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It seems like such a small little task. All you have to do is write one simple
little story and that cool Neopian Times trophy will be all yours. But no matter
how many nifty things you send in to the NT, nothing happens. No feather trophy.
Zip. You're starting to get discouraged. That rejection demon just won't go away.
Luckily, Dr. Stoneman is here with the final cure for what ails you.
As I mentioned before, there are three Neopian Times categories: comics, articles
and stories. Stories come in two sub categories: short stories and story series.
Basically the difference between a short story and a story series is whether
it has one part or more than one part. So you have to decide how long you want
your amazing Neopian tale to be. Last time I mentioned some newbie mistakes
that people make with their comics and articles. This week I will talk about
the newbie mistakes that people make with their stories.
Newbie Mistake #1: You write a great short story that is 1,001 words
long.
It's true that 1,000 words is the minimum word count requirement for an article.
But a good story really needs to be 1,500 words or more. If you're having trouble
making your story a little longer without ruining the plot, you might try adding
more descriptions of things. Here are two samples:
Sample One: 29 words long
The Draik flew to the top of the tower and scanned the horizon. He didn't
see anything, but his instinct told him that the enemy army was approaching.
Sample Two: 74 words long
The shadow Draik flew upwards, his dark wings beating as quickly as his racing
heart. He soared to the top of the castle tower and landed gracefully on the
smooth, polished stones of the highest turret. The Draik narrowed his eyes and
scanned the hazy, early morning horizon. He didn't see anything in the distance,
but his instinct told him that the enemy army of evil mutant Grakle Bugs was
approaching.
There is nothing wrong with sample one. But sample two is slightly more interesting
and helps make your story longer. Adding more detailed descriptions to your
paragraphs can easily make the difference between a story that is 1,000 words
long and one that is 1,500 words long.
HOT TIP: Do you really have to count every single word? It seems like a real
hassle, especially if you have written a ten part story series. Here are some
shortcuts:
(A) If you are using a program like Microsoft Word, click on "Tools" in the
top bar. There will be the option there called "Word Count". Just make sure
you first highlight the body of your story before you do this so that the title
is not included in the count.
(B) If you are using Wordpad and don't have this option, there are actually
Internet website word counters you can use or download for free. Just type "word
counter" in your favorite search engine and look for them.
(C) You can simply count the words in ONE paragraph and guess how many words
are in your other paragraphs based on the size of the one you counted. This
isn't very accurate, but it will give you a rough idea how long your short story
or story series chapter is running.
Newbie Mistake #2: You got an "A+" on a story you wrote for school,
so you just substitute the word "cat" for "Aisha" and send it in to the Neopian
Times.
The problem with this is that not all stories are easy to adapt to a Neopian
theme. Simply changing the species of a real pet for a Neopet often isn't enough
to make your story sound like it was written about Neopia. When you write a
story, try to make sure ALL of the things in it can be found on Neopets or in
Neopia.
Newbie Mistake #3: You write a story about how you rescued your
Neopet from the Neopian pound and saved him from Dr. Death.
Unless this is the best story ever written in the history of the universe, you
probably won't get it into The Neopian Times. Some story ideas have been written
about so much that they are just plain boring, no matter how well you write
it. If you use rescuing your Neopet from the pound as a small element of your
story and not the whole basis of your story, you may stand a better chance.
And like article topics, if you're not sure if the main theme of your story
has been used a lot, type some keywords like "pound" or "Dr_Death" into the
search bar of The Neopian Times and check it out first.
Newbie Mistake #4: You love the comic "Bucky the Babaa", so you
write a story about him.
This is a terrible idea if you haven't asked the owner of the Neopet you're
writing about for permission first. Most people don't want anyone writing about
their pets except themselves. This is true for comics and articles too. If you
want to mention anyone's username or any Neopet that isn't yours, you should
write a Neomail to that person or pet owner and ask if it's okay first. You
could get into trouble if you don't. And in case you're wondering--YES! I did
ask simsman24000 if I could mention Bucky the Babaa in this article.
Newbie Mistake #5: You write a terrific story series and submit
"Pinkee and the Brain Tree: Part One" to The Neopian Times.
I have some bad news for you. You have to send in all of the parts of a story
series at the same time. This means if you have ten parts, all ten parts have
to be sent in the same E-mail, if possible. If you have the sort of E-mail that
has a size limit to what you can send at one time you can do several things
to get around this.
The best way to handle this is to send your story series as a file attachment
to your E-mail. If you don't know how to do this, have your parents or a friend
show you how. Another option is to send the story series in several consecutive
E-mails. For example, you might send the first four parts in an E-mail with
a note to the editor that the rest of the story will follow in the next E-mail.
Then send the rest of the story parts right away in another E-mail.
Newbie Mistake #6: You send your ten part story series as a file
attachment using a brand new composing program called "RiteGud".
The problem here is that if you use a program to write your story that is not
very common, The Neopian Times editor probably won't have the same program.
And if the editor doesn't have the same program, she can't open the file. Most
computers that have any "Windows" program on it will also have Wordpad
as a standard feature. If you write your story using another program, you should
copy and paste the story into Wordpad and send it to The Neopian Times as a
Wordpad file. That way you can be SURE that someone will be able to read it.
Okie dokie, you're read all four parts of this article series and have followed
all of my tremendously wise advice. So what happens next? What happens next
is this:
Congratulations!
Your entry has been selected to appear in this week's issue of the Neopian
Times. Once your submission has been uploaded, a shiny trophy will be added
to your user lookup. Thank you for contributing to this week's edition!
Neopian Times Editor
Now THAT'S worth waiting for, isn't it?
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