Story Submission Guidelines

STORY AND POETRY SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

PhoenixSong.net is an archive for BETAED STORIES ONLY. That means before your story is archived, it must and will go through a beta reader. Your beta reader will be assigned to you when your first fic is accepted to the site, and you will typically work with that beta for the rest of the time you archive here.

We also recommend the use of 'pre-betas', or people who look over the story before you submit it. A fresh set of eyes can often catch things you miss when you are proofreading your own work, and can be quite helpful. Your pre-beta can be someone you know; it can be one of our volunteer pre-betas here on the site (see "The Hatchery" thread on the Perch); it can be more than one person. Several of our authors use multiple pre-betas before their fic ever sees their official beta's mailbox. Be aware that if your story is filled with spelling and grammatical errors when it's submitted, it will be rejected. Pre-betas can help you fix those problems and prevent rejection. They're there for your benefit.

In order to help our writers and betas as much as possible, PhoenixSong and Perfect Imagination have teamed up to offer beta-reading services. You may contact Perfect Imagination on your own for assistance with pre-betaing, and they are also now assisting us in keeping up with the demand for new betas. Now, when you submit a story to PS, you may either be assigned a beta who works exclusively for PS, or we may assign you to work with Perfect Imagination, and they will set you up with a beta reader as necessary. We're excited about the possibilities that this partnership will enable us to achieve with regard to our continued growth and development.

PLEASE NOTE: To comply with the United States Federal Trade Commission's Children's Online Privacy Act, PhoenixSong.net does not accept stories from children under age 13. This is for our protection as well as for yours; please see the document at http://www.ftc.gov/privacy/privacyinitiatives/childrens.html for more information.

The following information pertains to both stories and poetry archived on PhoenixSong.net and supercedes any prior directives.

SHIPPING REQUIREMENTS:

PhoenixSong.net does limit the ships we accept. Effective July 27, 2007, we've established the following categories for accepted ships. PLEASE MAKE SURE YOUR STORY CONFORMS TO THESE SHIP REQUIREMENTS.

• CONFIRMED:
  • Harry/Ginny
  • Ron/Hermione
  • Remus/Tonks (Missing Moment and AU fics accepted)
  • James/Lily
  • Molly/Arthur
  • Bill/Fleur
  • Teddy/Victoire
  • Andromeda/Ted
  • Lucius/Narcissa
  • Vernon/Petunia
  • Luna/Rolf Scamander (ultimately end up together, but she can have romances with others until later on; see chat with JKR dated 7/30/07)
  • Neville/Hannah (see JKR's Carnegie Hall Event, dated 10/19/07)
• PERMISSABLE:
  • Neville/Luna (see interview with JKR)
  • Dean/Luna
  • Percy/Penelope – there has been no mention of Penelope since PoA. While it was canon up through PoA, it's now considered ambiguous since it hasn't been confirmed by DH or JKR.
• FRIENDSHIP ONLY:
  • Snape/Lily – PLEASE NOTE: all authors submitting fics with this pairing must be VERY clear of the limitations set forth within the Harry Potter series, and especially Deathly Hallows' Chapter 33 – The Prince's Tale, regarding the nature of this relationship. In short, no fluffy, fuzzy, long-winded, multi-chaptered mushiness involving these two. One shots where Snape imagines his life with Lily are one thing. The other? Please. Our stomachs can't take it.
• Any other pairing – canon and/or original characters – that does not contradict the above and is in keeping with canon characterizations. This includes stories involving Luna Lovegood. Based on JKR's ever-changing mind regarding the future of this character, we know the following to have come from her thoughts: that she is intrigued by a Neville/Luna pairing, that she's intimated a growing closeness between Luna and Dean and that Luna marries Rolf Scamander, Newt Scamander's son, later in life. That said, have at it!
• Non-romantic stories, as well as stories from the Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, & Prongs era (the four of them and/or Lily prior to Lily & James' deaths).
• All stories are subjected to our "we run the site" discretion (in either accepting OR rejecting them). The Administrative Team reserves the right to make exceptions to these guidelines at their discretion.

STORIES NOT ACCEPTED AT PHOENIXSONG.NET INCLUDE:

• Student/teacher relationships of any sort (effective September 10, 2006)
• Cross-over fics (No HP/Buffy, HP/LotR…you get the drift) - Crossovers of characters from a completely unrelated literary series -- or other media-based influences -- into the HP canon are not acceptable. Examples of this include HP/LOTR, HP/Star Trek, HP/Buffy, etc.
• Stories involving Harry, Ron, Hermione, or Ginny in any long-term relationship but the above pairings. Full stop. While we realize that some transitory couples (such as Ginny with Michael Corner or Dean Thomas) could be considered 'canon' for such things as 'Missing Moments' in fanfic, we will use our 'we run this site' discretion on whether to archive a quick Missing Moment of this type. If you have a multi-chaptered snog-fest featuring any of these types of couple, we suggest you might like to archive them somewhere… over there… *waves hand at the far, distant horizon*

STORY TYPES:

PhoenixSong.net features several different types of stories. The following are a list of genres which are acceptable:

• Action/Adventure
• Angst
• Comedy
• Drama
• Fluff
• General
• Humor
• Missing Moments
• Poetry
• Romance
• Tragedy

STORY CATEGORIES – UPDATED 27 JULY 2007

PLEASE NOTE: Story categories are determined by the framework of canon in which they fit best, not by the time-frame in which a story is written/posted. Thus, a story that is written after 2007, but deliberately only includes elements of books 1-5 would be categorized as pre-HBP. 

Example: a story featuring Tonks, set during the events of Harry's fourth year, yet including mentions of Umbridge working at the Ministry, would still be classified as pre-HBP. 

While some of this may be confusing at times, we will do our best to set all stories as reliably as possible. We also reserve the right to adjust a story's classification when necessary.

• Pre-OotP: Stories consistent with canon through Goblet of Fire. These stories take the Harry Potter universe as it was known before Order of the Phoenix and expand on it. Cedric Diggory has been killed, Voldemort is back, etc. People like Tonks and Umbridge do not live in this universe.
• Pre-HBP: Stories consistent with canon through Order of the Phoenix. Sirius is dead, Umbridge is no longer the DADA teacher and Harry knows the prophecy. People like Slughorn don't live in this universe.
• Pre-DH: Stories consistent with canon through Half-Blood Prince. Dumbledore is dead, Snape killed him, Harry and Ginny confirmed (then split up… for now, dang it); things are bad. Kreacher is purely a horrible… creature, at this point, and Harry is still not allowed to do magic outside of school.
• Post-DH: Stories holding to canon as of the release of Deathly Hallows. These stories contain all the available information and status of Harry, et. al. through the end of the published series.
• DH-interview: Please note the differentiation in this category and the one above. This category is a reflection of JKR's interviews in the post-DH-release media craze. While there is a lot of overlap between this category and the Post-DH category, there are also differences. At the end of Deathly Hallows, we don't know the career choices of most of the main characters, other than Neville's. We know only that Harry and Ginny are married and have three children; Ron and Hermione are married and have two children (and we know their kids' names and approximate ages, etc., of course!). In the DH-interview category, we also know that Teddy's girlfriend (and future wife) is Bill and Fleur's oldest daughter, Victoire. We know that Harry and Ron become Aurors, but Ron also works with George at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes (at least for a time). Once these (and other yet-to-be-released) aspects are definitively posted to her website, or otherwise confirmed, we will consider those to be more canon-related facts. Until then, at least some of them will be slightly open to interpretation. For specific information regarding all of the revelations covered in this category, please check out the following interviews:
  • Today Show dated 07/26/07: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/19959323/
  • Leaky Cauldron dated 7/30/07: http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2007/7/30/j-k-rowling-web-chat-transcript
• AU: Stories that hold to canon through Books 1 through 7, but change a limited number of canon facts for the sake of exploring the 'what ifs'. Also includes stories that held canon through the publishing of one of the later novels (OotP through DH) but deviate from subsequent canon, i.e. including elements from DH into a Pre-DH story. Other examples include Sirius remaining alive after Harry's fifth year, Dumbledore surviving beyond Harry's sixth year, and Remus and Tonks *sob* surviving the war, etc. Stories in this category may be considered on a case-by-case basis. Because of the nature of A/U stories, these will still be held to stricter requirements for characterization and canon-quality than our canon-based tales.

CHAPTERED STORIES:

If you are writing a chaptered fic, we require that you have a minimum of TWO CHAPTERS finished before you submit, and that you submit them both at the same time.

RATING INFORMATION:

• Everyone: roughly equivalent to a G/US or U/UK rating
• Young Teen: roughly equivalent to a PG/US or PG/UK rating
• Teen: roughly equivalent to a PG13/US or 12-12A/UK rating. See below for more details.
• Mature: roughly equivalent to an R/US or 18/UK. See below for more details.

TEEN VS. MATURE STORIES/CHAPTERS/POETRY:

Stories with the Teen rating may have some questionable content; parents should be aware of this before allowing their children under the age of 13 to read them. The content can include the following:

TEEN RATING GUIDELINES:

More than one reference to:

• Sensuality or sensual situations
• Nudity, as long as the nudity is NOT sexually oriented
• Violence
• Language, with the exception of sexually-derived words used only as an expletive (see below)

Single use of the following:

• Drug/drugging references
• Use of a sexually-derived word used only as an expletive

MATURE RATING GUIDELINES:

Mature-rated stories – for any reason – must meet extremely rigorous standards, and are – out of all stories archived – very likely not to be accepted for posting on PhoenixSong. Mature-rated stories require much closer scrutiny and involvement for all staff-members involved in archiving them. Thus, these stories are even more subjected to the "we run the site" discretion (in either accepting OR rejecting them), and must be worth the extra effort involved in their posting. The Administrative Team reserves the right to make exceptions to these guidelines at their discretion.  Consider yourselves warned.

PhoenixSong.net's Mature-rated chapters or stories contain adult content or have what would be considered violent content. Examples of the adult content can include but are not limited to the following:

• Nudity within sensual scenes
• Substance abuse – specifically magical substances or alcohol, not illicit drugs
• Suicide ideation
• Infertility

Examples of violent content can include but are not limited to the following:

• Graphic depictions of war
• Tough/excessive violence (i.e., torture)
• Abusive relationships

Any combination of the above will result in a Mature rating. There are no exceptions.

Parents are strongly encouraged to learn more about the content of these stories and be open to discussions with the child prior to allowing them to read it. Mature-rated chapters on PhoenixSong.net are intended solely for our members who are at least 18 years of age. We will not accept any Mature-rated stories or chapters from anyone under the age of 18 at either PhoenixSong or our sister site, TheBroomCupboard. There are NO exceptions.

MULTI-CHAPTERED STORIES:

We will not accept long, multi-chaptered stories where the majority of the chapters are Mature-rated. We grant allowances for Teen-rated stories to contain chapters within the story that are Mature-rated if it is necessary for story development.  

Stories exceeding ten (10) chapters that necessitate an M-rating due to sexuality and/or sexual language, excessive violence and/or adult-themed concepts are required to have the following:

• Not more than 25% of the total number of chapters of the story are allowed to be rated Mature. (example: a twenty-chapter story can have no more than five Mature-rated chapters). Stories exceeding this amount will not be archived on PhoenixSong.net.
• EACH of the mature-rated chapters will also be required to post a corresponding teen-rated version of the chapter. This will ensure more fairness to all our readers, including those who are not yet 18, but who wish to know the main story-line of the chapters without having access to the mature-rated content.
• "Excessive" would be considered content more intense or detailed than original canon presented by JKR. This will be at the discretion of the administrative team. 

SINGLE-CHAPTERED & SHORT STORIES:

PhoenixSong.net will consider adult-content one-shots and stories between five and ten chapters in length on a case-by-case basis. For stories longer than five chapters, the overall reason for the Mature-rating MUST be because of adult themes other than sexuality (i.e., war, death, violence, etc.). Some sexuality may be included, but it must not be the primary reason for the rating.

PhoenixSong.net will consider sexually-oriented stories of five chapters or less on a case-by-case basis. We will require seeing a completed version of the story prior to accepting it for archival.

Strictly sexually-oriented stories longer than five chapters with an overall M-rating will be directed to our sister site, TheBroomCupboard. Please review the story guidelines for TheBroomCupboard for more information. Please note: you have to be over the age of 18 to become a registered member of TBC.

Submissions are currently CLOSED. Please watch our Homepage for details on upcoming submissions!