Submission Guidelines

Text should be plain "ASCII" or "DOS" text. Do not use any special formatting as it can interfere with the readability of your submission on certain kinds of e-mail readers. This means, that you should not use italics, bold, underline, tables, "smart quotes", etc.,. If you are in doubt about the formatting of your work, a simple way to double-check is to save the document as a .txt file, then copy and paste your submission from this file into your e-mail.

Along the same lines, be sure that your e-mail's HTML feature has been disabled and that you don't send your mail with fancy backgrounds or fonts.

To note Bold or Italics in your text use the following conventions:

*Everything between these asterisks should be read as Bold*
_Everything between these underscores should be read as Italics_

Proofread your work before submitting it. Your critiquers will appreciate it.

Author's Notes should be written at the beginning of a submission. Partial works (chapters, prologues, scenes, incomplete short stories) should include a brief synopsis of the larger piece. Also, word counts on submissions are appreciated but not necessary.

Special critique requests should be included with the Author's Notes. If you are more interested in certain areas of your work such as characterization, plot flow, dialogue, etc., please feel free to request that your critiquers focus on this aspect

Be aware of the time commitment involved in critiquing and writing and be considerate of your fellow members. Limit yourself to answering no more than three Challenges per week. If you work is exceptionally long, consider limiting yourself even further. There will always be another week to request critiques.

Subject lines should Include: the Challenge week # and your name. Optionally, include the specific challenge to which you are responding. If you do not note the specific challenge in the subject, please list it at the top of the submission along with your Author's Notes

This is to insure that you're work will be noted in the Challenge area of the Web Site. If your subject line does not reflect that it is in answer to a Challenge it may be missed.

If you will be submitting responses to more than one Challenge in a single week, please distinguish between the two in the subject line as well.

When submitting non-challenge work, you should limit yourself to pieces you intend to market for publication.

Try to send no more than 5,000 words of unsolicited manuscript directly to the list per week. If you wish to have a single large piece or smaller pieces totaling more than 5,000 words critiqued, query first and then send the piece(s) directly to those who are interested, or upload to shared file area and notify group via e-mail. (see submissions over 4,000 words)

While our focus is on prose, we do accept articles, essays, poetry and screenplays for critique as long as you abide by the submission guidelines.

Poetry: No more than one poem per week. Poems submitted to the group for critique should be ones you feel exceptionally proud of or intend to submit for publication.

Resubmissions of previously critiqued work is acceptable and should follow the submission guidelines for non-Challenge work. Please note in the subject line that the work is a resubmission.

Depending on the length of the story, you may wish to resubmit only portions you are actively reworking or having problems with instead of the entire piece.

Some members may have browsers which do not support attachments or long submissions. Any
single post to the list should therefore be kept below 4000 words.

Please break up the submission between two e-mails noting in the subject line which is Part I and which is Part II. If your submission is exceptionally large (7,000+ words) query the group first, and then send as a file attachment or series of e-mails directly to those interested in critiquing. You may wish to decide on a suitable file type with your critiquer if you will be sending an attachment.

Do not sent larger pieces directly to the list, only to those who volunteer their services.

Alternatively you may upload the file to our shared files area at e-groups. You must be logged on to access this area. It is just as private as our list and archives. Once you've uploaded a piece you may notify the list that the manuscript is available for critique. You may also delete the file yourself if you'd like to remove it from the file area for whatever reason.

Please only upload .txt files (no .rtf or .doc files) as you will have fewer compatibility problems.