instead. The choice is really up to you. I would hope that those who churn out one shots every week would at least choose the second option, as to avoid spamming our lovely board and making me cranky.



All right, listen up. This will be on the test. There are a few final things I need to say about posting fan fiction in this board.

First, NEVER and I mean NEVER post your story inside somepony else's thread unless you are collaborating with each other. If you are collabing I want it to be mentioned in the FIRST POST who the group of collabers are. If I don't see that there, and I see you posting your fic in somepony else's thread then I'm going to warn you.

Second, be kind with your words. Do not openly bash somepony's works for any reason what so ever. If you didn't like it that's fine, you can post your decent or not post at all. But don't go out there and just bash. If you feel that it could have been improved in some way then say so. C+C (Critique and Comment) is something that I absolutely love, it helps people grow into better writers.

Third, I'm a huge fan of contests and competitions, and I most undoubtedly will be holding these kinds of events throughout the fan fiction community of the forum. I'm not going to do any until I see a decent size of fan-fickers on the forum (and I probably will hold polls to see what event I do when). This is to get more fan-fiction written, and to improve people's attitudes about Fan Fiction.

Fourth, concerning spoilers. Some ponies don't like spoilers, and some ponies do. As such when replying to a story with a discussion post please keep this in mind. If what you're posting is very spoileriffic then please use a spoiler tag. For those who want to read the spoiler tag, just click on the word 'Spoiler' or anywhere along the same line, and it should allow for the spoiler to be shown. This is, of course, assuming that we don't have a borked up spoiler system like at some other places I've been to. I'm sure nothing bad can happen right? Right?

Code:

[spoiler]This is a spoiler[/spoiler]

Spoiler:

Finally, I reserve the right to change, alter, and edit these rules and guidelines at any time without prior notice or warning to anypony out there. Just in case you might want to keep an eye on these guidelines to make sure I didn't incur some new rule that I'll swat ya for.

That is all, happy writing!