Breaks in prose

[TheLobster]

I recently read a story here where the writer used,

xxx

Rather than the traditional three asterisk dinkus. I liked it.

Perfectly fitting for an XXX story.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

However, in my recent stories, I have managed to convey such changes through the text alone.

In my experience, there are very few authors here capable of doing this. I'll be reading along in a story and suddenly wonder if my cursor jumped to a new spot on the page. Readers notice when the structure shifts unexpectedly, and even subtle layout choices (like *** vs. blank space for a scene break) impact readability.

The main thing is to be consistent. Scene setting and time period changes are the most common points for breaks within a chapter. I view them as commercial breaks in an episode, with each chapter being a different episode.

 

[onehitwanda]

I like to choose asterisms or other symbols that have some thematic relevance to the story. For "Death and the Maiden" I chose a florette to mirror the Celandine blossoms that the protagonist mentions several times. For "Lost girl" I chose crescent moons, and for "Damselfly" I made a little biplane and its propellor. I enjoy typography and decorative text, I love ornate script, and so I like to decorate what I write as if it were cake.

 

[TheLobster]

I use:

<div align="center"><hr width="20%"></div>

Which doesn’t render here properly.

Lit renders paragraphs as <p> tags, so you can use a standalone <p> tag (not <div>) if you want to apply indentation.

Not sure about about the 'width' attribute on <hr>; it's an ancient deprecated HTML incantation that has long since been superseded by CSS, so it may not render well in modern browsers.

 

[TheLobster]

How did you create those and add them to your Lit story? They're beautiful.

You can use non-ASCII, Unicode characters in story text, including emoji. I believe they are mostly processed verbatim by Lit and displayed to readers as-is, so their rendering depends on reader's device and browser. (I.e., don't use Apple-specific emoji because they won't render well on Android phones, and vice versa).

 

[onehitwanda]

How did you create those and add them to your Lit story? They're beautiful.

Thanks I go looking for unicode tables and then for the extended symbol sets, then copy + paste those into my editor (Lyx) and then copy + paste into the Lit story box. Most render fine, though it's a bit more hit and miss on mobile I find.

The final trick is simply to surround them with a <center></center> block.

 

[StillStunned]

I like to choose asterisms or other symbols that have some thematic relevance to the story. For "Death and the Maiden" I chose a florette to mirror the Celandine blossoms that the protagonist mentions several times. For "Lost girl" I chose crescent moons, and for "Damselfly" I made a little biplane and its propellor. I enjoy typography and decorative text, I love ornate script, and so I like to decorate what I write as if it were cake.

Dammit, you prove once again that you're in a different class. We're mucking around with POV and categories, and you're doing this.

 

[onehitwanda]

Dammit, you prove once again that you're in a different class. We're mucking around with POV and categories, and you're doing this.

I'm a magpie who likes her things to be pretty.

 

[FrancesScott]

Lit renders paragraphs as <p> tags, so you can use a standalone <p> tag (not <div>) if you want to apply indentation.

Not sure about about the 'width' attribute on <hr>; it's an ancient deprecated HTML incantation that has long since been superseded by CSS, so it may not render well in modern browsers.

Lots of deprecated stuff still works here.

<div align="center"><hr width="20%"></div>

renders correctly in stories,

<p align="center"><hr width="20%"></p>

doesn’t, you get a 100% rule.

I agree CSS has superseeded all of this. Figuring out what works here is like a paleontological dig.

 

[onehitwanda]

Remember too that the preview screen and the published document may differ. I put a lot of work into formatting the "online" sections of "Chiaroscuro and Catgirls" only for the publishing engine to murder my careful layout.

 

[FrancesScott]

Remember too that the preview screen and the published document may differ. I put a lot of work into formatting the "online" sections of "Chiaroscuro and Catgirls" only for the publishing engine to murder my careful layout.

Yeah - it’s horrible when that happens. The preview is much more forgiving of tags spanning multiple paragraphs, the published story not so much.

<em>Xyz.

Abc</em>

Renders as:

Xyz.

Abc.

In preview, but as:

Xyz.

Abc.

In the actual story.

You need to write:

<em>Xyz.</em>

<em>Abc</em>

 

[onehitwanda]

Yeah - it’s horrible when that happens. The preview is much more forgiving of tags spanning multiple paragraphs, the published story not so much.

<em>Xyz.

Abc</em>

Renders as:

Xyz.

Abc.

In preview, but as:

Xyz.

Abc.

In the actual story.

You need to write:

<em>Xyz.</em>

<em>Abc</em>

Yeah. I was too bitter to go back and fix it.