whomping_muses's Journal

The messageboard The Whomping Willow - you can find the link under "web page" - is a website dedicated to fans of Harry Potter who are still interested in scrutinizing the canon - and the fandom.

One cannot deny however that fanfiction and fanart plays a vital role in Harry Potter fandom. What better way to explore such a large universe than to creatively immerse yourself in it?

Therefore, we proudly present The Marauder's Map The Whomping Muses.

General guidelines are below. Please read before submitting!

Submission

All stories must be beta read by someone, and art should be proofed as well. This beta can be anyone, but it must be beta read. (We do suggest that you don't have your parent, best friend, sibling or significant other beta read, though.) If you do not have a beta reader, one of the community maintainers will be happy to help.

That said, we do not expect the stories and fanart to be perfect. Critique is a large part of this community - we want to help you grow as a writer/artist. If Stephen King posts here, someone's going to give critical feedback. ;) (He also has to have a beta reader, by the way!)

If we feel your story needs further work before posting, we will contact you and give you the option of either letting one of us edit or going back to your beta reader, and/or getting another set of eyes to go over your work.

Don't have a Livejournal? Let one of us know, and we will post your story for you.

Ratings

No fanfiction should be rated higher than R; no fanart should be rated higher than PG-13. However, stories with higher ratings may be linked to your personal Livejournal.

Formatting

Our format is as follows:

Title:

Author:

Rating:

Summary:

Characters:

Pairings:

Notes/Warnings:

All stories and art should be under a cut, or linked to a personal website. This can be your Livejournal account, InsaneJournal account, Wordpress account... anything that is your own.

If you are writing a chapter fanfic, please link to previous chapters.

Canon

The Whomping Muses does not accept stories that directly contradict canon, including the epilogue. It is established that Ron marries Hermione, for instance; therefore, he must not be married to Susan Bones nineteen years after the war. This rule is not limited to ships - characters must act as they do in canon, or at least have a resemblance to the ones presented in canon. (Although this may vary depending on what character you are writing.)

That being said, please do note the term "directly contradict canon." We all have different interpretations of things. Furthermore, one person's contradiction is not contradictory to someone else. If we feel your story contradicts canon too much, we (meaning the staff and/or the readers) will let you know - and you can always ask here: http://thewhompingwillow.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=fanfiction&action=display&thread=14

Contact

In case we need to contact you, please make sure that we have a way of doing so if you plan on submitting your work. You can provide an email address in your profile, or enable Livejournal private messaging.

For more information, please see this entry: http://community.livejournal.com/whomping_muses/400.html