Newbie Question on Titles

[retrobob]

In making submissions I have found that the amount of text for titles is restricted to a small number. In trying to use chapters indicators and meaningful titles all the text won't fit in. Just live with it?

 

[PennLady]

In making submissions I have found that the amount of text for titles is restricted to a small number. In trying to use chapters indicators and meaningful titles all the text won't fit in. Just live with it?

I think you'll have to rethink your titles and live with it. Realize that you'll need to save something like seven characters for "_Ch._01" (characters plus spaces indicated by the underscores) and work with what's left. I've never had a problem but I guess my titles don't run that long. My longest to date (I guess) was "Rhythm and the Blue Line." That's ... 24 characters including spaces before I got to the chapter indicator, so I needed 31 total.

What title are you trying to work with? Maybe it's just too long.

 

[emap]

If the title runs overly long you are allowed to shorten it and then put the full title at the start of the story.

 

[retrobob]

what do they see?

What do people see then the shortened title or the longer one in the body of the story?

 

[PennLady]

What do people see then the shortened title or the longer one in the body of the story?

They would see the short title on the stories page and the long title when they clicked to see the story. At least it seems like it would work that way.

 

[emap]

What she said. See the thing is it's possible that the title might end up being cursive since usually if something is not part of the story it's get cursived.

I know it's not a real word shush.

Besides that though that's how it works, and it doesn't always get cursived. laurel is rather hit and miss on that one, though only missed it once for one of my stories so well that's a good average.

 

[oggbashan]

This old How-To by Whispersecret explains the importance of choosing a title.

 

[Brunne]

This old How-To by Whispersecret explains the importance of choosing a title.

Did Laurel seriously write all the descriptions once-upon-a-time? I assume that went the way of the dodo when the story submissions got a little crazy volume-wise?

 

[TxRad]

Did Laurel seriously write all the descriptions once-upon-a-time? I assume that went the way of the dodo when the story submissions got a little crazy volume-wise?

More than likely.

 

[emap]

Some of us are not that good at them.

Heck I don't do the keywords either. I just let them get picked out for me. In my defense it says it does that automatically so I'm not bothering anybody with being a little lazy.

 

[lovecraft68]

I couldn't fit the words CH 02 etc in a title of a 5 part series. So I just did the title and "2"

I noticed when it went up, the site had added the extra characters.

For the third, they left it at "3"

I resubmitted with a note asking if they could fix it and they did.

 

[damppanties]

Did Laurel seriously write all the descriptions once-upon-a-time? I assume that went the way of the dodo when the story submissions got a little crazy volume-wise?

She still does if you leave the field blank (and she's good at it!). I had to do that once when my head went blank about the one line description.

Some of us are not that good at them.

Heck I don't do the keywords either. I just let them get picked out for me. In my defense it says it does that automatically so I'm not bothering anybody with being a little lazy.

This place: http://tags.literotica.com/ shows you some of the tags that are popular / searched for on Lit. The problem with leaving the tags place blank is that the tags are then populated randomly from words in your story. They're not usually words that would be searched or words that describe the main aspects of your story.

 

[emap]

You know oddly enough I still get plenty of readers so maybe I have fans.

 

[damppanties]

You know oddly enough I still get plenty of readers so maybe I have fans.

Then just imagine what would happen if you used tags that were searchable and got more readers to your stories!! You'd probably cause a Lit-stampede and the servers would burn out and die! So I guess it's all good the way it is. Carry on.

 

[emap]

I don't know it's rather tempting to actually put in keywords. I mean it's not like anybody admits to reading my stories. Except Saucyminx, she finally went and read Just a Blowjob finally. Amicus went and read one of them, not that I'm exactly thrilled at that. I have a few more that don't post in the forums.

Otherwise though I am so the dirty little secret. I mean most of my stories are above 5000 views. I don't post stories to the high traffic areas besides one or two.

 

[BONNIEBREA]

There's also the description field. I know a title is a title, but you can use the description field as an erzats continuation of the title. I've only written one story in which the chapters have titles, but the description field came in handy for that purpose.