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Quantum Leap Fan-Fiction Page
Submission Guidelines
Updated December 4, 1999
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Submitting a story to the fan-fiction page is really quite easy. The basic rules are,
(1) Your story must take place in the Quantum Leap universe. Your story must use characters (at least one) established in the TV series. I do not accept crossover stories or chain stories. I DO accept poetry. As with the TV series, I encourage you to set your stories within a real historical event(s) or at least within an easily identifiable time period.

(2) This fan fiction page is looking for well written stories THAT HAVE AN ENDING. Authors may submit their stories in parts over a period of time (in other words, as a serial) but the expectation is that the story will eventually come to an end and that end will happen within a reasonable period of time. This rule is for the convenience of the READERS, not the authors. Storied that remain uncompleted for unacceptable period of time or appear to have been abandoned will be removed from the page.

(3) The emphasis of this page is on QUALITY, not QUANTITY.

(4) The story must be submitted via e-mail as simple TEXT format. That is, a file which you send to me that uses nothing more complicated than spaces and carriage returns (pressing the RETURN or ENTER key at the end of each line of text, with a line consisting of no more than 72 characters total, including spaces). In other words,

  • No HTML, no Microsoft Word documents, no e-mail ATTACHMENTS, no Microsoft (or whatever word processor) special document formats, etc.

  • No other format than TEXT with line breaks can be accepted because it's a pain for me to convert it. Don't write your story using a word processor. Use a simple text editor (like Notepad on a Windows PC) and format the text (paragraph spacing, indentation, etc.) yourself in the way you want it to appear on the fan fiction page using just spaces and blank lines. Look at some of the other stories already up in the archive for examples of look and feel.

(5) Each submission should contain a header at the very top of the e-mail message with the following information:

author's name (a real name or pen name is preferred, no "handles")
author's e-mail address (required)
story name
chapter or part number

This helps me sort out stories as I receive them. I will generally clip this header off the document when I make it ready for the web page. If you want Chapter or Part headings to appear on the fan fiction page, enter those after the header information.

(6) After the header, the rest of the submission should be your story, formatted exactly the way you want it to appear on the web page (i.e., with spaces and blank lines to make it look the way you want it t look).

(7) The fan fiction page maintainer is not a copy editor and will not perform this role.

(8) The fan fiction page is operated as a dictatorship, not a democracy. The page maintainer's word is the final word.

When I receive your submission, I save the message and then edit the file to remove the mail header. I then add to the top and bottom of the file simple HTML code that set the background and turn on and off the "pre-formatted" text mode.

Submissions should be sent to bpatten@cfa.harvard.edu.

Depending on my work load (my real job), fan fiction submissions usually get posted to the page in a day or two after I receive them. If I am under a heavy work load, it may take a few days. You should feel to check with me on the status of your submission.

FOR NEW STORIES

I am using a new format for stories on the fan fiction page. Stories get their own subpage with a list of chapters. I like to add a "teaser" to the subpage, kind of like the attention-getting text you see on the back of real (i.e., non-cyberspace), printed books. If you would like to pick out the teaser material, send me an exciting paragraph with your first submission for a new story. Otherwise, I will pick something out of your prologue or first few chapters that looks exciting or attention grabbing.