Submission Information!

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

Okay, writers and artists! Submission information is here!

Deadlines and Drop-outs: All fics and artworks are due on September 25th, 2011 at noon PST sharp. NO LATE SUBMISSIONS ACCEPTED. Dude, I will need every. single. second. between the 25th and the Debut Date of the 30th to get the website up and running.

Email addy: bigbang.het@gmail.com

Writers:
→ if you don't submit your fic by the September 25th, 2011 at noon PST sharp, you don't qualify to be part of the Big Bang Debut.
→ if your story is currently claimed by an artist, and you decide to drop out at any time, notify me ASAP so that I can inform your artist of the development.
→ if you've found an artist for your fic on your own, tell me.

Artists:
→ if you don't submit your artwork by Sept 25th or drop out at any time, then you're going to place me in the uncomfortable situation of hunting for a back up artist on days' worth of notice. Please, dear god, pretty pretty please - pay attention to the deadline and follow it.
→ notify me ASAP if you need to drop out.
→ if your writer does not complete his/her story by the due date, but you've completed your artwork, go ahead and submit it and I'll showcase it on the website anyway. You deserve recognition for your hard work!
→ IMPORTANT. VERY, VERY IMPORTANT: ALL ARTWORK MUST BE SUBMITTED BEFORE I REVEAL THE WEBSITE. Therefore, if you do not submit by the proper deadline, and I don't get a backup artist in time, the Debut Date (Sept 30th) may be delayed. The point of a bigbang is for everything to go up at ONCE, blinding people with their awesomeness. If one person is left without proper artwork to their long story, then no one gets to see the works. All for one, and one for all. Hardcore, I know!

Header Information for Stories
You must include a header with all regular information on it. This includes warnings. Not all of our readers like the same thing, so you are required to warn them on character death, sex, rape (including non-con and dub-con), torture, hardcore kinks, incest, etc.

Here is an example header for FANFICTION, with the things you could include.

Title:
Author(s):
Fandom(s):
Pairing(s):
Word Count:
Rating/Warnings:
Beta:
Summary:
Author's notes:

Then your story follows.

Header Information for Artwork
Write out your submissions as if you were making a post to lj with it, including all relevant header information and a link to your artwork (i.e. Artist name/Rating/Warnings, etc... and then the <*img src=URL LINK HERE>), and then email me that write up in a .DOC or .TXT format.

Please include the artwork, and information like the author's name, the fanfiction's title, and the fandom/pairing of the piece. Any additional remarks/comments from you are welcome!

Here is an example header for ARTWORK, with the things you could include.

Title:
Artist:
For Story: Title of Fanfiction, by Author
Fandom(s):
Pairing(s):
Rating/Warnings:
Author's notes:

Then your artwork!

Where can I upload my graphics?
Tinypic is recommended for images or .gif files, along with Photobucket. Both have their pros and cons. I do not know hosting sites for fanvids, but I can holler out to the comm if anyone needs pointing in the right direction.

Emailing me the final drafts: Writers: Your story should be attached in .doc or .txt format (whatever you send should be open and readable!) Please save this attachment as your LiveJournal name and then your title. For example: IRONYROCKS_titleofyourHETBBstoryhere.doc (or .txt, etc.).

Artist: Your work should also be attached in .doc or .txt format (whatever you send should be open and readable!) Save it as your livejournal name and then artwork. For example: IRONYROCKS_artwork.doc (or .txt, etc.)

Coding: As I've stated from the beginnning, even though we're hosting this on an outside website, all submissions must be fully and properly coded to LJ HTML specification. Which means you post it up as if you were basically posting it to an LJ entry, HTML style. Just pay no attention to a maximum entry size limit that's normal for LJ, as your 25k+ fic will totally blow past that. The entire fic will be posted on the official website as one piece, not multiple entries.

Why am I using LJ coding? Because it's just easier for everyone here to know what I'm talking about, that's why. Here is the FAQ of LJ, including how to bold, italicise, underline in HTLM. Do not attempt to do LJ user names or LJ-cuts. Do not attempt to code-in or change the color, size, or font of the default text; all submissions will be uniform as black Verdana 13pt font as that one poll concluded, and I'll deal with making sure that happens. Please preview your submissions before emailing them to me because one missing bracket will muck up your entire fic, and fixing that may take my helpers ages. Just, like, keep your coding to a minimum? Bold, italicise, underline - sure, fine. But don't try to create sparkly 16pt font text that scrolls passed the window, or something. Less is more!

Optional Uniformity:
Remember: the entire fic will be posted on the official website as one piece, not multiple entries. I'd prefer for all dividers and scene breaks to use <*hr> (remove the *) which creates a horizontal line that serves perfectly as a scene break. However, I am not going to be insanely picky about that as I probably should have told you folks that before you started writing really long fics, right? Uniformity in this particular way is appreciated, but not mandatory.

Also optional for uniformity sake's:
How do I do Chapter Titles?: Bold 'em.
How do I timestamp and do locations: Italizice the dates and locations.
How do I do subtitle stuff: Italicize it.

Ex:

Chapter One: The Invasion
March 6, 2005 - The City of Atlantis

Elizabeth ducked quickly behind a console and attempted to catch her breath. A flush of pink colored her cheeks and a thin sheen of sweat had appeared on her brow. If the situation weren't so dire, John would have been turned on. As it was, however, he couldn't give it much thought as he had to focus on the batch of Ancient zombies that were slowly staggering in through the Stargate.

"At least they can't run," he offered lamely.

Elizabeth spared him a glare. "Why can't they run?"

"I don't know." John shrugged. "But they never seem to run. They always lurch. Maybe when they're brought back to life they don't get knees?"

---

Chapter Two: Ancient Ex-Girlfriends
Yes, They're Zombies Too

Elizabeth peeked around the consol. "Oh, my god," she breathed. "Is that--"

"Chaya?!" John squeaked.

"Talk about creepy ex-girlfriends." Rodney scrunched his nose. "She doesn't look good in green."

John cringed and crouched down lower. "Do you think she's their leader?"

Elizabeth looked thoughtful. "Well, this may be better for us." She narrowed her eyes at John. "We can give them you in trade for a cease fire--" Something caught her attention behind John and she broke off. "No, wait. Look to the left! That's... oh, god, John. That's Teer!"

John and Rodney stared in disbelief. "Damn you, Kirk!" Rodney groused, and hit John upside the head. "We're going to be killed by a legion of your dead ex-girlfriends!"

"Okay, everybody calm down," John soothed. "Let's not overreact and go blaming--"

"Hey, look, your ex-wife!"

"What?!!"

"Made you look," Elizabeth offered with a smirk.

Notice the horizontal divider line? The bolded chapter title and the italicized subtitle, date and location? Does that make sense? Or am I talking too much in cracky terms?

ETA: Okay, so I talked to one of my website people, and they said if it's too big of a problem to format to the HTLM format, then just go ahead and use Rich Text, and send it to me in Word document, with the text entirely uniform as black Verdana 13pt font, single-space. You now have options, so choose whichever one will be useful to you!

Anyway, this is actually a good segue way to another important issue...

Betas: Not only do they help with grammar and spelling, but betas help you with preventing horrible characterization and bad plots like the zombie fic above! Make sure your fic is beta'ed!

Grammar and Spelling fail: If your fic doesn't look beta'ed, I will call you on it, which will create an AWKWARD situation for both of us. Having a beta is a REQUIREMENT. Grammar, spelling, proper paragraph structure (for God's sakes, remember paragraph breaks! A full space between paragraphs! Don't smush them all together!) - these are all REQUIREMENTS. You need to give your beta ample opportunity to go over your fic for mistakes and edits, so remember to factor that into your deadline. Don't have a beta yet? Check out this post!

Crossposting: Once the website goes live on Sept 30th, you can post your stuff anywhere you want. Other comms, your personal journal, ff.net, etc... I highly, highly recommend that you crosspost because if livejournal crashes, or the official website crashes, it will just be AWKWARD. Crossposting is good! Just remember to pimp this comm and our official website so that your friends will be aware of this BigBang's epic existence.

For AO3 and collections: I have started a Collection for Het Bigbang 2011 over at Archive of Our Own. A collection is a group of works collected together under one heading: here, for all Het Big Bang 2011 submissions. Only the author of the work can add his/her story into this collection; so, you gotta upload your fic onto AO3, and then add it into this collection. Here is the FAQ of AO3. Since this is a moderated collection, each work has to be approved by me before it appears in the collection. This is optional.

Regarding: options to download fic or doing some type of customized e-reader. AO3 has a download option. If the authors choose to utilize AO3 and add into the collection, then it'll be easy for readers to get that option. Otherwise, you're gonna have to work it out on your own.

Comments

[slumber.livejournal.com]

*flails around* SO EXCITED! AND ALSO WORRIED I MIGHT NOT MAKE THE DEADLINE. D: (But no, I must, I must, I MUST finish this. Gaaaah.)

Thank you so much for all the work as well! This is epic and super useful! Thank you! ♥

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

OH, DUDE, YOU CAN DO IT! YOU WILL MAKE THAT DEADLINE AND THEN PARTAKE IN ALL THE BAGELS IN THE LAND IN VICTORY.

Also, I hope I have answered virtually any and all questions imaginable, but just you watch, there will be questions that I have not thought of yet.

[meekosan.livejournal.com]

*whimpers*

Our story is all prepped and pretty in a PDF file. To go through all that again...

*whimpers*

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

What do you have to go through? HTML formatting? Dude, don't. I know you've already gotten it ready and done. Let me see if I can work with what you've got.

[badboy-fangirl.livejournal.com]

Is it okay if I <*center> my bolded chapter titles and italicized quotes?

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

Yep!

[tanyareed.livejournal.com]

I have a question **waves hand**. Since the stories will not be posted on LJ but on an actual website that will need full formatting, do we put the < p > (without spaces of course) at the beginning of each of our paragraphs so that our paragraphs are not bunched together? Also, do we need chapters or chapter titles? I have written my story as a collection of scenes (which I will go back to and separate with lines as you've requested.)

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

No need for the < p > thingie! I've never had to do it myself.

And no need for chapter/chapter titles.

[ndnickerson.livejournal.com]

okay, i'm sorry if this is up there and i didn't see it, but --

1. i'm guessing that as soon as i get my fic looked over that i can just email it to you, even if it's tomorrow?

2. am i to attach the fic, properly html formatted, to the email as a .html attachment, or as a .rtf, or .txt, or what?

thanks! =D

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

1. Sure!

2. You can do it in a word document, preferred?

[angelqueen04.livejournal.com]

ZOMG YAY SUBMISSION INFO! *twirls* Am totally getting the fic assembled and sent, so I can live without the constant fear of my laptop going kaboom or something crazy. ;)

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

Yep, send it early if you want! I can use yours as a testing format for the website!

[leigh57.livejournal.com]

ZOMG, this post has sent me into a full-fledged panic attack.

WHEN CAN I FIND THE TIME TO FINISH, ZOMG!!!

And I'm so close. Okay. Okay. Gotta breathe!

Thanks so much for getting this information out early. It decreases stress like woah.

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

REMEMBER THE BREATHE!

Thanks so much for getting this information out early. It decreases stress like woah.

Yeah, I meant to get this out last week or so - but omg, so many admin posts!

[ancarett]

So, if you want this with HTML formats in a Word document, what's your stance on smart quotes that Word likes to use? Okay with them or want them banished?

I try to avoid them for my fics since they can mess up browsers but if you're good with them, I can stop having to toggle my options between the two, depending on what I'm writing at the time.

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

... I feel like an idiot, but what are smart quotes again?

[yappichick]

Just to clarify, we don't need chapters, right?

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

Nope.

[marzipanilla.livejournal.com]

Is < br> required between paragraphs?

And did you want the bar between our chapters or between every single scene break? I have most of my scenes seperared by '--' with a paragraph break above and below it.

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

No
is required!

And did you want the bar between our chapters or between every single scene break? I have most of my scenes seperared by '--' with a paragraph break above and below it.

Do it that way if you're more comfortable with it! I'd prefer the bar between the chapters and/or scene breaks, but again, not mandatory.

[mylittleredgirl.livejournal.com]

THERE WERE ZOMBIESSSSS. :'(

So I freaked out and didn't read that part and hopefully it wasn't important!

I have my own artist, who is substantially more dedicated to the task of me finishing this fic on time than I am, so once I recover from hyperventilating, I will get back to that!

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

ACK. I'M SO SORRY! I TOTALLY FORGOT TO WARN YOU ABOUT THAT!

[mizzy2k.livejournal.com]

But don't try to create sparkly 16pt font text that scrolls passed the window, or something.

Oh, damn, I was relying on that trick instead of including, y'know, an actual plot! Because who needs plot when you have sparkly text??

Ah, well, guess I'd better go put some plot in now...

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

Hold the phone. I never said anything about plot. I refuse to believe that I have to write plot, so therefore no one else is required as well!

[obsessivemuch1.livejournal.com]

Hang on, I have to code the manuscript? Ugh.

[eldanna.livejournal.com]

Okay, I've had one of those days, so forgive me if the answer to this is obvious:

For artists: I am planning on posting my images on Photobucket, since I already have an account. You said you need them email to you in a .doc attachment? As well or instead? Do we put the artist header in a word document with the pictures? Or just the link to them wherever I have hosted the images?

The above may also make no sense; again, brain is pretty fried tonight. Sorry to be a bother!

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, I'm sorry. Maybe I was unclear. Upload to Photobucket, then write out your entire artwork submission as if you were posting it to an lj entry, then email me that text. Use the < img src = Link to your artwork > type of coding to display your artwork?

[rise-your-dead.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I can easily convert my RTF to a text file and then into a html doc, but I've had issues sending html docs from my yahoo account. Could I provide an alternate gmail acct or just go with an RTF doc?

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

You can provide an alternative gmail account.

[badboy-fangirl.livejournal.com]

I just thought of another question with regard to the text: in our html submissions, do we need to specify the "verdana" font, or are you doing that? So it doesn't matter what font we send it to you in as long as we've got our <*i>, <*b>, etc. correct?

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

Yes! If you're using HTML, then I don't care what font you're using.

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

1. No need to put a name down of the beta, especially if the person isn't on lj.
2. Tags like bold, italicize, and underline. No need to do paragraph breaks. If you don't want to format that way, you can always use the second option of doing the doc in Verdana 13pt font, single spaced. As described above.
3. Artwork inside a doc. Just write out the submission as if you were posting it up on lj, and then email me that write up. So, like, the artwork information, and then <*img src=url here>.

[n-e-star.livejournal.com]

For artist with two claims, do you want all the info in one doc or should it be split up?

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

Split up, please!

[dragonsinger.livejournal.com]

Okay, I have everything done. Mine is a fanmix. Where would you like me to upload the fanmix file?

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

Wherever you normally upload a fanmix file.

[peanutbutterer.livejournal.com]

Ahahahaha. Zombie fic.

[htbthomas.livejournal.com]

I'm formatting my story to send now...

Do we use <*p> <*/p> in our HTML?

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

Nope!!

[majorshipper]

Question, for artists. Should we make one header for each item we make, i.e. I made a front cover and a fanmix; should I include a header for each or just one for both?

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

For that, just make one header!

[mzmtiger.livejournal.com]

If I'm just having a real life friend, who sadly doesn't have an lj, read through my story, is that all right? I'm finding it very hard to find an lj beta, but I have had someone beta it.

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

That's fine!

[badboy-fangirl.livejournal.com]

Am I just a moron that can't see the email address in this post? I am ready to send in my final draft, but can't find the email address, and somehow didn't save it in my contacts from when I sent in my rough. HALP PLEASE!

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

OH, CRAPSICLES. HOW DID I NOT NOTICE THAT BEFORE?

More importantly, how are people sending me so many submissions to the correct email addy? *tilts head*

Bigbang.het@gmail.com

[janus-74.livejournal.com]

I know something similar was asked above, but I'm submitting two different types of art-stuff (Mix plus a separate video/trailer), would you like one header or two for that?

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

Two different, then submit two separate headers.