They're not as restrictive as they look, I promise!
Technical Rules
1. Stories must be submitted to the proper category. If there is an appropriate sub-category, DO NOT add your story to the main category.
1A. You may also select multiple genres or characters. Please do not abuse this feature. Select only the major genres or characters (ex. If Jinx only has one line in your 50,000 word fic, she doesn't deserve to be on the character list.)
1B. If a suitable category, genre or charcter is not available, please contact us to request that it be added.
2. Titles and summaries must be kid friendly. No exceptions. Summaries must also summarize the story, no "read and reviews".
2A. Titles should contain only alphanumeric characters (no ~*^ etc). Please use proper capitalization.
2B. Author notes, footnotes, etc. do not belong in your summary, nor do they belong in the content of you story. There is a box for chapter notes and etc. on the submissions page. Use it.
3. Correct grammar and spelling are expected of all stories submitted to this site. The site administrators reserve the right to request corrections in submissions with a multitude of grammar and/or spelling errors. If such a request is ignored, the story will be deleted.
4. All stories must be rated correctly and have the appropriate warnings. All adult rated stories are expected to have warnings. After all, they wouldn't have that rating if there wasn't something to be warned about! The site administrators recognize that there is an audience for these stories, but please respect those who do not wish to read them by labeling them appropriately.
4A. Stories must be rated according to the highest rated chapter AND any intended chapters.
4B.When in doubt of your rating, make use of the "Contact Us" link. We will be happy to recommend a rating for you.
5. Stories with multiple chapters should be archived as such and NEVER as separate stories.
5A. Please make use of the "series" function to organize stories within a series. You must add new stories to the series through the series page.
7. Your story must be in English. If you wish to include non-English dialogue, include the translation in the endnotes box.
8. You must have written the story you are submitting. Accounts are free and easy to obtain, so there's no excuse for authors posting for someone else.
8A. If you are an author who wishes to archive their story, but does not wish to make an account, an admin will add the story for you under your name.
Content Restrictions
1. Unacceptable Themes -
- Adult/Teen or Adult/Child romance
- Rape for erotic effect
- Torture for erotic effect
Rape and torture during wartime does happen and is allowable if it is written realistically and not just for the author to get his/her fetishy jollies off of.
2. Unacceptable Formats -
- Lists
- Scripts
- Chat Format
- Announcements, Q&A or other non-standard story formats.
Please note that these may be allowed if they are parts of a story or in author's notes ex. Breaker logs into a chatroom within your story. Announcements etc. are allowed within storynotes or the authornotes portions of a submission.
3. No Real Person Fiction.
You can include political figures and the like if you don't like to follow the grand Joe tradition of making up people and countries, but leave the live-action actors out of your story.
4. Mary Sue/Gary Sue/Author Insertion style Original Characters.
For info on what a Mary Sue/Gary Stu is try here. With so many existing Joes and secondary characters, we prefer that you stick with what's already in universe. If you have to create a family member, support character, senator, cannon fodder or other character to fufill a specific role, that's fine.
What we don't want to see is a character who outfights Snake Eyes, outsmarts the intelligence agents, outshoots Heavy Duty and generally saves the day while the other characters sit around and think about how cool they are. Negative points if the character is also there to sex up your favorite character and is either devastingly pretty (if female) or roguishly handsome (if male) and they have a casual disregard for authority figures.
5. No PWP or Erotic Fiction
We accept stories that have sex scenes in them, but if the ENTIRE plot of your story is just an excuse to write said sex scene, please take your story over to adultfanfiction.net.
Ratings
Kids - Similar to G or PG ratings. If you couldn't see it in the original cartoon, it shouldn't be in a Kids story.
Teens - Similar to PG or PG-13 ratings. Violence can be more graphic and dialogue/situations can be more suggestive, and language can be more harsh. Similar to most of the comic series.
Teens+ - Similar to an R rating. Graphic violence, graphic language and sexual situtations are to be expected. (Please not that Graphic Sexuality bumps a story up to the next rating.)
Adult - Reserved for stories with graphic sexuality, extreme violence, or other extreme themes.
Procedure
All new authors will need to be validated before their work shows up on this site.
You can submit up to 3 chapters (either in one story or one in multiple stories). These will be read over to check for compliance with the above rules adn restrictions. If they pass, you will receive an e-mail saying your stories have been accepted and you can update as much as you like and your work will be viewable to the public instantaneously.
If you fail the validation, we will try to notify you as to what the problem was and how it can be fixed. The chapters will be deleted and you will be able to resubmit as many times as necessary to pass.
How to Submit Your First Story
1. Register for an account if you haven't already.
2. Go into Your Account and choose Add New Story
3. Fill in ALL the applicable information. If you need help, read the help files.
4. Either type or copy and paste the story text OR upload a .doc or .txt file. If you want to use the WYSIWYG editor, you must enable it in your preferences under Your Account.
We will try to get back to you within a week. If you haven't heard from us, feel free to use the contact form to give us a poke.
Submissions found to be in violation of these rules may be removed and the author's account suspended at the discretion of the site administrators and/or moderators. The site administrators reserve the right to modify these rules as needed.