Submission Guidelines

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Frodo
Ex Council Member
Posts: 506
Joined: Tue Apr 18, 2006 5:09 am
Location: NYC, NY

Submission Guidelines for The Red Book of Westmarch
[color=darkred]By Joe Bisz, Red Book Editor[/color]
[img]http://bingweb.binghamton.edu/~eng301/redbook.jpg[/img]

[color=darkred]The Red Book[/color] is always looking for more articles about MECCG or Tolkien. We try to fit articles into already existing columns, but we might create a column if you have a cool idea for a piece. These guidelines may change from issue to issue, so be sure to look them over before you send me something!

Submission is NOT a guarantee of publication, especially for Play of the Days or Tournament Reports. I may decline a submission for various reasons, including poor editing, length, or that I don’t want to cover your topic right now, perhaps because I have another related article. The newsletter is meant to highlight the most valuable of all writing on the game right now, not just to publish everything. But I encourage you to post your submission to the Meccg.net forums in the event that your piece is declined. If you want to write a long article only for the purposes of this newsletter, you should query me first (i.e., email me with an outline of the subject you have in mind).

All submissions, letters, and correspondence to [color=darkred]The Red Book[/color] may be edited and published unless the piece says otherwise. We also welcome letters to the editor!

[color=darkred][size=150]HOW TO SUBMIT ARTICLES[/size][/color]
You no longer need to worry about the exact word length of your article. Just follow these three steps.

1) Check your article carefully for missing words, unclear sentences, or even just boring writing. Edit, edit, edit! (Note: If you have been given access to the "Newsletter Contributions" private forums for authors, you might consider posting a draft of your article here to get feedback from people first.)
2) Try to match your article to an existing column, and tell me the name of this Column in your submission cover letter (see “Columns, Public” below). If you are writing a Play of the Day or Tournament Report, see my comments on this below.
3) Save your article as a Microsoft Word format, if possible, then email your article as an ATTACHMENT

Other Tips: Please do not send me articles that much shorter than 450 words. I will not usually publish articles longer than 3480 words. Use endnotes, not footnotes! Section titles are highly recommended for articles more than two-columns long. I also strongly recommend using hyperlinks to refer to other webpages and documents you are talking about.

[color=darkred][size=150]COLUMNS, PUBLIC[/size][/color]
CONDUCT AND HOBBITSHIP
This column will feature musings on ethical questions involved when playing our great game.

LORE OF THE RINGS: TOLKIEN THE AUTHOR
Essays and discussions of Tolkien, including his books or his life. Discussions of MERP or ICE and how these things relate to MECCG are also welcome.

SAM’S GARDEN OF SIMPLIFIED RULES
This takes a tough concept (like what can be played on-guard) and breaks it down nice and simple. Maybe we’ll all learn something!

PIPPIN’S NEWBIE CORNER
This section would address newbie concerns and perhaps teach some basic element of the game.

TEST OF LORE: TOURNAMENT-LEVEL AND FUN DECKS
Here we’ll publish one sample deck list, either “fun” or “tournament-level.”

CARD OF THE MONTH
Write an article on one of the many MECCG cards, as was happening on meccg.net once upon a time before it dried up. Each review could come with a “usefulness” score if you like. The old Card of the Day archives on, I think, Trevor Stone’s page were a wonderful source of information.

PLAY OF THE MONTH
Someone’s story of pulling a win from the jaws of death or, conversely, being utterly destroyed by your opponent in an amusing way! When submitting to this column, please indicate whether you would like your column illustrated by the card “Wit” (if your report has many good plays) or the card “Dragon’s Breath” (if your report mentions many mistakes that you made and you want to give it a more “humble” feeling).

Note: I usually receive a lot of these reports. I will only publish ONE. If yours is not selected, no hard feelings!

TOURNAMENT REPORTS
Great reports from players playing tournaments in the vast regions of our Middle-earth!

Note: I usually receive a lot of these reports. I will publish one or two at most. If yours is not selected, no hard feelings! (You will improve your chances of publication if you edit your report carefully to include only game moments that are particularly exciting, although of course you can build up to these moments. It also helps to have a brief introduction to where the tournament took place.)

GOLLUM'S GROTTO: TIPS & TRICKS
This section would briefly talk about some advanced Meccg “tricks” that not everyone necessarily knows about, like being able to play Marvels Told in the untap phase. Or, the section could give pointers to combat certain deck types, like Mark’s article in Issue 1.

THOUGHTS ON THE PLAYING FIELD
This special column will feature an experienced or master player making his or her observations on up-and-coming decks to fear, good hazard plays against certain deck types, etc. 8)

We welcome the “thoughts” of all players, and we hope that this column will show the personality and thinking process of the player writing it. The Red Book also recognizes the fact that there are some rather famous players in this game. Because we particularly wish to have the best players contributing to this column on an ongoing basis, we are offering, as an additional perk, a unique “image” to be assigned to some writers each time that writer writes this column. We wish we could assign everyone a unique image, but because we want the images to reflect characters who have looked into Palantirs or “seeing waters” or have some kind of “second sight,” we have only 11 images for this purpose at present, though we may develop more. Therefore, the editor will assign these images to the first players to submit to this column, at the editor’s discretion, if the editor believes that player will contribute regularly and that player’s is very experienced in the game. These images are avatar representations which will always be used for you when writing this column. You may select from the following list of titles/avatars:

1. Denethor’s Palantir
2. Aragorn’s Palantir
3. Frodo in the Mirror (reserved: Joe Bisz)
4. Gandalf the Wise
5. Pool of Pallando
6. Saruman’s Palantir (reserved: Mark Alfano)
7. Radagast in the Sky
8. Sauron's Palantir (reserved: Brian Min)
9. Elrond
10. Pippin’s Palantir
11. Galadriel

The image of “Align Palantir” will be used after the uniques have been assigned. On a side note, the editor is wondering if anyone knows who the character in the picture of Palantir of Minas Tirith, minion version, is supposed to be.

WORMTONGUE SPEAKS: WHERE TO BUY ALL THINGS TOLKIEN
I’m looking for ideas on how to create this column. Basically, I’m hoping to perhaps host some ads here and maybe make some advertising money to be applied for Worlds prizes, site maintenance, etc. All ads would be about ONLY things relating to this card game, or anything Middle-earth or Tolkien-related at all, including figurines, collectibles, other strategy Tolkien games, etc. Our readers are very interested in where they can buy cool Tolkien stuff, and the cards too.

SCENARIOS/ OPTIONAL RULES
Write up your cool Meccg scenario or rules system into an article! Please playtest your scenarios before recommending them to the world, though.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
We welcome your comments on the newsletter, good and bad!

[color=darkred][size=150]COLUMNS, RESERVED[/size][/color]
THE FELLOWSHIP: COMMENTS FROM COE
In this section the Council of Elrond will bring the Middle-earth community up to speed with new and old developments. (This column is reserved for COE Members.)

WIZARD’S VOICE: COUNCIL OF ELROND RULES DIGEST
Here we’ll publish the latest Council of Elrond Digest. (This column is reserved for the official MECCG rules rep, Chad Martin.)

MIRKWOOD PROJECTS-IN-THE-WORKS
(This column is reserved for Council of Elrond Members or for the Head of a certain project. It will ask for volunteers to work on particular game projects, or the Head of a particular project may report on that project and solicit volunteers. Projects might include Worlds Tournament preparations, Strategy Guides, GCCG program work, etc.)

HORN OF ANOR: CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS FOR PROJECTS
Here we, the Council of Elrond, will list a bunch of practical projects and dream projects that will serve the MECCG game and openly ask any interested players to contact us to develop these projects. We have hundreds of players playing this game, right? Well surely we can get a few dozen to do stuff like work on GCCG program improvements, website stuff, Worlds tournament prep, Color Underdeeps Map, etc. (This column is reserved for COE Members.)

THE SHIRE SEASON: TOURNAMENT CALENDAR
(This will be written by the Editor only.)



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