BSV Forum - Writing - General Tips

Tips for authors new to the BSV

Jun 11 2009 11:22 pm   #1slaymesoftly
I want to offer a few tips for new authors to peruse before they post a fic here:

1 - Please read the rules first, and read them carefully. There are reasons for all of them, and we take them quite seriously. Here are some of the things that come up and cause fics to be rejected:

a - Please use a beta - If your submission is full of mechanical errors (typos, punctuation, spelling, grammar, sentence structure - these are all considered the mechanics of writing.), it will be rejected right off the bat.  Almost all good authors use at least one beta. No matter how careful or well-educated you are, your eyes are going to miss things that a fresh set of eyes will catch. And if your writing skills are shaky, a beta will catch that for you before you are embarrassed by having a fic rejected. :) If you don't know if your mechanics are good, that's probably a good sign that you need to run your fic by someone who does.  I'm just saying...
ETA - if English is not your native language, I can almost guarantee that you need an English-speaking beta to go over your chapters before you submit them. This is not a criticism of your trying to write in English - I admire it tremendously. However, it is a somewhat difficult and tricky language and it is, alas, often very easy for us to spot the fics written by those who are writing in what is not their native tongue. 

b - Please remember the rule about only submitting one chapter at a time. If you post the whole fic before you have even seen the first chapter go up, you are creating a lot of work for both yourself and for the mods, who will reject all the chapters without even reading them.  Until you have been notified that you are on auto, you may only submit one chapter and must wait for it to be posted before you submit the next one. That may or may not happen on the same day you submit it. It depends on how busy we are in RL

c - We are very reluctant to reject fics for lack of artistic merit (actually, we aren't so much reluctant as just not willing to deal with the resulting yelling and screaming). However, the rules do clearly state that the plot must be logical and possible to follow, and that the characters must be recognizable.  Must be. Not optional. These two more subjective issues are also in the rules.  Please understand that. They are just as legitimate reasons for rejecting a fic as are the mechanical problems.

2 - Other things that may cause problems for you:

a - Many newer authors seem to have been hit by the "no text posted" bug that occurred when the servers were switched back in the late fall or winter.  If you already have chapters on here, it wouldn't be a bad idea to check them to be sure the text didn't go missing. This is something you need to contact Dia to fix. We can't do it.

b - Ditto if your submission in the validation queue has no text. You'll be notified of the problem when we reject the blank submission and you'll have to contact Dia to get her to work her magic on the permissions.  We try to remember to tell her about it, but you shouldn't count on us. :)

c - Lack of care in the summary - this is your chance to convince readers that they want to read your story. If it has typos or other errors, the assumption will be that the story is going to be hard to read.  Just a word to the wise - "I suck at summaries. Just read it." is not likely to inspire a lot of interest. Work on it until you have come up with something that makes your story sound interesting and well-written. Bear in mind that if the mods see a summary that is full of errors and incoherent sentences, we're not likely to expect much from the actual chapter...First impressions are import all the way around.

I think I had more, but I can't think of them ATM. I'll add to the list as they come to me. :)


I am not a minion of Evil...
I am upper management.
Jun 12 2009 02:06 am   #2Always_jbj
Adding my two cents' worth...

I had posted this on the news page a while ago, but as it has been moved down, I don't think it hurts to add it to this thread.

The moderators' decision is final, so if your story is rejected for whatever reason (and if it is, you will be told why in an email), please do not email us to argue the point. We are happy to answer any questions you have, but arguing will not make us validate a story which does not comply with our rules.

Similar can be said for the Challenges... if you don't see your Challenge go up, it might mean it was rejected, or that we haven't had a chance to look at it yet (we do have lives outside of being moderators). Spamming us with it several times isn't going to make us change our minds if we've decided to reject it, nor is it going to make us look at it any sooner if we haven't yet had time.
Aim from the heart
Some will love and some will curse you, baby
You can go to war
But only if you have to 


Fanfic ~*~ Artwork ~*~ Live Journal
Jun 12 2009 01:54 pm   #3slaymesoftly
Good points - both of them. I didn't even think to include the challenges in my mini-rant. :)  As well as the part about decisions being final. 
You cannot argue your way out of bad mechanics. They are are either correct or they aren't.  All an argument will get you is a portion of your submission sent back to you with red ink all over it - if I have the time to "grade" your "paper" - pointing out the errors and why they are errors. 
No one here wants to be hurtful, and we try to be fairly tactful when writing our rejection letters. However, if you're going to argue and/or demand to know what we didn't like about your submission, you need to be prepared to hear the answers....
Telling us that your fic has been posted elsewhere, that it has been nommed for awards, and so forth isn't going to have much effect on us.  We all know that there are other archives that are not as demanding as we are, and we also know that there is no guarantee that fics nommed for awards actually should have been. We've been around too long for either of those things to have any bearing on our decisions.
I am not a minion of Evil...
I am upper management.
Jun 19 2009 03:24 am   #4slaymesoftly
Because we currently have fics in the queue with some issues, I'm bumping this thread up in hopes that authors will notice and read it BEFORE they submit unbeta'd stories.   If you haven't thanked a beta, I'm assuming you don't have one. If your fic gets rejected for mechanical or artistic issues, then you clearly need one. If you had a beta but just didn't bother to thank him or her in your AN, and your fic gets rejected, you need to get another one.  If you've made a submission and haven't heard anything, it's probably because we're discussing what to do with your submission.  That's not a positive thing as a general rule...  Please read the top entry on this thread to see what is required to be accepted at the BSV. Thank you.

*is grumpy*
I am not a minion of Evil...
I am upper management.
Jun 19 2009 04:22 am   #5Spikez_tart

Shall I send the Spikebot over to cheer you up?

If we want her to be exactly she'll never be exactly I know the only really real Buffy is really Buffy and she's gone' who?
Jun 20 2009 07:57 pm   #6slaymesoftly
Hmmmmm Spikebot!   Yes, please. :)
I am not a minion of Evil...
I am upper management.
Feb 06 2014 07:02 pm   #7slaymesoftly
Bumping it up again in hopes Tart will send me the Spikebot. :)  (And also in case anyone needs to see it)
I am not a minion of Evil...
I am upper management.
Feb 10 2014 02:30 pm   #8DeepBlueJoy
Bumping it up again in hopes Tart will send me the Spikebot. :)  (And also in case anyone needs to see it)

I think I need a spikebot.

hehe
DeepBlueJoy
DeepBlueJoy's stories
Feb 11 2014 08:05 pm   #9slaymesoftly
Bumping it up again in hopes Tart will send me the Spikebot. :)  (And also in case anyone needs to see it)

I think I need a spikebot.

hehe


LOL Don't we all?
I am not a minion of Evil...
I am upper management.

 Closed