Gears Of War Fanon:Beginner's Guide/Publishing a Fanfiction

Welcome to the Gears Fanon Beginner's Guide to Publishing a Fanfiction! This guide will teach you how to properly upload a fanfiction to the site.

I recommend reading EightyOne's Guide to Editing before reading this one.

Guide written by User:Screennameless.

Where to Start
You've written the greatest Gears fanfiction ever conceived, and you want to share it with our tiny community the Internet world via Gears Fanon. One problem: How do you get your story onto this site? There's no "upload document" button like on Fanfiction.net. And why are your indents vanishing, and why is the text smushed together? How do you separate chapters and acts? What happened to your carefully italicized flashbacks? Where can people leave comments about your story?

If you're a first-timer to Wikia or just new to Gears Fanon, publishing a fanfiction can be extremely confusing, and making it look polished can be a hassle. There are two main formats to follow for publication: single-article format and directory format. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Choosing a Format
When choosing a format, consider the convenience of the reader. Using a single article to host your entire story keeps everything in one easy-to-track place. However, if the article gets too long, it can cause the reader's browser to run slowly or even freeze, and the text can start to blend together. Using a directory precludes length issues, but it tends to require more work to add and maintain chapters.

Generally, despite using more code, single-article format is less complicated to create than directory format.

Useful Templates
There are two major templates to use in fanfiction publication: the Property Template, which claims the work as your own, and the NCF Disclaimer Template, which must be included if your story violates Gears of War canon. These would go at the top of your article or directory/chapters (that's right, the directory and every chapter). The Property Template can be used at your discretion, but I encourage you to use it, as it makes it very clear who is the author.

There is also the Under Construction Template, which is useful only if you have published a half-finished chapter. If the story is not finished but all its currently published chapters are complete, the template is not necessary.

Single-Article Format
Single-article format utilizes a single page on Gears Fanon and uses a lot of basic wiki code to organize the fanfiction.

Create a New Article
On the main page, there's a blank box with a button that says "Create new article" next to it. Enter the title of the article in the box. Since all our fanfic follows the format "Gears of War: Title", you should type something like "Gears of War: The Last Lambent" (or whatever your title is) and then click the button. An editing window will pop up, and you can start publishing your fanfiction.

There is also a "New page" link in the sidebar menu on the left of the screen. It takes you to a page that features a neatly labeled title box and an editing window.

Insert Content
First, you should probably enter a brief abstract/summary and include the Property Template, though these are both optional. If the fanfic violates canon, however, you MUST disclaim it with the NCF Disclaimer, as per our Project:Policy.

After that, just enter a section title ( ==Chapter One==, for example) so that when the story gets long, people can easily jump to the appropriate chapter. Section titles will automatically form a table of contents box if the article has more than one title and extends below the bottom of the screen.

Copy and paste the appropriate chapter under that section title. Be sure there is a full space between each paragraph, or everything will be one giant blob of text. Indents and tab do not register on the wiki, so spacing is important. Also, (most) html code does not work here, and "special text" (ex. bold) is not automatically registered. If you had something in bold, italics, or underline, you'll need to go back through and put in the proper wiki markup code.

Add more sections and chapters as needed.

Final Touches
Finally, enter somewhere on the page - or just use the new category-adding system to label it as a Fanfiction. This will add it to the Fanfiction category so other people can find it easily.

Don't include any chapter-by-chapter author's notes on fanfiction in single-article format; it just makes the articles excessively long.

Directory Format
Directory format utilizes multiple pages on Gears Fanon and uses a little basic wiki code to organize the fanfiction.

Create a New Article
On the main page, there's a blank box with a button that says "Create new article" next to it. Enter the title of the article in the box. Since all our fanfic follows the format "Gears of War: Title", you'll put "Gears of War: Echo Squad: Green as Grass" and then click the button. An editing window will pop up, and you can start publishing your fanfiction.

There is also a "New page" link in the sidebar menu on the left of the screen. It takes you to a page that features a neatly labeled title box and an editing window.

Insert Directory
First, you should probably enter a brief abstract/summary and include the Property Template, though these are both optional. If the fanfic violates canon, however, you MUST disclaim it with the NCF Disclaimer, as per our Project:Policy.

After that, enter a bulleted list of the chapters, linked like this:

*Gears of War:The Last Lambent/Chapter One *Gears of War:The Last Lambent/Chapter Two *Gears of War:The Last Lambent/Chapter Three

And so on. Save the page and don't be worried that they're red links.

Insert Content
Click the first chapter link you entered (it will be red). An edit window will pop up. Copy and paste the appropriate chapter into that edit window. Be sure there is a full space between each paragraph, or everything will be one giant blob of text. Indents and tab do not register on the wiki, so spacing is important. Also, (most) html code does not work here, and "special text" (ex. bold) is not automatically registered. If you had something in bold, italics, or underline, you'll need to go back through and put in the proper wiki markup code.

Save the page. Underneath the title, in small text, will be a link to the directory. Go back to it and continue filling in your chaptes in the same manner.

Final Touches
Finally, enter somewhere on the directory page - or just use the new category-adding system to label it as a Fanfiction. This will add it to the Fanfiction category so other people can find it easily. Do not categorize the chapters as fanfiction; since the directory links to all of them, it's unnecessary and rather spam-like.

You can include any chapter-by-chapter author's notes on fanfiction in directory format.

Further Organization
If your story has multiple acts, directory format can be modified slightly using some influence from single-article format. Simply add section titles to the directory.

==Act One== *Gears of War:The Last Lambent/Chapter One *Gears of War:The Last Lambent/Chapter Two *Gears of War:The Last Lambent/Chapter Three ==Act Two== *Gears of War:The Last Lambent/Chapter Four *Gears of War:The Last Lambent/Chapter Five *Gears of War:The Last Lambent/Chapter Six

Directory format and single-article format can be combined to better organize. Link the Acts in the directory, then follow single-article format for the Act pages.

*Gears of War:The Last Lambent/Act One (which then contains ten chapters in single-article format) *Gears of War:The Last Lambent/Act Two (which then contains seven chapters) *Gears of War:The Last Lambent/Act Three (you get the idea)