#formatting tips

Reason number one: because moving text from one format to another often disappears your hard returns, so your scene break is just gone. It's easy to find and replace a symbol with whatever you need for a scene break in the new format, but if you can do that with a couple hard returns, I don't know how.

Reason number two: screen readers normally do not pause extra for a blank space. Readers using them will not be aware a scene break has taken place, because the voice will go directly from the end of one line to the beginning of the next.

If this is a problem you come up against, know that I struggled to find any quick or comprehensive guides to fix it for a long time, but got fed up with hand-removing all those second paragraphs before posting shit.

The way I write these days is usually having the full doc online, so I can write and edit from desktop or my phone, depending on where I am. I tend to do a lot of writing on my phone, which has terrible consequences because my phone's keyboard and auto-correct do random capitalisation and shit I really hate. (It IS possible to set your google doc to not do double spacing but I find if you don't do it from the start before writing, it will default to double anyway, it sucks ass).

So Before I post a chapter to AO3, I copy the whole thing out to MS word processor to fix and spellcheck and whatnot. So if you have a program that works the same as MS WP, this should also work for you.

TWO SIMPLE STEPS:

1.) Once your chapter is pasted, go to Editor > Find and replace. Type in the In the FIND line: ^p^p Type in the REPLACE line: ^p Hit REPLACE ALL.

This should fix all your double paragraphs. If it doesn't, the WP you are using may have a different shorthand for paragraphs (^p) you should be able to look it up and do the same thing with the other symbol

2.) Highlight your entire text and go to 'Line & Paragraph spacing'. Select 'Line Spacing options'. In the dialogue box, you should be on the tab 'Indents and Spacing'. Go down to 'Spacing', select Single as your line space option, and then in the after or before box (I usually just do after) put in the font size you want for your spacing. I usually go with 7. Then hit OK.

I have noticed something weird going on when viewing posts in tumblr's mobile dark-mode. From experimenting on my own posts, it seems that unwanted formatting is carried over when copying and pasting from an external source (such as Google docs). It will look something like this in mobile dark mode, where regular text remains black and formatted text (such as itallics) becomes white:

Unfortunately, copying and pasting without formatting doesn't seem to be a quick fix since tumblr will treat this as one block of text (and it will likely exceed their 4,096 character limit per block).

So if you create content and want to make that content accessible to dark mode users, this is something you'll need to keep an eye out for. It goes without saying that if people can't read your content, it will impact your engagement.

If you want to avoid this happening with your posts, there are a few things you can look out for. If you switch the to the HTML editor for your post, you can usually find a tag that looks something like this: < span style = " color : # 000000 " >. This is carried over text formatting, and deleting any tags like this should solve the problem. Here's a short little tutorial on how to do this.

If you are posting something that's really long, like a story, then I would recommend translating your text into HTML and pasting it directly into the HTML Editor that I accessed in the video above. AO3 put together a beautiful Google Doc here that runs a script to convert all of your text into HTML. The instructions tell you exactly what to do, and since tumblr has made this change it has been life saving. You can find more about this doc and other neat tools from the @ao3org tumblr here.

When writing a long, more serialized story on ao3, how do you prefer for things to be broken up?

Each distinct arc is its own fic? It’s all one fic all the time that keeps being built onto? Certain more similar arcs are grouped into fics but after a big change it’s a new one? Or maybe each similar arc is a fic in a series, with the entire story also being part of a bigger one? Or something else entirely because seeing things in 2 series could be discouraging or less likely to be picked up.

Hello, hello!  Another Tip Tuesday coming at you!  Today I decided to tackle some of the common pet peeves of readers of fanfiction.  I am not saying that you can’t do these things but if you are finding that you are not getting the reaction you want, perhaps take a look at these things.

1. Big blocks of text.  This is probably the biggest pet peeve I have heard and it is one of mine as well.  PLEASE PLEASE break your writing up into paragraphs.  If someone new starts talking, start a new paragraph.  It is extremely difficult to read and figure out who is talking.  The readers don’t want to have to go back and decipher who is speaking.

2. Glaring grammatical errors.  Readers often forgive spelling errors.  For one, we realize that many writers are writing in a language that may not be their first or even second.  But grammatical errors seem to draw some ire.  In other words, this is not the time to get cutesy with commas and periods.  There are some pretty universal rules regarding punctuation, when ignored, can confuse and irritate the reader.  PRO TIP: IF YOU ARE GOING TO USE UNUSUAL PUNCTUATION, PUT IT IN AN AUTHOR’S NOTE AT THE TOP!

3. Missing or incomplete Trigger Warnings.  You need to warn your readers of things that are triggering in your stories.  That goes beyond smut or violence.  Unhealthy relationships, mentions of miscarriage, rape, loss of virginity, language.  These are the kind of things you need to warn about as well.  Just because you aren’t affected by it, that doesn’t mean others aren't.  When in doubt, warn.

4.  Author notes that downtalk your story.  We have all read them and many of us have written them.  Hey, I wrote this drunk at 5 a.m. with my eyes closed.  It’s is unread, unbetaed, and unreadable.  I know it sucks, but enjoy!  Wow!  I don’t know about you but I am really not going to read that.  I am not saying you have to be all humble brag on your stories but completely tearing it down before anyone even has a chance to read it is not selling anyone on the story.  PRO TIP: YES YOU CAN TELL THE READERS THE STORY WAS UNEDITED OR NOT BETAED BUT DON’T TEAR YOUR STORY APART IN THE PROCESS!

5. Writing without regard for physics, anatomy, etc. without proper explanation. There are certain things that just are.  And when you write against those things, it is going to throw your reader off.  In the case of smut,  bodies only bend certain ways.  Readers can suspend a lot of reality for a story but at some point they are going to click away.  If there is a reason to not follow the laws of physics, etc.  make sure that is explained in your story.  

A book cover is the first thing readers see when browsing for books, and it is often the deciding factor in whether or not they pick up the book to read it. A well-designed cover helps attract readers and makes a great first impression. Like clothing, cover styles constantly change, so take the time to research what’s popular in your genre before creating one. Here are a few things to consider…

Formatting Tips for Your Manuscript: First Line Indents and Double Spacing

So, last summer I received feedback on my manuscript, Footfall, from a published author. It was great feedback, very helpful. But one of the items of feedback that caught me off guard the most had nothing to do with the content of my story, but instead how it was formatted.

At first, this raised my hackles. I wasn’t about to submit to an agent, I just wanted feedback on my story. Why did…