FORMAT GUIDELINES (adapted with permission from the Master and Apprentice archive Submission Tips)
|
|
Considering the number of fics which have to be archived every day, I'd like to request that authors follow these guidelines when posting stories...
It will help make my life much easier, and it will also be very helpful for your ML readers if you provide the requested information and especially if you follow the message text format guidelines. Not following these guidelines will only slow down the process of getting your stories up on the website. |
|
COPY ME DIRECTLY
If you are a GW Addiction author, please copy me directly whenever you post to your mailing list(s): it will increase the chances of my seeing your fic faster than if it is lost in lots of daily posts from several mailing lists. |
|
BETA-READERS
I highly recommend using beta readers. Please do. I simply do not have time anymore to help at all in that regard, but after all, that is what Mailing Lists are for -finding willing victims I mean- isn't it? For writing tips, check out the following resource http://neptune.spaceports.com/~valeria/advice.htm. This is collected from and refers to TPM slash fandom, but it applies to GW yaoi fanfics just as easily... |
|
SUBJECT LINE
When you post a fic, a format as shown below is recommended in your email subject line, as some list members may wish to separate fiction postings from general discussions: |
|
[FIC] "Story Title" (Part number/Total # of parts) If you are posting as you write, and don't know how long your story will be, put a "?" as the total number of parts. |
|
MESSAGE TEXT--HEADERS Optional, but helpful
The following is the suggested information to include before the text of the your story. This is a suggestion only, but including all the requested information will make both the archivist and your readers happy. |
Title: Story title as above... If it's untitled, don't be shy and say so.
Author: Story author. Include your email address HERE as well for feedback! Depending on the ML and email client, your email address may be not all that easy to find in your post. Onelist/egroups in particular has a horrible tendency to truncate it (how clever)!
Archive: yes or no, and where. Unless clearly specified, all fics posted by current authors will be archived automatically at GW Addiction.
Category: Please list any and all of the following categories which best fit your story (check out the Ratings, Warnings and Pairings page if necessary): |
- Humor/Parody
- Yaoi/Shonen ai
- Crossover/Fusion
- Alternate-Universe
- OOC
- Angst
- Lemon/Lime/Plot-What-Plot
- Poetry
- Songfic
- Theme Week/Answer to Challenges
- Whatever else you come up with
|
|
for example:
- 3 + 4 (shonen ai) Trowa and Quatre
- 1 x 2 (yaoi) Heero and Duo
- 6+9 (non-yaoi) Zechs and Noin
- DxR (yuri) Dorothy and Relena
- None or ?
Details of names and numbers correspondance in GW can be found in the 'Names/Numbers and main GW characters' page of the FAQs section.
See www.gundamwing.org or www.shinigami.org FAQ sections if confused about why these names/numbers notation is used. |
Disclaimers: Always a good idea... Just stating that the characters etc. are copyrighted to someone else, used without permission and that no money is made from the following fanfic should do the trick!
Rating: G to NC-17... to your best judgment. It can only be better than mine: after all, it's your story. Check out the Ratings, Warnings and Pairings section for a reminder of the ratings used.
Warnings: please note here any content that might not be to all readers liking, for instance: rape, character death, angst, m/m sex, graphic violence, graphic sex, violent sex... use your best judgment. If you are afraid giving a warning will ruin the surprise in a story, then just caution that there may be some rough/intense material ahead.
Spoilers: If any... you might want to indicate this to warn those readers who haven't had a chance to see the whole show or Endless Waltz yet.
Notes: Whatever is useful to help the readers understand what's going on. Or what you had at breakfast or were listening to when writing, if you prefer! :-)
Feedback: Do you want feedback? Do you want it through private email? Looking for really detailed critiques, if anyone has the time for it? Please mention it here.
|
Example header:
Title: Untitled 13x5
Author: Erin Cayce (amiboshi_flute@hotmail.com)
Archive: GW Addiction
Category: angst, POV
Rating: PG
Warnings: no sex, just a lot of angst
Spoilers: this takes place post ep. 49, so yes...
Notes: WuFei reflects on his feelings about Treize after the end of the show.
Feedback: yes, please, any comments welcome.
|
|
MESSAGE TEXT--THE STORY
Some of the following was adopted from the alt.startrek.creative FAQ on formatting story postings. |
|
The following information is very important! Proper story formatting will make your text easier to read for everyone on-list, and it will also save the archivist a LOT of work in converting text postings to html files.
|
-
DON'T use smart-quotes or other special formatting some word processors substitute for hyphens, ellipses, etc. Smart-quotes screw up a lot of people's email readers, and many folks trash such stories unread as soon as they see the tell-tale subscripts and superscripts and/or little black rectangles and/or just plain garbled up screens. It also gives the archivist more work to do to strip all these characters out. The easiest way to deal with this problem is to save your stories in TEXT ONLY format in your word processing file. Then CLOSE the file. Re-open it, THEN cut-and-paste the text into your email message.
|
|
|
-
DON'T post stories as attachments or in Word, Wordperfect or other word-processing file formats. Some people's email servers refuse attached files. Not everyone uses the same word processors. Some people just won't open attachments out of fear of viruses. The rest of us are just too lazy to be bothered :-) So don't do it.
|
-
DO post your stories in plain old ASCII text. In your wordprocessor this may also be known as MS-DOS text, or Simple Text or Generic Text or such. If you want to indicate such things as italicized or bold text, please use text symbols such as //this// or _this_ or *this*. I will convert them into html code for the website.
|
-
DO use a double hard return between paragraphs. Simply indenting the paragraphs often isn't enough--tabs can get swallowed, it's easier to read with a space between paragraphs, and it makes the archivist's life easier (see a trend with that last reason here? :-)
|
|
|
-
DO use a line-length of 70-75 characters. Not everyone's email reader
will do an
auto-word-wrap. Also long lines can sometimes get wrapped in strange ways
that make
reading text difficult, as illustrated here. Annoying to read, isn't
it? So keep lines short.
|