Formatting Help

[Ass-Crumb]

I've been noticing alot of people have been posting threads and stories with poor formatting for the bbs- it's not your fault, the BBS just isn't a word processor. These are General Formatting Tips to make your writing efforts more readable and approachable.

First things first:

- 1. Grammar and Spelling

This should mostly go without saying, and it's been said already so I'll make this one brief: Have passable grammar. Don't Capitalise The First Letter Of Every Word Like This, don't use contractions like 'u' in lieu of 'you', spell everything as best you can, etc. Just write it as neat as you can. A mistake is one thing, but several generally shows a lack of caring for your own work, which is pretty gay, guys. Don't do it.

- 2. Word Processing

This is probably a spot where alot of people go wrong, but word processors like Microsoft word and OneNote generally do alot of editing for you, such as double spacing, indenting, etc. I'd say the best way to get the formatting 100% correct is to do it in the post box or in a program like Notepad that has no frills text editing.

There's no problem with Word, OneNote, or whatever you use, it just doesn't show on the forums very well, which means it could end up looking like a huge, unnapproachable wall of text that's hard to read and easy to lose your place in. Brings me to my next tip.

3. Manual Editing- Do it.

It's easy to just copy and paste something from MS word, but as I've already said numerous times it looks like shit and can make it hard to read. That being said, here's a bunch of shit you really need to edit around:

---Indents: The bbs doesn't use indents. Alot of English classes teach you to use indents and single returns between paragraphs, but sadly the bbs doesn't use them. In place, to seperate paragraphs you should use double return. All that means is that you should press enter twice in order to put a blank line in front of paragraphs, as opposed to having them all become a chunk.

---Fonts, typefaces, and stylings: In order to do these, you actually have to write them out in whatever you're using for word processing. This means that if you copy and paste something in italics from MS Word or notepad it will end up plain here- in order to avoid this you have to write out [em][/em] (replace the square [ ] brackets with angled < > brackets) in the original document for it to translate to the BBS. It's a hassle, but if you want your work to look good then you should use it. If you aren't using any special stylings like this you can largely ignore this however.

---Don't let your paragraphs get too big. If they do, even double spacing and all that won't help it from looking bad. My suggestion is to keep your paragraphs down to 3-5 sentences on average or so. Also if they get too big it could be a sign you're using run ons or that you need to revise and slim out filler anyways.

---Revise. I'm not going to go into detail about this, but revising helps the story all-around in general. Remove needless sentences and words, edit out errors, and try and make it look as perfect as possible.

That been said, apply these tips to your work, or not. All I have to say is that I'm not trying to be an arrogant prick here, alot of the feedback so far on several threads has been more along the lines of "You need to seperate your paragraphs," "Improve your grammar," and several other complaints along those lines and I'd like to see those qualms minimalized and replaced with actual help and not just things that shouldn't have to be said.

Peace and love, Ass-Crumb

(Feel free to add your own tips and guidelines for formatting here, too)