k8andrewz

firstly, some logistics related to writing the main text: I fully edit my fics before posting on ao3, and I do my best to never post a fic the day I finish a fic. this allows me to take my time for an extra round of edits, and dealing with all the specs of publishing takes a while, so I like to do it when I’m refreshed and not likely running on adrenaline or fumes from just finishing a fic. now, I don’t always achieve this, but it is a mission of mine these days to spend more time actually deliberating over edits. also, that text box does not save automatically. so I want to mess with it as little as possible once I paste in text. people who draft directly into ao3… I don’t know how they do it. 

the box where you paste in your work has two different options: “Rich Text” and “HTML.” rich text is the sort of “regular” and smart formatting that you’ll see pop up in most word processors, like microsoft word or google docs. html, on the other hand, does all that formatting through markup of the text (hypertext markup language). stuff like <i></i>, <b></b>, <p></p>, other things. I don’t really bother with html for the main text, so… that’s all I’ll say about it. html will be relevant when discussing formatting of the summary and notes, but that’s for a later post. 

to me, the ideal work on ao3 is formatted like so:

(excerpt from violeta fantasy by valdera, which will be used as sample text for the rest of the post. the image is tinted green for contrast)

there’s two hallmarks of formatting on ao3 that are critical to making it “look right”. the first is a lack of indentation for each paragraph. this is unlike regular book formatting, but it is absolutely the way to go for fic and, in general, print online. this is because indentation looks really ugly when reading on a phone. now, adding indentation to the main text on ao3 means you have to deal with html, so even if you write all your fic with indentation in, when you paste it in that will disappear. there’s no need to really talk more about this. 

the second hallmark is paragraph spacing, by which I mean the space between paragraphs. The above excerpt has a clear space between paragraphs. this is, again, something that is very important for readability, and it is something that can cause issues when pasting in text from other word processors into the text box. the best way I can illustrate this is showing a comparison between two text styles in microsoft word: “normal” and “no spacing.”

the difference here is pretty easy to spot: the “no spacing” format cramps the text. so, ao3’s rich text editor defaults to the “normal” styling. if I paste in the “no spacing” style into ao3, it’ll format into the “normal” styling, and all will be good. but then there’s this: 

this looks like it’s the “normal” styling, but it’s actually the “no spacing” styling, with hitting an extra “enter” or newline between each paragraph. when this gets pasted into the rich text box, the ao3 formatting looks like this:

to me, this is way too spaced out. I remember making this mistake a lot when I was younger, because I used to write using the “no spacing” format (I was imitating print book formatting), I’d paste into ao3 like this and have to spend a bunch of time fixing it. so… maybe don’t write like that in your word processor.  

as an aside, while ao3’s rich text box defaults to the “normal” styling, if you really do want to get that “no spacing” style? hold down the shift key when you press enter. it adds a newline, but without the characteristic space between paragraphs. this also works on google docs, microsoft word, and tumblr, which is what I mostly use it for. 

because sometimes you just don't want... that space between paragraphs, yknow?

speaking of google docs, I don't write on it often because I dislike it, but I do notice that paragraph spacing can just get weird there. my solution to that is to go into the line spacing section, where there’s an option that says: add/remove space before paragraph, and add/remove space after paragraph. I like to just select all of the text (ctrl+a), add a space before and after a paragraph, remove the space before and after, and then add space just after a paragraph. it usually resets any weirdness for me. you don’t need to fiddle with it like that exactly—I’m pretty sure you can just pick the correct options from the start instead of doing my resetting thing, but it makes me feel better lol.

finally, for a line break, I use the line break button that’s nicely provided on the rich text editor that ao3 has. I add a newline both before and after the line break, because I like how the spacing looks. if someone else doesn’t follow this practice, it doesn’t really bother me, but adding indents or going with a “no spacing” format does make it genuinely uncomfortable to read text. 

I mark line breaks in documents with two hyphens, and ctrl+f and replace them with the line break in the ao3 rich text editor. this allows me a nice opportunity to proofread, checking if all the paragraph spacing is, indeed, correct, and since the two hyphens also turn into em dashes in some word processors, ctrl+f-ing my way through that lets me know if I have an unconverted em dash somewhere. back when I started writing fic, I demarcated line breaks by just typing Scene! after each scene and ctrl+f-ing for that, haha. as for how to get a line break in google docs or microsoft word... no idea. on word you can type three hyphens and hit enter to give you a horizontal line, but it won't paste in as a line break into the ao3 rich text editor. on google docs you can hit enter -> horizontal line, but this, too, doesn't properly paste into ao3.

(edit: I used google docs to make my final edits for the first time in forever, so I've found a new issue! I have no idea why this is the case, but when italics are pasted from google docs into ao3, an extra space seems to appear at the end? I have no fix for this... just be vigilant! or make your final edits elsewhere, or start writing in html. the world is vast!)

what else is there to cover… I based my guide off of google docs and microsoft word here, so I’m sure other services have their quirks. the iphone notes app is horrid to me in terms of properly transferring formatting, but it’s never where I do my final edits. I would watch out for what your quotation marks look like, though! depending on how you use em dashes, they may not curl the right way, and if you copy in text from discord, you’ll end up with straight quotation marks instead of the smart curled ones. I avoid this by never copying in text from discord, because I don’t know any easy way to find and replace these.

as for other services, I’ve recently been using ellipsus, which isn’t an app but a website. probably you’ve seen it advertised on tumblr before—it’s google docs-ish, but I can’t speak to its efficacy there, since I’ve never used that function. despite being a website, you can add the site as a shortcut on the homescreen, so it basically acts like an app, and I find its mobile interface way nicer to use than the google docs app, and better to transfer between laptop and mobile than the iphone notes app. it also has an “export to ao3” function, which is to say, it just opens up the interface for posting a work, and copies the text in html format to your clipboard, so you can paste it right into the text editor. I haven’t seen any issues with formatting transfer there. 

finally, for doing some extra things with your texts, consider checking out skins. as someone who doesn’t use them much, I don’t have much guidance to give, but there’s definitely stuff that’ll show up if you google. If you’ve ever thought about trying to do some fancy formatting with fics, like adding colored text or something, look into work skins! 

that’s all I’ve got to say for now. I hope it was… well, interesting to read, at the very least.