At A Glance
Author	wlfdrgn
Contact	[email protected]
IAM	wlfdrgn
When	N/A

Thank you for your interest in writing an experience for BME. BME has only grown to the size it is now thanks to the ongoing efforts of people like you. People who share their experiences and pictures with others in the community. Sometimes, writing these experiences can be a little difficult, though. Here's a few suggestions to help make sure your experience is not only accepted by the BME experience moderators, but is also helpful to those who read it.

Content:
What should I write about?
What should I include?
What should I leave out?

Structure:
HTML or UBB?
What program should I use to write my experience?
How should I format the experience?

Tips:
Ways to improve your experience?
Ways to guarantee your experience is rejected

Content:

What should I write about?

BME is extremely diverse. You can write about almost anything related to body modification or ritual. If you can find pictures or stories on BME about it, feel free to write about it.

What should I include?

The best experiences submitted to BME tend to be those that include several things.

• Talk about what led you to your decision to get this mod, or go through this ritual.
• How did you find your artist? Was it the first shop you walked into? Referred there by friends? Researched many shops?
• Definitely include some details about the procedure. You don't necessarily need to go really deep into the details, but do at least cover the basics.
• Tell us anything that you think helped, whether it was reading other experiences on BME, talking with the artist, or bringing a friend along. Whatever helped you, it might help someone else.
• Tell us anything you wish you'd done differently. Whether you wished you'd eaten beforehand, brought something to drink, or gone to a different artist. Why do you think it would have helped?
• Tell us how it felt. Did it hurt more of less then you thought it would? More or less then your other mods?
• How did it feel later that day? How about that night?
• What aftercare did you use?
• How has the healing gone so far?
• How have others reacted to it?
• Anything else that you think might be useful to anyone reading about your experience.

If in doubt, read some of the other experiences on BME. See what you find the most useful, and be sure to include those things.

What should I leave out?

• Things that have nothing at all to do with the mod, ritual, or your experiences leading up to it.
• If your experience comes up short, don't just pad it with random writing or details about your discussion over breakfast. Try adding more information about the procedure, healing, or aftercare instead.
• Don't add random trash just to make the word count.

Structure:

HTML or UBB?

There are three ways you can submit your experience. Plain text, UBB, or HTML.

• Plain text is the easiest way to format your document. In plain text, basically, what you type is what you get. There is no formatting, no links, no embedded images, etc.
• UBB is the next step up in formatting. UBB gives you a simple way to include basic formatting, like different colors, fonts, and sizes. You can also include links to other web pages or images. BME also includes a set of emoticons which can be used, but please use them sparingly. UBB provides most of the formatting functions you're likely to want in writing an experience, and if you don't already know HTML, it's the way to go. Go here for a full list of UBB formatting codes.
• HTML is the native language of the web, and allows you almost full control of your document. If you already know HTML, it's probably easier to use then UBB. If you don't already know HTML, and you still want to use formatting, UBB may be easier.

What program should I use to write my experience?

In theory, you can type everything directly in the text box on the experience submission form, then submit the experience. If your typing is perfect, and your HTML coding is perfect, then this will work just fine. If, on the other hand, you're like the rest of us, you'll want to use some other programs for help.

• To write the experience itself, use a basic word processor. Almost anything with a good spell checker will do. Write your experience, run the spell checker across it, and check the word count. BME requires a minimum of 600 words, but there is no maximum.
• If you're using a word processor which can save to HTML, just format your experience so it looks good, and save it to HTML. If it saves to text format only, and you want to add HTML codes, go ahead and add them before you save the file.
• If you're working in HTML, save the file, then open it in your browser to view the file. This gives you the chance to fix any HTML tags you may have wrong.
• Unless you're a really good writer, and really, even if you are, ask a friend to read your experience for you, if possible. Take his or her comments and make some changes, if necessary.
• Once the file is saved, go into the BME Experience Engine, then use Copy and Paste from your computer to move the experience from your word processor to the text box on the experience engine. If you want to move HTML codes which were automatically added by a word processing program like MS Word, you'll need to open the file in a text-only program like notepad or WordPad.

How should I format my experience?

• Experiences should be broken into proper sentences and paragraphs.
• There should be no spelling errors. Use a spell checker to eliminate spelling errors.
• There should be no grammatical errors. Use a grammar checker, if you have one, or have a friend read it before you submit it.
• Use good punctuation.
• Use upper case letters correctly, not excessively.

Tips:

Ways to improve your experience

• Include details about the procedure, healing, and aftercare
• What kind of jewelry was used? What gauge? Size?
• Tell us how you felt, emotionally, before, during, and after the procedure/ritual.
• Be sure to format everything correctly.
• If you've submitted pictures to BME already, include links to the pictures.
• Make sure whatever font you're using is easy to read. If in doubt, don't specify a font name or size at all. The defaults work well with all browsers.

Ways to guarantee your experience is rejected

• TYPE EVERYTHING IN UPPER CASE.
• type everything in lower case.
• TyPe In WeIrD mIxEd CaSe.
• Dont use any punctuation
• Talk about stuff that's not at all related to your mod or ritual.
• Use a really bad font.
• Use any HTML code that's specific to either Netscape or Internet Explorer so it's unreadable to lots of readers.
• Stick in garbage at the end because you didn't write the full 800 words.
• Just type random garbage.
• Plagerize anyone else's experience off BME (yes, we check).
• Include "words" with numbers in them, or using weird spellings, as in l8er, str8, ur, etc.