When you write or edit a story, just below the text, you can enter an excerpt. It can be a quote from your story, a short summary, or any other text you choose. The excerpt will appear as a summary or teaser for your story in a list of stories, such as appears on the home page. It will also appear as a “pull quote” in the body of your story. We recommend selecting an excerpt that will entice readers to click through to read your story.

If you don’t select an excerpt, Retrospect will simply use the first few lines of your story instead.

Occasionally, you might start a story in response to a particular prompt, but it actually turns out to be about something else. You can change the prompt assigned to a story on the Add or Edit Story page. Scroll down to the Assigned Prompt field, pull down the menu, and choose a new prompt. Or choose My Own Topic if there’s no prompt (yet) that fits your story.

You can also suggest new prompts using the Contact link in the lower right corner of any page. Choose Story Prompt Idea from the Topic menu.