How To Guide: Submitting Stories on the Fanfic Archive

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  • #1023
    More Than That
    Branch Manager

      If you are here, you are hopefully a writer thinking about publishing a fanfic on the archive. Here is a visual guide showing you how to do just that.

      Before we get started, a couple things:

      • You need to be registered on the archive. Click here to register (or click here for the visual guide for registering and setting up)
      • Our text editing system (tinyMCE) is recommended for light editing only, and drafts can’t be saved, so please have your story saved elsewhere so you don’t lose your work!
      • Though you can submit stories on mobile/tablet, it’s best done on a laptop/desktop computer.
      • Make sure you have read the Submission Rules. It looks like a wall of text but it’s pretty straight forward.

      So, first thing’s first, log in, head to My Account and then Add New Story.

      submit-01-membersarea

      Now you’re faced with the submission form. Remember, titles and summaries should be work-friendly, and titles like “Please read” or “Untitled” are also not permitted.

      submit-02-summary

      After the title and summary/story notes comes all the classifications like genre, characters, and category. Selecting a category is probably the trickiest part so here’s a step by step guide.

      submit-03-catselection

      Start off by clicking either “Jim and Pam” or “Other” then click [ > ] in the middle to select it. After that choose one of the following subcategories.

      • Past: Story takes place before the show
      • Present: Takes place at the same time as the documentary but not what we have seen in episodes
      • Future: Takes place a long time somewhere down the road.
      • Episode-related: The story shows us missing scenes of an episode or deals with the internal monologues some characters may have had during certain scenes.
      • Crossover: Characters from another TV show/movie/book interact with the Dunder-Mifflinites.
      • Alternate Universe: The story takes place in another time and/or setting, or the story’s premises differ dramatically from the show.

      After highlighting one subcategory, hit [ > ] again.

      Below Categories is Characters, Genres, Warnings and Ratings

      submit-04-character-genre

      Select every character with a central role in your story. If you have many Office characters saying only a couple lines each, you can select “Ensemble”. Also select the genres your story fall into. Press Ctrl (Cmd on Mac) as you click to select non-adjacent characters/genres.

      Now for ratings and warnings!

      submit-05-warnings

      Select any of the warnings that apply to your story and give it an overall rating. Mature content is permitted, however there are a few activities we don’t allow stories to contain, please review the submission rules.

      We use the ratings system from fictionratings.com. Here are what they stand for (with their MPAA rating equivalent).

      K : suitable for all ages, should be free of coarse language, violence, or adult themes. (G)
      K+ : suitable for ages 9+, may contain minor violent action and mild coarse language. Should not have other adult themes. (PG)
      T : suitable for ages 13+, with some violence, minor coarse language, and minor suggestive adult themes. (PG13)
      M : suitable for ages 16+ with non-explicit suggestive adult themes, some violence, or coarse language. (R)
      MA : Content is only suitable for mature adults. May contain explicit adult themes.(NC17)

      Next to ratings you will see “Complete” and “Round Robin”. Select “complete” if this is a one-shot or if you’re adding a final chapter. “Round Robin” means you are leaving the story open for anyone on the archive to add chapters to (most like best to leave it unchecked for now)

      Now the fun part, the actual text.

      submit-06-storytext

      Again, it’s best to have your story written out and formatted the way you want then copy-pasting it into the Story Text box.

      A couple other tips:

      • Your story will be easier to read if you have a line break between paragraphs.
      • Avoid indentation, it makes it more difficult to edit (especially on mobile).
      • Don’t fuss with the “Styles”, “Format” or “Font Size” in the tinyMCE edit box, your text will be tiny but once submitted it will be a normal size.
      • the tinyMCE editor will underline misspelled words, but doesn’t do spell check, again, best to have your story finished and polished up in a separate text edit program.

      When you have your text all set, hit preview at the bottom.submit-07-preview

      This will show you how your story will look once submitted and published, Scroll down to find the text edit box where you can make any final changes.

      submit-08-edit

      And then you’re ready to hit submit!

      Once submitted, you will be taken to Manage Stories.

      submit-09-managestories

      Even if your story is not validated yet, you can return her any time to make any changes or add chapters.

      And that is submitting a story on MTT! If there are other question, pop over to the Question Thread or email us a MTT.fanfic@gmail.com

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