submitting your final draft

[darththalia]

As we get into April, you might be starting to think about what you need to do to submit your completed (!) story. (Or you might be busy trying to figure out what happened to your plot. Whatever. [g]) Here are guidelines; they're also available at the TBB website. If you have any questions, comment here or e-mail Tardis.bigbang [at] gmail [dot] com.

Submission Guidelines

General Guidelines

• You may submit your story as a text file, a Word document, or an HTML document. We're not (too) picky.
• E-mail your story to Tardis.bigbang [at] gmail [dot] com.
• Make sure your story has been beta'ed, and have someone check over the spelling and grammar. No matter how good you are at proofreading, it won't hurt to have a second pair of eyes look at it.
• Leave one blank line between paragraphs. Do not indent paragraphs.
• Be consistent! Use italics the same way throughout your story. If you're using symbols to show where section breaks should go, use the same symbols-not "oOoOo" in one place and "*****" in another. Use double quotes and single quotes consistently.
• Include a note at the top of your story describing what should be done. If you want each chapter on a different page, say so. If you want it to be one big file with marked section breaks, say so. If you're using asterisks to indicate what should be italicized, say so. We want you to be happy with your story!
• Clearly mark your section/chapter breaks. Don't just leave an extra blank line; use some kind of divider. Tell us what that divider is.
• If there's anything we should pay special attention to, let us know. If you want to do anything funky with the formatting (e.g. IM conversations, block quote indents, etc.), let us know.
• Make sure you haven't left in any comments from your betas.

If you're submitting an HTML file...

• DO NOT use Microsoft Word to generate HTML. Submit a Word doc instead.
• Do not hard-code fonts. Do not use CSS. We want the stories to have a consistent look and feel.
• Use
  ...
  to indicate the start and end of paragraphs.
• Use as a divider between section
• If you want your chapters on separate pages, please submit them in one big file and tell us where it should be split. Don't worry about the section.

If you're submitting a Word doc

• Turn off Smart Quotes. Smart Quotes are the work of the devil.
• Bold and/or italicize words-don't use asterisks or whatever. You don't need to include any HTML tags; we have macros that will insert them.
• If you're using any formatting other than bold or italics, tell us up front so we know to look for it.

If you're submitting a text file...

• Tell us up front how you're indicating bold and/or italics. Be consistent.
• Don't forget to leave a blank line between paragraphs.

If you have questions...
Email the Mods at Tardis.bigbang [at] gmail [dot] com, or reply to a modpost at tardis_bigbang.