Of course, there are rules. There are
rules.
Actually, we're pretty casual. These are more like guidelines. You'll probably be OK if you just go ahead and submit your story without reading these. They're like the "user agreements" no one ever reads, except these won't come back to bite you. The worst that'll happen is that I'll just tell you your item isn't the kind of thing I review. No biggee. Anyway, here goes:

Fiction only, and prose only.

Don't post your screenplay written in non-rhyming choriambic foots. We're sure it's terrific, but we'll just say, "Duh."

You must be the author of the posted work. Don't request a review on behalf of someone else, who may not want an in-depth review.

Please send us only
completed items, not drafts or segments of stories. Chapters are okay, but see the length guidelines below.

Please
proofread your item before you submit. We'll comment on typos or grammar if we see problems, but we are not a proofreading service. We're here to help with craft.

Keep your submissions
short: less than 4,000 words, please.

If your story is
flash fiction--anything less than 1000 words--don't expect a detailed review. It's not that I've got anything against flash fiction, but like poetry it's a different art form than short stories. I'm not confident my advice on flash fiction is helpful.

This is mostly for
short stories, but we'll read the first chapter to your novel if it's less than 4000 words.

This is
not the place to get your novel critiqued. If that's what you're after, we suggest you apply to join a novel critique group.

Please don't post more than
one item in any seven day period; we want to be fair to everyone.

This is a place to post
fiction. 
Don't send us your life story or your paper on non-associative Lie algebras. We might be interested in those (probably not), but this isn't the place to send them. We'll read any fictional genre, but we're probably not very good at works aimed at children or young adults.

Do not ask us to review the same thing more than once, even if you've revised it. 

It might help you to get a second review, but that's not the purpose of this page. We are volunteers, with families, jobs, and our own writing projects. We must apportion our effort here in ways that benefit the most visitors to this site and still permit us to meet our many other obligations. Please cooperate with this rule.

Be sure that your works are properly rated according to WDC standards--see "
Content Rating System (CRS)"

. We'll read anything that fits the above guidelines, and we're not the ratings police, but this is a public forum and simple courtesy will alert readers as to your content.
All reviews from this page are public and will appear on the public review pages. If you don't want a public review, don't post here.
Fan Fiction is acceptable in principle, but only if I'm a fan, too. If you've got
Star Trek Voyager fan fiction, I'll read it. If you've got
Buffy fan fiction, I'll pass, having never watched a single episode. I'm not criticizing
Buffy--I'm sure it's awesome--I just never watched it.