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Ratings Guidelines, Categories Guidelines, and Formatting Guidelines/Policy
Rating's Guideline- These are based of the MPAA rating's system, the rating system's of other fan fiction sites, and commentary from list members. I tried to make the distinction between PG-13 and R clearer. G: General Audiences. The G rating is not a "certificate of approval," nor does it signify a children's story/artwork. Some snippets of language may go beyond polite conversation but they are common everyday expressions. The violence is at a minimum. Nudity and sex scenes are not present; nor is there any drug use content. PG: There may be some profanity in these stories/artwork. There may be some violence or brief nudity that is employed in a nonsexual manner. There is no drug use. PG-13: Leaps beyond the boundaries of the PG rating in theme, violence, nudity, sensuality, language, or other contents. Any drug use content will initially require at least a PG-13 rating. Sexual innuendos are allowed in a PG-13 piece. No depictions of actual sex will be found in a PG-13 piece, but implied sex is allowed (i.e. "the door closed and the two weren't seen for the rest of the night."). If violence is too rough or persistent, the story/art goes into the R (restricted) rating. A story's single use of one of the harsher sexually-derived words, though only as an expletive, shall initially require at least a PG- 13 rating. More than one such expletive should give serious consideration to an R rating but is not necessary. R: Restricted. Mature readers only, please. This piece definitely contains some adult material. May include hard language, or tough violence, or nudity within sensual scenes, or drug abuse or other elements, or a combination of some of the above. Any depictions of sexual acts will require at least an R rating. NC-17: No One 17 And Under Permitted to view/read this piece. The piece is patently too adult for youngsters under 17. This includes extra-graphic violence, descriptions of a rape, graphic sex, extremely foul language. Category Guidelines- OPTIONAL stuff. Culled from the various fan fiction domains that I've been exposed to, most especially the JQ Archive. I've come up with a few categories of my own. If you think there's a category I left out, e-mail me! I would like to thank Dusty for suggesting the OC category. A- Angst/Sad Stuff. Any piece that includes major heartache or sad storylines. E- Adventure/Episodic. Pieces that are action-adventure based and/or close to what you would see in the actual series. H- Humor. Any piece primarily created for humerous effect. HR- Romance. Parties involved in the romance may be denoted. Yaoi HR- Non-graphic, same gender romance. X- Crossover. Any story that includes characters from another TV series, movies, books, etc.. M- Music (music fics, music videos, filk, etc.) Any piece that uses a song as a major story device. V- Vignette. Just a scene or two. Not a very important category. MCD- Major Character Death. This would include the V Force, Lotor, Hagar, Zarkon, Coran, Nanny, the blue cat, and the space mice. You don't have to say who dies. V3D- A piece that considers V3D canon. VV- Vehicle Voltron. Involves the Vehicle Voltron Force. F- Future. A story that takes place after the end of the original series (Fleet of Doom Eps). If it's paired with V3D, anything that takes place after the final V3D ep. Pre- Present. Meant to take place during the original series. If paired with V3D, then during the 3D series. P- Past. Takes place before the original series. Int- Interim. Stories that take place between the original series and V3D. OC- Original Characters. This story contains characters not seen in the series. NF- Not Fanfic. Poems, quizzes, top ten's, games, etc…. ML- Involves people from the list or other's from real life. PAR- Parodies and Spoofs. Not necessarily a cross-over. The Voltron characters parodize another show or story, but the characters from that show or story do not appear. UST- Unresolved Sexual Tension. I- Insanity. A piece that's just completely nuts. Usually humorous and totally unpredictable, anything can happen (and usually does), and often there is little plot. Format Guidelines- These are *suggestions* for when you send a story out, these are in no way a list or archive requirement. 1. In the subject of your e-mail, use the format: Title, Part #/Total Parts 2. Don't use the TAB key for indents. Use a blank line to separate paragraphs instead of indents. 3. Do not use smart quotes aka quotation marks that curve. 4. Separate scenes with symbols, such as ******, ++++++, ect…. 5. For thoughts or telepathic communications, it is generally helpful to use single quotemarks ' or symbols, such as ^ or < . If you use < , be sure to include spaces between the symbol and words or else it will interpreted as an html code and none of the words between the < > will show up. It would also be a good idea to clarify what means what in your Author Notes. If you html-ize your fic, using italics and bold is a good idea as well. 6. Try to keep it at 70 characters per line. Hopefully your e-mail program will do this automatically, but I know AOL sometimes has problems with this. 7. If you're not going to HTML-ize your story, use ASCII Text, Text for DOS, Text Only (Microsoft Word). Basically, unformatted text. Writing in the following programs is the best way to ensure nothing weird happens to your text:
8. Spell check and proof your work. It's generally a good idea to have a beta-reader and to use a spell checker. A lot of spelling mistakes can really detract from a story. 9. If you have any questions about formatting, feel free to e-mail me. Although please remember that none of the above mentioned items are requirements, just some helpful suggestions. Formatting Policy- This is my policy regarding how I go about formatting stories into HTML for placement in the archive. 1. Unless symbols are clearly specified for a specific purpose (i.e. at the beginning of the story, an author states: < > means thoughts & should be italic), I will not italicize or bold any text. 2. If an author wishes text to be formatted in a certain way, I am willing to accept .doc attachments to so that their special formatting can be preserved. 3. If a story is sent HTML-ized, I will preserve all formatting (including background color and text color). But I will most likely re-HTML it. The reason for this is that most HTML fics sent through the list are done by programs that use weird html to format and it's just too damn messy to deal with. 4. If a non-HTML story was sent, but the author would like to specify a certain background (color or picture), text color, and text size, they need to e-mail me privately. I don't suggest telling me something like: I want a blue background, yellow text, and medium size font. A better idea is to visit one of the following sites, play around with the colors and then copy the html code and send it to me (IN .TXT FORMAT) along with instructions about which stories they apply to.
Also, I will eventually allow people to choose specific fonts, but I need to make up an acceptable font list. I don't know when I will get around to it. 5. I *do not* edit stories and I am not obligated to do so. If an author wants their story edited, they must use a beta-reader and not expect me to edit for them. If you have any comments, suggestion, or complaints, please send them to me at or sign the guest book. |