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Sentinel
Fan Fiction
Fan Fiction
The Sentinel
Virtual Seasons
Fanfic Mailing Lists
Fanzines
Fanfic Terminology
Writing and
Posting Fan Fiction
This Sentinel page created by Robyn.
The Sentinel Fan Fiction (Fanfic)
What is it? Fanfic stories are written by fans using characters and settings already established in a TV show. A huge amount of great Sentinel fan fiction already exists on the web and fans are always writing new stories.
Cascade Library -- The major, still active Sentinel gen fanfic archive with well over 2,000 stories linked, organized by author and title with story descriptions. Updated almost daily. Also includes interviews with Sentinel fanfic writers, stories in progress, writers' resources, and a search engine.
Guide Posts -- the original Sentinel gen fanfic archive, Guide Posts contains an essentially comprehensive list of on-line Sentinel gen fan fiction posted from 1997 to 1/2002. Over 3,000 Sentinel fanfic stories are linked. Story queries are generated by a custom search engine. GP unfortunately stopped archiving new stories in 1/2002 but you can still access the old stories.
Cascade Library's Fanfic Recommendation Page -- recommendation page listing some of the best Sentinel fanfiction stories available on the web. This page includes many of the older, "classic" Sentinel fanfiction stories; designed especially for new Sentinel fanfiction readers to help you get started.
The Sentinel Virtual Seasons - thought TS ended with 4th season? There are three virtual seasons which pick up after The Sentinel by Blair Sandburg. Check them out!
Black
Panther Productions (Cascade Virtual Tales) -- Virtual season with
Blair as a cop.
Faux Paws Productions
-- Virtual season with Blair as a cop.
Novation Productions
-- Virtual season with Blair not as a cop.<
The Sentinel Special Edition Project -- not really a virtual season, but fan rewrites of all TS episodes
Fan Fiction Mailing Lists - you can join one of these and receive Sentinel fan fiction stories. You can also post your own stories by belonging to a mailing list. If you don't belong to a mailing list you can ask someone who does to post the story for you. The great majority of stories posted on the mailing lists are eventually archived or linked to on Guide Posts and/or the Cascade Library, if the author gives permission to do so (which is pretty much all stories). The advantage of belonging to a mailing list is that you get the stories sooner and you get installments of ongoing stories.
The major gen fan fiction mailing lists at this time are Senfic, Sentinel Angst, and Cascade Times. For subscription information, go to Mailing Lists.
TS Story Finders List -- Read a TS fanfic story but can't remembeer the author or title or where to find it? This mailing list has hundreds of TS fanfic readers who are bound to recognize it. Home Page & Yahoo!Groups page (for both gen and slash; requires clear labeling). The archivists at the Cascade Library are also pretty good at helping you find a story.
Fanzines - More fan fiction, but in printed hard copy form. Some zines contain stories already published on the web, others contain never-before published stories, and most zines often eventually allow authors to post their zine stories on the web after a certain time has elapsed after fanzine publishing, so check the online archives before you buy. Wolfpup's Den is the best source of currently available The Sentinel fanzines. The majority of gen Sentinel zines available are listed at Agent With Style (Mysti Frank), GraphicsOne Fanzines (LHGraphics), and Skeeter Press (KandaceK).
Gen vs. Slash vs. NC-17 - before you read any fan fiction, you should know that stories are classified as being "gen," "slash," or "NC-17". "Gen" or general is the term for all stories that aren't slash or NC-17. "Slash" is the term for stories which contain a romantic relationship between two characters of the same gender; you must be 18 or older to access these stories. "NC-17" is a rating for stories which you must be 18 or older to access; NC-17 stories may contain hetero- or homo-sexual relationships.
X-over (Crossover) - a Crossover story contains characters froom two or more TV shows/movies. Authors usually specify which TV shows/movies are involved.
Fanon vs. Canon - "Canon" is the term for facts or ideas that have actually been stated/seen in an episode. "Fanon" is the term for facts or ideas that have been coined by fan fiction writers but haven't been seen in an actual episode. Some fanon ideas are so commonly used in fan fiction that readers may believe they are canon. For example, the idea that Detectives Rafe and Brown are partners is a fanon idea, not a canon one (although they do appear together in many episode scenes). Check Nightowl's Nest under Sentinel Resource information Page for a discussion of this.
Smarm (a.k.a. warm
fuzzies) - in the words of Kitty, a Sentinel Smarm Queen: (n) the visible
(or audible) expression of affection between two friends, in which the
non-sexual love they have for each other is momentarily glimpsed via some
action. (v) to act in a manner which displays affection for a friend, esp.
to do or say emotional things which would not normally be expected. For
examples, see the Sentinel
Smarm Sanctuary, run a search at Guide
Posts, or check out the Library's
Recommendation Page for Smarm.
Writing and Posting Fan Fiction
If you're a writer or aspiring to be one, you may one day want to write and post your own Sentinel fan fiction. Here are a few tips to get you started.
1) Visit a grammatics page. There's one at Guide Posts and one at Susan Williams' page. Reading through these pages can be tremendously helpful.
2) Make sure you've got everything spelled right. You'd be surprised how many people don't even take the time to run a simple spell-check on their computer.
3) Get a beta-reader. This is someone who reads for plot and character development, not just punctuation, spelling, and grammar, though they may make note of those things as well. Beta-readers are wonderful and can sometimes help you through rough or sticky parts of your fic. The Cascade Library has a list of people who have volunteered to beta read stories. You can post a request for volunteers on whatever fic list you belong to. Or you may already know someone who is willing to read your stories.
4) Where to post? You can post to a mailing list. Or you can post to your own page and post a note on the fic list of your story. Or you can send gen fic directly to the Cascade Library at tslibrary@yahoo.com. You can look around at the other smaller mini-archive pages as well - some of them are willing to take on new authors who have no website of their own. (Check larger link lists, such as the one at Becky's page for these sites.)
5) Check out the submission rules at the Cascade Library for what the archivists want included in the format of the story.
6) Include a disclaimer on your story that the characters and such don't belong to you. See the beginning of any fanfic story for examples.
7) If you post to a list and the story is in multiple parts, make sure you make note of that so readers know what order to read the posts in, and so they know they received all the parts. Use 1/5, 2/5, 3/5, etc. in the subject line of each story part.
8) If posting to a list, include permission to archive or tell where it can be found if you have your own webpage.
9) Include the name you wanted to be listed under, either your real name, a pseudonym, or maybe just your first name.
10) Include your email addy so people can give you feedback - always an important thing.
11) Include any warnings you might find pertinent. This includes major spoilers for episodes, a rating, a warning for bad language, violence, if the story is a crossover with another show, that kind of stuff.
12) For useful Sentinel writers' resources like Becky's Transcripts for The Sentinel, consultants on specific topics, a TS spelling guide and more, go to the Cascade Library.
13) Most importantly, have fun writing! The Sentinel characters have endless potential!