Submission Guidelines

(Return to the River Twine Holt website.)

All stories should be submitted to stories@rivertwine.com. All artwork should be submitted to artwork@rivertwine.com. All contest entries should be submitted to contests@rivertwine.com.

Scope of Submissions

Submissions to RTH may involve:

• wolfriders who belong to the current, living tribe.

• wolfriders who belonged to the tribe at any point in its history from its founding to the present.

• humans who are part of one of the established tribes.

• trolls, as they have been established thus far and are described in the Wiki article.

Submissions MAY NOT include (currently):

• any other types of elves.

• any substantial history of the founding elves of the tribe prior to the founding.

• stories set during the pre-tribe time period, or involving the High Ones.

• any tribes of humans not already established (talk to the council about other types of humans).

• trolls that do not belong to the troll society as outlined in the Wiki article.

Artwork Submissions:

1. Format/Size: artwork submitted for the website should be in a .jpg, .gif or .png format. If possible, please optimize your images for web use (72 dpi) to reduce loading time. We may resize images to make for better viewing/loading.

2. Approvals: many character owners request that you get approval from them for art of their character prior to submission. Whether or not they require approval is marked at the top of the character's CIS. Please get all necessary approvals prior to submission, and note that you have done so when you send it in -- if you need help doing so or have any questions, just ask the club's Art Director. To obtain approval, email or PM via the messageboard the artwork to the character owner. If you do not hear back from them in a timely manner, try again one more time, and use all available methods of contact (email and PM). Approval is considered to be given by default after 2 weeks if there is no response from the character owner. (See below for more detail.)

3. All art needs to be e-mailed to River Twine Holt's Art Director at artwork@rivertwine.com. It will then be posted to the website.

4. If you would like to submit artwork created for you by a non-member artist, you must submit the artist's full name and a valid email address along with the piece, and make sure that the artist has given permission for their work to be posted to our website; please note that when you submit it. Copyright will be enforced; infringements will not be printed, and the submitter penalized accordingly. (Posting of art without the artist's permission may be treated similarly to plagiarism.)

5. Plagiarism of any form (tracing someone else’s artwork or claiming someone else’s writing for your own) is grounds for immediate cancellation of membership. While drawing freehand from references is fine (see below), tracing or mechanical copying of another's artwork/photo is not allowed (even if it is adapted). Art that is considered too much a copy of another existing artwork will not be posted (this determination will be made by the council, and it will be discussed with the artist). Note: this does not necessarily pertain to "doll" art, so long as the rules for that type of art are followed; see below.

6. Drawing from references is permissible, with some restrictions: if you are using general references for poses or details, but not producing a full copy of the referenced work, that is okay. If you are producing a full copy of the referenced work, even if you are making some changes as to subject matter -- please identify it as "referenced from (artist and work)" when you submit it. If it is possible for you to obtain permission to base your work on someone else's, we also ask that you please do so as a courtesy (such as using another member's work for reference). If you cannot obtain direct permission (because the artist isn't easily contacted, is a pro, or you don't know who the artist is), then please make sure you do identify the work as referenced when you submit it.

6a. As mentioned in #5, tracing of someone else's artwork or photo is not allowed. Tracing of photographs is also not allowed, even if you took the photo. (Artists may trace their own artwork for various reasons in creating art, including to repeat a figure for reference purposes.)

7. Dolls: Because online flash-game doll-making is very popular, there are some regulations as far as the submission of doll-art goes:

--a) art created on a "doll" base that is your own creation is fine, and may be displayed on the website. Please note when submitting that you are using a base you created.

--b) dolls created on bases created by others must include credit to the base-creator upon submission -- for example, the blank figures created by Wendy Pini for the EQ RPG book may be used, but should still be credited to her. Please include the creator's name and the website address (or other source) from which the base was obtained. So long as these dolls have been completely customized for the RTH character, they may be displayed on the website. This type of doll is an exception to the "no tracing" rule, since we understand that such figures are frequently created by tracing or drawing on top of a base created by someone else. Please simply make sure to credit the base.

--c) dolls created via online doll-maker sites, using elements provided by those sites (such as "Candy Dolls", which provide drag-and-drop eyes and hair and costume elements) are not allowed on the website. Dolls created in this manner are welcome to be posted on the messageboards, in the "Crafter's Den" area, with a link to the site where they were created.

--d) Dolls are always given sketch credit (.5 points)

--e) If you wish to create a doll of someone else's character, that member's approvals for the doll must still be received before the doll can be shared.

Written Submissions:

1. All story submissions should be sent via email as an attachment file. File formats must be MS Word .doc or Notepad .txt, or Rich Text Format .rtf formats. You may also simply copy the story into the body portion of an email). In-document formatting should be Arial font, 10 point, single spaced with 1" margins. If you have an image file to accompany the writing, please send it as a separate .jpg file in the email - do NOT embed it within the Word document.

2. All stories need to be e-mailed to the Story Team leader (stories@rivertwine.com). Written submissions will be reviewed and edited, and if necessary a review will then be returned to the author for revision.

3. Stories need to include the following administrative information: a teaser line for use in the timeline, the date the story takes place, a list of which characters the story should link to (with their "casting level" in the story indicated; see below), and a list of all member approvals the author has received. All approvals must be requested and received prior to the submission of poetry or stories.

Sample header:

Title: Ripples Outward

by Heidi H.

Date: 2501.11.03

Approvals: Cloudfern/Valkyrie (rec'd 6/21) Pathmark/Afke (rec'd 6/24), Kestrel/Megan (rec'd 6/21), Windburn/Co5 (rec'd 6/20)

Link to:

Leading: Willow, Windburn

Supporting: Kestrel, Pathmark

Cameo: Cloudfern

Teaser: Windburn's search for answers reveals a rocky road ahead for the tribe's new healer.

3.a. Casting -- in any given story, we ask that all characters mentioned in it be sorted according to three "casting levels".

Leading: this is who the story is mainly about, the lead characters. Any character who is a viewpoint character in a story should be listed as a lead. Another way to think about it is how important the story is to the character -- should people absolutely read the story if they're reading up on the character? That can sometimes decide between whether a character is leading or supporting.

Supporting: other characters who appear in the story, and who usually have speaking roles, but their role in the story is more minor than the leaders. They're there, but the story usually isn't about them.

Cameo: these characters appear only briefly in the story, and aren't really involved much in the action. This also covers characters who are seen in passing, or who are mentioned in a way that establishes where they were or something they did, but that's it.

4. Please use the following format when writing stories:

• **sending** (including wolf-sends, which should be italicized)

• 'thinking to oneself' (may be italicized as well)

• "speaking out loud"

• any material which you would like italicized in the text should be marked with <i> and </i> codes.

• any material which you would like to see underlined in the text should be marked with <U> and </U> codes.

• any statement which needs to be bolded should be marked with <b> and </b> codes.

• please use all-caps sparingly, such as to indicate a high-volume shout. Normal emphasis in speech should be indicated by italics and/or exclamation points.

NOTE: embedded formatting codes for italicizing, bolding and underlining text often disappears when documents are cut and pasted outside of the word processing program of origin, so please make sure to indicate special formatting requirements.

5. Authors are asked to please remember rules of grammar – for example, stories submitted without punctuation will be returned to the author unread. Stories written in RP format will also not be accepted. Stories should generally be written in third person, past tense, i.e., Bloodsmoke carefully stalked his prey, NOT ::Bloodsmoke stalks cat-like through the forest::. Please spell-check your document before submission, and please review the clubs glossary of terms.

6. Stories will be reviewed by the Story Approval Team (SAT), which will make any necessary remaining grammar, spelling, and punctuation corrections automatically. Authors may request to be shown these corrections, if they wish to see them; but the default will be not to show or list them. Stories that are returned for substance revisions will be corrected, and authors are asked to use the clean copy when making any revisions or additions.

7. If you would like to submit writing created for you by a non-member author, you must submit the author's full name and a valid email address, and you must ensure that the author has given River Twine Holt permission for their work to be posted to our website. Copyrights will be enforced; infringements will not be printed, and the submitter penalized accordingly.

8. Plagiarism of any form (tracing someone else’s artwork or claiming someone else’s writing for your own) is grounds for immediate cancellation of your membership.

Note on Character Approvals:

Each artist & author is responsible to make sure that they're gotten the necessary character approvals before art or stories are submitted. Doing so will help avoid embarrassing mistakes and upset friends after a story or art is posted to the website. It is not enough to just ask "Hey, can I use your character in my story?" or “Can I draw your character?” Other members need to see the finished product and approve it; if they ask you for changes, you need to make those changes.

Please note: Windburn, though an NPC, is a Council-run character, and thus approvals for his use in a story or in artwork must be received by the Council of Five before submission.

Stories involving humans or trolls also require approvals. Human and troll approvals should be sent to the Council (council@rivertwine.com).

On the other end: members are required to respond to requests for approval in a timely manner. "Timely" is defined as "within 2 weeks of the first request". The person asking for approval should, within the 2-week period, attempt to make contact at least twice, by several means (email; backup email address; messageboard PM). But, approval is considered to have been given by default if no response is received within 2 weeks. (The exception to this is if a person has notified the group via the AWOL thread on the messageboard that they will be out of contact for a known period of time; or if they have notified the council.)

WHAT USEAGE OF PERSONAS REQUIRE APPROVALS:

For members unsure on what level of use requires approval, review the following guidelines:

• Any visual representation of another member's character.

• In a story, if a character speaks or performs any action, then approval is required.

• In a story, if an action of any type is attributed to a character off-screen, then approval is required. Example: A past-tense reference to an action another character has performed, such as: "Twenty years ago, Bloodsmoke painted himself sapphire on a dare from his lifemate and streaked like a blue jay, naked, through the stunned human camp" would require approval from the owners of both Bloodsmoke and the player of his lifemate, if applicable.

• The use of NPCs will be reviewed by the SAT, and members are asked to please give unowned characters the same respect as owned personas receive. Don't just slap NPCs into a story based solely on their unowned status; make sure NPCs are portrayed according to the skills and personality described on their CIS.

As a general rule of thumb -- simply use common sense and common courtesy.