Dreaming of Sunshine Recursive Community

This is a post about how to write optional details for an exchange and specifically how and why to write a letter! People on the Heliocentric discord seemed at least vaguely interested in information/advice on the topic, so here we are. I've written this to be both as general as possible and also to be very thorough. Hopefully it will help someone!

Table of Contents

A Small Glossary
Do You Even Need/Want a Letter?
The Mechanics of Optional Details & Letter-Writing
Getting your ODs together for signing up
How I personally select tags
How I personally put things in the sign up form
Where/How to post your letter
The Bare Bones of a Letter
Building Up Your Optional Details
Like Lists
Fic Prompts
Art Prompts
Other
Things To Not Include In Your Optional Details/Letter

( A Small Glossary )

( Do You Even Need or Want a Letter? )

The Mechanics of Optional Details & Letter-Writing

This section is to explain the basics of how to get your optional details together, where to put your letter, and some extra tips to help you do both as smoothly as possible. A lot of this comes from my own process, which may or may not work for you.

( Freeform sorting spreadsheet! )

( How I personally put things in the sign up form )

The Bare Bones of a Letter

Building Up Your Optional Details

But hey, you got this far, right? You looked at my argument for "more space and formatting" and you chuckled to yourself as you planned just how many bullet pointed lists you were going to make. Oh yes, I know this enthusiasm. I know it so well, I mean, look at this letter tutorial.

...then you sit down to write your letter and everything you've ever liked or wanted immediately flies out of your head. Oh no.

Fear not! We can combat this. And some of this also applies to just filling in your ODs on the site instead of a letter, so maybe you're reading for that, instead.

( Like Lists )

( Fic Prompts )

( Art Prompts )

( Other Optional Details )

( Things To Not Include In Your Optional Details/Letter )

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If you have any questions, additional advice, or related thoughts, please let me know in the comments! What do you think works best for letters and sign ups? What has/hasn't worked for you?