What Belongs
1. Personal collectives of your writing
2. Thematic collectives of users' writing
3. Writing prompts or exercises that do not give out regular rewards
4. Threads offering to critique writing, either for a fee or for free
5. Submission threads for Gaian magazines
6. Fictional stories of all lengths and genres
7. Non-fiction works like journals and essays
8. Scripts and screenplays
9. Poetry by YOU!
Writing contests. Please run it by a mod first, so we know what you're up to.
What Does NOT Belong
Most misplaced threads will be moved. Warnings may be given for blatant spam and will be given for threads that violate the TOS in any way.
Writing Hangouts. These are threads that serve no purpose at all because the entire subforum is a writing hang out. Poetry collections of a personal or thematic nature are ok, but "post ur poems!" threads are not.
Threads about the works of a famous writer. These go in the main FSFBG forum. However, if the writer is someone other than yourself, but is a personal friend (such as a relative or someone you go to school with), this still counts as "original writing."
Writing advice that does not involve critiquing
General writing discussion - post this in the main Writers forum
"Post your stories here!" and hangout threads - These are spam and should only be posted in the Chatterbox.
A topic containing nothing but a link off-site - This is spam; if you would like to post a story that is already up on another site or in your journal, please include at least a short excerpt so that your thread is relevant to the forum.
Other Information
What Kind of Content
Gaia is more or less a PG-13 website. Use that as a guide, along with your own common sense before posting a story. Swearing, violence, sex--as long as you don't go TOO extreme with your story and include a warning for more graphic content, you'll probably be fine. If the entire story is extremely graphic (think porn), you may want to find a more adult-themed forum to post it on.
Symbols
When copying and pasting directly out of a word processing program like Word and into a new post on Gaia, sometimes the punctuation doesn't transfer well. Instead of quotation marks and apostrophes, you end up with a series of other symbols.
A suggested solution that could help:
1. Go to view.
2. Go down to something that mentions encoding
3. Switch around from Unicode to the Western Encodings. One of these has a good chance of properly displaying the story.
It might also help to save your story in plain text format before you copy and paste it.
Criticism
By posting in this subforum, the assumption is that you want criticism. Not everyone is nice about it, so you may get comments that don't consist of candy and roses. If you'd rather not have anyone point out the flaws in your story, please note this clearly in the title or first post of your thread.
Flaming
Despite popular opinion, criticism =/= flaming. Something to always keep in mind when commenting on someone's work is to keep your tone professional and polite, and to focus on the writing, not the writer. "You couldn't write your way out of a wet paper bag--go suck somewhere else, n00b" is a flame, not constructive criticism. "The premise of this story is tired and overdone, the main character is a blatant Mary-Sue, and the grammar errors make my eyes bleed" is harsh, but is still a critique.
-One part praise: find something they did well and comment on it first.
-One part pain: identify a few of the major flaws and briefly describe them--there is no need to extensively hammer on minor issues, especially if others have already made note of them.
-One part prescription: give a suggestion or two for how to fix the flaws you pointed out, and/or ideas for future development.
Tips for getting more readers
Format for online viewing. This means skip a line between every paragraph, so that you don't end up with a block of text. If you copy and paste out of Word or some other word processing program, your indents will not transfer (nor will any text formatting). You'll have to redo it all by hand.
Leave the size and color of the text set to default. No one wants to strain their eyes to read pink text, or squint to read a tiny font. It will detract from the actual reading of the story. Don't center or align the text.
Proofread! No one likes to decipher netspeak or a story laden with spelling and grammar errors. You may be posting a rough draft, but if you can't spend a little time and effort cleaning it up, why should anyone spend any time and effort reading and commenting on it? Use spellcheck. If your word processor doesn't have one, there are online versions available, such as: http://www.spellcheck.net . Or, download the google toolbar, which has a spell chack option http://toolbar.google.com/ .
Include the length and genre in your title. This allows people who are interested in that sort of story to find yours right away.
Avoid excessive bumping. Besides being a big no-no (bumping is spam and should be kept to a minimum), if you fill your topic with replies people may avoid it to focus on topics that haven't had replies yet.
Read and reply on other stories! Networking is the best way to get more comments on your own work. Read other people's topics and give them helpful replies ("Great story! Read mine!" is spam and is NOT a helpful reply, btw), and they will be more likely to return the favor.
Gaia is more or less a PG-13 website. Use that as a guide, along with your own common sense before posting a story. Swearing, violence, sex--as long as you don't go TOO extreme with your story and include a warning for more graphic content, you'll probably be fine. If the entire story is extremely graphic (think porn), you may want to find a more adult-themed forum to post it on.
Symbols
When copying and pasting directly out of a word processing program like Word and into a new post on Gaia, sometimes the punctuation doesn't transfer well. Instead of quotation marks and apostrophes, you end up with a series of other symbols.
A suggested solution that could help:
1. Go to view.
2. Go down to something that mentions encoding
3. Switch around from Unicode to the Western Encodings. One of these has a good chance of properly displaying the story.
It might also help to save your story in plain text format before you copy and paste it.
Criticism
By posting in this subforum, the assumption is that you want criticism. Not everyone is nice about it, so you may get comments that don't consist of candy and roses. If you'd rather not have anyone point out the flaws in your story, please note this clearly in the title or first post of your thread.
Flaming
Despite popular opinion, criticism =/= flaming. Something to always keep in mind when commenting on someone's work is to keep your tone professional and polite, and to focus on the writing, not the writer. "You couldn't write your way out of a wet paper bag--go suck somewhere else, n00b" is a flame, not constructive criticism. "The premise of this story is tired and overdone, the main character is a blatant Mary-Sue, and the grammar errors make my eyes bleed" is harsh, but is still a critique.
One formula for a successful critique
-One part praise: find something they did well and comment on it first.
-One part pain: identify a few of the major flaws and briefly describe them--there is no need to extensively hammer on minor issues, especially if others have already made note of them.
-One part prescription: give a suggestion or two for how to fix the flaws you pointed out, and/or ideas for future development.
Tips for getting more readers
Format for online viewing. This means skip a line between every paragraph, so that you don't end up with a block of text. If you copy and paste out of Word or some other word processing program, your indents will not transfer (nor will any text formatting). You'll have to redo it all by hand.
Leave the size and color of the text set to default. No one wants to strain their eyes to read pink text, or squint to read a tiny font. It will detract from the actual reading of the story. Don't center or align the text.
Proofread! No one likes to decipher netspeak or a story laden with spelling and grammar errors. You may be posting a rough draft, but if you can't spend a little time and effort cleaning it up, why should anyone spend any time and effort reading and commenting on it? Use spellcheck. If your word processor doesn't have one, there are online versions available, such as: http://www.spellcheck.net . Or, download the google toolbar, which has a spell chack option http://toolbar.google.com/ .
Include the length and genre in your title. This allows people who are interested in that sort of story to find yours right away.
Avoid excessive bumping. Besides being a big no-no (bumping is spam and should be kept to a minimum), if you fill your topic with replies people may avoid it to focus on topics that haven't had replies yet.
Read and reply on other stories! Networking is the best way to get more comments on your own work. Read other people's topics and give them helpful replies ("Great story! Read mine!" is spam and is NOT a helpful reply, btw), and they will be more likely to return the favor.
How to Hold & Enter Writing Contests
Writing contests are a lot of fun to enter and to hold, but they take a lot of work and organization on the front end. We've made some guidelines to help folks out before they make a new contest, and also to help people who maybe aren't sure what to do when entering contests in this forum. smile
Here are some things to address in your first post or posts (some people like to spread contest details out over several posts at the beginning of the thread):
What is the contest's theme?
All contests need to have some kind of theme. This can be very specific--a 50-word dark fantasy blurb about vampires, for example--or it can be fairly general, like "fantasy short stories" or "suicide poems." Just calling for "poetry" or "stories" is TOO general though, so try to narrow the focus a little bit when deciding on a theme.
What kind of work will be accepted?
This is closely related the theme. Basically, you should specify what kind of entries you're looking for, whether you want poetry, short stories, fanfiction, songs, or whatever. It's also a good idea to note a minimum and maximum length, so you don't end up with one-line entries or 100K-word novels xd .
Is there an entry fee?
Entry fees are not mandatory, but if you don't already have enough gold to cover the prizes this is how you can generate the prize money. Make sure your entry fee isn't TOO high, or you'll scare off all the entrants. sweatdrop Your prizes should also all be greater than the entry fee (even if it's last place) or it isn't worth people's time to enter. If you're planning on making a profit on the entry fees, that should be indicated up front. It isn't against Gaia's rules to get a little for yourself out of holding a contest, if you're forthcoming about your intent, but if you're trying to make a huge profit and only giving out small prizes people aren't going to want to join your contest.
What are the prizes?
Speaking of prizes, you need to post what they are up front. At the very least, post a minimum prize and then add to it as entries come in. Just hinting at some vague "prize" or "reward" for posting isn't going to cut it.
How many entries will be accepted/how long will submissions run?
It's a good idea to let people know how many entries you're looking for in your contest and how long the contest will run before judging starts. You should have a specific deadline for submissions up front, although deadlines can always be extended if you need more time. It isn't necessary to limit the number of entries, but if you're the only one judging it might be smart so you're not overloaded with entries to look at. Also, you should specify if people can enter only once, or multiple times.
How will the contest be judged?
Some contests are judged by the contest-holder, some enlist a panel of judges, and some use the poll system and let the general public vote. All of these are perfectly valid ways of deciding the winner, but you should decide on one and state what it is up front. Remember--if you go with a panel of judges, make sure they're reliable (you may have to pay them), and that they're not participating in the contest.
If your contest doesn't include information on these points, it may be removed from the subforum. Also, keep up with your contest threads--bookmark them. It isn't fair to people who have entered your contest if you lose the thread and just start a new one. Finally, give your contest a descriptive title. Not only does that attract attention, it lets people know what kind of contest you're holding before they ever open the thread.
Just as people holding contests should follow a few guidelines before posting, anyone planning to enter a contest should keep a few things in mind.
- Read ALL the contest's rules and information before entering!
This is the first thing you should do before entering a contest. You need to know what the theme of the contest is, what kind of entries they want, any style or length limitations, and what the deadline is. Reading the contest carefully will save you from possibly being disqualified because you didn't fulfil the contest's requirements.
Unless the contest specifies multiple entries, ONLY POST ONE ENTRY.
It is very rude to flood someone's contest with your entire portfolio of therapy poetry. Unless the contest allows you to enter more than once, refrain from posting more than one work in the thread.
Pay your entry fee promptly.
If a contest asks for an entry fee, don't enter then hem and haw about paying the fee. The contest-holder may be depending on those entry fees to pay the prizes!
Keep up with the contests you've entered.
The new thread subscription system is very useful if you enter lots of contests. Keep up with the contests you've entered so that if the contest-holder makes any changes or cancels the contest you know about it.
exclaim What to do if a contest is a scam:
If you're afraid the contest you entered is a scam (the person has abandoned the thread, taken entry fees and vanished, etc.), PM one of the crew or an online purple mod and explain everything you know about the situation, and be sure to include a link to the contest thread. You may not get your entry fee back, but the person who started the contest can at least be dealt with.
exclaim What to do if someone is spamming your contest:
If you're running a contest and you get someone who is spamming or being rude in your thread (possibly flooding it with entries or harassing you/entrants), you can either PM one of the crew or an online purple mod OR report it in the Posting Guide announcement in the main forum. That thread is regularly checked and the problem can be dealt with fairly quickly.
exclaim What to do if you catch someone plagiarizing:
If you suspect someone is submitting stolen work, please send a report using the report buttons or the PM system to have a moderator look into it. If you recognize whose work it actually is, please include the real author's name with your report to make things easier. Also include the user who submitted the stolen work, as well as a link to the contest thread or specific post. Google is a good way to check on suspicious entries. Copy and paste a line or two from the poem and run a search.
Please remember that for the most part, contests in this forum are well-run so don't hesistate to enter or hold contests of your own. The most important thing to keep in mind is that this is all for fun, so have a great time! whee
All information and guidelines/rules from the Writer's Forum.
