Submission Rules
1.) All submissions should be technically sound. Absolutely no exceptions. While a mistake or two is understandable, many mistakes are not. Use line breaks between paragraphs for readability, or you'll likewise be rejected. This doesn't mean you're barred from ever submitting again, it only means to clean up your work and bring it into line. If you ask for help, we'll do our best to direct you to resources for you to learn off of in order to bring your writing up to standard. No one's going to be permabanned for grammar or spelling issues, we just want to maintain a high level of readability on the archive.2.) Stories are not judged on their artistic merit. We do believe in IDIC here, as an archive, and that means we accept different interpretations of events, people and everything else.
3.) One shots and drabbles may be short. However, if you plan on writing a multiple chapter story, please try not submit chapters that are under five hundred words. There is an upper limit on chapter sizes, due to the database Ad Astra runs on. Somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 words seems to be the limit, so make sure you check when you submit long chapters that nothing was cut off.
5.) Titles and summaries must be kid friendly. No exceptions. Also, "Please read", "Untitled", etc. are not acceptable titles or summaries.
6.) Under the Characters heading of your story/series, major canon characters will be available. Please only list the 'stars' of your story, however. For an ensemble cast (four or more), use the 'Ensemble' tag. Original characters and canon guest stars can have their own listing if there are no less than two stories where they play a serious role. When you have two, just let the administration know and they'll be added!
7.) If you abuse the font tags, you will lose the font tags.
8.) All stories must be rated correctly and have the appropriate warnings. All adult rated stories should have warnings, no exceptions.
10.) Stories with multiple chapters should be archived as such and never as separate stories. Upload the first chapter of your story, then go to Manage Stories in your account to add additional chapters. If you have trouble with this, please contact the site administrator or ask a friend to help you.
11.) As much as possible, spoiler warnings are expected on all stories. For categories with serialized content, such as series of books or television series, spoilers are mandatory for the current season and/or most recent part. An appropriate spoiler warning to place in your summary would be: Spoilers for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Do not do anything like this: Spoilers for the one where Spock dies.
12.) Upload to the proper category. Current categories are as follows:
Enterprise, Original Series, Alternate Original Series, Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Discovery, Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds - For all fanfic that takes place in the era of that series or featuring the characters from that series.
Mirror Universe - For all fanfic taking place in the Star Trek: Mirror Universe.
Alternate Universes - For any and all AUs.
Expanded Universes - For all original crews, creations and the stories centering on those. Ad Astra is very friendly to original crews, ships and adventures!
Crossovers - For stories that cross over any Star Trek series with any other Star Trek series, or for that matter, any other show.
Meta, Essays and Everything Else - For all non-fiction content related to fanfiction, Trek fanfic or any creative Trek. Only post the non-fiction here, do not post it in any other category.