NOW IT CAN BE TOLD!
MuddyUm 101
All you need to get published in our esteemed publication
What does it take to be published on MuddyUm? Surprisingly little. Let me begin with the non-negotiables and work my way from there.
Non-negotiable
Kicker, title, and subtitle
Type your title at the very beginning of your article. Hit the enter key. Now type the subtitle. If you don’t have an idea for a kicker, write your article, if you have not already done so. Do you have an idea for a kicker yet?
WTF is a kicker you ask? ’Tis a cute little subtitle that goes above your title.
How and where to kick in your kicker Put your cursor to the immediate left of the first letter in your title and hit the enter key. You now have a space for your kicker. Type it there.
If you have no ideas yet for a kicker go with “Humor” or “Satire.” No comment.
Capitalizing and punctuating your header Just as there is no crying in baseball, there are no periods in titles or subtitles. Period. Titles must be capitalized like titles. What? Do I have to tell you everything? OK, here. Use this. A subtitle is a sentence without a period. How is that hard? It does not matter how you capitalize your kicker. Medium will convert it to ALL CAPS upon publication.
How to format your header correctly Do the following steps in any order. Skip any step you have already done.
- Highlight any portion of your title and click the larger of the two capital Ts that pop up.
- Highlight any portion of your subtitle and click the smaller of the two capital Ts that pop up.
- Highlight any portion of your kicker and click the smaller of the two capital Ts that pop up.
It will look like crap until you complete these steps. Then it will snap into place. Nice, huh?
Image attribution
Use only images that you have
- Created yourself
- Gotten from a public access image website such as Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay, or Wikimedia Commons
- Purchased
Combinations of the above, such as modifying public access images, may be permissible. Check the rules on the site. Usually they make it easy for you to suss out. Put your image attribution in the picture caption, like so
If you want to write something cute in your caption, you can make room by tightening it up. For example
I took the clunky URL out and used it as a link on “CC BY-SA,” leaving myself plenty of room for my contribution to the caption. In fact, I have enough room in there to hide when the C sisters, Holly J See and Amy Sea, come after me with rolling pins.
For your own images, put “Image by Author,” or something like that, in the caption. If you are using a lot of your own images, put “All images by the author” in the caption of the first image. If you are using a mixture, you figure it out.
If you are a nice person, attribute the creator of purchased images in the caption. For example
Being funny
Most of you are funny. If we try to help you make your article funnier, please cooperate. If we suggest you take your work elsewhere, please do not take that amiss.
Offensive material
Our position regarding offensive material is roughly the same as that of Medium itself. In other words, don’t be offensive. However, feel free to be a jerk, provided you are a funny jerk.
Semi-negotiable
Deleting or dismissing the private notes
Only semi-negotiable in that we will not ban your ass for it. But please. Mudditors do not get paid for mudditing. Deleting or dismissing private notes adds difficulty to the task we perform entirely out of love for you, our writers.
Parentheses and ellipses
We…see this all the time. Writers (especially those new to MuddyUm) scatter parentheses…and ellipses…like ticker tape in the parades they gave the first astronauts. (Ticker tape is what stock prices used to be printed on in days of old. You young people wouldn’t know…that’s why I explained it.) Parentheses (and ellipses) give a distracting (that is, herky-jerky) effect to your writing. (As you can see.)
If you examine the above paragraph, you will see there is not a single necessary parentheses or ellipse. They are an especial pet peeve of the Founding Mothers of MuddyUm, Susan Brearley HSDP, ICF ACC, IMBA and Sarah Paris, so don’t say I didn’t warn you. Be extremely sparing and judicious in your use of them.
Opening and closing paragraphs for spoof listicles
Listicles can be funny, but take a moment to gather your readers’ attention. In a similar manner, wrap things up somehow. Don’t leave your readers hanging. That isn’t nice. Can you think of any part of your body you would like to hang by? I didn’t think so.
Negotiable
Clichés and stock phrases
Now I’m just going to come right out and say it. Clichés and stock phrases just don’t cut the mustard here at MuddyUm. Let’s face it, you need to level up. The bottom line is, to be your funniest think of something as fresh as a daisy.
Wordiness
Some of the best jokes are one-liners, which use the fewest words possible to make you laugh.
A mudditor walked into a bar. They hadn’t set the bar high enough. Anyway, BOFace walked into a bar. They hadn’t set the bar highly enough. Susan Brearley HSDP, ICF ACC, IMBA walked into a bar: They hadn’t set the bar high enough. Sarah Paris walked into…a bar. (They hadn’t set the bar high enough.)
Use the fewest possible words to make us laugh.
Quickly trim away the textual fat, preferably before you respectfully or flippantly submit your article. Prudently spare yourself an exceedingly tedious go-around with me, BOFace, the enemy of unnecessary words, especially adverbs. The royal road to Hell is paved with them you know. Ask Steven King. Immediately.
Anyway, never start a paragraph, or a sentence even, with anyway. And be judicious when starting sentences with and or but. Remember that that that might not be that necessary in that spot. That is all that I have to say about this that or any other that.
Special thanks to Amy Sea, Susan Brearley HSDP, ICF ACC, IMBA, Andrew Rodwin, Gary Chapin and Holly J See. You are dears, all of you.
