Want your story on the Archive? Me, too!
YES! I WANT YOUR STORY! It's okay if it's posted elsewhere. (In fact, I'll link to anyplace you have more SH fiction.) It's okay if it's new, old, short, long, sexy, violent, gentle, romantic, dark, light, frivolous, funny, sad, thoughtful, or scary. The Archive has no restrictions, uses no templates, and does not post warnings. Just the fics, ma'am! If Starsky and Hutch are in it, and it's slash, pre-slash, or implied slash, I want it. (Not sure if it's slash? Just ask!)
When writing me, please tell me which Archive you're referring to, and remind me of what you've written, and under what name. I run several archives with over a hundred authors, many of whom use several different email addresses and pseudonyms, and at my age I'm totally dependent on the Post-It Memory System, so don't assume I'll have any idea of what you're talking about without prompting reminders. Thanks for your patience! Flamingo
How to send it?
The easiest way for you:
Send the story to my email address as an attachment to an email or written in the body of the email.
Please include a title, an author's name and, if possible, an email address so that readers can send you comments. If you don't want to include an email address I can post my address and forward comments, but this is not as reliable, especially as the Archive grows and has more writers for me to keep track of.
Be patient and wait for me to format and post it. I'll do it as soon as I can. If other stories get posted before yours, that's because they were sent to me first. I try to post in chronological order.
However, if you would like to save me time and possibly get your story posted more quickly, send it the easiest way for me:
Send the story to my email address as an attachment, either as a .doc file (Word), a WordPerfect file, or an .rtf file (Rich Text Format). Mac users, please save as .rtf. (Don't know what .rtf is? Go to the bottom of the page.) If your story only exists as an ascii or text file (if you wrote it in an email message to post to a list) that's okay, too, but if you have one, please send me the file from your word processor program.
If your story is over 60 pages, consider breaking it up into smaller files of 50 pages or less. People with older computers can have trouble downloading large files. If I have to divide it, it takes more time since I'm not as familiar with your story.
Please don't put blank lines between the paragraphs. If you do, I'll have to remove them since html formatting does this automatically at every hard return. If you've put them in, use a global command to take them out. Single line spacing throughout, please.
If you are used to using *this* or /this/ kind of formatting marks to indicate italics, and your file is in a word processing program, please change that formatting to real italics. (If you use Word, the autoformat command under "Format" on the tool bar will do this for you.) The Archives supports normal formatting.
Please run your story (if it is in a word processing program) through the spell checker. (Some email programs will do this also.)
Make sure you have included a title, an author's name and, if at all possible, an email address so that readers can send you their comments. If you don't want to include an email address I can post my address and forward comments, but this is not as reliable, especially as the Archive grows and has more and more writers for me to keep track of.
Be patient and wait for me to format and post it. I'll do it as soon as I can. If other stories get posted before yours, that's because they were sent to me first. I try to post in chronological order.
What's an .rtf (Rich Text Format) file? When you hit save in your word processing program (or go to the toolbar and click on File, and then hit save) your program probably saves your file in the format it prefers, such as .doc in the Word program. However, other programs may not be able to read the .doc format. So to help with file sharing, there is a format called Rich Text Format that makes it easier to share word processing files.
After you've saved your file in the format you're used to saving it in, save it one more time. Go to File in the toolbar, click on it and drop down the menu. Under the command that says "Save" you will see an option beneath it called "Save As...". When you click on this a window will open that will give you options on changing the format of your file. It will be in a drop down window where the current format is listed. Scroll through the choices and you should see "Rich Text Format (.rtf)" as one of the choices. Select it, and the extension on your file name will automatically change from "story.doc" to "story.rtf" and then you're ready to send it to me! (If this is too confusing, then go to your "Help" function and look up "Save As..." or Rich Text Format and it should walk you through the process.)
Any more questions? Just ask me! I'm here to help you get your story Archived!