Master of Orion Fan Fiction
Posting Rules
In order to have your fan fiction posted on this site, we ask that you obey the following rules:
- 1) All submissions are to be by email attachment or plain text message to ronlugge [at] orionsector [dot] com. Non-readable messages will recieve a "e-mail unreadable" reply. Your return email must be valid so we can contact you if necessary, but we will not provide your email address to anybody without your express permission (or a subpeno).
- 2) You retain all rights that you previously possessed to your work. Remember, however, that these are fan fiction written in a universe that is the intellectual property of QS/IG, don't forget they have first claim on your material.
- 3) No excessive profanity. Keep cursing in any language that exists on Earth circa 2003 to a minimum. No racial slurs, ethnic slams, etc directed at actual people on Earth today will be tolerated. Made up words are OK (again in small quantities), but please provide a dictionary that does not rely on current curse words to explain your new words. Your dictionary will be compiled into an 'author's notes' section, which will be the last item on your table of contents.
- 4) Orion Sector expressly disclaims any and all warranty and responsibility for these stories. These are the works of fiction created by others and provided to us at no charge, and for no reward (other than free publicity).
- 5) Orion Sector reserves the right to not post any work we feel is of insufficient quality to represent Master of Orion III. This includes, but is not limited to, stories of extreme short length, stories without point, stories that are simply boring, and stories with grammar so utterly atrocious that the average third grader should exceed it. Note that errors within dialog, when clearly deliberate (used for character development, for example), are acceptable.
- 6) If you want any fancy formatting, please submit your submissions already translated into HTML. This includes italicizing ship names, italicizing character's thoughts, bold, underline, (see rule 6c) or color (see rule 6b however).
- 6a) If you submit in HTML, NO font size or header tags. No images or tables in the main story. (You may use either or both in an 'author's notes' page, if you wish, just not elsewhere.) No div or span tags -- which means NO MS-Word, Frontpage, Dreamweaver, or similar program-generated HTML. Sorry, but those tags mess up scripts too easily, too often.
- 6b) If you submit in HTML, use color changes in extreme moderation. Excessively bright colors, garish colors, or overuse of color tags will get your submission rejected.
- 6c) If you want to submit something in HTML code, save your file as a text file -- a .txt extension. Once you have done so, do not insert any formating above and beyond italics, boldface, colors, and underline.
- 8) If you would like to recieve feedback on your work, you need to provide us with an 'about the author' page in which you provide contact information (such an an email address) or a link to a topic on IG-, OS-, OO-, or PolyMOO where you would like people to post feedback. This page is completely optional, if you do not want feedback or simply do not want to give out any details at all about yourself, just don't write any such page and that's all there is to it.
- 9) Use a spell checker. Occasional mispelled words, used for effect, are allowed. However, regular mispelled words or poor grammar will get your piece rejected. There are several free spellcheck programs out there, after all. If you're making up words (or using words the spell check doesn't recognize!) just hit the "add" button. Note that errors within dialog, when clearly deliberate (used for character development, for example), are exceptable.
- 10) If you feel your story is "special" for some reason, and that one of the above rules should be bent, please send an E-mail containing only the rule you wish to bend , and the reasoning behind it. If that reasoning is "My story is special" I'll probably ignore it; if its "I want it for a specific effect" you'd better explain how it achieves it, why your story needs it, and most importantly a well-thought, polite request for me to look at the story and see for myself.
Posting Suggestions
These are NOT rules, just our recommendations to help you improve your work. Please note, however, that people who do these things will find their work accepted more often than those thad don't.
- Wait for a while between finishing a piece and editing. Often, a little time will let you see things that you missed on your first go-through.
- Keep your sections/chapters under 10,000 words, and your stories to under 20 chapters.
- End each section/chapter with some sort of a cliff-hanger.
- When possible, get a friend to edit your work for you. Other readers will see your grammar errors when you would read right over them, reading instead what you meant to write. Been there, done that, got a closet full of T-shirts, believe me! For those that are wondering, you can (and should!) post your story to the forums fanfic section. You should get help there. If you don't, give me an E-mail with a link and I'll drop by.
- Works in progress are perfectly OK. I will be maintaining a mailing list and will e-mail everyone on it when an update occurs. This mailing list will cover any change to the fanfiction section, not just story updates. Also, as stated on the main page this service is handled by me and is not a part of this page, so if I go the service will end.
Thank you for your cooperation. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions (or whatever) about these rules, please feel free to contact me at ronlugge [at] orionsector [dot] com. I am very open to suggested rules changes, as I am still in the proccess of renovating this section of OrionSector.
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