Composing Your Story

After clicking a link to submit a story, the first page will ask you to compose your story. You will need to enter a title that serves as the story headline, add a short description that will display as the story's subheading, and then enter the content of your story. You can either type in the content directly or copy it from another program. On succeeding pages, you will have the opportunity to add a photo to illustrate your story and then preview the story before you submit it.

To compose your story:

Step 1. Enter a title for your story:

The title that you enter here will display as the headline of the story as well as in the list of available stories that others will see on the Web site. The system will automatically insert the date on which your story was published and your name as the author after this title.

Step 2. Optionally, enter a short summary for your story:

This optional summary displays as a subheading after the headline. You might type in an interesting but concise phrase (such as a partial quote from your story) that will draw readers in and compel them to read on.

Step 3. Enter the contents of your story:

You can either type in text or transfer it from another source. If you have typed out your story in a Microsoft Word document, you can copy and paste it here. Note that, regardless of the typeface or font you have used in the original document, the story will be published in the standard font used on our Web site.

To copy and paste from a Word Document:

a         Open your Word Document.

b         Click the Edit menu and click Select All.

c         Click the Edit menu again, but this time, click Copy.

d         Click anywhere on your Web browser window (where the Your Story Page is displayed) to bring this window to the front and click into the text input area for the story contents.

e         Paste in the copied Word document text by:

u       Clicking the Edit menu and clicking Paste.

u       OR, right-clicking and then clicking Paste from the pop-up menu displayed.

u       OR, on your keyboard, pressing and holding the CTRL and V keys at the same time.

Note: You may need to do a bit of "clean-up" to separate paragraphs, and so forth.

Step 4. Click the Next Step button to go on to the Upload Photo Page.

Next: Uploading a Photo