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Ethan Tsai
1 N. College Street
Northfield, MN 55057
TSAIE@Gridley.ACNS.Carleton.edu
http://public.carleton.edu/~tsaie/ethan.html
Quote of the day:
"You do not lead by hitting people over the head-that's assault, not
leadership."
--Dwight D. Eisenhower
On Thu, 26 Feb 1998, RPM - acct 3/5 wrote:
Got a great idea for a story? Ready to go and
write that grand epic? Folks, here's a few questions
you should really ask yourself before you embark
on that grand endeavor.
1) Has this idea been done before?
If you're the millionth person to give
the idea a whirl, do you really think
the readership'll be that enthusiastic?
Originality is generally a good thing, okay?
Give it a try.
1a) Is my take on the idea really that
different than the others?
Think on this one. Really.
Be honest with yourself.
I don't think it needs to be that different to be interesting or for the
fic to become more interesting as time goes on. After all, having someone
whip out a gun and shoot someone isn't all that interesting. On the other
hand, if you change ever so slightly the repercussions afterwards, the
outcome has potential.
I don't think it necessarily neds to be drastically different. I'm sure
there are fics that have vastly different premises, such as Ill Met By
Starlight, but I think there are fics that are just as good that may
simply have a very subtle change in premise that will become noticeable as
time goes on.
2) Is that snazzy title taken?
Every now and then we do get a couple of
writers who end up sharing the same title.
Be polite, now, kids. If you really insist
on keeping your title, at least acknowledge
the others.
3) Are your ideas really yours?
Again, be honest. Nobody likes a plagarist.
And if you are borrowing ideas from other
people, have the DECENCY to either give
credit to or ask permission from the
source of your ideas. And sooner or later
someone will find out anyway.
4) Text format? What's that?
It'd be nice to be read by everyone, wouldn't it?
So make sure you can, okay? Please do try to
NOT send it via attachments, although it's
understandable that larger stories might require
it. DON'T send it in HTML format or MSword format.
Saving in plain text isn't rocket science. Give
it a whirl.
Sometimes it isn't rocket science, but I'm going to point out that some
habits die hard. For those of us who are stuck on Word 97 and are used to
the handy-dandy autosave, please be kind. I know that the simple cut and
paste from the window may result in bad formatting, but I doubt it's that
bad...
That and you have to admit that people -do- forget to save things as text
files. After all, with cut and paste available, why does it matter?
And it sometimes isn't enough to just save in text mode. Lots
of you lazy bums rely on auto-wrap too much, re
sulting in text that's skewered
badly
and generally annoying to read.
The occasional' goofy mark^ w*ill also appear if you didn*^t
do it right.
Don't expect the readership to read your stuff no
matter what junk gets tangled in it.
4a) Got Space? (or: Tabs - your friend.)
If the story is in a packed
format, and paragraph after
paragraph is piled on, then
you MIGHT want to seperate
the paragraphs with a blank
line.
Otherwise, as you can see,
it still looks ugly, and
it's a pain to read too.
I think this may end up being a personal preference. Be it a personal
preference or one that's "accepted as the norm," I think this isn't
something that deserves as critical a remark. You don't see novels spaced
that way...
If not the line between paragraphs, then
try something else.
Like indenting at every paragraph. See?
5) Got web?
If you've got a website where you archive your
stuff, hey, more power to ya. Be sure to
list it at the start or the end of your post.
In case you're wondering where this little rant came from,
let's just say the state of the FFML for the last two
months has kinda bugged me.
-'Groucho' Rod