Anyone know how to do this? Could you please explain it to me in detail with tiny words, lol. I always use wordpad to write. I can get access to a copy of word 2007, but I have literally no idea how to use its flashier features.
No Fed Ex or something? What if I'm sending it USPS?
No submissions for which a signature is required means no parcel service delivery and no registered mail. First class mail is what I use and there's no reason I see to use any other for US handling. Delivery from most of the contiguous US takes no more than three days. As long as the envelope is US postmarked no later than September 30th, the entry will be accepted. However, there are anecdotes I've encountered of mail to WOTF going astray weeks past the deadline.
I'm thinking my Q-3/08 entry went astray somewhere after receipt notification. I've not gotten my SASE back and my name hasn't appeared on Joni Labaqui's blog posts of results. If it went astray after receipt but not before judging, I'd like to enter it again this quarter. An e-mail to Joni is in the works. Time is critical.
Vonda McIntyre's manuscript formatting is a baseline.
Bill Shunn also gives a great example.
BIG CAVEAT: the WOTF contest doesn't want your NAME on the actual pages of the manuscript. So just put story title and page number in the top right corner.
WordPad doesn't have options for header/footer, so you are limited there, in terms of what your manuscript will look like when it's printed. If you're on a very limited budget, you might consider going on-line and looking for used copies of Microsoft Office '95, '97, or Office 2000. They can be had for cheap, especially Office '97, which will still work on WindowsXP and should work on Vista too.
ANOTHER BIG CAVEAT: the first page of your WOTF manuscript should NOT include actual story text. It should have the demo data ONLY: your name, address, contact into, word count, and story title, with byline. But nothing else. Your story starts on the NEXT page with headers that LACK your name.
If you want an example of what my subs to WOTF look like on paper, check out this link.
Pay attention to formatting only. The "story" is an aborted novel prologue I wrote years ago, and which I don't mind sharing with the Hatrack community; warts and all.
Good luck!
Usually your MS would have a Header, in the rightmost position would be this information:
page number (numeral) / Some words from your title or the whole title if it's short enough / your last name
Example:
5 / Impressive Story Title / KayTi
This way if your ms falls off the desk of the editor at F&SF, they can put it back in order and know that this page belongs to Zero's story, not some other Joe's. Same goes for WOTF, just delete the last name so that it's judged without bias. (FYI this is true for most contests that do blind judging.)
You access the Header from the View menu on MS Word (probably same on Open Office but i"m not near my computer that has OO so I can't check.) You're taken to a view of the document where only a small portion of the topmost part of the page is editable (delineated by a dotted box.) There are three "positions" in a header (same for a footer, which for whatever reason most MS formats do not use. That's different from most business writing I've done where you put your page number and document information in the footer - at the base of the page. This is also where footnotes go in research papers.)
Anyway - the three positions of a header are left-most, center, and rightmost. To get to the rightmost position, which is how most standard MS formatting guidelines show, you just need to press the tab key on your keyboard twice while you're in the header. That should move you from the leftmost to the center, then the center to the rightmost position. From here you can click the "#" button in the little header/footer toolbar that should have popped up when you went into the View - Header/Footer view. If not, another option I believe is to use the Insert option (I think it's on the View menu) and choose to insert autonumber - page number.
Talespinner is our resident MS Office guru and will hop in here to correct me, I'm sure. But hopefully this helps you find your way around the menus related to headers and footers. Good luck.
And my header for the story should include only the title and page number, correct? No name whatsoever? Example:
John's Crazy Day / pg 3 of 500
?
Joni Labaqui will extract the title page from the submitted entry before forwarding the blind entry portion to K. D. Wentworth. Ms. Labaqui uses the title page to track the entry through the process and into the future. It won't be returned in the event that sufficient SASE and envelope are provided for return of the manuscript.
Yes, title and page number is all the running header requires.
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited September 23, 2008).]
Also, are they generally tolerant with "rule-breaking" like beginning sentences with "And" or "But" ?
Zero, as I understand it, the title doesn't need "pg xx of xxx" - just the numeral.
Using your example:
John's Crazy Day / 3
If you want your MS back, include SASE adequate to get your MS back to you (basically put as much postage on the SASE as you put on the original envelope to get it TO the contest.)
Later (much, much later, it'll feel) you'll get your SASE back with your MS and one of several letters in it. One letter merely thanks you for entering. That's a non-placement. One letter tells you you're an HM, top 15% of stories, congratulates you on the achievement. This is Honorable Mention. Sadly I don't have experience with the other kinds of letters, LOL, but I'm sure they're effusive with their praise for being a semi-finalist or finalist. Because finalists go into another round of judging - their MSs are held even longer. Semi-finalists are also held longer because they get a crit from the First Reader, K.D. Wentworth.
It's cool to be excited about the contest - it's an exciting contest! Congrats on entering!
Honorable mentions and no-shows are returned as such in no particular order as a box fills and is returned to Joni, who then posts the entries' SASE. Semis and finalists might be held longer by Ms. Wentworth to facilitate finalists placement considerations.