At fanfiction.net they use fictionratings.com for their fic ratings, since the MPAA didn't want them using movie ratings.

The fiction ratings are:

K - Suitable for most ages (5 and up). Content should be free of any coarse language, violence, and adult themes.
K+ - Some content may not be suitable for young children (9 and up). Minor action violence without serious injury. May contain mild coarse language. Should not contain any adult themes.
T - Contains content not suitable for children (13 and up). Some violence, minor coarse language, and minor suggestive adult themes.
M - Contains content suitable for mature teens and older (16 and up). Possible strong but non-explicit adult themes, references to violence, and strong coarse language.
MA - Contains explicit content for adults only (18 and up). May contain explicit language and adult themes.

Fanfiction.net doesn't allow fic rated MA and fic rated M is not listed in the category by default. For instance, if you go to the fanfiction.net main page, then click Book and Outsiders, you'll see it only shows stories rated K through T. If you want to see any stories rated M, you need to choose Fiction Rating: All from the drop down menu at the upper right. I bookmark the page once I do that, so I always get all ratings, but I don't know how many people know they aren't seeing all the stories when they go to the site.

Because of this, I have rated all my stories at the T level so they always show up.

The fiction ratings don't have any guidelines on what is appropriate at each level. What one person thinks is a T rating may be someone else's M rating. Technically I'd have to say that Middle Ground falls into a T rating - there's not too much coarse language, violence and the adult themed stuff is suggestive rather than descriptive. But I wonder about Triangle, as it seems to be on its way to M lol. There aren't any solid guidelines though, so I can't say for sure.

The MPAA movie rating system (G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17) at least has guidelines. For instance, (thank you wikipedia):

* A film can use "one of the harsher sexually derived words" (such as fuck) 1-3 times, and get a PG-13 rating, as long as the word is used as an expletive and not with a sexual meaning.
* A reference to drugs will get a PG-13.
* A graphic of explicit scene of drug use will get a PG-13, but more often an R rating if it is hard drugs.
* Strong sexual content will garner an R rating. Even not so strong can get an R rating, depending on context.
* Male rear nudity will usually get a lower rating and female rear nudity, since female nudity is more often considered sexual.
* Bloodless violence will get a PG-13, bloodshed an R.

(Interesting aside - in Canada we have different ratings - G, PG, 14A (akin to PG-13), 18A (akin to R), R (like NC-17) and A (aka porn lol) and they can vary between provinces. For example Blade: Trinity was an American R rating, in BC is was 14A and in Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario it was 18A. Quebec has its own rating system and other smaller provinces will use ratings set by (usually) the closest province to them. Our ratings can be less harsh than US ratings - One Night at McCool's got a 14A here and was rated R in the States. The Outsiders was a PG-13 (originally a PG) release, and here it was misrated 18A and never corrected).

It's difficult to rate a story in general, since much of the impact of a story comes from what you as a reader can imagine from what is written.

So how do you choose which rating to give your story, especially in Outsiders fic?

Tags: fan fiction, fanfiction.net, fiction ratings
Current Music: Bon Jovi - Lay Your Hands On Me