Welcome to Overly Extensive Editors,
A group full of colorful-horse literature enthusiasts just like you. We offer editing services, emphasizing a personal relationship between authors and staff members, more so than ‘other’ large editing groups. To determine if our services might be a good fit for your current project, please refer to the outline below before continuing:

I. IS OEE RIGHT FOR ME?
-Have I read through my story at least twice to check for errors? (Reading it out loud helps!)
-Is my story about 4,000+ words?
-Am I willing to take criticisms and consider reworking my story based on the feedback I may receive?
-Is this a “quick fix” on a story or am I prepared to discuss themes, characters, setting, and other components that may come up for scrutiny when analyzed?
With those ideas in mind, if you’re considering submitting a story for editing, please proceed to section II.

II. SUBMISSIONS
The process for submissions is as follows:

1. Join the group.
2. Copy and paste your story to Google Docs if it's not already there. If your story contains multiple chapters consider merging them into a single document creating a folder that contains all of them.
3. Once this is done, click on the “share” button in the upper right-hand corner. In the “invite people” box, type in “oeemlp@gmail.com”. This way our moderators will be able to process the story for prereading. Make sure that it says “can edit,” so our mods can move it as needed. Consider saving a backup copy of your file at this point in case data gets corrupted or deleted. There is a restore function in Google Docs, but we’re not responsible for damaged documents!
4. Create a new Thread in the forum. Title it as “[Your Story Title] by [Your Name].” Make sure that the [Your Story Title] and [Your Name] on the thread corresponds to the title of your Gdoc. Failure to do so may result in your story being lost, so please make sure that the titles are the same so our mods can find your story.

When posting a thread, consider including the following information so that prospective editors can get an idea of your story from a glace:
• A brief description of the story and its plot. In most cases, copy-pasted long descriptions should be sufficient, but make sure to include enough detail to let us know who's in the story, what they are doing, and what type of story (romance, comedy, adventure, etc) it's going to be. The more detailed you are, the more we can help you out. Editors are going to be voluntarily picking up your stories, so demonstrating how much you care about getting help for the story by putting effort into your thread post can go a long way towards encouraging editors who share your interests to stop by and help you out.
• The editor you want (optional). Or, if you've spoken to someone on staff and they recommended you to join this group, they may have already agreed to edit for you. Be sure to put that in to avoid confusion as well.
• A link to the story (optional) if you want general feedback from other people besides group staff. This can be to the Google document, or the story here on FIMFiction (be sure to include a password if there is one).

III. PROCESSING
Once you’ve completed the aforementioned forum post and Gdocs submission, your story will go into processing. This works a little different from how it used to in the past:

1. Your story will go to the ‘submissions’ folder to be screened by one of our prereaders.
2. If there are a multitude of glaring errors in the document (more than could be reasonably expected to be caught through an initial reading) the prereader will notify the author PM through Fimfiction. This doesn’t mean that the story cannot be submitted again. Simply that some of the more obvious errors should be cleaned up before resubmission. (there are great groups for this: Looking for Editors and The Editor’s Group)
3. If the story is approved, it goes into the approved folder, where it will be picked up by an editor. You’ll know you’ve been assigned an editor when the title of your thread shows the editor’s name in ( ) next to it.

Some other things to keep in mind:
• This is not a "quick fix" group, where stories are submitted, edited, and returned on a speedy schedule. If you've written a short one-shot story and you want it looked at quickly before you post it, go to Looking for Editors or another group that emphasizes speed and efficiency, as they'll be able to help you better than we can. As a rule, submit stories that have (or will have) at least 4,000 words, and don't bring shorter one-shot type stories here unless you have plans to write several.
• Remember that editors are in high demand. We'll try to fill all requests for help, but it takes time, so patience is key.
• All editors voluntarily take stories. We do not force stories on anyone, as that leads to unhelpful commentary when people must work in story genres they dislike. When partnerships are made through this group, they're meant to be lasting; between people who share an interest in the story. It's entirely possible that we may not be able to match anyone with you.
• Our editors may be occasionally blunt or harsh in their commentary, not because we intend to insult you but because we want to improve your writing. If you are easily offended, this may not be the group for you.

One more thing - nobody ever checks the comment box beneath this description. If you put your request in there rather than following instructions, and it gets ignored for seven months as a result, we reserve the right to point and laugh at you.
Now that the bureaucracy is out of the way, have fun and enjoy the fanfiction!