New Arrivals || Authors || Titles || Specialty Indices

Friendly Formatting Reminders
posted 12/18/03
(reposted and reworded from submission directions on site info page)

Section 1: Authors whose stories are linked (in other words, on another site)

• Needed information *every* time you send fanfic to be archived:
• Title
• Author name (I rarely recognize email addresses)
• Summary for story
• Any necessary ratings, warnings, etc.
• The *entire* URL of the site where your fic is located, including the "http://" part; this makes my life so much easier. This refers to your site URL, not the direct link to the fanfic.

Section 2: Authors whose stories are stored at the Library

• Please read and make note of the following:
• As noted above for linked fic, again I need title, author name, summary, ratings, warnings, etc.
• Also include a disclaimer.
• If you don't have a beta-reader, at the very least, run your fic through a spell checker. Some of the more creative spellings I come across in fanfic has me either groaning or laughing -- or bemoaning the state of our educational system. Or do they only teach spelling up through 8th grade in private schools and not in public? ~sigh~
• Fic can be sent as a whole document or in parts.
• I use the "view document" feature in yahoo mail, so the word processing program used no longer matters.
• If you're sending a long story directly to CL (as opposed to posting it to senfic or another list), just send the *entire* story as an attachment rather than scads of parts. I'm going to copy and paste regardless, but one attachment is better than 13 parts.
• Fic *MUST* be in block paragraphs.
• I cannot emphasize this enough. Lately I've been having trouble with copying fanfic over to my prepared template only to have it all show up as one long paragraph and then I have to go through and fix everything, a very long, labor-intensive process.
• If at all possible, please send your fic as a text file; some email programs use html which I think is causing the problems on my end.
• See CL's "Block Paragraphs" tutuorial.
• Put in dividing lines between sections, like a short row of squiggly lines or dashes or some such. Doesn't need to be a whole line.
• I only copy and paste text so NO SPECIAL FORMATTING will be brought over (underlining, bolding, italics, etc.) so make sure to mark text you want emphasized with characters like astericks or something. I do not have the time to go through and put in special formatting. I will *occasionally* bold section headings, but only if I have the time and the desire to do so.

Additional information, including various policies, are available on the site info and FAQ pages.

There is just little ol' me doing the archiving, which is all done manually, so I would very much appreciate authors doing what they can to make it as streamlined and efficient as possible for me. Thank you!