Updated:
06/03/02
 
Content Guidelines | Format Guidelines

Content Guidelines

In the interests of getting your stories up on the page as quickly and legibly as possible, please follow these guidelines when you submit your stories.

All stories submitted should revolve around the central characters of Sam Seaborn and Ainsley Hayes -- both friendship stories and 'shipper stories are welcomed. All ratings up to and including NC-17 are accepted.

Only complete stories are accepted; no works-in-progress, please.

All work must be spellchecked. Non-spellchecked stories will be returned to the author. And please, get a betareader to edit your work before you send it out into the cold, cruel world. Betareaders help you find plot holes, misspellings, and mistakes before your readers do -- technical mistakes that can make any story, no matter how brilliant, terribly difficult to read.

When in doubt, there are great grammar and style references available on the Net. Check out Just Playing Smart, Luna's style guide to West Wing fanfic, for show-specific help as well as links to grammar sites.

Bipartisan Relations reserves the right to reject any submission which
does not follow all guidelines, including format and spellchecking.

Format Guidelines

NOTE: The format guidelines are for submission of non-HTML'd text documents. HTML'd documents are happily accepted, since it makes my life easier and you can put your italics, etc., right where you want them. If you choose, you may also simply send a link to where your story is already archived (on your home server, or an archive like The West Wing Fanfic Archive, if you choose).

1. Please save all stories as ASCII text. No smart quotes, no tabs, no strange line breaks, etc. Just plain old text. Anything else can come up in HTML with strange and bizarre characters that look funky, but make reading a real problem. Your Save As... menu should give you the Text or Plain Text (.txt) option -- use it. I can't read most Word .doc formatted stories, so you'll save time by sending it as .txt the first time around.

2. All stories should be formatted in block paragraphs, with blank lines between paragraphs. Do not indent or otherwise use tabs.

3. Make sure you enclose the following information with your submission (or the standard notes used on the mailing lists):

  • Your name and email address
  • The title of the story
  • A short summary of the story, including a series title if you're planning on making it one.
  • The part number if submitting in multiple parts (Example: My Story, 1/3)
  • A rating if you feel it needs one, and why. Readers should be alerted to violence, strong language and sexual situations. Use your own judgment and make sure you mark anything PG-13 or higher.
  • A spoiler listing if the story contains major first or second season spoilers
  • If your story is an answer to a challenge, specify which one.
  • Your web site if you want me to link to it.

4. Email all stories to
bipartisan@neon-hummingbird.com.