Rejected story - reason not clear from feedback

[MiddleAgedMan]

Hi, I am reaching out try and make sense of my three recent rejections, feedback has been copy/pasted parts of the submission rules, though that was only partly applicable.

Background: I am trying to publish a story based off of Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn world. I have set the story to take place some 150 years after his current books in that series, and I only reference Sanderson's characters by way of historical reference, no actual part in the action in any way, shape or form. I tried to first post in the mind control category since an aspect of mind control is the red thread, though several other categories are prominent.

My first rejection was due to poor editing, too long paragraphs and so on, easily fixed in a few hours. Next rejection was because I had to choose Celeb/Fanfiction. (I open my intro with 'This is a work of fan fiction, of sorts...) Fair enough, adjusted story tags and resubmitted in C&FF. New rejection: 'No copyrighted/real characters in non-con.' That part of the story has no real non-con, at least not in any explicit sense, and as all characters are completely my own, just set in a world created by Sanderson, I am having problems seeing why this got rejected.

Do any of you have any insight as to why this got rejected again? I understand fully that the moderators have a full-time job of going through submitted works, and so I theorize that it got rejected simply from the combined C&FF-category with a tag 'Mind Control'. But it feels kind of like bashing my head against a brick wall right now, not to mention a lot of wasted time on everyone's part if this has to go through another three days' wait only to be rejected again without actually being checked.

Any ideas as to what I could change? Is it possible it should not be in Fan Fiction after all, and I just need to change my intro? I have no intention of stealing any intellectual property, so if the use of Sanderson's world and mechanics is the problem I can accept that and adapt, but that was not the feedback, and as this is completely non-profit and never will be anything else, I believe I should be able to base my story off a for-profit work.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Might be wrong, but my understanding is that the site no longer accepts non-con in the Celeb/Fanfic category. You will probably need to either remove the non-con content, or change it enough that it's no longer fanfic.

 

[MiddleAgedMan]

Might be wrong, but my understanding is that the site no longer accepts non-con in the Celeb/Fanfic category. You will probably need to either remove the non-con content, or change it enough that it's no longer fanfic.

That does seem reasonable from the feedback, I just don't see how it relates to my story, unless they ban non-con regardless of any actual involvement from the copyrighted/real characters.

A follow-up question then would be if I can argue why this should not be considered fanfic and post in Mind Control as intended, or is the whole 'based on the works of...' enough to make that impossible?

 

[ElectricBlue]

See my reply in your other thread, same topic.

I think combining all of those elements is just pressing multiple rejection buttons, one by one.

You're breaching a site policy rule by combining fan-fic with non-con (if one interprets mind control in the same breath as non-con), regardless what is going on with your characters.

You could I guess "create" your own (similar) universe, and not be so derivative from Mistborn. Mind you, you then need to dodge the, "But that's just Mistborn by another name" bullet - but you take your chances. Hopefully there's a solution, but it really is up to the whim and mood of the site editor.

 

[MiddleAgedMan]

See my reply in your other thread, same topic.

I think combining all of those elements is just pressing multiple rejection buttons, one by one.

You're breaching a site policy rule by combining fan-fic with non-con (if one interprets mind control in the same breath as non-con), regardless what is going on with your characters.

You could I guess "create" your own (similar) universe, and not be so derivative from Mistborn. Mind you, you then need to dodge the, "But that's just Mistborn by another name" bullet - but you take your chances. Hopefully there's a solution, but it really is up to the whim and mood of the site editor.

I see what you mean, and it basically boils down to either where the cutoff for something being fanfic rather than 'based on' is, or whether Laurel can accept fanfic with non-con so long as there are no actual copyrighted characters in the story. (Which I do not have, save for a few passing references purely for historic, societal context.)

I have resubmitted stating this, and also sent a PM to Laurel arguing my point and asking for a discussion of this boundary. Fingers crossed.

 

[Bramblethorn]

That does seem reasonable from the feedback, I just don't see how it relates to my story, unless they ban non-con regardless of any actual involvement from the copyrighted/real characters.

AFAIK, that's how it works, yeah. (And practically speaking, the moderator isn't going to have enough knowledge of all the properties that make it into that category to know which are original characters.)

A follow-up question then would be if I can argue why this should not be considered fanfic and post in Mind Control as intended, or is the whole 'based on the works of...' enough to make that impossible?

That I couldn't say. You might try PMing Laurel. EDIT: oh, you already did!

 

[MiddleAgedMan]

Having slept on it, I decided to retract my original story. The whole copyrighted character/world maze would likely only make problems for me.

I am reworking the entire story and adapting it to my own system with its own lore and system, that way I can use most of my scenes, since I have some 30.000 words on paper already.

I hope to finish this weekend at the latest, but will announce in the new story thread when it's out.