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First of all, I am glad that you are trying to become a better writer. It is something that all of us here are striving for and we will help you out as much as we can.

Now, I have a couple of questions for you:

1) Can you provide a link to your story? It will help us make better suggestions if we can see the work in question.

2) Are you sure someone in the PPC said they were going to spork your story? There are many groups that do sporkings, and they all have different ways of going about them. The situation you've described does not sound like our MO, so it may have been someone else.

That said, we welcome you to the Board. Feel free to stick around and get to know everyone and ask questions.

~Barid

Having not read the story in question, I can't pinpoint exactly what it was that made one of us choose it. Do you know who it was who said they were going to spork it?

Italian for Grandma has given a very in-depth explanation of grammar problems that might be of use. If you could give us some information about your story, it could help us tell you what someone thought was worthy of sporking. Just hooking up with a canon character wouldn't be enough.

Woah, you found us all by yourself...

Anyways. I can see that you're being honest. You want to be a better writer, as do I, and I respect that. I'm not exactly the best writer either, to tell you the truth, and I'm not the one who was going to spork your story.

You don't seem too bad, to tell you the truth. You wrote that story because you were angry, and I've written some not so great stuff while feeling rather emotional. Though what we do has some negative connotations to it, we aren't actually about mocking writers (Even if they really deserve it, like whoever the heck wrote My Immortal). I'm here because I want to tell a story inside the PPC setting, for example, and most people are here to have fun and enjoy themselves.

There I go, ranting on again... Anyways, welcome.

You're a repentant Suethor? My god, you have no idea how happy this makes all of us!

First of all, we're happy you came to us rather than start madly flaming us, like most people do. I'm pretty sure I speak for everybody when I say we would absolutely love to help you with this. Happy to have you here!

Okaaay...I'll admit right off the bat that I have no idea what Beka Cooper is, but I'm pretty sure someone else here does. However, it sounds as if you're main problems are with spelling, grammar, and the like, so if you would post a link to your story I'm sure I, or someone else, could help you.

As for the spelling and grammar of this message...Spelling is mainly fine, and I don't think I see any grammar errors except for lack of punctuation. Commas are your friends!

Well, compared to a few trainwrecks I've seen, you're actually pretty good. From what I can tell in your post, you seem to have spelling pretty much down, and that's good. You also said you want to write "well," not "good," and you used the correct "to" instead of "too" or "two." Yup, from a grammatical standpoint, you're not half bad. You're not *completely* there yet, but you're not half bad.

I do have a few tips for you, though. Number one: words like "don't," "couldn't," and whatnot need an apostrophe. That serves to indicate that two words have been merged together. So, it's "don't," not "dont." (By the way, once you have that down, it can help you with other problems like the difference between "there" and "they're." If the meaning you're looking for is "they are," i.e. has two words, then the word you're looking for is the one with the apostrophe. That's how I mastered that particular problem.)

Second. I'd recommend you review your period, and comma rules. To illustrate my point, I'll use one particular sentence from your post.

"I read a lot of the mission things and they were funny but it kind of hurt to realize that you guys thought my story was that bad but I got over it and now I'm hoping you guys can help me write better because I dont want that to happen again."

This is a run-on sentence; that means it goes on for too long without the proper punctuation. To fix it, you'll need to cut it up into smaller sentences and add the right punctuation. Let's start at the beginning.

"I read a lot of the mission things and they were funny..."

For starters, I'd put a period right after "things." You've said what you needed, so don't go overboard. That sentence stands on its own. Eliminate the "and," and you get:

"I read a lot of the mission things. They were funny..."

Doesn't that look better? Now for the next sentence:

"They were funny but it kind of hurt to realize you thought my story was that bad but I got over it..."

This requires a bit more work. Put a comma between "funny" and "but," because "They were funny" and "but it kind of hurt..." are completely different ideas in the sentence, and you need to separate them. Put a period after "bad," because the sentence is pretty much complete after two ideas are introduced. So:

"They were funny, but it kind of hurt to realize that you guys thought my story was that bad. But I got over it..."

Next: "But I got over it and now I'm hoping you guys can help me write better because I don't want that to happen again."

Put a comma between "it" and "and," to separate those two ideas. Then, put a comma between "better" and "because." Once that is out of the way, say "I don't want to get sporked again" instead of "I don't want that to happen again." That eliminates the need for the next sentence, which makes things a lot simpler. A general rule of thumb: the simpler things are, the better.

"But I got over it, and now I'm hoping you guys can help me write better, because I don't want to get sporked again."

And the final complete product: "I read a lot of the mission things. They werefunny, but it kind of hurt to realize that you guys thought my story was that bad. But I got over it, and now I'm hoping you guys can help me write better, because I don't want to get sporked again."

There! That's much better. Incidentally, this is how *I* would revise this sentence. Others on the board may tell you differently, because there are many different ways you could fix this and still be correct.

So, there you have it, you need to work mostly on your punctuation and sentence structure.

Now, I didn't give you any advice on subtler problems, like characterization and plot plausibility. To do that, I'd need to read your actual story...but I wouldn't recommend you talk to me about that. I'm not familiar with Beka Cooper, so I wouldn't be much help there. However, I'm sure that someone here is, and you can link them to your story and have them give you some advice.

All in all, I'm glad you've continued writing after having some hurt feelings. You're doing a good job so far. Keep it up, and take help whenever it's offered, and you'll be writing like a pro.

Good luck.

Katara, from Avatar the Last Airbender. Admittedly, she goes around in some pretty aesthetically-pleasing costumes, but most of them are flexible so as to be functional when waterbending. She's beautiful, smart, a master of her element, and she managed to transcend some ugly gender stereotypes in her art. She also has a hot temper, but she doesn't get away with mouthing off by any means. She has made some horrible choices in men, resulting in a couple messy break-ups, but instead of laying around feeling angsty about her life, she learns from her mistakes and eventually ends up with one of the most decent guys on the show. All in all, she's awesome.

From the same show, there's Toph Bei Fong. She's also a pretty young woman, and she's overcome her blindness by developing an awesome method of echolocation, even managing to bend metal, previously unheard of in earthbending. She still makes little mistakes due to blindness (like pinning up posters backward), but when she realizes she makes them, she owns up to them and goes on with life. She possesses a cruel sense of humor, which her friends call her out on even though she's completely unrepentant, and she's very bull-headed, which leads to some justifiable tension in the group. But she doesn't make excuses for herself because she is blind or because she's a girl or because she has a very bad past with her parents...rather, she owns her issues, and grows as a person because of it.

Ooh, my newly-developed ATLA obsession is showing. But while I'm here...

Fujioka Haruhi of Ouran High School Host Club. At the beginning of the story, she is a commoner who is admitted into a very prestigious high school for rich kids, because she did the hard work and earned a scholarship to go there. She comes into a school with short hair and somewhat androgynous looks, and everybody thinks she's a boy. Then, she's found out by the local club of extremely gorgeous man-meat boys, and, since she owes them several thousand yen's worth of favors, she is compelled to work for them, disguising herself as a boy. Secretly, all the boys are in love with her, each in their own way, but they treat her like an equal instead of putting her on a pedestal (except for one, but he's a bit nuts). She's not a romantic at all, settles into the club like she would a job, and tries not to let her secret out...by which is meant that she doesn't go around matchmaking, but actually, genuinely, tries to avoid any unnecessary attention whatsoever. Eventually, the club needs her dry sense of humor and down-to-earth personality just to keep running. And she's awesome!

well, technically, you didn't yet, but I saw someone saying they were going to a while ago. And I didn't know what it meant but I was confused so I looked it up and now I found the ppc. I read a lot of the mission things and they were funny but it kind of hurt to realize that you guys thought my story was that bad but I got over it and now I'm hoping you guys can help me write better because I dont want that to happen again. I mean I don't want to get sporked again, I want to write well. So please help?

It was a story I wrote after my boyfriend broke up with me about a girl hooking up with Rosto from Beka Cooper. I thought it would be ok because of the second book but I guess not.

Ps I tried really hard to get the spelling and grammar right in this but I dont really understand it. Did I?

Generally, from what I've seen, it's okay to friend people, though you should let them know (in advance, if you're uncomfortable), and not be offended if they don't friend you back. I've gotten friended from strangers, and generally don't refriend, because of personal reasons. *shrug* It's like any other internet-working-community, really.

camh86 AT hotmail DOT com, with the obvious substitutions.

1. From what I've seen, it's considered polite to ask first, but not essential. Also, don't be concerned if they don't friend you back; usually it just means they don't care to have your entries come up in the same interface as their preferred set, or else they don't want you to see their locked posts.
   
   2. It is entirely normal and permissible. I know of more rec-and-link communities for fanfic than for original fic, but that's probably because I look more for the former.
   
   3. Unless you become particularly incoherent or rude, odds are you won't be actually asked to shut up. That said, it's preferred to have entries beyond "a certain length", or containing several images, behind a cut. That certain length is fairly ill-defined; as a rule of thumb, I'd place the cutoff at two decent-sized paragraphs, or an equivalent length of shorter ones.
   
   4. This is where I pimp Milliways, right?
   
   5. Ansela's already answered this one, so I'll just reinforce a couple of points. Remember the quotation marks. Remember the dash ("" as opposed to ""). Conversely, if you want to insert the username of another user or a community, leave out the dash.

Friending: my usual rule is 'ask first', especially if the person in question also posts personal/RL stuff to the same journal as their fics. A lot of people don't like being randomly friended, especially if they have deeply personal stuff in their journal.

If they have objections to strangers reading their personal stuff they should either not put it on the internet at all, or friends lock their stuff. Friends lock means only the people they friended can read their stuff (and not the people that friended them).

For you too a link on how to make lj-cuts: http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=75

Just here to tell you about the wonderful world of lj-cuts. Or rather, just supply you with the link to the page that will explain: http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=75

Using an lj-cut on posts on livejournal is like not putting your entire story in the summary field.

Off to reading now.

What's your email address, so I can invite you to share the Googledoc?

With the MST'ing, that is. I have very little knowledge of Gorillaz canon, but do have the ability to snark on cue. If you prefer someone more canon-savvy or in a better time zone for collaborative writing, though, I understand.

Elcalion, Antipodean

So, I'm trying to MST that awful RPS fic I mentioned a while back (link not-work-safe). Anyone willing to join in? You don't actually have to know anything about the characters involved, just be able to make smartass comments about the fic.

Also, a couple of badfics:

Finding Fate, in which the Sue is gay for teenage Noodle. Props for originality, but utter sucks to the ending. Okay, so we're talking about a universe in which brain damage turns your hair blue and one doesn't run into legal difficulty of any sort when deciding to keep an amnesiac child you found in a box. Also, while I can't buy that Murdoc would care at all about this girl, I can buy that he could be persuaded to help her for Noodle's sake. However, I cannot buy that DEADLY NIGHTSHADE would cure a GUNSHOT WOUND, nor can I imagine that the hospital staff would let a scary-looking guy and a teenage girl barge into the intensive care unit and inject an unidentified substance into a patient! Even if it worked!

I'd like to claim this one, but the problem is I'm on a couple of LJ communities which used to be frequented by this writer and I don't know if they're still there. I don't want to risk having them follow the link back to my journal and possibly find this. Any advice? I don't think they're still active in the fandom and it's unlikely they'll go trawling through the comm friends, but just in case.

The second badfic is up for grabs, though I'll take it if nobody else wants it: A Sad Story, dubbed "A Bad Story" by the wags on TVTropes - the linked page explains the fun far better than I could. My favourite line in the whole thing: "Then his uncle pulled out a shotgun, with a silencer on it."

And the third, a Legendary Badfic in the FF7 fandom, which is thoroughly non-work-safe and up for grabs because I know nothing about FF7: Chocobo Nights. Best summarised by the Ficbitches' line "TIFA JUST GAVE BIRTH TO A F---ING CHOCOBO."

In other news, someone on TVTropes put one of my fics on the fic recs page. Yay!

You've got quite the odd couple going there with your chirpy fangirl partnered with the seen-it-all (semi-)veteran. At first I expected her to get on his nerves, but it looks as though he's getting paternal instead. All in all, nice. He almost reminds me of one of those film noir detectives--you know, the kind of guy you hear in a voice-over going, "It was a dark and stormy night..." Matches with your first-person perspective, too.

My editor sense is tingling a bit. I see a few overused words, some minor grammar errors, and a few instances of awkward wording--nothing bad, though, and nowhere near the level where it distracts from the story. I suggest a beta reader.

Yay, I got permission, happy dance, bla bla bla bla bla.

Okay, brass tacks. I got my very first mission up at http://edward-wilder.livejournal.com/587.html and I would love it if it got read. Constructive criticism is welcome and valued, and Neshomeh has informed me that some typos and such have gotten past the spell-check thingy so please tell me if you find any.

Hope you like it!

I would like to request Permission to write for the PPC. Here's a link to a sample of my writing: My Livejournal. It's the story of how Toon became an Agent.

Here are my Agents:
Agent Silikat: She is a giant brown and black tabby cat, a Jellicle form the Cats continuum. Actually, she’s five foot two, so she’s small for a human but large for a cat. She was recruited from her home continuum by Agents Ekwy and Gecka, who stopped by there once in a while. Silikat has a permanent case of fleas, rendering her quite grouchy and irritable, although she is happy after the death of a Sue. She’s very sarcastic and prefers to work alone, so the S.O gave her a partner, Toon, who she detests but puts up with for the sake of killing Sues. She’s in the Department of Mary Sues, Freelance Division. Her Lust Objects are The Master, Severus Snape, Draco Malfoy and Macavity.

Agent Toon: Toon was recruited from a badfic Silikat once entered. She was Captain Jack Harkness’ wife in a cut flashback, and fell through a plothole on top of Silikat. She, therefore, is not allowed on missions in the Torchwoodverse unbtil she has learned to control herself. She is annoyingly perky and optimistic and can be very naive at times. She has shoulder-length black hair, pale skin and hazel eyes, although this is her after the Sue part was taken out. She is quite stocky and plump, much to her annoyance. Toon is one of the only Agents who can be excited about going on a mission, but she hasn’t had too many yet, so that will most likely wear off. Her Lust Objects are Harry Potter, The Doctor, Jack Harkness and Neville Longbottom.

Here is the badfic I plan to kill as my first mission if I get Permission: Alexandra Pond

I would also like to know how to request an RC, since I have no clue myself, and how to adopt a mini from a fandom with no Agents in.
And...that's it, isn't it? Feedback on the writing sample is appreciated very much. Thanks!

Is Janitorial made up entirely of Flowers? Or do they haven non-Flower members too?

I'd think, that if the Flower members of Janitorial were in it to avoid Agents, you'd have to have non-Flowers to clean the heavily-populated areas. On the other hand, they might simply be good at making themselves scarce.

I have to ask "why Riddick?" but other than that the characters look good.

There are minor errors throughout the mission (missing words, misplaced apostrophes), but nothing too egregious. Be careful with your semi-colons, though, and don't use them where you really need a colon. That seems to be a Thing in British English, but to judge by your spelling, you don't have that excuse. {= P

One guideline I've found quite helpful with semi-colons is that they work best when used in place of a comma and a conjunction (and, but, or, because, etc.). But don't use a semi-colon when one of those would work better, of course. And if what it's standing in place of is "therefore," "and so," or something like that, you probably want a colon. It's to do with the direction of causality.

A couple of specific pointers:

- "black hair cut chin-height" should be "chin-length." The hair isn't growing up from the ground. {= )

- "I sighed, and muttered something rude about yaoi fangirls as I poured some food into Hattie’s bowl. She punched the appropriate information ..." This sounds like Hattie is punching in the information.

- Lily is spelled with two Ls (Lily), not three (Lilly). If you need to double-check this sort of thing, I recommend the Harry Potter Lexicon. They have just about everything you could ever want to know and then some.

- How exactly did the author misspell Grimmauld Place? That's something that should probably be quoted for the reader's benefit rather than just mentioned.

- I'd have thought Julius wouldn't be too keen on the kraken after the incident with the Watcher in the Water. You might want to mention flashbacks or something.

Overall, though, a good read. Good job!

~Neshomeh

Friending: my usual rule is 'ask first', especially if the person in question also posts personal/RL stuff to the same journal as their fics. A lot of people don't like being randomly friended, especially if they have deeply personal stuff in their journal. If it's fandom stuff you want an alert on, see if they post to a comm and join that to get updates.

There's no rule against posting original fic to LJ. It's not exclusively a fanfic archive a la ffn after all. There are many, many things on LJ that aren't in any way connected to fandom. The only problem would be if you tried to post original fic to a fandom comm, as people wouldn't appreciate that.

As for the LJ-cut... Do Not Use The Rich Text Editor. Seriously, it's more trouble than it's worth and it's a lot easier to hand-code everything than rely on the RTE to not eff up. The code for an lj-cut is [lj-cut text="Blah blah blah"]Hidden text goes here[/lj-cut], replacing the [] with . The speech/quotation marks are *essential* for cut text of longer than one word. The amount of times I've messed up and forgot to close them and not been able to figure out why things weren't working the way I wanted them...