A couple of technical questions about the site

[izenrann]

Cross posted from another thread. Apologies if this is the wrong place!

Despite having published 18 stories so far, I'm still quite a newbie to Literotica. I have a couple of questions that I hope the veterans will be able to enlighten me about.

1. Is it possible to make the title space longer? My latest series overflows the amount of characters provided.

2. Is there an editing or formatting tool/app/program that might make editing and submission easier? I typically write in Word and then copy and paste into the submission field, but that screws up the formatting and I have to manually edit it, which is a pain and a half. I tried uploading the story text directly but that was even worse. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

 

[sr71plt]

1. Apparently no, short of a Web site program change. I have no idea what that involves, but I agree that more title space is needed, especially with the Web site format for series titles. What it does requiring is the Web site regearing to expand it, not the users being able to do anything about it.

2. As with all published works, it's the publisher who designs the final format, not the author, and with as all anthologies, which essentially is what the Lit. story file is, there is uniform formatting across the anthology, not formatting individuality by story. Lit. actually doesn't enforce this as strictly as a commercial publisher does/will. So, the way to approach this is to observe the Lit. formatting (e.g., everything flush left, an extra return between paragraphs, distinct section break marks--like * * * *, no fancy bells and whistles in formatting, straight quotes (although the system will change the smart quotes for you), manual setting for italics, while limiting them, and, preferably, no bolding or centering at all, although these can be manually set as well.)

If you are finding that formatting changes in the final posting of what you are sending in, you are probably trying to use formatting that doesn't follow the standard here and the best answer is to find out what the standard is and use it from the get go.

 

[Weird Harold]

1. Is it possible to make the title space longer? My latest series overflows the amount of characters provided.

Nope. Lit has had the same title length limitation since it was founded. It is highly unlikely they'll change now.

2. Is there an editing or formatting tool/app/program that might make editing and submission easier? I typically write in Word and then copy and paste into the submission field, but that screws up the formatting and I have to manually edit it, which is a pain and a half. I tried uploading the story text directly but that was even worse. Any ideas?

Word is a WYSIWYG editor. Lit uses plain text HTML for stories and limits "personalizations" with fonts and formatting.

You need to configure Word (or any other WYSIWYG word processor) to mimic plan text editors like Notepad (which comes with windows even if you have to dig for it) Wordpad is also easier to configure for plain text editing.

Turn on "Show Invisible Characters" and eliminate any tabs and added white space between paragraphs. Make sure that there is only one paragraph break within a paragraph and there are two paragraph breaks between paragraphs where you want them to break. Turn off "Smart Quotes"

Check your story in Notepad before you save as plain text or C&P into the submission form.

If you need Italics, bold, or underline or one of the other few HTML tags Lit allows, you'll need to manually mark up the file or submit as an RTF file.

 

[LadyMireille]

Sadly, no way to change the title length or the story description length (that is where I have the most trouble!) For the title, you just have to do your best and then put the full title inside your story.

I use Word 2016 and upload my stories. I have had no issue with formatting in my stories. I leave it on Times New Roman. All the spacing, skipped lines (for new paragraphs) and italics has uploaded just fine.

For editing, I use Word's meager spelling/grammar check. Then I upload to Grammarly and use their free editing. Besides that, I always edit myself because my wording I always need wordsmithing. I have a few editors/friends who will do a very basic read-through and point out any blatant mistakes or any places where the wording was not clear. I also always do a final read-through. Despite all this effort, every story always had a few errors. :/ However, I have never had my stories rejected for the few minor errors that I missed.

 

[rjordan]

Despite all this effort, every story always had a few errors. :/ However, I have never had my stories rejected for the few minor errors that I missed.

Very true. Many years ago, publishing houses used two people to proofread. One would read the text and the other would follow along looking for errors. They would trade off periodically during a shift to reduce fatigue. No matter how many times we ran manuscript through this sieve, errors would still sneak through. Either they didn't get caught the first time or they were introduced when previous errors were corrected. At some point, you just have to stop looking and publish the damn thing.

Incidentally, one of the publishers I worked for in those days (60's) published erotica. Many times late at night on second shift, the proofreaders had to take a break to cool off. If they had a tight deadline, they made sure never to make eye contact during the process. They just powered through it. It was a different time in many ways than today.

rj

 

[Zeb_Carter]

1. The title length can be increased, it is a simple database command, but the number of tables that have to change might prohibit that happening.

2. I use word and copy & paste without a problem. But you must set up your paragraph as you see below...

You keep typing until you reach the end of a paragraph, then hit return twice.

 

[izenrann]

Thanks for all your help and advice all! Will check accordingly.