Q: Why have the rules been updated?
A: To improve the quality of submissions received, and to help you guys become better writers. These are all basic rules that every single other fan fiction site has, and we want our stuff to be just as good, if not better, than the rest of the stuff up on the net. We urge you to check out our new rules as soon as possible before you submit your fics.

Q: I submitted my story like two days ago, and it's not up yet! Heresy! Where be-eth my fic?
A: It's still in the queue. We try to get through as many fics as we can in our limited time, but sometimes the line-up is just too long for us to get through.

Q: Hey, you sent my fic back, jerk! Why did you do that?
A: Have you read our guidelines? Is your fic in accordance with these guidelines? Has your fic been checked? 99% of the fics we send back are because of simple reasons, like spelling, capitalisation, grammar and punctuation. We don't like sending stuff back: we really want to put some great fics up on the site. So do your fic a favour, and make sure that it has perfect spelling and grammar, with proper paragraph and sentence formatting.

Q: You mention these beta things. What on earth are you talking about?
A: A beta editor is someone who is objective, smart and sharp-eyed who looks through your fic and corrects all the little things you might miss, like spelling or punctuation. A beta is far more than just a spell-checker, though: a great beta editor will make you question what and why you write, and will offer advice and their esteemed opinions as to how you can make your fic as good as it can be. We urge all authors to get a beta editor to improve their chances of getting their work up on the site.

Q: So what is Veritaserum.com doing about beta editors?
A: We're currently trying to assemble a team of really good betas for the authors on this site to use whenever their fics might need tightening and polishing. They're volunteers, of course, and authors simply email one of them whenever they have a fic.

Q: Can I be a beta?
A: Email us through the feedback form (Fan Fiction) and we will get in contact with you via email. You'll have to correct a piece of fan fiction, and offer some good constructive criticism about it. I look for someone who offers great, well-rounded advice and who can pick a missing apostrophe from a mile away.

Q: Can you guarantee me that my fic will get put up on the site?
A: If it's in accordance with our new rules, and has been proof-checked and is as close to perfect as you can get it, we can guarantee that it will be put up on the site.

Q: Can you tell the difference between, say, a simple typo and really bad spelling?
A: You bet. Everyone makes typos, but not everyone can spell properly. We can usually pick out the difference between a competent speller who only makes one typo per thousand words, as opposed to an incompetent speller who makes about eighty mistakes per thousand words.

Q: Why has the word limit been set at eight hundred words?
A: C'mon, eight hundred words is nothing. Anything less than that is simply insufficient to tell a story properly, unless you're a genius.

Q: Hey, you didn't accept my beautiful tale of love between Umbridge and the Giant Squid! How dare you censor me!
A: We don't accept illegal pairings. To explain, if it involves:

• paedophilia (teacher/student under eighteen)
• beastiality (human/animal)
• incest (brother/sister, mother/son etc)
• non-consensual romance (rape, date rape)
  ...we don't accept it. Quite simply, the readers of this site are young, and because this stuff is too sensitive to a lot of people, myself included. Other sites, however, do accept this stuff, or you can put it up on a blog or something. But we aren't going to take it.

Q: Do you accept slash pairings?
A: We do accept fics featuring same sex relationships, so long as they do not violate the aforementioned illegal pairings rule.

Q: What's the highest rating accepted here?
A: We accept up to an R rating. Gratuitous swearing, sexual scenes or references, violence or content of a sensitive nature will probably tip the scales here, no matter the pairing.

Q: My fic was sent back. I fixed it up but it was sent back again. How come?
A: Probably because you didn't fix everything up. Get a beta editor, or an older sibling, or an English teacher, or anyone, and go through your fic with a fine toothed comb.

Q: Do you accept fics in languages other than English?
A: Alas, no. We only accept fan fiction written in English.

Q: Do you accept HTML formatting in fics?
A: No, because it doesn't translate in the submissions box. Eventually we'll have a rich text box for you to put things into italics into, but for now you'll just have to forgo the italics.

Q: Why don't you allow non-alphanumeric characters in fic titles?
A: Because 99% of the time, it just messes up our alphabetic database. It's unfair for authors whose work starts with a P or a Q because your work starts with a T, but has asterisks around it just so it can jump to the head of the queue. If you need punctuation in your title for stylistic or grammatical reasons, quotation marks, parentheses, hyphens, dashes and forward slashes are fine, but only to be used between words, and not at the beginning of the title itself.