Docs

Welcome

First, thank you so much for considering contributing to this site and keeping it alive. I know it’s not very fancy (yet) or popular, but your contributions really mean a lot to me. Who am I? Oh, you can call me Bravisha Skietano. I am the site’s creator and the head adminstrator here.

First off, this site is completely free to use. There are rules to follow but you will NEVER have to pay a thing as long as I can say something about it. I created this site as a safe place for others to share their stories without worrying about fees or privacy thieves.

The site is hosted on GitHub and Netlify, with Netlify CMS as the content manager. That means I paid nothing to get this site up and running and you shouldn’t either.

Again, thanks so much for contributing. If you have any questions, don’t be afraid to post them in the form below.

Rules & Guidelines

Rules, rules, rules. I know, they’re not always fun but they do help keep order (usually). These rules try to keep everything nice and fair for everyone, as well as help me keep my sanity.

1. Keep profanity to an absolute minimum. Not every likes to read a book with cuss words in every paragraph.
2. No explicit content. In case you need a more detailed explanation, that means no sex scenes or detailed conversations about them. Kissing and making out is okay, actual sex isn’t. I don’t care how much your characters love each other, what they do in private isn’t our business.
3. Be respectful of others gender, social status, religion, and convictions. We are all entitled to our own opinions, don’t bash on someone just because they don’t share yours.
4. No alcohol, drugs, or encouragement of them. Do I need to say more?
5. No graphic violence. Who doesn’t like an awesome fight scene? I definately do; but, I don’t like those scenes where the violence is so graphic you can picture it just perfectly and it ain’t pretty. Makes you want to puke. Don’t do that to your readers.

Those were not so bad, right?

Accessing the CMS

Now, we’re getting to the real stuff. First off, in case you didn’t know, CMS stands for Content Management System. Typically, they’re for people to add content to a site without requiring any technical skills. Think of it as a user-friendly interface like the ones WordPress and Wattpad uses.

Here, I have chosen to use NetlifyCMS because it’s free and pretty easy to use. To it, you need to go to the admin page and sign into GitHub. GitHub is the place where I store the site files, it’s completely free and safe to use so don’t worry. Once you create/login to GitHub, it will ask you if it can fork the site. Go ahead and click “Fork.” If all goes well (which it should), you should now see the CMS page and be able to start adding content!

Adding Content

On the left, you will see a list of sections. Each of these sections applies to the type of content and they hold. Right now, there should only be one section labeled “Stories.” To add your own posts, click on that folder and select “New Post”.

From here on out, things should be pretty easy to figure out. The next screen is split in half with your editor on the left and the previewer on the right. Fill in the required boxes on your left and save your work by clicking the “Save” button on the top left.

Note: If you are writing poems, you might need to add a backword-leaning slash (\) where you want a line-break. This has to do with Markdown and I’m not sure if the rich-text editor will recognize line breaks. So, if you notice your poems don’t have line breaks, don’t fret, go back and add some slashes.

Please make sure your posts follow the guidelines set in the rules before posting!

Metadata

There 9 different frontmatter fields:

• Title
• Date
• Author
• Book title
• Categories
• Tags
• Description (optional)
• Thumbnail (optional)
• TOC (optional)

Some of them are easy to figure out, so I won’t mention them. I will try to go over the others briefly in case you’re not sure about them.

Title

For the title, there is a special naming sequence to use if you are writing a book chapter(s) (If you have ever posted on the Reddit Serials subreddit, then you are already familiar with it). Your title should include the name of your abbreviated book title in brackets, followed by a dash, and concluded with the name of your chapter.

Example:
[DD] - Chapter 1
[TMF] - 1. The Game Begins
[PNPGFF] - Chapter 4: Time to Party

This is just so readers will know which chapters go to what books and all. It really doesn’t matter what comes after the book title and the dash, as long as those two are there, you are good to go.

If your post is not part of a book, then you can just type in the title of your work. This also applies if you are posting something, like a play, that is split in two or three parts.

Categories

These are pretty easy to figure out, so I will keep it brief. Categories are the main genres of your work, and there can be more than one. The following are the options and their definitions:

• Mystery: if your story evolves around a problem that needs to be solved, there’s a good chance it belongs in this genre. Mysteries are where those crime-solving, justice-dealing detectives belong. Examples include The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, and Murder in the Vicarage by Agatha Christie.
• Thriller: mysteries and thrillers are often placed together into one category, but there are a few differences. A thriller could be described as a fast-paced action story with spies and assassins. Think of Tom Cruise, ‘007, and Black Widow. Thrillers are not necessarily mysteries and vice versa because each genre focuses more on the thrill or the mystery.
• Horror: when I think of horror, Goosebumps and IT immediately come to mind. These stories are meant to give you goosebumps and keep you up at night.
• Historical Fiction: this can be anything that takes place in a past era. Think about the medieval or victorian times and you have a pretty good idea. It could even be something more recent like WW2.
• Romance: you should know what this genre includes based on the name alone. If not, “romance” includes, well, any story that is centered around the… love relationship of two characters (you try explaining that without using the word “romance”).
• Western one word: cowboys.
• Science Fiction: this genre gets confused with fantasy a lot because it contains elements that are unreal or imaginative, but it’s different because all the “supernatural stuff” can be fully, or mostly, explained by science, not magic.
• Fantasy: if it’s centered around magic, it belongs here. Popular examples includes Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, and The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien.
• Dystopian: anything with a deprived, oppressed, or terror-stricken place. Think of The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, and Arena 13.
• Realistic Fiction: this is the opposite of science fiction and fantasy; the story could easily be real and happen tomorrow.
• Literary Fiction: this one is difficult to explain, but it could be summarized as “serious” fiction and it usually overlaps with others. This is character-driven, introspective, and often lacking a tidy story plot. Examples include A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, and The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.
• Nonfiction: self-help, training, “real” stuff, “boring” stuff etc.

Tags

Tags are the “little genres” that help further categorize your story. There are dozens of them, so I won’t list them all here. If you come across one that you don’t understand, you can either ignore it or google it. And, if there is a tag that you want want added, create an issue on GitHub or post it in the comments on the author page

Description, Thumbnail, and TOC

These are the optional fields that you will ignore most of the time.

The “Description” field is only needed if you would rather have your own short description for a post instead of the first 200 characters.

The thumbnail is for feature images. By default, if you have an image anywhere in the post it will show up as a little thumbnail image on the homepage. Adding it to the frontmatter is only necessary if you want to show an image/GIF on the homepage but don’t actually want to include it in the post. On the flipside, it can set your post apart from the others, if you want the extra exposure.

The TOC toggle field is if you want to add a “Table of Contents” to your post. If you toggle this, you will have to have headers in your post for the TOC to use.

About the “About the Author” Section

It is possible to insert your own bio under your stories, just add a comment on the authors page. If you have a GitHub account, you can do it yourself by editing the authors.toml file in the writing-buddies repo.

Contacting the Admin(s)

Hopefully, the docs have helped you get started with no hassle at all. But, if you need more help, you see anything that goes against the rules, or have a question, don’t hesitate to contact me. That’s what I’m here for after all.

• GitHub
• Habitca guild

Happy writing!
Bravisha Skietano