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Reminders and Posting Info

Art and Fics Due - August 26th, 11:59 PM (Midnight) PST (here is a timezone converter.)

Make sure to plan enough time for your betas to look things over!

All of the big bang stories have been claimed by artists! Yay!! You all are amazing!! :) Special thanks go out to the diligent efforts of [livejournal.com profile] red_b_rackham, who managed to coordinate the claim requests all alone (while I dealt with a personal crisis), and to all the fantastic artists who stepped up to the plate and offered their own talents and skills to make this big bang a success! Add on to that list all the amazing authors, cheerleaders, and betas... well, all I can say is that this is going to be a fantastic Het Big Bang!!! :)

So, let's get this show on the road! Here's a rundown on how to post your final works:

POSTING REQUIREMENTS

Where do we post our completed fics?
We are using AO3 collections, with the deadline for submission as August 26th, and the reveal date of August 31st. You can post them up early!! Post them up now, if you want! You can also post your fics anywhere else you like, just don't post them anywhere before the Debut Date.

I think that everyone who has signed up for this challenge has an AO3 account, but if you don't, there is plenty of time to sign up. You can ask a friend for an invite code, or you can request from A03 here or at [livejournal.com profile] ao3_invitecodes. If you are unfamiliar with it, here is the FAQ of AO3. Do not publish your fic for everyone to see at AO3. Instead, submit it for our 2015 collection. Only the author of a work can add it to a collection, and then the mods approve it and we'll reveal it on the Debut Date.

Once you've done that, we are also asking you to drop an email to thehetbigbang [at] gmail dot com when you submit your work to A03, with the following information:

Email Subject Line: (Fic or Art Submission. YOUR NAME.)

AO3 Name/LJ Name: (both)
Fandom:
Pairing:
Artwork or Fic: (artwork for "Title of Fic, by Author") or (Fic: "Title, rating, and word count. Big Bang or Little Bang.")
Summary: (if applicable.)


Further Posting guidelines below. (The pics used are for the old 2012 submissions, but just mentally adjust for 2015.)



1. Sign up for A03. You can ask a friend for an invite code, or you can request from A03 here or at [livejournal.com profile] ao3_invitecodes.

2. DO NOT POST YOUR FICS/ARTS SO THAT THE GENERAL PUBLIC CAN SEE THEM. Double check after posting to make sure it doesn't get posted to the general audience. If it does, delete the work and start over. Instead, you need to allow the mods to collect your fic/arts so that we can reveal everything together on August 31st. Go here, to the 2015 Het Big Bang Collection, and go the "Post to Collection" button in the top right corner. The collection is currently open, moderated and unrevealed.



This will bring you to the normal template where you submit your fic/artwork. In the first block, you fill out all the tags: fandom, warnings, ratings, characters, pairings, additional tags, etc.

In the second block, you fill out the preface information, including title, summary, and author's notes.

2a. For Artist: your summary line should include your author's name and the title of their story (if you know it).

3. In the third block, for "Associations" make sure the line for "Post to Collections/Challenges" lists "Het_Big_Little_Bang_Challenge_2015."



3A. For Artists: the next line, "Gift this work to:" should be filled out as well. Artist, you know your Author's A03 name, which should have been provided to you through your emails. If for some reason it was not, please contact your authors and get this name from them. Fill in the "Gift this work to:" line with your author's name. That will link your artwork to them. After the submissions have gone live on the Debut Date, we would like you to go back and edit your submission to add in a link to the specific story you created your artwork for. But until the entire big bang goes public, the main way you'll attach your artwork to the piece will be by identifying the author through gifting.

When you finally get the chance to link to the story, edit your submission and use the HTLM coding: <*a href="INSERT THE URL HERE">Title, by Author. (Remove the *) You can put this in your author's note or summary.

3b. For Authors: After the submissions have gone live on the Debut Date, we would need you to go back and edit your submission to add in a link to the specific artwork that was created for your story. You don't have to "Gift this work to:" to the artist, but it'd be neat if you wanted to do so.

When you finally get the chance to link to the artwork, edit your submission and use the HTLM coding: <*a href="INSERT THE URL HERE">Title, by Artist. (Remove the *) You can put this in your author's note or summary.

4. Formatting and coding guidelines are important.

4a. For Artists: AO3 video embeds are working from Youtube, Vimeo, blip.tv, Dailymotion, Viddler, Metacafe and 4shared. So if you have a video, you upload it to Youtube for example, and then embed into an AO3 post.

For images like artwork and icons and banners and cover art, use the <*img src="INSERT YOUR URL HERE"> HTML coding (remove the *). You can first upload your images at Tinypic or photobucket or a similar image hosting website, and then make an A03 post with the HTML coding.

5. Submit your fic/artwork.

You need to make sure when you hit "Post" that you see this text at the top of the resulting page:



"This work is part of an ongoing challenge and will be revealed soon! You can find details here: Het Big/Little Bang Challenge 2015"








6. Now, your fic should NOT be displayed to the general audience. It might not even show up on your dash, but fear not. You can still edit, add new chapters, mess around with it to your heart's content.

We, the mods, unfortunately do not have access to your story. We cannot tell if it is properly formatted or not. THIS IS FRUSTRATING, but there's nothing we can do about it. We can only see your name. All works are titled "Mystery Works" until we reveal the entire big bang. So, please make sure your own fic is properly formatted.

If you need to edit your fic, login and go to your dashboard. Go to the "Edit Works" button in the top right corner. From there, you can edit your works.



A03 will require you to format a header with all regular information on it.
Remember to properly tag your works, including appropriate warnings.


Both HTML and Rich Text are supported, and you can edit/delete, have multiple chapters, etc...

1. The Rich Text Editor lets you add formatting, links and pictures to text without using HTML tags. It also has an option for pasting from Word which will preserve some of your Word formatting, although please note that this is buggy. The Rich Text Editor is only available for your work text.

2. The HTML editor allows you to change the look of your text with HTML tags. It can be used in any place you can submit text, although some fields permit only a small subsection of allowed tags. You can see a full list of the allowed HTML on the Archive FAQ, but the standard HTML tags is as follows: b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, datetime, div, dl, dt, em, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, height, hr, href, i, img, ins, small, span, src, strike, strong, sub, sup, table, u, and more.

Also, two years ago, [livejournal.com profile] anr was a saint and provided you with a post that explained "how to format a fic for posting in less than 30 seconds no matter the story length or amount of formatting" trick.

The mods won't be overly picky about formatting. 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, that's optional. You choose your own way to format.

Other optional suggestions, just for uniformity sake's:
How do I do Chapter Titles: Bold 'em.
How do I timestamp and do locations: Italicize the dates and locations.
How do I do subtitle stuff: Italicize it.

There is only one major fail regarding format, and that has to do with paragraphs breaks.
There must be a full line break between paragraphs.

Example of doing it wrong:



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?"




Example of doing it right:




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?!!"



Grammar and Spelling fail:
If your fic doesn't look beta'ed, we 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, etc... 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? Check out this post!


Can I post it to my journal a few days early to show my friends?

No. The first time you show your fic for this big bang must be on Debut Day, on this comm. Mods will handle the revealing details. There will be more posts on that to come. Once the Big Bang website goes live, feel free to post your stuff wherever.

[identity profile] emmatheslayer.livejournal.com 2015-08-10 09:20 pm (UTC)(link)
so you have to post the art the same day as the fic ?
Right ?

[identity profile] red-b-rackham.livejournal.com 2015-08-11 01:58 pm (UTC)(link)
You can post the art to the AO3 collection at any time, from now until August 26th (the day everything is due). It will then go live at the same time as all the other art and fics. :)

[identity profile] emmatheslayer.livejournal.com 2015-08-11 06:30 pm (UTC)(link)
I figured it out. Thanks

[identity profile] gwenhwyfar1984.livejournal.com 2015-08-11 03:25 am (UTC)(link)
If the artist has not contacted us, how do we let them know the title of our fic for when they post?

[identity profile] red-b-rackham.livejournal.com 2015-08-11 02:03 pm (UTC)(link)
They may just not have contacted you yet, but just in case - your artist is upoffmyknees, email: myonetruelovee00 (at) gmail (dot) com . You can try dropping them an email!

[identity profile] helsinkibaby.livejournal.com 2015-08-11 10:03 pm (UTC)(link)
I also haven't been contacted by my artist and since I'll be away from Sunday to Monday 24th with limited internet, I'm getting worried!

[identity profile] red-b-rackham.livejournal.com 2015-08-11 10:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Some artists may not contact their authors, or may not until much later, so don't fret just yet! ;)

But just so you can let them know that you're away and whatever else: your artist is raktajinos, email is coffeeinthatnebula (at) gmail (dot) com . :)

[identity profile] gwenhwyfar1984.livejournal.com 2015-08-12 03:57 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you!

[identity profile] punch-kicker15.livejournal.com 2015-08-11 04:02 am (UTC)(link)
Does AO3 have a word or character limit per chapter (like no more than 2000 words per chapter or whatever)?

(Apologies if this is in the links. I looked through them first and couldn't find the answer, but it's possible I missed something.)
ext_6231: (Default)

[identity profile] ladytalon1.livejournal.com 2015-08-11 11:13 am (UTC)(link)
While I don't know of the exact word limit, there definitely IS one - I had to drop out a few years back and when I finally finished my story and posted it at AO3, I needed to split it into two chapters.

[identity profile] punch-kicker15.livejournal.com 2015-08-11 03:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks!

[identity profile] red-b-rackham.livejournal.com 2015-08-11 02:06 pm (UTC)(link)
Hmm, good question - I honestly have no idea if there is a limit per chapter. If you're worried, you could always break the chapter(s) into slightly smaller chunks?

Edit: Just checked, and when posting a new work/chapter, it says "500,000 characters left" when blank, so there's your limit for one chapter/post. Hope that helps!

[identity profile] punch-kicker15.livejournal.com 2015-08-11 03:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, thank you. My fic jumps around a lot and I did not write it with chapters breaks in mind. It helps a lot to know approximately how long a chapter can be when I start breaking it up.
ext_6231: (Default)

[identity profile] ladytalon1.livejournal.com 2015-08-14 02:41 pm (UTC)(link)
In the process of submitting mine right now, accidentally clicked 'join' before I got it together so please ignore that, whoops!
angelus2hot: (Charmed Cole/Phoebe prove it)

[personal profile] angelus2hot 2015-08-15 09:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Posted all three art and sent email (I hope I did it right)

Will post the fic as soon as it's back from the second round of official beta'ing. (I can't stop fiddling with it and adding more words, hence more beta work)

[identity profile] scandalbaby.livejournal.com 2015-08-16 07:17 pm (UTC)(link)
I had one of my stories already on AO3 (it's the Star Trek AOS/Sherlock WIP I submitted) and I'm trying to import it to the collection but it's not working, but if I add the twelve new chapters to the story everyone is going to see it. And I can't get the Import FAQ to work to figure out how to add what I have to the collection. I have no clue what to do at this point.

[identity profile] scandalbaby.livejournal.com 2015-08-16 07:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Never mind! Went and added the challenge manually and appears to have worked. Can you double check for me, though, to make sure it's there? It's called Sway.

[identity profile] tanyareed.livejournal.com 2015-08-19 08:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Hi, I have a question. I've just finished my edits by hand, and now I just have to make them to my electronic copy (I'm old fashioned, and like doing things by hand first.) Is it okay if I post my story a chapter at a time? It's going to take a couple of days to finish, but I'll be finished way before the deadline. Is it okay if I do it that way as long as the whole story is posted by the deadline?