Formatting Literotica Story Submissions

[Otto26]

The site formatting rules can be found here: https://literotica.com/faq/publishing/publishing-text-formatting

How do you make those work to make your story look as good as possible? Links to examples?

 

[Priscilla_June]

Honestly I have had a hell of a time with formatting. Typically however it gets published ignores all the html tags I placed. And yes, I did explain my html tags in the submission notes and even that doesnt work.

 

[Voboy]

I don't worry about it overmuch. I just type, then submit as a docx.

The only thing bad is that the site occasionally creates a final "page" that consists of like 2-10 lines of print. That's annoying, but short of counting all your words and going deliberately short I can't think of a fix for that. And, honestly, it doesn't affect views, votes, or comments, so there's no point in worrying about it.

If you write compelling characters your readers care about, that'll trump any and every formatting concern.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The site formatting rules can be found here: https://literotica.com/faq/publishing/publishing-text-formatting

How do you make those work to make your story look as good as possible? Links to examples?

The site runs a common type-face and publishing style. Your options are limited to italics, bold, and one or two other features. Not many. You get no say in the overall presentation, which is left margin, no indents, right ragged.

The best option, I think, is to keep your text simple, uncomplicated - that is, don't try to change the house style. It looks best without any bells and whistles. Concentrate on what your words say, not what they look like.

Think in terms of a digital screen display, not a printed book. They're different media.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

In addition < b r > (not spaced out) gives a single line break.

Other ones which I'm told work (not personally verified) are < small > and < sub > and
< kbd > which shows as typewriter font.

The italics, bold, center and such need to be at the beginning and end of each paragraph, otherwise the formatting gets dropped.

Actually, Laurel has said she prefers < strong > < / strong > in place of < b > < / b > and < em > < / em > in place of < i > < / i >. (WRT the latter, please don't anybody go pedantic on me and say they're different. I know they look the same here; I'm just passing it on.)

As well, each format you enter needs to 'leave' in the same order. For instance:
< i > < b > text < /b > < / i > will work, but
< i > < b > text < /i > < / b > will not.

One can right-justify using < p align = " right " > text < / p >. Note that the / P will undo the lot.

Good luck.

 

[KeithD]

The site formatting rules can be found here: https://literotica.com/faq/publishing/publishing-text-formatting

How do you make those work to make your story look as good as possible? Links to examples?

Literotica is a running anthology. Anthologies have uniform formatting to normalize the reader's read. So, to make your story look as good as possible format it within the guidelines and limits of all of the other stories here.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I'm not big on fancy formatting but sometimes I make the chapter headers look nice with a (hr/) or a centered italic #/title.

However I did get a little funky with my latest, using some special characters and some left and right justifying for the chapter breaks. It really works for the theme.

If you wanna look: https://literotica.com/s/playing-with-fire-41

 

[Otto26]

I'm not big on fancy formatting but sometimes I make the chapter headers look nice with a (hr/) or a centered italic #/title.

However I did get a little funky with my latest, using some special characters and some left and right justifying for the chapter breaks. It really works for the theme.

If you wanna look: https://literotica.com/s/playing-with-fire-41

I see what you mean about the headers matching the theme.

I'm not looking at making a story visually distinctive through the use of esoteric or non-standard formatting. I'm looking at how, within the guidelines and limits of the site, authors break up sections, format dialog, and so on.

 

[KeithD]

I see what you mean about the headers matching the theme.

I'm not looking at making a story visually distinctive through the use of esoteric or non-standard formatting. I'm looking at how, within the guidelines and limits of the site, authors break up sections, format dialog, and so on.

I break up sections with: extra return/* * * */extra return. That seems pretty standard.

Not sure what you mean by formatting dialogue. This Web site is American style, so it's best to use double quotes at the first level, with terminal punctuation within the quotes, and single quotes at the next level (a quote within a quote). Usually separate quoted material of dialogue by separate speaker in separate paragraphs.

What else do you need to know about this site's general treatment of dialogue?

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I see what you mean about the headers matching the theme.

I'm not looking at making a story visually distinctive through the use of esoteric or non-standard formatting. I'm looking at how, within the guidelines and limits of the site, authors break up sections, format dialog, and so on.

Other than that, I will use italics for emphasis in dialogue, stressed words.

"I will never ever eat at that restaurant again!" she said.

If someone sings a song lyric or something, I will usually italicize it. If someone recites a poem I might center it.

Other than that, I don't care for fancy formatting. I think it's distracting. I've done a lot of roleplay writing on a number of forum sites over the years and I've seen people get way too carried away with text formatting, funky colors, illegible fonts, wallpapered backdrops, even put their copy into little scroll boxes with blood spatter graphics etc. They put more effort into their presentation than they do into their prose and I find annoying as all fuck!

Just write. If your writing is good, it will stand up well without any fancy presentation.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

There's no reason to get crazy with formating, keep it simple and what's told do all the impressing, or annoying.

 

[dmallord]

K.I.S.S [Keep It Simple, Silly]

The above are good examples of just about everything Lit accepts from a submission. On rare occasions, you might submit a story with some off-the-list coding and beg Laurel to publish it because it is so extra special.

Looking for a simple example? This story uses white space, centering, italics, bold, and a line to indicate the passage of time or a shift in thoughts. Not mentioned above, Lit stories do take emojis, I have found. The heart in the story below is one such example.

Note: Lit doesn't handle the kerning of text. If you have an italic word in the middle of a sentence, just add two extra spaces after the word so that when it publishes, it looks 'right.'

Grammie's Secret Letters [Paternal twin sex]
Paternal Twins Discover Erotic Love Letters.
06/11/2024 in Letters & Transcripts Stories

HOT 1 932 views 4.67/21 rating 2 comments

 

[TheLobster]

Note: Lit doesn't handle the kerning of text. If you have an italic word in the middle of a sentence, just add two extra spaces after the word so that when it publishes, it looks 'right.'

Now that’s a funny example of a placebo effect. In reality, multiple regular spaces in HTML are by default collapsed into one for display (and custom CSS doesn’t work here so you can’t change that default).

 

[dmallord]

Now that’s a funny example of a placebo effect. In reality, multiple regular spaces in HTML are by default collapsed into one for display (and custom CSS doesn’t work here so you can’t change that default).

Hey Lobster, what's funny is that I read this twice. I didn't understand it the first time, and why I thought I would the second time is beyond me as I chuckle about it.

I think you are telling me that if I put in two spaces instead of one after the italic word, some code removes the extra space, so it shouldn't have any effect. But in my Lit stories, it does. It provides the appropriate look for a space. They were 'mushed' when I posted them with a single space after the italic word. I could have this all wrong in my oldtimer's concept of whatever CSS is [that's not really in my wheelhouse of concepts ]

Anyway, I'm going to take my meds now and order some of those placebos to see if they improve my computer code knowledge. It can't but help since I have little to none to begin with.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

italicswith no space
italics with one space
italics with two spaces
italics with five spaces

html displays this way since the internet began. Quote this for proof.

 

[TheLobster]

italicswith no space
italics with one space
italics with two spaces
italics with five spaces

html displays this way since the internet began. Quote this for proof.

Yup, that's what I meant. I double-checked to make sure I'm not saying nonsense but no: there are no fancy styling going on Literotica story pages that'd preserve runs of whitespace. It all gets collapsed to a single space every time.

Perhaps you can use the <pre> tag to disable this behavior but I don't know if it won't get stripped. Custom CSS such as <p style="whitespace: pre-wrap"> is almost certainly stripped away, since otherwise you could mess up the page layout completely.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Yup, that's what I meant. I double-checked to make sure I'm not saying nonsense but no: there are no fancy styling going on Literotica story pages that'd preserve runs of whitespace. It all gets collapsed to a single space every time.

Perhaps you can use the <pre> tag to disable this behavior but I don't know if it won't get stripped. Custom CSS such as <p style="whitespace: pre-wrap"> is almost certainly stripped away, since otherwise you could mess up the page layout completely.

<kbd> might work. Not sure.

 

[TheLobster]

<kbd> might work. Not sure.

<kbd> only styles the text to look like keyboard input (monospace font by default). It doesn't affect how whitespace is interpreted.

I tested it by fiddling with the DOM on one of my stories where I used it for chat messages and the extra spaces get collapsed still.

 

[Nightwaves]

Glad I found this thread and referred (as I should have previously) to the formatting rules. I use italics to indicate a character's internal dialogue and, of course, those italics disappear when the work is posted. Time for me to get to work and resubmit some stories!