Writing Guidelines (Please Read)

Writing Guidelines

These guidelines have been developed to make stories on IAR cleaner and easier to read. Please be sure to follow them when posting your story. Following these will ensure your story thread will not be locked or deleted.

1. Correct spelling, punctuation and grammar is paramount at all times. This is important for both story content and title. This means that full stops/periods must be used at the ends of all sentences, commas in the correct places, overuse of exclamation/question marks is avoided and so on. CHAT SPEAK IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. (leaving exception for MSN conversations, text messages etc. in story content)

2. Story titles must be appropriately capitalized and be posted with the rating in brackets. Inappropriate symbols (e.g., !!!!!, *, ~, #, @) are not allowed.

3. Ensure that when posting the first chapter of your story you include all appropriate details. This means title, criteria for the story’s rating, genre and summary.

Eg:
Title: A Nice Day
Author: the brightside
Rating: PG-13 for adult themes
Genre(s): Comedy, horror
Summary: Bob thought it would be a nice day. But he was wrong.

Lame example, but you get the gist.

4. All paragraphs and changes in dialogue (when a new character speaks) must be double-spaced. This means that a blank line should follow each paragraph/dialogue change.

5. A common error is for punctuation to not be included prior to closing dialogue with quotation marks.

For example:
“Hello” she said. This is incorrect.
“Hello,” she said. This is correct.
The general rule of thumb is to use a comma when dialogue is followed by a speech tag (he said, she said, whispered Bob) unless it is an exclamation (where a ! would be used) or a question (?). If there is no speech tag afterwards, then a full stop would be used.

“Hello” She glanced down at her fingernails. This is incorrect.
“Hello.” She glanced down at her fingernails. This is correct.

6. Ensure your story is placed in the correct category. As you will notice, the Stories forums holds several sections. Post your story in the section best fitting to its type. For example, a story about My Chemical Romance going to the beach would be placed under Fan Fiction. A story with characters and a plot line you have created would go in Original Fiction. A story that is non fiction, meaning it is not fictitious in any way, would go under Non Fiction.

7. If your story is not following the guidelines, you will receive a message from a Literary Mentor. Mentors are the people with the purple ranks. Please follow the instructions included in the message.

8. Any rudeness toward Mentors will not be tolerated. A refusal to change your story will result in deletion.

9. If your story is following the guidelines, you will see a small checked down at the bottom of each respective chapter. Do not delete this! It means a Mentor has gone through your story and marked it appropriately.

10. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask a Mentor.