Holiday!Bang Submission Guidelines

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Hey everyone :). First, we want to thank all of you guys for sending in so many awesome prompts for Holiday!Bang, as well as signing up for another round of thestopwatch. Also, if you have not received an email confirming your prompt and your moderator for this round of thestopwatch, please email us at mods@thestopwatch.org as everyone who signed up should have heard back from us by now.

We are definitely looking forward to seeing the talent of the fandom flourish, and to seeing a whole new onslaught of quality Janto work. In order to facilitate this festival to become the best it can be, there are few rules and guidelines that we all need to follow. We apologise in advance for the length of this post, but please read this post in its entirety.

Reminders

• This is an anonymous fic festival. Please do not post your fic anywhere (including your personal journal) until after the final reveal. This should be some time during the first week of January.
• Do not wait to contact us until the deadline if you are having difficulties with your prompt. We are here to help you, but we cannot do so if you do not give us enough notice.
• Try as hard as you can to stick to the prompt you have chosen. You are not obligated to include every single request written in your prompt, of course, but you are expected to stick to it to the best of your abilities.
• If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to email us at mods@thestopwatch.org, using this as the subject heading Your Mod Name - Insert email topic here to ensure that your email gets placed directly to the folder of the moderator assigned to you.

Fic Guidelines

• Your fanfic should be at least 1500 words in length. There is no maximum cap, so please, feel free to write 70 000 words, if you so desire. Your fic should be free of grammar and spelling issues, and you must avail the services of a beta reader. You can find several beta readers, who are willing to help in this post if you do not have a regular beta reader.
• Your fic should not be a part of a previously written series or a sequel. It must stand alone.
• This should be a no-brainer, but your fic must be Jack/Ianto centered. While it is okay to have side pairings, implied pairings, and Jack/Gwen or Jack/John/Ianto or Ianto/Doctor/Jack/Master or Ianto/Owen (you get the picture) scenes, it is not okay to completely dump Jack/Ianto in favour of another pairing. Remember: this is a Jack/Ianto Fic Festival. We love all of the characters in Torchwood (and Dr Who) - we really do - but for this ficathon, let's keep our focus on the lovely Jack Harkness and Ianto Jones.
• You must include your own HTML codes for bolding ( and ), italics ( and ), underlining ( and ), block quotes ( and
  ), etc, within your submission document. Simply bolding, italicizing, or underlining your work in Word or OpenOffice, without putting in the HTML codes, will not automatically translate over when we post and upload your story. We will not add these for you. You do not need to include the code for line breaks and paragraphs, however - we just want the style markings.

Submissions

• Please note that we, the moderators, will be reading through all of the fics submitted to ensure that you are enforcing proper spelling, grammar, and syntax. Please do not be offended if we email you back with corrections, questions, and requests for more proofing in regards to your fic. We realise that everyone has their own personal writing style (which we are not trying to stifle in any way), but understand that we just want to make sure that there are no excessive typos and usage errors in your work.
• You must submit your fic as a Word document (.DOC files only) and format and code it according to however you want it to look like. We will not be bolding, italicizing, or formatting anything once your fic has been submitted.
• You must use the following header for your fic submission:
  Title:
  Author Name: (This is your LJ name, which we'll temporarily write down as anonymous until after the reveal.)
  Original Prompt Number:
  Pairing(s):
  Summary:
  Rating:
  Disclaimer:
  Warnings:
  Word Count:
  Author's Notes:
  
• You must email your work to mods@thestopwatch.org with the following subject heading: Mod Name - Submission. This way, your submission will not get lost or misplaced.
• If you do not get a reply from your moderator within 72 hours, confirming that we have received your work, please resend your submission again.

Deadlines

• Prompt Claiming: September 10, 2008 to November 01, 2008.
• Due Date for First Timers: November 07, 2008 Extended to November 28, 2008
• Due Date for Second Timers: November 14, 2008 Extended to December 05, 2008

Drop-outs and Extensions

• This is your worst case scenario - not a means for you to randomly drop out on a whim, or to constantly ask us for extensions.
• While we realise that there are circumstances beyond our control, please, if you need an extension or if you need to drop out, let us know immediately. Do not wait until the last possible deadline, or else we will seriously free a mass of weevils to come after you :P.
• Please note that whoever drops out of this round will not be eligible to participate in the next wave of the exchange.
• That being said, if you need to be released from your commitment, or if you need an extension, please email us at mods@thestopwatch.org, using the following header: Your Mod Name - Drop out/Extension.

If you have any further questions or comments, please do not hesitate to email us. We really do love hearing from you, and we promise not to bite ;).