I’m noticing an increase in new fic writers on AO3 who…uh…mayy not know how to format their fics correctly..so here is a quick and VERY important tip
Using a random fic of mine as example..
The left example: ✅✅✅
The right example: ❌❌❌
Idk how many times I’ve read a good fic summary and been so excited to read before clicking on it and being met with an ugly wall of text. When I see a huge text brick with zero full line breaks my eyes blur and I just siiiigh bc either I click out immediately or I grin and bear it…it’s insufferable!
If a new character speaks, you need a line break. If you notice a paragraph is becoming too large, go ahead and make a line break and/or maybe reconfigure the paragraph to flow better. I’m not a pro writer or even a huge fic writer but…please…ty…
This is a good thing to keep in mind! It is often and unfortunate that a really good fic doesn’t get love because its formatting makes it too difficult to read!
i’ve seen people say that books look like that though, which might be true, but reading a block of text on a piece of paper is different and a different kind of eye strain that reading the same text on a screen. Especially since AO3 formats based on the screen you read on.
legibility is incredibly important in work, both written and in art or comics. Did you ever notice that comics with extremely text rich speech bubbles are harder to read too?
