If you are considering submitting your stories to .moon, please be aware that the Library is subject to moderation. Story moderators selected by the administration examine all submissions to ensure they are within the rules of this site before the stories are made available to readers. Read the following rules and guidelines carefully and make sure you understand the Library's standards before submitting a story to .moon.

• Fanfiction. For the purposes of .moon, fanfiction means stories that are based on a work of fiction. Examples of acceptable source material include movies, books, comics, and television shows. Stories about real people are not considered fanfiction. This site will not accept stories about actors, musicians, or other celebrities, living or dead. Real people may appear in a story as minor characters, but the main characters of a fanfic must come from a work of fiction. Stories about Reality TV shows are not acceptable, unless you are writing about fictional characters appearing on a reality show. All fanfiction must include some kind of disclaimer, in which you admit the original work of fiction on which your story is based does not belong to you and give credit to the rightful owner.
  
  .moon cannot accept stories based on works owned by individuals known to be opposed to fanfiction. These individuals include:
  
  • P.N. Elrod
  • Raymond Feist
  • Terry Goodkind
  • Laurell K. Hamilton
  • Robin Hobb
  • Anne McCaffrey
  • Dennis L. McKiernan
  • Robin McKinley
  • Irene Radford
  • Anne Rice
  • Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb
  • Marion Zimmer Bradley
  
  
• Original Fiction. .moon will gladly archive original works by those who are prepared to brave the risk of plagiarism. While this site takes plagiarism very seriously, .moon has no control over people who might steal a story and post it on another site. Be sure you are ready to accept that risk if you choose to submit original work here. Stories submitted as original fiction must be completely original; they can not contain any characters, locations, or elements from any copyrighted material that is owned by someone else. Stories about original characters visiting fanfiction worlds are not original fiction. As with fanfiction, original fiction may not feature actors, musicians, or other celebrities as main characters. Real people may appear as minor characters in original work. Characters from other copyrighted works may not.
  
  
• Songfics. Please remember that songfics are stories inspired by music, not just stories in which music appears. Pasting in the lyrics of a song being played at a dance your characters are attending does not make your story a songfic. Likewise, a couple of written paragraphs do not make a set of song lyrics a story. Lyrics are permitted in stories, however, you are expected to write at least three sentences of prose for every line of lyrics in your story. This rule exists to protect both .moon and you. This means, if you include one verse of a song that inspired you and it is a four-line stanza, the chapter in which the lyrics appear must contain at least twelve sentences of text that you wrote yourself. Please don't try to cheat this rule with extremely short sentences. If you have trouble coming up with enough text, perhaps the song wasn't as inspirational as you thought.
  
  
• Author's Notes. You are permitted to submit author's notes as a separate "chapter," as long as the majority of the text contained in the author's notes relates directly to the story to which the notes are attached. Don't submit a journal entry about your summer vacation as author's notes. If the author's notes are the first "chapter" of your story, you must submit at least one chapter of the actual story at the same time as the author's notes. A file of author's notes and a prologue, for example, are an acceptable submission. Once your story has been accepted to the Library, you may submit a file of author's notes on its own. Single-chapter stories are permitted a maximum of two files of author's notes, one before and one after the story text. Multi-chapter stories are permitted one separate file of author's notes per three chapters of text. If you have author's notes for every chapter, include them within the chapter files, before or after the story text.
  
  
• Personal Notes. It is not against the rules to respond to reviewers within your author's notes, however, you are encouraged to use the review response functions instead. See the "Other Functions" page of Help and Info for instructions on using this feature.
  
  
• Teasers. You are permitted to submit teasers for future stories. A teaser is a preview of a story you definately intend to write or, preferably, have already started writing. Teasers are like movie previews; they are intended to get readers interested in a story before it is posted. Lists of story ideas, or requests for help with an idea, are not teasers. Neither are one-paragraph blurbs. Teasers must be at least 500 words long. If you can't come up with 500 words, you're not ready to post a teaser. Teasers should be submitted as the first chapter of the story they advertise, and should be clearly labeled as teasers. When the story is ready for release, it should replace or add to the teaser's entry in the Library.
  
  
• Grammar and Spelling. Perfect grammar and spelling are not required, however, a reasonable attempt must be made. The story moderators will be on the lookout for spelling and grammar mistakes and will reject stories with an excessive amount of errors. It is highly recommended that you use a word-processor to spell-check your work and find someone to pre-read your chapters for other errors before you submit any story to .moon.
  
  
• Ownership. Everything you submit to this site must be your own work, or a collaboration between authors in which you played a major role. Plagiarism is a very serious offense on .moon. See the "Plagiarism Policy" page of Help and Info for details on avoiding plagiarism. Even if another writer gives you permission, you may not submit anyone else's stories under your username. If another writer wishes to post their stories here but does not want to create their own account, you may send a PM to "The Archivist" to request that their stories be added.
  
  
• Feedback Solicitation. Feedback is a reward that should only be given of a reader's free will. You are not permitted to hold your stories for ransom, meaning, refusing to submit more chapters until you have received a certain amount of feedback. For example, posting author's notes that read "I won't update until I get at least five reviews!" is prohibited. You are not permitted to post text like this anywhere on .moon, including the forums, review responses, and chapters of stories. In addition, soliciting votes in contests, Elite Library nominations, or other awards for your stories is strictly forbidden, as is gathering up friends to post positive reviews for the purpose of flooding out negative reviews. If you are caught doing this, your stories may be removed and you may be banned from .moon. You may ask for reviews and feedback in your stories or on the forums, as long as your requests are not demands in exchange for rewards or attempts to win any honors unfairly.