Guidelines for Submissions to the Elanthian Times

The Elanthian Times is the official on-line newsletter of GemStone III, a valuable and entertaining compendium of player-produced informational articles, short stories, fiction, poetry, artwork, humor, and miscellany about the game. The Elanthian Times newsletter ("ET") is made available on the Web.

The articles and editorial content of the Elanthian Times are player-driven. You come up with the ideas, write the articles and determine what content is of interest and value to you and your fellow adventurers in the lands. The editorial staff is just a tool to transform your words, ideas and feelings into forms that all of Elanthia can read, enjoy, and benefit from.

The Kinds of Submissions We Would Like to Receive

We are interested in articles that appeal to the broadest cross section of GemStone III players. Submissions can range from practical to entertaining and whimsical. The following are types of articles we would like to see:

        1. Articles on game mechanics are always popular and we want as many good articles on mechanics as we can get! A "good" one contains useful information, say on creatures or a new area, with a helpful and reasonable amount of references to numbers, stats, etc. An article that turns out to be mostly a table of statistics or just a list of numbers is not sufficient. Try to put the game mechanics into perspective for the reader.

        2. Role-playing articles are also welcome. Well done, in-character narratives are sources of immense entertainment for our readers. Factual articles based on your character's adventures in Elanthia--while hunting, during a quest, personal encounters, reminiscences of memorable players or events--are desirable submissions. Characters that are active in the game, settings from world of Elanthia, plots and characters suggested by events in the game, etc. are also excellent raw material for fictional accounts, short stories, and humorous anecdotes.

        3. Poetry is another genre we encourage. We try to publish at least some original poetry in every issue. Although we would like to discourage parodies, like "‘Twas the night before Xmas and all through the track, not a creature was stirring, not even a thrak," that doesn't mean you shouldn't do humorous original verse. Poetry should be "in character" when possible and certainly in context with the world of Elanthia.

        4. Letters to the Editor are also something you should consider submitting. What we are aiming for are in-character, role-playing type letters, i.e., the kind of letter your character would send in to the ET after reading an issue, through his/her eyes, rather than your (real-world) comments on the newsletter. Outstanding role-playing, entertainment and literary opportunities exist even is this short format, so don't overlook it.

        5. Maps and descriptions of both new and old areas are useful to our readers. Attempt to describe the area in character and be careful not to reveal any secrets or puzzles the area may contain.

        6. Articles on game play and strategy are also popular. Details on how best to roll up a particular character, how to play a certain class or race, and how to advance in the world are valuable topics. Again, avoid giving away solutions to puzzles or game secrets.

        7. Original, high-quality artwork is an integral part of each month's ET. If you think you have a knack for producing art in the fantasy genre, for ornaments, fancy drop caps, illustrations based on the world of Elanthia, scenes from GemStone III, or similar material, we want it! For our formatted versions, original artwork in the file formats GIF (interlaced) and JPG, are all worthwhile submissions. Don't forget the Web-related submissions--animations, web graphics, and games!

Regular Monthly Columns

Besides submissions of articles on an occasional basis, the ET invites and encourages player contributions on a regular, ongoing basis. This participation can be in the form of regular monthly or recurring columns on ideas you come up with that we feel are of continuing value and interest, or in columns we decide to make a regular feature, and for which we need writers. We are interested in columnists to regular features in the following departments:

        1. Columns on Game Mechanics--again, we want columns that are useful, but not overpoweringly full of numbers and statistics.

        2. Helpful Hints for New Adventurers--this would include a few juicy roll-up, outfitting, survival and/or creature hunting hints per issue that veteran players perhaps take so much for granted they usually don't talk about them. But players just starting out might find such information very valuable.

        3. Gossip/Who's Who/Current Events Around Town Columns--pretty self-explanatory departments. Would include such milestones as marriages, who made Lord/Lady or Legend, that kind of content.

       4. House Matters--monthly doings/events at Houses; several columns can be devoted to introducing and profiling the various Houses in the land.

        5. Overheard Around Town--humorous, telling or pithy snatches of conversation overheard in the various hangouts, the square, Helga's, etc. Player submissions of short anecdotes or quotes, attributed or unattributed, are strongly encouraged, and the columnist responsible should gather a number of quotes each month.

        6. Monthly Personality Profiles--interviews and info on individual characters in the game every month. This would be their game persona, not the player. You would need to interview interesting characters and extract entertaining stories about their background, adventures, etc.

These are just some types of columns being produced and considered. We especially want submissions of ideas for regular columns, and if you can be the columnist for one of your own proposed regular columns, that's exactly what we are looking for! In order to be a regular ET columnist, you must first contact the editor and express your interest in doing a column. If you have your own ideas about the kind of column that you'd like to do, we'd love to consider it. If you are interested in writing any of the regular columns we suggest, you also need to contact us first, before you begin. Once we accept your idea and/or you as a columnist, you can start submitting your columns on a regular schedule. Please make sure to tell us you are interested in doing a column, not just a single article.

The Standards of Acceptability for Submissions to ET

While we strongly encourage you to submit articles along the lines of those listed above, and anything we might not have mentioned that you think is worthwhile, we do ask you to observe certain broad areas of acceptability.

Several general guidelines are listed below:

        1. Fiction submissions should be directly related to characters and settings of GemStone III and the world of Elanthia.

        2. Submissions should not reveal solutions to puzzles, quests, secret societies, secret guild matters, or other features that are meant for players to discover and solve for themselves in the game.

        3. Submissions should not deal with bugs or loopholes in the game. All such problems should be reported directly to Simutronics via GemStone III Feedback.

        4. Please be aware that certain words often used in the fantasy genre are the property of their creators. For instance, we cannot publish the word "hobbit", so instead use the word "halfling". We will make appropriate substitutions where necessary.

        5. The words "GemStone III", "Elanthia", "Wehnimer's Landing", etc., must be spelled and styled correctly. Remember, a clean submission lessens the likelihood of heavy editorial changes to your work and greatly increases your chances of publication. We will not accept submissions with a high degree of spelling and grammatical mistakes. Even a basic word processing program should have a good built-in spell checker; we strongly urge you to use it! If your submission does contain these kinds of oversights, the editors will have to fix them, return the article to you for revisions, or decide it's too full of mistakes to accept for consideration.

        6. Articles should not be submitted for publication to the ET anonymously. If you wish, your article can be published with a pseudonym or anonymous byline, but you must identify yourself to the editor.

        7. Submissions should maintain an objective and reasonable tone. Articles that are overly biased or slanted against any person, player, character or group will not be considered. Fairness and objectivity are encouraged in all submissions, and lack thereof shall be considered grounds for rejection.

The Standards of Quality for All Submissions to ET

Once your submission has met the above standards of acceptability it is well on its way to potential publication. After that, it is up to the editorial staff to determine if the material meets the publication's standards of quality.

Keep in mind the following guidelines for successful submissions:

        1. Your submission should be on a worthwhile subject of interest to a broad spectrum of GemStone players.

        2. Make sure the material is well written and in a usable format. Double check your spelling, grammar and style so that it won't require more than a moderate amount of editing. Be sure to spellcheck your articles before you send them to us. Separate paragraphs by 2 carriage returns. Type only ONE space after periods, not TWO. Do not use TABS to indent paragraphs.

        3. If you are submitting artwork, make sure the work is original.

        4. In the case where your material is of potential interest to the readers but the article is deemed poorly written, the ET reserves the right to accept it contingent upon a rewrite by the author. If the editor chooses, the article can be rewritten by one of the staff members, and then published, with the byline going to the original author.

Do your best, and if you follow the above guidelines combined with your own unique ideas and style, your submission should pass the first hurdle with flying colors. But please keep in mind that final decisions on acceptability and quality of submissions rest with the editorial staff of ET. We are here to bring the best product to you and all our players.

How to Send in Submissions, and to Whom

We prefer you to send your submission as an attached E-MAIL file, saved in a plain .TXT format, or attached to an e-mail as a Word or word compatible file. File formats that we can't translate will be returned to the author. All attached file submissions must begin with information filled in with the following header, IN the attached file, with the exception of graphic/art submissions, NOT in the accompanying letter:

USER NAME OR SCREEN NAME:
NAME OF SERVICE YOUR USUAL CHARACTER IS ON:
CHARACTER NAME:
NAME TO USE FOR AUTHOR OF ARTICLE (if different from character name)
EMAIL ADDRESS: (Do not include if you do not want an email link)
GS3-RELATED WEB SITE: (if applicable)
FORMAT OF FILE:
DATE SUBMITTED:

We cannot acknowledge the receipt of submissions. If we decide to publish your submission, we will inform you. Just because your submission does not appear in the very next issue does not mean we will not use it. We have to balance the content of each issue, and so we choose articles carefully. The managing editor of ET and the ET staff like to maintain a balance between leaving as much of the original submission intact as possible and putting out a consistently high quality monthly journal. While we edit with a light touch wherever possible, we do retain the prerogative to request revisions or rewrites of articles or to edit them in house when needed. All published submissions become the property of the Elanthian Times.

Send all your submissions to: ElanthianTimes@play.net

In-Game Compensation for Contributors

Contributors to ET receive alteration(s) in GemStone in exchange for every article or artwork that gets published. The alteration(s) in GemStone is ET's way of saying thanks for your great efforts and contributions to the newsletter. It's the players who contribute to the unique character of Elanthia, and this uniqueness and imagination are nowhere more clearly visible than in the outstanding submissions to the ET. Keep those manuscripts coming in, folks! We look forward to seeing YOUR submission in our mailsack real soon.

Being a staff writer entitles you to membership in the Elanthia Times Press Club, which has a number of benefits such as a private bar, access to the newspaper offices and press room. In time, other compensations within the game will also be awarded based on your contributions.

The Elanthian Times, Simutronics and its providers reserve the right to modify these if necessary.
If you have questions about these guidelines, please send mail to the staff:

Editor-in-Chief: GM Kyna
Managing Editor: Ylena Fygar
Managing Editor: Brakian Warbringer
Staff Artist: Vurkanaan K'taa'viir

ALL SUBMISSIONS ARE TO BE SENT TO ElanthianTimes@play.net