In order to make it easier for moderators and those who write and read the fan fiction stories, we are going to separate the comments from the stories. We are asking everyone to follow these guidelines:

For story writers:

Post your new story as you normally would, but also post a companion comment thread in the Fan Fiction Comments forum where people can post comments for you to read. Once you have created the comment thread, post a link to it in the first chapter of your story. (For example, if your story is called The Chief and the Princess, then you would create a thread in the Fan Fiction Comments forum called The Chief and the Princess - Comments.) You can refer to some examples that have already been created to see how it works.

For stories that have multiple chapters, as most do, simply reply to your existing story thread to add new chapters. Don't forget to check the comments thread to see what people have to say about your stories. Since the Fan Fiction Comments forum will be pruned regularly, make sure to save any comments that you want to keep.

For story readers:

Whenever you want to provide a comment to a story writer, please make sure that you click on the link to the comment thread (at the beginning of the story) and make your comments there. If you forget and reply in the story thread in Fan Fiction, your comments will not appear in the thread (because of the new full moderation process) and the author will never see them.


We hope that everyone likes these improvements to our fan fiction area. The result will be a continuous story that is easy to read, without all of the interruptions caused by reader comments, and should make Fan Fiction more enjoyable and constructive for everyone.

For people who may not be familiar with how to put links into their posts, here is a step-by-step procedure for starting a new story and adding links that will make it easy for everyone to read and comment on your story.

Post the first part of your new story, as you usually would. After the post is approved and appears in the fan fiction forum, go to The Fan Fiction Comments forum and post a new comments thread for your story. While the comments thread is displayed, copy the url for your comments thread. It's the "address" that appears at the top of your browser. Here's a picture of where to find the url in Internet Explorer:



Next, open your story thread and follow this procedure to add the link to your comments thread:

1. Click "Edit" at the bottom of your new story post.
2. Put your cursor at the very bottom of the text in the edit window (after your story text), leaving a couple of blank lines to separate the link from the story.
3. Type the text you want to use in front of the link to the comments thread (I've been using "To comment on this story, click "
4. Leave the cursor one space after the last word you typed, then click on the first icon in the edit toolbar (see the following picture):
   
   
   
5. Paste the url that you copied from your new comments thread in the window that opens and click OK.
6. Type the word "here" (without the quotes) into the next window that opens and click OK.
7. If you want to see how it looks, click "I want to preview my changes"
8. When you're happy with the link, click "Submit"

The link should look like this:



Now you will need to use a similar procedure to put a link in your comments thread that will link back to the story. Just remember to copy the url for your story thread and edit the comments thread to put the link to the story. You could use something like, "To read this story, click here."

This all needs to be accomplished within the time limit for editing posts. If you are unable to edit the post (there is no Edit button), please let me or Rockmower know, and we'll help you.

Thanks!