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Here are a few simple tips to help get your story accepted by The Wanderer:
Spell check your text. This is a simple function available on almost all
word processing programs. It only takes a few minutes and saves us a lot
of work.
Save your file as plain text before you send it to us, or before you copy
and paste it into your email client. Other types of files contain hidden
line breaks and all kinds of nasty surprises that can make it very
difficult to format your story for the web page it's going to be viewed on.
Paragraph breaks - Can't stress this enough. When you've finished with one
idea or scenario, or there is a clear break or change in the action, start
another paragraph. Watch out for sentence run-on. Long stories that are
all one sentence will not be accepted, it's just too much editing work
breaking the story into the appropriate paragraphs.
Punctuation is what tells your story, it gives your dialogue a
rythym. When your character asks a question, put a question mark after the
sentence. If he or she is speaking forcefully use exclamation points. You
can really bring a character to life with proper punctuation, or kill a
good story without it. Also be very sparing with the "......" (ellipses)
after or before words. It's very.... hard to.... get into the..... story when.....
it's all... broken up into..... sentence.... fragments... like.... this..... So dont do it!
Capitalization. When you start a sentence, the first letter is always
capitalized. Names of people and places are always capitalized. If your
character asks a question or makes a statement, even if it's in the middle
of a sentence, you use quotation marks and capitalize the first letter of
his sentence.
TWO spaces after periods, question marks and exclamation points, ONE space
after commas and semicolons. Again, this enhances the reading experience
and helps the flow of your text.
Pay attention to tense. If you're telling a story that happened a year
ago, for example, use 'They were doing this' rather than 'They are doing
this'. It already happened over a year ago, it isn't happening now.
If you'd like to know more about the skill of writing, go to
our friend Kysa's page, she'll help you out.
Submit now by clicking here!
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