Welcome to the Essay Hub!
The Essay Hub is the centralized location for informational pages written by members of the SCP community. Unlike the Guide Hub, the following articles are not considered official advice or required reading, but may still be interesting or useful.
Unlike the “guide” tag, the “essay” tag can be added by authors to their own works, which can then be added here in the appropriate place. Non-essay hub pages containing useful information have also been listed below. Ask a member of the MAST collab log pruning team if you're unsure whether your work meets the criteria to be classed as an Essay, or if you think a new subsection should be created.
User-Created Essays on the Writing Process
Walkthroughs
- Greenlights Made Easy - An Essay On Communicating Elevator Pitches and Central Narratives - How to pitch an idea.
- How To Get Good Feedback: Strategies for getting the most out of the venues available to you when you're getting writing help.
- Ideation: A Guide To Making Good Ideas Out Of Nothing: This essay will explain how to make good ideas out of bad ideas.
- SCP Walkthrough: How to write an SCP for the first or tenth time. Written in understandable language for ease of access.
- Zyn's Co-Authoring Tips: Information on co-authored pages, how to seek co-authors, and the process of multiple people writing together.
Series
- Your Very First SCP!: Meet up with your new friend and SCP-Helper, Skippy, as he takes you through writing your first SCP article!
- Essays By A Hack:
- Sentence Clauses: Skippy returns to help with construction of simple and complex sentences!
- Writing Tales: Let's talk about writing tales (from Hippo, no Skippy in this one).
- Terror: Let's talk about terror. So, how do you achieve it in a story?
- Aelanna’s Words to the Wise
- Common SCP Pitfalls: An outline on common recurring problems seen in bad SCP articles.
- Containment Protocols: Guidelines for how to write up plausible and concise containment procedures.
- Documentation Tips: Helpful tips on how to approach writing a story in a clinical SCP style and what to consider when planning your article out.
- Glossary of Terms: A thorough glossary of wiki jargon you will encounter here.
- Ayers’s Journey of Your First SCP
Characters
- Let’s Talk About Character For A Minute: The key issues with supernatural Agents and Doctors in the SCP universe, a brief discussion of wish fulfillment characters overall, and how to avoid common pitfalls in your own writing.
- Let's Talk About Writing Characters For A Minute: A simple process to start creating characters within the Foundation universe.
- So You Want To Write A Humanoid SCP Object: An essay that aims to give advice on the approach one should take when writing a humanoid SCP object.
Narratives
- An exercise in narrative based SCPs: Leveritas presents an overview on some ways to approach SCPs with narratives/backstories.
- How Not To Walk Your Dog: Poor Pacing In The SCP Format: Captain Kirby tells us about how to make a story unfold in an SCP article.
- untitled essay regarding scps, narratives, and how they can share a page: Different methods of introducing narrative into your SCP article.
Tone
- Conservation of WTF or, ‘Why does the rabbit need two brains?’: The mindset one should take when approaching anomalies while writing. How weird is too weird?
- Clinical vs Complex: A short page about how to write with precision, and not use too many words.
- Clinical Tone: Declassified: tips for getting that ever-elusive clinical tone in your articles.
- How to be Scary Without Saying Anything: Exactly what it says on the tin. Elision and the Five Deadly Phrases.
Things Not to Do (And What to Do Instead)
- A Few Examples Of Things Not To Do In An SCP And What To Do Instead: Common mistakes and how to fix them.
- Essay On Common Newbie Ideas + How To Better Ideate Your SCP: Reasons why newbies choose these things as their first foray into SCP, and why they (typically) don't work.
- 'Things what do a thing'- An Essay On Anomalies That Are Things That Do A Thing: Nico talks about different ways to handle writing the most classic, popular, overused SCP formula.
Other Essays
- Essays on Style: a great compilation of insights from various authors about their writing process, tips, and tricks.
- GoI Field Guide: Advice on what kind of voice, tone, and themes an article featuring a specific Group of Interest should aim for.
- Poetry As Distillation: Tips, tricks, and general thoughts about writing poetry.
- Rules of Thumb: Short and snappy writing tips compiled and collected from experienced members of the site.
- Random But Useful: Style Sheet, Editing Tips, Classes, IQ, How to Post an SCP.
- The Toasty Guide to Mixed Sources: A guide to the licensing of assets derived from multiple sources.
Tools and Technical Tips
Hubs and Essays to help you customise your articles.
- Advanced Formatting and You: Instructions for how to do fancy things with wikidot coding!
- ListPages Magic and You: How to use this Wikidot module that selects and displays pages within a site.
- Anomaly Classification System Guide: Information regarding the use of the ACS header and classification system.
- [[components-hub| Components Hub]]] - A hub for pages meant to be imported onto other pages via the [[include]] syntax to add new design, style or functionality.
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- A Super Easy Tool for Those Too Lazy to Update Their Author Pages: This component will automatically generate a list of all your works, in chronological order.
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- CSS Theme Preparation Tool: For the creation of simple CSS Themes.
- Sigma-9 Themes: All themes based on the Wiki's default theme, Sigma-9.
- Black Highlighter Themes: All themes based on main alternative to Sigma-9, the Black Highlighter Theme.
- Photoshopping Your SCP: An essay/tutorial for easily creating illustrations for your articles with Photoshop.
Critter Resources
Various resources from site reviewers (critiquers, crit-givers, critters, etc.) on how to approach the review process.
- Abolish The No Vote, Downvote Your Friends, and Other Musings: Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the critics.
- A Dime A Dozen: An Essay On Critiquing Ideas, Community, and Making The Most Out Of Nothing: RockTeethMothEyes provides advice on how to approach critiquing different kinds of concepts.
- Conceptual Critique and Burnout, A Guide: Shanor provides tips on how to critique concepts and how to avoid critiquer burnout.
- How to Become a Better Critic: Things to keep in mind when leaving reviewer comments and feedback.
- Metacritique 1: The Critic's Duty: From Kalinin, some guiding principles for critique, and discussion about the place critique has in the SCP wiki and its community.
- Metacritique 2: Anomalous Art: How to approach depictions of anomalous artists in the Foundation universe.
- Zyn's Crit Tips I: Reviewing Long Drafts: The Captain of the Forum Crit Team (aka Butterfly Squad) talks about how to power through reviewing long works.
- Zyn's Crit Tips II: Reviewing Overhaul Works: How to approach drafts that need a lot of revamping without giving you or the author a headache.
- Zyn's Crit Tips III: The Quick Crit: How to write helpful critique at a relatively quick pace!
Interviews
One-on-one conversations with prominent community members.
History of the SCP Universe
Various essays detailing the history of the SCP wiki.
On the Setting of the SCP Foundation
Includes some official guides and hub pages, as well as unofficial essays on the setting, and compilation lists open to contributions from any site member. Note that even the official guides can be contradicted in articles if it serves the story - there is no canon that authors must follow!
- Foundation Introduction Hub: The same email that every new hire gets on their first day.
- About the SCP Foundation: A Letter from the Administrator.
- Amnestic Use Guide - An (unofficial) guide to amnestics.
- Updated Amnestics Guide - Another (equally unofficial) guide to amnestics and mnestics.
- An FAQ; Or, What The Hell Is A Hume?: How the Foundation quantifies and anchors "reality".
- Foundation Departments: The Foundation's Internal Departments - at least, one interpretation of them.
- Semi Comprehensive List of Foundation Departments: A list of the many Foundation Departments, and the articles associated with them.
- Groups of Interest: The main Groups of Interest encountered by the Foundation.
- A Semi-Comprehensive List of Groups of Interest: A more complete list of the many Groups of Interest and the articles associated with them.
- GoI Field Guide: Advice on what kind of voice, tone, and themes an article featuring a specific Group of Interest should aim for.
- K-Class Scenarios: A comprehensive list of ways the world can end.
- The Log of Anomalous Items - A list of objects contained by the Foundation that do not currently warrant an SCP designation and containment procedures.
- The Log of Extranormal Events - A list of unusual events that occurred too suddenly for Foundation intervention or designation.
- The Log of Unexplained Locations - A list of locations that are presently anomalous but do not warrant more than basic concealment procedures.
- Mobile Task Forces: The Foundation's main Mobile Task Forces.
- A Comprehensive List of Mobile Task Forces: A complete list of all of the Foundation's Task Forces.
- Nexus Hub: Anomalous locations with a permanent population.
- Object Classes: A Guide to the main Object Classes used by the Foundation.
- Classification Committee Memo: An in-universe document detailing an updated classification format created by Woedenaz with help from djkaktus and friends.
- Threat Levels: A complimentary system developed by the French Branch to estimate the danger posed by an SCP object in the event of a containment breach.
- A Comprehensive List of Esoteric Classes: Going beyond the Standard Object Classes.
- Personnel and Character Dossier: A list of significant Foundation Personnel and Persons of Interest.
- O5 Command Dossier: The collection of contradictory reports on the people who have ultimate control over the Foundation.
- Reach's Blueprint Folder: Blueprints of the SCP Foundation's advanced technologies.
- Secure Facilities Locations: Sites and Areas run by the SCP Foundation
- The Foundation and Evil: The Foundation is not cruel, but cold.
- Understanding Memetics: Explaining what the hell memetics and memetic effects are in the context of the SCP Foundation Universe.
Articles tagged with "orientation" may also offer useful background information on the Foundation Universe.
Miscellaneous
- Classified and You: A brief rundown of what classified means, and how access to classified material works.
- Containment Hazard Control: Information on the different real-life ways scientists and professionals deal with hazards.
- Technical Words: Various science-y and engineering-y words and what they mean.
- Hornby’s Audio Guide: A rather thorough explanation on how to construct an audio drama.
These might be helpful, but are meant to be silly and not taken seriously!