Author’s note and italics

[DrHappy]

I’m about to submit my first story. It’s over 30,000 words, and I was considering including an “author’s note” to act as an extension of the short description to give potential readers a heads up on what to expect. It would be like the writing you see on the inside book cover to encourage interest in buying the book.

If I submit my story as an RTF and I format the Author’s Note in italics, will it automatically show up in the story this way? I’ve seen this in other stories, and I was wondering how they made this happen.

 

[ElectricBlue]

You could use html to be sure: <i>author's note</i>.

But - be aware that html coding does not work on all devices, and can go wrong if you cock it up.

It's easier to use plain text and break it from the story text using something like this:

* * * *

(Which is what I use for breaks within the text).

A suggestion though - be careful with the use of Author's Notes at the beginning of stories - they can come across as pretentious, defensive, unnecessary, self-indulgent; a sure fire way of drawing attention to something you don't actually want to draw attention to. As a general rule, they're not really needed, unless you have some extreme content that might be pushing category boundaries.

I'd suggest trawling through some old AH threads on the subject, so you get a feel for the pros and cons.

The most recent thread:

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1505615

 

[Hypoxia]

I submit raw texts with HTML tags, not RTFs or PDFs though those are allowed. They take Laurel a little more time to process and I have other quibbles. With tags, I can read the preview and see exactly where I screwed up. The only allowed tags are <i>italics</i>, <u>underline</u>, <b>bold</b>, and sometimes <blockquote>indent</blockquote>.

Be aware that many LIT readers use the Android app on phones or tablets, which supports no HTML tags or other font changes. (Mine doen't , anyway.) It's safest to assume that folks won't see any fancy formatting. I may place a short Author's Note up front, and maybe a longer epilog, separated by a line of dashes, pluses, or equals. I hope they don't intrude too much.

 

[DrHappy]

Electricblue66 and Hypoxia,

Thanks for the info. If I do anything, I’ll keep it simple.

 

[8letters]

I submit raw texts with HTML tags, not RTFs or PDFs though those are allowed. They take Laurel a little more time to process and I have other quibbles. With tags, I can read the preview and see exactly where I screwed up. The only allowed tags are <i>italics<\i>, <u>underline</u>, <b>bold</b>, and sometimes <blockquote>indent{/blockquote>.

You left out the very useful <br>.

Be aware that many LIT readers use the Android app on phones or tablets, which supports no HTML tags or other font changes. (Mine doen't , anyway.) It's safest to assume that folks won't see any fancy formatting.

And LItE readers who do use the Android app are aware that they don't see the effects of HTML tags and try to guess where they are used.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Electricblue66 and Hypoxia,

Thanks for the info. If I do anything, I’ll keep it simple.

Simple works. Remember Guttenberg .

 

[Hypoxia]

Simple works. Remember Guttenberg .

I don't think Homer, Pliny, or St Hildegard used italics. Bolds, maybe.

 

[Bramblethorn]

And LItE readers who do use the Android app are aware that they don't see the effects of HTML tags and try to guess where they are used.

And if they don't, well... that's sad for them, but I'm not going to eschew standard typesetting options just because of a bug in the app.

I don't think Homer, Pliny, or St Hildegard used italics. Bolds, maybe.

Pliny also didn't use spaces between words, and died by sailing his ship towards an erupting volcano, so maybe don't take advice from that guy.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Pliny also didn't use spaces between words, and died by sailing his ship towards an erupting volcano, so maybe don't take advice from that guy.

And Leonardo wrote from right to left, so maybe he's not real flash, either. Clever people are so unreliable .

 

[Grillytilly]

As a reader I take an author's note at the front of a work at face value. I don't read anything extra into it and often times it gives me a chance to hear something closer to the author's own public voice instead of the various voices they use in a work.

As a writer I use an author's note at the beginning of a work for a number of reasons.

1: to avoid bait and switch - If readers come expecting a fun romp but I've delivered a moody depressing character study I like to give people a heads up on that.

2: Explain my impetus for creating the story and what my inspiration was - Like anyone who has investigated Kimba Jungle Emperor and how Disney stole the Lion King can probably tell you, if Disney would have just acknowledged they took some inspiration it would avoided all this bad blood.

3: Legal notices to explain that I am not a lawyer and not to rely on my words for legal advice. Amazingly enough in real life I was almost dragged into a court case because some idiot read a fictional novel of mine and then thought that was actually how the law worked. NOT fun.

4: To mange expectations. A lot of stories on Lit kind of get right to the point and skip over a lot of the introductions and other adventure besides fucking that characters can get into. I did some comparisons and it turns out that my stories usually have far fewer words dedicated to actual sex scenes than most other stories on Lit so I like to give readers a heads up that there isn't going to be as much sex as they are used to.

5: To thank people for reading.

6: To clearly tell everyone who will listen at the top of my lungs that I myself wrote my stories and no one else but me. So if a story sucks you can blame me and if a story is good then you can thank me but in either case you can ABSOLUTELY NOT, I repeat NOT, even suggest to me that I am not the one who wrote my stories. I'm really sensitive about it. I work hard on my stories and there are some that I punch away at for well over a year before I've finally come to a point where I can wrap things up and I think I've cleaned out all the typos. It's really time consuming. The stories I write just for myself I just allow to continue and grow forever and ever and I never go back to find typos but I know that if I want to post on Lit then I have to do better than that and I put in the work.

7: Sometimes I just like making a joke at the beginning of a story. Why not? Life is short. Well it is for me but I'm sure all of you will live to be ... cough ... cough ... fade to black