Disclaimer: I do not lay claim to or own anything J. K. Rowling created. All rights are reserved for those who own them.

Unlike most PPC writers, I won't be using someone's actual story; I'll be using the sample that I painfully wrote. This way I won't break any of 's rules.

Chapter three: Author Notes and a Non-Descript Void With Something In It

Ronda cautiously lifted her hands over her ears after several seconds of silence. "Is it…" she whispered, but she never got to finish her sentence.

"I luv tomm foltun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1" the author note continued.

"It's going to be a long one," Hunter mumbled, and tore open the package of earplugs. He took out two and hastily put them on, before giving the bag to Ronda. The author note blasted away as she stuffed them in her ears.

"Evil authoress: hay Gin! Im gonna rit a storie with u in it!"

"Oh no," Hunter shouted, "a scripted author note!"

"What do we do?"

Hunter didn't reply, but he picked up the clipboard and pencil and wrote, "Author Note: Lack of useful information, uses chatspeek and slang, abuse of punctuation marks, lack of spell-checker use, bad nick-names used for character names, scripted. Messages to author: Author notes should only used if they present something useful. Otherwise you are wasting your reader's time."

Meanwhile the author note screamed on, "Gin: why? Do u have 2? Im snogging with drakie rit now Drakky:yeah can it wait? Evil authoress: u get 2 snogg lots in my storie so get in there now"

"First impression," Hunter scribbled, "is the lasting impression. You will turn your mature future readers away if you present yourself as an immature brat."

Ronda peered over Hunter's shoulder when the last echo's had dissipated. "Do I get to write anything?"

"Yes, but not now."

"I have 30 credits in English Language Arts."

"For now, you get to hang on for the ride. If I miss anything you can point it out. This is your first one, so I don't expect you to do very much."

"Oh," Ronda mumbled.

"Nobody does much on their first mission. My first one was in a Lord of the Rings Pirates of the Caribbean crossover, and it was a shipwrecked disaster. My partner and me got stranded between the lines when the author deleted the story. Someone had told her to use a spell checker and she suffered 'mentle trama' according to her."

"If that happened in Lord of the Rings, why aren't you in that department now?"

"We are under-staffed in the Harry Potter Fandom. Lord of the Rings Mary Sues are disgusting and horribly obvious, but in Harry Potter they account for 50 of the fandom, compared to the 30 of the Lord of the Rings Fandom."

Before Ronda could reply, the white void suddenly had something in it, a non-descript room with a character Ronda had never seen sleeping in a non-descript bed in front of them. "Is the story starting?" Ronda whispered.

"Yes," Hunter replied, with his normal volume of speech. "You can be as loud as you want, we're between the lines, not actually part of the story."

"Oh," Ronda mumbled, for the second time in the last few minutes. She pulled out her earplugs and put them in her pocket.

The character before them suddenly had a name, "Gin", and "Gin" did something. What the "Gin" had done wasn't quite clear, as the author had made a spelling mistake.

"That was weird."

"It gets better," Hunter said, glancing at the hazy thing before them as he started writing again.

Hunter's Notes:

Disclaimer: Not legal. "Author" can be sued!

Author Note: Lack of useful information, uses chatspeek and slang, abuse of punctuation marks, lack of spell-checker use, bad nick-names used for character names, poor grammar, scripted.

Writing Style: Lack of description. See "Author Note" for technical errors.

Plot:

Messages to author: Disclaimers make writing fan fiction legal. The lack of them makes a story an infringement of copyright--plagiarism.
Author notes should only used if they present something useful. Otherwise you are wasting your reader's time.
First impression is the lasting impression. You will turn your mature future readers away if you present yourself as an immature brat.
Spelling, grammar, and use of proper English are needed if you want someone to understand and enjoy what you write.