Archive: Formatting Your Story (bold, italics, etc)

03 Sep 2010

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	Archive: Formatting Your Story (bold, italics, etc)

Solution Formatting refers to things like use of italics, bold, section separating lines, and colored text. Formatting, when used properly, can spruce up your story and help give emphasis to certain lines and sections. Formatting also helps your readers comprehend and enjoy your story more. Remember, when formatting your story for posting online, you should adhere to slightly different rules than those used when submitting a paper to your teacher or even when submitting a story to a publisher.

Formatting for Dialogue

The simple rule for spacing with dialogue or between paragraphs is this: ALWAYS leave an empty line between them. You will see by the example below that every time a new person begins speaking, the author has not only started a new line, but they have left a BLANK line in between. This also applies when you have 2 paragraphs -- always start a new line and have a BLANK line in between. This is necessary because reading things on a computer screen is a tad more difficult for most people, and the addition of spaces aids this.

Example of proper spacing in dialogue and paragraphs:

"He likes you, Lil, he really does. He's just a sympathy sufferer."

Dressed, teeth brushed, hair combed and feeling considerably better about the world as a whole, she descended the stairs to find Sirius and Peter in her kitchen with steaming cups of tea.

Sirius still seemed a delicate shade of puce, unable to connect his eyes with hers fully, but with James back in the room, their talk of plans resumed.

"As I was saying," he started, still not looking at Lily, "no one would ever suspect Peter. He's going into hiding soon, himself. If we use him, you'll be safe and everyone will still think you've used me."

Lily shuddered. They were talking about Remus and they all knew it, yet no one could bring themselves to say it. She hated the way they condemned him, but she'd long since given up arguing. None of them were passing information. It wasn't possible - completely unthinkable - that any of her dearest friends would put them or their unborn son in danger. least of all Remus.

For more examples, visit the tutorials in our archive. Search under the penname "Staff."

Formatting using Bold, Italics, Underlines
For more advanced formatting like adding bold, italics, and underlines, you can use the editing tool-bar at the top of your edit chapter box.

To type in NEW text that you wish to be bold, italics or underlined:
1. Locate the toolbar at the top of the text entry box. Not the different symbols for the different aspects of formatting:

B - bold I - italics U - underline

2. Click on the formatting you wish; the "button" for this symbol will look as though it has been pressed.
3. Continue to type your words. Once you wish the formatting to be 'off', click again on the symbol to make the button look as if it hasn't been pressed.

To alter existing text you wish to be bold, italics or underlined:
1. Type in your text as plain text.
2. Place your cursor over the text, hold down and high-light the text you wish formatted.
3. Locate the toolbar at the top of the text entry box. Not the different symbols for the different aspects of formatting:

B - bold I - italics U - underline

4. Click on the formatting you wish; the "button" for this symbol will look as though it has been pressed. Your text should now appear formatted.

A general guide for common uses of formatted text in online stories (these are not "rules" but merely guidelines):
Bolded Text -- often used for chapter titles, list titles, and instances in which you wish to depict a character as reading something (perhaps a letter)

Italicized Text -- often used for when a character is having some internal thoughts, or when special emphasis needs to be placed on a word.

(example 1: Lily walked slowly down the path, her thoughts far away. I wonder why James hasn't asked me to the ball yet? she wondered. Is he mad at me?)

(example 2: James could not believe he'd been so blind. "You mean she's liked me all this time and didn't tell me?!" he shouted.)

Underlined Text -- often used for chapter titles, list titles.

Spacing Formatting
You will notice that there are other buttons in the text box toolbar. You can experiment a little to see what some of them look like:

Centered Text -- this type of formatting is most often used for chapter/section titles, or sometimes used for lists or depiction of letters. It can look like this:

Centered Text

Left/Center/Right Justify -- these buttons can be used to indent or center text entire paragraphs or sections or just individual lines. This type of formatting is most often used for chapter/section titles, or sometimes used for lists or depiction of letters. They can look like this:

Left Justified Text

Center Justified Text

Right Justified Text

Decrease/Increase Indent -- you can think of these buttons like a traditional TAB button. These can be used to indent whole sections as sometimes seen in depictions of letters. Increase Indent looks like this:

Indented Text

Insert Special Character -- occasionally, you may have need of some special characters in the text of your story. Put your curser on the spot where you want the character, and click on the Special Character button. A box will pop up that gives you all of the choices for special characters.

Line Breaks -- a line break can be used to separate sections within the same chapter; most often used to depict a change in location or scenary, or denote the changes in point-of-view. To insert a line break, put your cursor over the spot (usually a blank line) where you want the break, and click the button. To delete a line break, put your curser at the end of the line or at the next empty line, and hit "backspace" or "delete".
A line break should be used as an alternative to a long string of characters that one will commonly see, like this:

A proper line break looks like this:

This kind of a break will shorten or expand depending on the screen resolution/size of the person reading it, and therefore will not "stretch your page". Stretching the page causes havoc with our coding and is extremely annoying for a person to read.

Do NOT put line breaks in the cutesy, fussy way of using different characters repeated across the page:

a NO-NO:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

another NO-NO
---------------------------------------------

If you do these, the page may distort, causing a rejection of this chapter by a validator.

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25 May 2006 12:19 AM