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I’ll go pop some popcorn and watch ‘ya all slug it out 🤪

As long as you keep the details down to about 10 lines or less, I think you’d be fine. What we don’t want is to have story content posting in the forum, because the forum isn’t the place for it. This is where we go as authors to ask questions, drum up support from fellow writers, share tips, commiserate, and bitch.

Curious about whether I should post some of the details of the story in the “Promote a Story” section. Mainly because the site isn’t currently up for new stories and chapters yet but I’ve been thinking about adding the details here. Is that something I should wait to do?

don’t tempt me, I can get stabby when feeling generally unwell

I never put the 10 line thing in the FAQ because it only applies to the Challenges and Requests forum, since that’s where we’ve had the largest issue with people posting story content. On the rare occasions it has popped up in the Fan Fiction forum, I’ve just quietly edited the posts to comply to the ten lines rule, and left a post telling people that we don’t allow story content in the forum. Because we don’t allow story content in the forums. It’s first and foremost a copyright issue, and then as BronxWench pointed out, the forums are supposed to be a place for us to chat, bitch and moan, drum up support for writers and be a community. The only reason I allowed it in the Promote a Story forum was to be nice because of the Read Only mode having been going on for so long. And as I said above, I will be rescinding that rule as soon as we’re back up and running. And it doesn’t matter at all from where in the story those ten lines come from. Not at all. As for me obviously not having read your original question properly this morning (I claim lack of morning caffeine and general unwellness) the Promote a Story forum is exactly the place to post all the details you want about your story. There is a standard form to include in the first post in that forum, but in addition to that standard form, you can include whatever you want about the story, as long as it isn’t purely story content. So, go nuts, put in a chapter by chapter detailed description if you want to. That means something like the following: ”Chapter 4. Jack and Jill fight over who gets to carry the bucket up the hill, Jill has a mean right hook and Jack learns that getting falsies is a fucking pain in the ass, but at least it’s less expensive than the new glass eye he’s going to need.” But NOT the following: ”Chapter 4. [The actual story content describing the ridiculousness above].” Does that make sense?

Personally, I was going to wait until posting’s back. But, my Jefferey is also cross-posted on AO3, so that’s where the most recent chapter/episode lives.

@WillowDarkling I was mainly just going to do the main stuff, such as story name, tags, summary. I wasn’t even aware you could post 10 lines. Somehow I missed that in the FAQ or wherever it is. So I was thinking about the 10 line limit. Although, what is the best practices about the 10 line limit? Is it the first 10 lines of the story? Or can I take 10 lines from the middle of the piece? Just anywhere from the the piece so long as it’s limited to 10 lines?

I may be in need of my morning caffeine, but I’m not sure I get what you mean by “details”. If you mean something like a book cover blurb, which don’t contain any actual story content, then I think 10 to 15 lines of text should be ok, but then ONLY in the Promote a story forum (in the thread for your story) or the Great Wall. But if you mean something that contains story content, then like BronxWench said, it’s restricted to 10 lines or less. I only allowed the 35 lines of text for a preview in the Promote a Story forum because we’ve been in Read Only mode for so long, and I wanted to allow our writers a little bit of a leeway. But as soon as the Archives are back out of Read Only mode, that allowance will be rescinded and the posts containing story content in the Promote a Story forum will be cut down to the allowed 10 lines.

My heart just aches for everyone in Turkey and Syria, or who has loved ones there. I will be making a donation to Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders, although it will be just a drop in the bucket in the face of such disaster.