You’ve been reading breaking Stargate news on GateWorld for weeks, months, or even years now. You’ve thought to yourself, “Hey, I could write this kind of stuff” and “Gee, that looks like fun!” If only there was a site for which you could write Stargate news.
Well, my friend, now there is. In 2009 we’ve rolled out a brand new engine to power GateWorld’s news section, in order to create an open submissions process and give writers like you the chance to contribute. You get a byline and a chance to be a part of the Internet’s largest Stargate Web site, and we get to publish more content and keep up with all that news we never had the manpower to publish before!
You must be 18 years or older, and you must have some decent writing chops. Professional training and/or experience is by no means required, but you’ll have a much better shot at getting published if you demonstrate your mad skills — and don’t require much editing. And no HTML knowledge is required!
We’re looking mainly for news items (big or small), but also special features (think along the lines of “The Top Ten Stargate Space Battles!”) and opinion pieces. You may write as regularly or as irregularly as you wish — you simply get Contributor-level access to the system and can submit something for consideration at any time. No pressure to perform.
Now the fine print: Because of this open submission process, we can’t guarantee publication. If you are highly motivated to get something up on the site, we will do our best to help you learn the ropes as to what we are looking for. (Stay tuned for some editorial guidelines and How To’s.) But we hope to be getting regular contributions from several writers, and not every item will be ready for publication. So the challenge to you is to find things of interest to GateWorld’s readers, work hard to improve your submissions, and eventually establish yourself as one of our top contributors!
What might you write about?
NEWS. (Short articles, 200-500 words.) Find a Stargate news item of interest, something worthy of its own stand-alone story, and write it up! This can be as simple as pulling a few choice quotes out of a magazine or Web site interview and then linking back to the original source. Or maybe you are really into keeping track of Stargate novels, or the video game Stargate Worlds, or conventions, or something else in the franchise that we just haven’t had the manpower to cover sufficiently.
FEATURES. (Medium articles, usually 500-1,000 words.) When Atlantis came to an end we ran a 5-part series on the top 5 episodes for each main character. Want to do something like that? It doesn’t need to be breaking news to be worth publishing, and we would love to publish these sort of fun features on a regular basis.
OPINIONS. (Longer articles, approx. 800 to 1,500 words.) Think romance has no place on Stargate? Think Stargate is vastly superior to Star Trek? Or are you disappointed in Teyla’s lack of screen time? This is going to be the hardest category in which to get something published, since it shows up on the GateWorld home page and appears (even though it has your name on it) to represent the opinions of our site. So for the time being, make your argument balanced and level-headed and stay away from anything terribly controversial.
If you are interested, there are three simple steps!
1) Create an account on the news commenting system (look for the “Sign up” link at the bottom of any news story now on the home page).
2) E-mail the editors and tell us your account name, and a little about yourself and your interests, writing skills and experience, etc. Please demonstrate that you have the ability to write in complete sentences, use punctuation, etc. I’ll let you know if you’ve been granted Contributor rights.
3) Login, write your first contribution, and click Submit!
We want to give you an outlet to express your creativity and your love for Stargate in a brand new way, and to give our readers more frequent updates and a broader variety of material to read. Thanks very much for your interest, and your help making GateWorld “your complete guide to Stargate!”
