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Official Rules of Membership
of the SFNovelist Writing Workshop

1. Anyone can join just by visiting inquiry.htm.
2. Free trial period
 

New members have a FREE introductory six-month period in which they can participate without having to pay monetary dues. After the introductory period, all members are required to pay the dues every year, one year in advance.

For more details, see Free Trial Membership.

3. Free 10,000 words
 

New members are allowed to submit up to 10,000 words without doing critiques beforehand. We hope this encourages you to get started.

4. When critiques should be done
 

Critiques of a given submission are normally due within one month of the submission.

5. Critiques must be at least 200 words long and be 'substantial'.

If the author feels that your critique was a simple "I liked it" or "I did not like it", he/she may inform the moderator and you may not be given credit for that critique. For some ideas on how to prepare a critique, see Critiques.

6. Standard Critique Ratio
 

The current "standard critique ratio" is 1 to 1. For every word you wish to submit of your own work, you must have previously critiqued that same number of words of other members' submissions.

Unused crit credit continues to accumulate until redeemed by submissions.

You accumulate your total words critiqued and your total words submitted for as long as you are a member.

We ignore the number of words in your critiques per se, that is, long winded crits count the same as short ones. Although if a very short crit is sent, you may receive a message disqualifying it.

You may ask, "But if I send in a lot of subs and then go inactive for a couple months, do I have to start all over?" No. Your critique "credit" of words stays with you. You can pick up where you left off.

7. Sending critiques
 
A. Most members send an RTF (Rich Text Format) file and include parts of the submission being critiqued, along with the critic's comments.
B. In the body of your critique file, it is helpful if you include the title and author of the manuscript you are critiquing. Also, include your email address, so the author can thank you directly.
C. To save email space, please do not include large sections of the Ms unless you are commenting directly on them. One conventional method of designating the author's words from your own is to use colored text for your comments. For example,

as he raised his blaster, Eric saw a glunt of light
I think you meant a glint of light.

D. Once you have finished preparing your critique, use the web page available for uploading your critique file, so you can get credit for it.
 

After you have uploaded the crit to the web page, it is also helpful if you send a copy of your critique directly to the author of the submission.

8. Submitted manuscripts must fit the definition of the group.

That is, they must be 'hard science' SF, where the science is believable. FTL (faster than light travel) and time travel are accepted. Specifically excluded are SF Fantasy and SF Horror.

9. Frequency of submissions
 

You may submit manuscripts to be critiqued at any time, as long as you have earned enough 'credit' as explained above under the "Crit Ratio Rule" above.

10. Frequency of critiques
 

You can submit a critique at any time.

11. Length of submissions
 

Submissions of manuscripts may be of any length.

The minimum length of the "completed" work must be over 17,500 words (except for short stories). Submissions may be smaller if they are chapters of the overall work. Our group will use the criteria on length of the SFWA (Science Fiction Writer's of America) and the World Science Fiction Association, which are:

Under 7,500 words is a short story.
7,500-17,500 words is a novelette.
17,500-40,000 words is a novella.
over 40,000 words is a novel.

Individual submissions may be of any size, but if over 25,000 words at one time, the submissions tend to receive noticeably fewer critiques. That is a lot of work to ask of a critic. Subs are normally under 15,000 words.

12. Short stories
 

We do allow a limited number of short story submissions. You may submit up to one-third as many words in short stories as you have submitted for novels. Such short story submissions use up crit credits, just like novels.

13. Manuscript formatting
 

For details on the format of a manuscript, see "Manuscript Formatting" under the member section of our Web site (once you become a member).

14. Copyrights
 

You MUST respect the copyrights of the authors.

Do not send copies of part or all of manuscripts you see in our group to anyone who is not a member. Anyone found sending copies outside the group will have their membership dropped immediately. This is an important safeguard of the author's publication rights.

Distributing copies of an author's work outside of this workshop without his/her permission might also result in legal action against you.

15. Biography
 

After joining and within the first month of membership, in order for the other members to get to know your writing background, you are required to send a short biography (ASCII text). This biography will be posted to the group's web site, only accessible by members.

For ideas on what you might want to put in your biography, after you join and receive the password to the member directories, you might want to check the Web site under 'Member biographies'. Our members come from all over the world with a wide variety of backgrounds. I'm sure you will feel right at home.

16. First submission
 

Since this is a working writer's group, members should send at least one submission within three months after completing enough critiques.

In this way, other members can become more familiar with the writing skill level of a member and better understand critiques from that member. Those who are just a little bit apprehensive about sending in samples of their writing are encouraged to write and submit. If that happens to describe you, don't worry. I think you will find this group to be friendly and helpful. We all had to start sometime.

Dive in there and give the waters a try! You will learn more from the feedback you get than you will from sitting at home reading books about writing.

17. Your real name
 

New members must reveal their real names upon joining. This is an honest group of serious writers. You can use an alias if you wish with the membership, but your real name must be known to at least the President.


Now, all that doesn't seem too hard for a bright person like you, does it?

We intend to make this the finest online writing workshop for hard science SF novelists.

Ours is an elite group. We all know that writing hard science SF novels is demanding. The standards in our genre are very high and writing a novel takes much more work and professional discipline than writing short stories. Only a small percentage of all SF writers can do what we do and as a result, the demand for our products is high in the marketplace. You have every right to be proud of what you are writing. Keep it up!

- Victory Crayne, President, SFNovelist

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Copyright © 2003-2005 by Victory Crayne, Tustin, California. All rights reserved. Please send suggestions and comments to: Victory Crayne address

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