Story Submission Guide

Hi guys. Last december I received a couple of mails asking about how to submit stories to the Library and/or to produce a guide to do it. While I think that Fats did an excellent job to set up the submission system, I guess that a couple of elements might require a bit of explanation.

For clarity sake I divided this guide in two parts based on the screen captures I was able to do with my laptop.



Part 1: The Set-Up

Before writing/pasting/whatever your story into the submission system it's better to make a little bi a of set-up, this would make easier for the Administrators/Librarians (that would be LFan, Fats, Njae and myself) to sort out the stories for approval and for your readers to notice them.




On to the first part of the submission form we have a several boxes to be filled.

The Title box (1) is pretty much self-explanatory, simply write/paste the title of your story here. Just a word of advice, if you're writing a multi-part story, use the same format for all the parts and numbers instead of words, otherwise they might appear in the wrong order in the Library.

E.G.: if you use "Supergirl - Part 1" as format for your first submission, the second part should be titled "Supergirl - Part 2", rather than "Supergirl Part 2" or "Supergirl - Part Two"



The Alias box (2) is a bit tricky. The Alias is the code used by the system to file and retrieve the story. My advice is to leave it empty, in which case the Alias will be automaticly generated by the Library software, by writing the title without capital letters and spacing.

E.G.: by leaving the field empty, "Supergirl - Part 1" will automaticly generate the Alias of "supergirl-part-1"



Next stop is the Primary Category (3). This is very important, because it will define in which part oof the site your story will be filed. Simply click on the menu arrow of the selection box (4) and choose "SWM Library", any other selection will cause your story to be filed in another part of the site.



The Secondary category selection (5) is almost as important. If you move the mouse over the White Box next to it (6) a list would appear, containing all the possible categories. Choose all the categories that the story might fit in (usually a Workshop or a Series shelf) by clicking on them, if you have to select more than one category just Ctrl + Click.


Finally we have the State box (7). Like the Primary Category it's a menu (8). Usually you can leave it, unless you need to keep your story unpublished for some reason (either because it's a draft or you don't want to release it for the moment).


One little note about the buttons (9) DO NOT CLICK THEM YET. By clicking any of the you will end your submission, which might be a bit of a problem.

Part 2, now we go for the big one.





After finishing the set-up you can work on submitting your story.

First of all we have the Tags (1). These are markers that you and other readers can use to navigate the Library. It's a good idea to take a couple of minutes to evaluate which tags fits your story. One very important note: do not be too generic or too specific with Tags, having too many would made the Library very awkward to use, while too generic tags won't be very descriptive (e.g. since we already have a "Super-Breath" tag, it's a little useless to add a "Freezing Breath" tag).

To add tags, simply write them down in the Add Tags box (2). Keep in mind that, if you're looking for an existing tag, you can simply type in a part of in and navigate the menu (e.g. if you're looking for Super-Strength, you can find it by just writing "strength").

To add a new tag, you have to write it in the Add Tags box and push Enter, sometimes you have to write and Enter a second time. Anyway as soon as the tag appears in the Tags box (1), you're good.

Once you've finished with the Tags you can finally write/paste your story. The Story box (4) works like a standard Word Processor. While writing you can use the various functions icons (3) like you would on your Word Processor.

As soon as you are satisfied with your story, just click the "Add" button at the top of the page and wait for the Admins/Librarians to put it online.