Hearts Divided

Welcome to Hearts Divided, a community dedicated to budding young writers who want to exchange their stories, get critiqued, and generally have a good time writing and sharing. This is a community for select few writers, (namely those who are friends of mine) and for select few works. If you'd like to join for the sake of reading, or even writing, you might want to read the following rules:

Rules for Joining as a Reader

Becoming a Reader means you're basically the community's "friend." You have access to read the otherwise-locked entries, and you can even critique them. It should be known right now that criticism is welcome, insulting is not. Telling somebody what you think about what they wrote is all fine and well, as long as there is relevance to it. If you have an issue with where the plot is going, for example, or you don't exactly understand something, or perhaps a certain scene is written in a way that confuses you, that's the sort of stuff that can be brought up. Calling somebody a fag for writing in a certain style (that is, it isn't flawed, you're just not very fond of it) or discouraging them from writing is a big no-no. If there's one thing I picked up from IRC, aside from a truckload of MP3's, it's the catchy proverb "Be a prick, get a kick." Put all the edge and smarminess on your criticism as you want (within reason,) as that's how you feel, and that's the style of which you offer your opinion. But if you just plan on just being a nuisance about things, I'll boot your ass off and think nothing of it. Go be a dick somewhere else. Hell, do it on my journal if you must (people loooove telling me what a shmuck I am and laughing at all of the pity parties I throw for myself) but not here. This community is here for a purpose, and that purpose is not for you to be a dick.

Generally, you join this community as a Reader by leaving a comment on this entry asking nicely. Again, this community is going to be pretty private, but I'm open to the idea of introducing some new faces to help us out. There's really no set-in-stone way to join up. If you're associated with me in any way, or any of the members on here and they recommend you, chances are I'll let you in for a trial run. You can ask me nicely on here, introduce yourself, and/or keep in touch with me via my journal or whatever; that could help. Really, there's no harm in asking (ON HERE.) What I'll end up doing is perusing your journal to see who you are, and perhaps let you in. I'm pretty easy-going and I have a thing for giving people chances, so don't hesitate to ask. (Again, comment on here for permission; don't e-mail me or comment on my personal journal requesting to join, plzzzz.) One suggestion I would make is to not bother trying to join if you absolutely refuse to type properly. It's really insulting to a writer's self-esteem to get criticisms frm a peep who typez liek ths cuz hes so lazy lol kthnk u verry much.

Rules for Joining as a Writer

I'm probably gonna be more strict about these, as this community was built mainly for my friends and I, with the dream of people from around the country or wherever pointing their web browser at their Friends' Page every day in anticipation of the next chapter so-and-so is writing. Plus, I want the writers to be able to keep tabs on their peers' stuff without having to wade through all of the stories all of these other strangers are composing. Basically, if you don't know any of us, and you want to write on here, you might want to start getting to know us (either through our journals or through joining as a reader.)

For the select few who can compose on here, I have a few guidelines:

Brainstorming, plot outlines, character analysis, or even just ideas that came through your head. By all means, post them here! Anything that'll help your fellows understand what you're getting at, or what you're considering. If you plan on spoiling something in your story, let us know in your entry before spoiling, and LJ-CUT your spoilers. I'm not gonna hammer you about that one, I'm just gonna suggest it, as some people aren't reading your story to get a good understanding at what you're gonna get at, they're reading it because they enjoy what's happening in it.

Chapters. Post your stuff chapter-by-chapter, or do your best to comply with that. Most authors, as far as I know, divide their stuff into some form of chapter to make things easy to keep track of. If, for some odd reason, you choose not to do that, separate your story into unofficial "parts" and, uh, I guess just write 2 B KNTINIUED!!@#41 at the end or whatever. Otherwise, post one chapter per entry. And LJ-CUT it. I cannot stress that last part enough, as it's a good gesture to keep your long flowing chapter from leaking all over everybody else's friends page. If your chapter is cut, people can easily browse the rest of their friends' journals without having to scroll by your masterpiece, and then they can go back and read it at their leisure. If you want, post a couple paragraphs of your chapter, and then cut the rest. This'll probably catch the readers' eyes a bit more, and gives them a preview of what's to come.

Keep it Interesting. This isn't a big literary magazine, it's a private community for storytelling. Not poetry, not narratives about whatever. I'm going to promote fantasy/sci-fi fiction, as that's the theme I'd like to keep on here. Grating romance novels or stories about some dude and a horse, or romance stories about a dude and a horse, in my opinion, aren't very interesting. If you have something outside of my mold you really want to post on here, send me the outlines of your plans (via personal friends-only entry on here, addressed only to me, or go ahead and contact me personally.) I'm not one to reject a story just because it's not something I'd normally read, so run it by me. I'm just trying to keep things in one direction, but I won't complain if they stray off the path. Again, just make sure it's a story.
INNNN THE EVENTTTT you have a paper you've been writing, that you really want help for, ask me about it, then go ahead and post it (LJ-CUT'd of course,) warning people it's not a story, but that you need some help with it. Sometimes we just need some help with our homework.

Introduce your project. As you start a story, it's a good idea to get down all of your ideas as to what you want to do. As I've mentioned above, feel free to share these ideas with us. But most of all, write something to introduce us to your project, before plugging away at the community with what it is you're writing. If I see a big chapter starting a new story, instead of one or more introductory post(s), I'll just delete what you wrote and ask you to tell us what you're doing and where you're going with this beforehand. It's for your own good, as people may be more inclined to read something if they know what it is they're reading.

Shut the hell up. While a degree of social interaction is welcome, and I'd like a nice sense of community among writers and readers alike, don't make a post on here talking about something that has absolutely nothing to do with writing or any of our projects. Especially do not promote some community you thought was cool; this is not the place to show us. If you've been dormant for a while, and just want to let everybody know what's been going on and why you haven't been very active, go right ahead. Doing so is addressing your fans and letting us all know how you've been. Long dissertations about how much your day sucked should be kept to your personal journals, however, unless of course your (somewhat less lengthy) dissertation leads to news and/or updates on what's going on with your project. I don't want everybody blathering on and on about everything other than our stories, but I don't want us to all be writing wrobots, either. Show us you're a human, but don't go overboard with it.

Not ready for the public? If you have something to write down relating to your story, or are just working on your next chapter, feel free to make a Private post. Doing so will help you keep a log on what you're doing, a log that only you will be able to see. I'd recommend doing this on a Word Processor on your own computer, but if you wish to use Hearts Divided for this, go crazy.

Find a buddy. Say you need a mentor of sorts to go over your ideas with you, but you want to avoid spoiling your plot for as many readers as possible. In this case, you should find a friend who'd be willing to listen to what you have to say, despite any spoilers, and offer advice. Make your posts for this stuff Friends-only, but only viewable by that friend. Make sure you let me know who your friend is, so I can add him as a Reader. Also make sure your friend isn't a jerk-off.

And that's uh, generally all I have to say, I think. I'll update this as I think of more stuff. What else?

OH! The reasoning behind the community's name. This is important, as it also relates to the project I'll be working on.
Originally, this was going to just be a weblog for the story series I'm going to be working on, originally entitled Hearts Divided. After making the blog, I soon after had a desire to provide a service like this to all of my friends who wanted to share their works with others. Not wanting to waste another invite code, I made this into a community and, thanks to my friend's unconfirmed dyslexia, renamed my series into Divided Hearts, a much catchier name in my opinion.
So just keep that in mind, if you hear something on here about Divided Hearts, it's my story. Hearts Divided is the community. Yeah, it's really confusing, but hey, I paid for these invite codes, and I'm not about to throw them around like I have plenty to spare, even though I do.

So uh, have a good time, and I hope things work out for everybody here!