New Tolkien Fanfiction Site

[altariel]

Mike at Henneth Annûn has finally launched his new fanfiction site!

Tolkien Fan Fiction



Mike writes:

Tolkien Fan Fiction, called TFF for short, has been planned from the beginning to be Henneth Annûn's story archive. From the beginning, the plan has been to publish all the works of our members. The name was carefully picked to emphasize that we are going to publish all genres.

This does not mean that we are not going to have standards. We are going to expect that stories set to publish are spell checked, coherent, and reasonably well punctuated. What we are not going to do is have a formal review process, where you have to endure a hit or miss process before your stories can be published.

Tolkien Fan Fiction does not exist to replace any other site, but rather to fill a need that is not currently filled. Fan Fiction dot Com does publish everything, but without standards. The good works published there are buried under a blizzard of dreck, and the site is so large that no attempt at quality control would work, so they do not even try other than to pull work that draws complaints without regard to the merits of the complaints. Henneth Annûn Story Archive is a great site, which presents the best of our work to the public, but there is a lot of good work that does not get published there because of the selection process. There are also many great single purpose sites, but because they purposely limit their scope, they also limit the audience writers will be exposed to. TFF is designed to address these limitations, and give the community of Tolkien fan fiction writers a site that publishes all of their work.

TFF has those features that I have heard the most demand for in discussions:

• TFF has reviews, so people can leave their comments on published stories. Management can edit the reviews, so people will not have to chose between leaving up hurtful and nasty reviews, or removing all reviews by deleting and reposting their story, as they currently have to do at ff.com. We are not going to micro manage reviews, or require all positive posts, but there is a complaint system in place, and we will remove or edit hurtful or abusive reviews.
  
  
• TFF has a chapter open count function, which keeps track how often each chapter of your story has been opened. There is no way to tell if the chapter is read, but counting opens is the best way I could think of to indicate how often your story is read. This data will not be published, and will only be available to the author and management.



• TFF has a blind e-mail the author feature, so people can write you about your story without you having to reveal your e-mail address, and each author can turn this feature on and off.



• TFF has a beta section, so you can develop and improve your story before you show it to the public. The way the beta system works, you can allow non members to link to your story, even if it is set to hide, which makes it easier show the story selectively until it is ready.



• TFF has the software in place to support awards, and display award medallions in the story listings.



• TFF has a challenge system, which allows people to propose and respond to challenges. The latest finished challenges will be displayed on the front page, and challenges have their own library section.



• TFF has forums. Rather than write my own forum software and reinvent the wheel, I decided to use a good quality off the shelf forum. I chose Invision Power Board, which is a very nice full feature forum that has worked without a single problem since December 2, last year at the test site. Invision Power Board also gives us polling and a group event calendar.



• TFF has a great new link section. It uses drop menus to find links by their characteristics. This makes it far easier to find relevant links.

This is not the end of development for TFF. We are going public now because we have reached the point where it is ready for public use. Many other improvements are planned for the future, and suggestions from the members will always be welcome.

So, please stop by and join. Publish your stories with us. I think you will find that it is a wonderful place to post your stories:

Tolkien Fan Fiction

To join as an author, click on the Author Log-in link in the left-hand menu of the front page. On the log-in page is a link marked Register. Click it, fill out the form, and click apply.

To join the community forums, click on the Community Forums link in the left-hand menu of the front page. In the third row, on the left side, is a link marked Register. The forums and archive memberships are separate, because they are separate systems. It will make your life easier if you choose the same user names and passwords for both.

Mike

Congratulations, Mike, and thank you for all your hard work!

Comments

[lame-pegasus.livejournal.com]

I've already signed up as an author and spread the news - gorgeous idea, I'm more than thankful!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

:-D

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

Wow - that's a lot of work. It's looking good!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

He's done a great job with it.

[kathyh]

That looks very nice. Thanks for the link, it's going straight on my bookmarks.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

He's worked very hard on it - glad you like it.

[epsilon-delta.livejournal.com]

Wow. The site looks wonderful! I'll have to look into uploading some of my stories there. :-) It's a great idea!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Glad you like it - Mike's worked very hard on it.

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

Mike's been planning this for a LONG time. I hope the new archive works out well.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Absolutely - hope it's a great success.

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

Mike's done a wonderful job with the archive - it's nice to see the enthusiastic response it's receiving on the HA Yahoo list.

[(Anonymous)]

Hey, thanks, I mean really. I appreciate the kind responses my site has received so far. Yes, it was a lot of work, but the fun kind.

Before it folded, I worked at a bus company for 20 years, building a bus scheduling, billing, and accounting system on a computer that was cutting edge in the mid 80s, but had decayed to where I was holding it together with tape and a knack for fixing complex gizmos which they no longer made parts for by 2002. It was also quite crude by current standards. The work was a challenge, but after the first decade or so, creating on line billing systems, and fixing the same antique every month loses its thrill. This project has put the fun back into writing software. It has also dragged me into the present, which is a long journey from the 80s era, central processing, dumb terminal, backwater I had been inhabiting. More importantly, I have contributed something to the world of Stark Raving Mad Tolkien Loonies, of which I was an isolated, solitary, and lonely member of, until I discovered Una's little group of kindred spirits, which saved me from terminal boredom, and launched a new phase of my life.

I do have to say that through this long 18 month process, Una has been my wise counsellor. Her advice helped much.

Mike

[altariel.livejournal.com]

My pleasure, Mike. I'm glad it's been creative for you and that people are beginning to use it.