Quantum Leap Roundtable:  Reorganization and Rules

Greetings.  I am Dorothy (Dotty) Klein (dak@gandalf.rutgers.edu),
the new chair of the Internet Quantum Leap Roundtable.  You are
receiving this message because you are on the list of active
Roundtable members which was passed to me by Tracy Finifter.

The Quantum Leap Roundtable began about a year ago.  It was
intended to be a cooperative writing effort, in which each member
would receive a "leap-in" from the previous member and write a
complete Quantum Leap story from it, ending with the next
listmember's leap-in.  It has produced only five stories so far.

As the new organizer of this endeavor, I am laying down some
ground rules.  If you cannot or will not work within them, please
drop yourself from this list.  Those who favor more anarchy are
welcome to form their own list, or to write independently.  

If you are still interested in participating in this and will
abide by the rules I outline below, e-mail to me as soon as
possible.  Any members I do not hear from by February 1, 1994,
will be dropped from the list.


** Organizational Rules

#1.  The time between story postings is to be no more than one
month.  If someone posts a story on February 1, the next story
should be posted to alt.ql.creative no later than March 1.

#2.  The EXACT leap-in you will put at the end of your
installment should be e-mailed to the next person on the list,
with a copy to me, within one week of the previous story posting. 
The recipient should acknowledge receipt to both myself and the
sender.  For example, the writer of the story due March 1 should
e-mail the leapin he will put at the end of his story to the next
writer by Feb. 8.  This is to allow each writer research,
plotting, and advance writing time, and to make sure all parties
still have e-mail connections, and are using them regularly.  A
summary of the time, place, and situation you intend to write as
the leapin is NOT sufficient.  The writer deserves to know what
loopholes are open to him or her.

#3.  Any member who cannot write his or her installment on
schedule shall immediately contact me.  Remember, if the schedule
outlined above is adhered to, you have four to seven weeks
between the time you receive your leap-in to the time you have to
post a finished story, depending on when the story containing
your leap-in is posted.  One passed story will put you to the
bottom of the writing list.  Two passed stories will drop you
from the list.  Listmembers are expected to have the maturity to
realize when their personal hectic time of exams, grading, tax
returns, job duties, whatever, looms in their possible writing
time-window.  I can adjust the list for these, with enough
advance warning.

#4.  Leap-ins may be negotiated between the listmembers.  They
should not pose an impossible situation, and should leave room
for the recipient to write a good story.  They should include NO
MORE THAN the leap's location, the leap's time-period, a hint of
the leapee's identity, and the immediate situation in which Sam
finds himself.  Think of the leapouts of the aired episodes.  
If the original leapin has been done to death online or in
printed fanzines, or just makes you gag, its recipient can ask
for another one, if no way around can be found.

#5.  Any gap in a member's access to alt.ql.creative or to e-mail
should be reported to me immediately.  If your site drops all
alt-groups or news, I need to know to e-mail you Roundtable
installments as they are posted.  If you lose your CURRENT e-mail
address, please inform me ASAP -- from your own account if you
have advance warning, or from a friend's account if not.  If you
have another e-mail address, I can change the list to reflect
that one.  If you have no other account which you can access at
least twice per week, I will put you on the inactive list.  This
also applies to gaps in e-mail access due to vacation, term
break, or computer failure.  If you fail to notify me of a gap in
your access and the roundtable stalls because of this, you will
be dropped from the list.  

#6.  By writing a Roundtable story, you agree to it being placed
in the QL archive and posted on the Net, with the possibility of
it being reposted sometime in the future.  You retain all rights
to it for fanzine purposes.  [A "fanzine" is an amateur printed
collection of stories.  The authors' only payment is a free copy
of the fanzine in which his/her work appears, if that work
exceeds three pages in length, in its final printed form.]  The
original author is the ONLY one who can submit his/her story to a
fanzine.  If anyone is thinking of swiping a Roundtable story, or
publishing one without its author's consent, be aware that the
listmembers include many fanzine readers and writers, and you
will eventually be found out and very likely flamed to a crisp on
the net and through other fannish channels (printed and oral).

#7.  By writing a Roundtable leapin, you agree to that leapin's
publication in whatever manner the writer of that leap desires. 
The contribution of the opening paragraph of a story is not
enough collaboration to entitle you to a free copy of the fanzine
in which it appears.  Your authorship of the leapin should be
acknowledged in the fanzine, however.

#8.  The reproduction of Roundtable stories is limited to free
electronic distribution, with single printed copies for personal
use only, unless otherwise stated by each story's author.  This
means that nobody may place the roundtable stories onto a floppy
and charge for it, nor may anyone upload them to a BBS which will
charge for their download in any manner, nor may anyone print out
copies for all their friends.  This is to ensure that the only
person who profits from each story is its author, and that its
potential value to fanzines is not diminished by its appearance
on the Net.  Think of the above as an incentive for all Leapers
to overcome their technophobia and figure out computers
themselves.

Writing Guidelines

#1.  Bellisario's Rules prevail.  You should be able to support
any continuity points you use (especially concerning Al and Sam's
family histories and timelines) with evidence from the televised
series, preferably from more than one episode.  The QL archives
are available for FTP from cisco.com, under ql-archive and its
subdirectories, and include an episode guide, chronologies, and a
FAQ.  If still in doubt, post your question.  While the continuity
was not perfect in the televised series, that doesn't mean that you
can ignore it. 

#2.  Stories should be in standard written English.  They should
be spell-checked.  If you have trouble with grammar, homonyms,
and whatnot, have it proofread by someone more knowledgeable
before you post.  Postings should be in plain ASCII, with line-
lengths of no more than 80 characters.

#3  Dr. Sam Beckett was born on August 8, 1953.  Admiral Albert
Calavicci was born on June 15, 1934.  Sam's (traditional) leaping
range is "within his own lifetime," with modifications by
appropriate doubletalk, as in "Leap Between the States."  Sam and
Al have first-hand recollections of history greater than those of
many current listmembers, and opinions shaped by different
events. The list stories should distribute fairly evenly along
Sam's lifetime, and reflect Sam and Al's recollections of the
era.  Which leads to....

#4.  Stories should be historically accurate.  They should not
cause any reader who has personally experienced the time or place
to jump up shouting such things as "They didn't have microwave
popcorn in 1970!" or "You can't get from New Brunswick to Shea
Stadium in a car in 30 minutes!"  This means that each writer
will have to research the period and place he or she writes.  I
suggest starting in the local public library, where your resources
include encyclopedias, modern travel guides and maps, old issues
of Time, Newsweek, Life, and National Geographic, including their
ads, and possibly old newspapers on microfilm.  If you're stuck,
try the reference librarian.  She might welcome a break from the
sixth-graders trying to get her to write their book reports for
them.  Remember, you only have to know the details you absolutely
need for your story, but the extra details will help to set the
scene.

#5.  In the televised Quantum Leap episodes, Sam leaped into a
secretary, a retarded man, a thirteen-year-old boy, several
baseball players, several police officers, a bouncer, an elderly
Black pool-player, several housewives and mommies, a mass-
murderer, and a sailor, among others.  Keep the variety up.  

#6.  All stories must continue Quantum Leaping As We Know It. 
You may not, for example, have Sam run over Young Al with a car
and kill him for good, leaving all subsequent writers to work
with Edward St. John as the Observer.  PQL may not permanently
vanish in a puff of logic.  You get the idea.  

#7.  A "crossover" is a story in which characters from two or
more television series or movies interact.  These are strongly
discouraged within the roundtable because:  we're aiming for more
originality; not everyone will know the other show, and
crossovers are notorious for assuming that the readers do; and,
it's very difficult to strike a balance between the shows
appropriate for the intended audience of the story.  If you
simply must work in another show's character(s), you are much
better off doing it as a "kiss," a passing reference or overheard
conversation, similar to the appearances of Sylvester Stallone,
Donald Trump, and Anita Hill in televised QL.

#8.  Roundtable stories should be no more than a mild "R" rated,
fitting into a 10PM timeslot.  I'm sure Sam and Al have sex
lives, but keep the explicit blow-by-blow :-) descriptions
thereof out of the roundtable.  Ditto excessive explicit violence.


I know these are a lot more rules than this list had previously,
but I'm hoping for more consistent posting and quality of
stories.  Membership in this list is a commitment to write a
well-written, creative, well-researched story when your turn
comes up.  

Looking forward to hearing from you,
Dotty Klein