Formatting

Now, unless you plan to keep your opus to yourself (fat chance) there are a couple of things you need to know about formatting your story to give it to other people.

Not everyone has the same word processor you do.

Not everyone has the same kind of computer you do.

Not everyone has their screen width/fonts/colors/etc set the same way you do.

How do we overcome all those barriers so that the entire Internet can enjoy your stories, you're asking? It's simple (though not always easy.)

THE GOLDEN RULE:

Thou shalt turn off your smart quotes (curly quotes) when writing stories to share on the Internet. Every computer interprets them differently, and more than likely, it wil end up looking like garbage on the other end.

ALL THE OTHER RULES:

1a. When you finish your story, highlight the entire text, and set your right tab to four and one half inches. (This is approximately 70 characters per line, your best bet.) Then, save this file as TXT, a plain ASCII text file. Don't open it again in your word processing program. (It'll just reformat it, and screw up the lines).

1b. The best way to avoid conversion screw-ups is to use a fixed width font, like Courier or Courier New. An example of the difference.

A variable width font:
(Times or Times New Roman in this case)
iiiiiiiiii
mmmmmmmmmm

A fixed width font
(Courier or Courier New in this case):
iiiiiiiiii
mmmmmmmmmm

2. Open the file in notepad, wordpad, or a similar TEXT based program. Fix any lines that got screwed up in the conversion process.

3. Copy from the text program, and paste into the program which you'd like to use to disseminate your work. (E-mail, usenet).

4. Send away.

FORMATTING FOR HTML:

If you're only going to disseminate your stories on your personal web page, there are two ways to do it. I am going to assume you have a basic concept of HTML. If you don't, I can't help you.

The Easy, but Ugly Way

Open your preformatted, 70 characters to a line text file, and paste it into your HTML file. On the line directly preceding the story, type <PRE> , and on the line directly following the end of your story, type </PRE> . This will look something like the following:

 
    Boy, this sure is ugly, but it's fast and easy. I hope people like 
this guide, because I've spent I don't know how many hours working 
on it. Of course, if they don't, they can just go . .

The Hard, but Pretty Way

The hard but pretty way involves copying your entire story into an HTML file, and then for each indentation, you type at the first word <DD> . Technically, you're not supposed to use that tag that way, but it works in MSIE and Netscape, so why worry about it? Are you planning on winning awards for coding? Make sure to use a <P> between any paragraphs breaks. The results will look something like this:

Boy, this sure is pretty, but it takes a long time and you have to pay really close attention to make sure you don't miss an indentation. I hope people like this guide, because I've spent I don't know how many hours working on it. Of course, if they don't, they can just go . .

Then again, maybe I'd like people to like me. I doubt it though. I'm just too darned irreverent for that sort of thing.

And now you know.
If you have some other helpful formatting tips, mail me so I can include them here!