Hard to ask this without appearing to brag… but has anyone got back-to-back Editor’s Choice tags before?

[FrancesScott]

Both of mine were for short, technical essays: How To… Punctuate Dialogue and How To… Format Stories With HTML. So neither were recognition of my flowing and luminous prose. I had heard that the green Es were once much more common, so can anyone recall an instance of them being awarded for successive publications in the past?

It felt like an honor to get one, I was just curious whether back to back had any precedent.

[no links as a) it’s easy enough to find them if you want and b) I wasn’t focused on self-promotion here, just the question]

 

[StillStunned]

I suspect it reflects Laurel's shift in focus towards the formatting side of writing, rather than the storytelling.

But congratulations anyway. Even if someone has done it before, even a single green E is rare enough to warrant a smug brag, let alone two!

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Did anyone else expect this thread?

 

[FrancesScott]

I suspect it reflects Laurel's shift in focus towards the formatting side of writing, rather than the storytelling.

But congratulations anyway. Even if someone has done it before, even a single green E is rare enough to warrant a smug brag, let alone two!

Thank you! Maybe I should stick with technical writing, which is part of my job, and forget all this creative nonsense.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Laurel seems to most generous with them for how-to articles that, if followed, would make her job a lot easier. Yours definitely fit into that role.

Congratulations!

 

[FrancesScott]

Laurel seems to most generous with them for how-to articles that, if followed, would make her job a lot easier. Yours definitely fit into that role.

Congratulations!

Thank you. I guess I wanted to try to contribute something useful to the community. If that makes Laurel’s job easier, that’s cool as well. It’s nice to have my efforts recognized (though it’s much easier to write essays than stories). I must get back to some actual creative writing at some point.

 

[Nynah]

These were two very helpful essays. I've published here with relatively simple formatting because I've been too scared of it going awry when it's finally posted on the site. But then I see all these other stories that have fun formatting so I get jealous and want to try it myself, so these will be very useful for whenever I finally drag my muse out from whatever rock she's been hiding under and submit another story to the site. Thank you for your work and congrats on the two green Es! And good luck with the writing as well.

 

[FrancesScott]

These were two very helpful essays. I've published here with relatively simple formatting because I've been too scared of it going awry when it's finally posted on the site. But then I see all these other stories that have fun formatting so I get jealous and want to try it myself, so these will be very useful for whenever I finally drag my muse out from whatever rock she's been hiding under and submit another story to the site. Thank you for your work and congrats on the two green Es! And good luck with the writing as well.

That’s very kind of you. Helping other writers was my objective.

 

[SimonDoom]

To answer your question, I doubt it, because they are so rarely awarded.

But it makes perfect sense to me that Laurel did this in the case of your two essays, because you are literally making her job easier and offering obvious value for the site. I don't bother with the HTML stuff, but the dialogue essay was right on the money. If every newbie writer took a few moments to read it, so many problems would be solved.

 

[FrancesScott]

To answer your question, I doubt it, because they are so rarely awarded.

But it makes perfect sense to me that Laurel did this in the case of your two essays, because you are literally making her job easier and offering obvious value for the site. I don't bother with the HTML stuff, but the dialogue essay was right on the money. If every newbie writer took a few moments to read it, so many problems would be solved.

Thanks. Neither took a major investment of time, compared to say a 10,000 word short story. The HTML one was trickier as you have to use &lt;a&gt; to get <a> to render, and keeping track of that took some effort. But if they help even a handful of other authors, I’m happy about that.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

I don't bother with the HTML stuff,

I'd rather it was eliminated so stories were basic text only.

 

[lovecraft68]

Now that you posted this, expect some bombs. E's have always been bullseyes the same way top list stories and contest placing stories are.

 

[Voyeurkenneth]

Thanks @FrancesScott. Appreciate you creating the resource, especially for explaining blockquote. I've recently submitted a story using blockquote for the first time. But, knowing blockquote doesn't render correctly in Preview, I added a way too lengthy Admin Note to Laurel explaining my intended outcome. Wish I had this resource beforehand!

When it comes to blockquote, I think your essay makes clear that it automatically italicizes the text within the tag. I'd added an <em> alongside the <blockquote> to ensure that the text would come out italicized as intended. Turns out that that was unnecessary. I hope I didn't create a "double negative" that undoes the italics, or the indent itself! Unlikely, but we'll see.

Also related to blockquote, I've noticed when I use <p align=""></p>, I think it adds an additional line break below. I've subsequently had to delete that extra line break in the submission box or word processor to get my desired formatting.

^Do you (or anyone) know if blockquote also creates additional line breaks?

 

[PennyThompson]

I'd rather it was eliminated so stories were basic text only.

Personally I wish there were a few MORE formatting options on lit, like properly accessible Heading and List tags. But maybe there's a nostalgic element for some folks for a plain file directory full of raw txt files

 

[FrancesScott]

Now that you posted this, expect some bombs. E's have always been bullseyes the same way top list stories and contest placing stories are.

I don’t really mind. Neither were creative works. And most of my creative writing here is experimental, and so of uneven quality, and not written to get good scores. If these factual essays help a few people, then I’m good. The ratings aren’t a major driver.

 

[TheLobster]

I'd rather it was eliminated so stories were basic text only.

I've been saying that bare Markdown would've been a good compromise, and very surprised a site like this doesn't support it already. It would still allow for necessary literary typography like emphasis of single words or headers, but dispense with the nonsense of alignment and whole italicized paragraphs.

 

[PennyThompson]

but dispense with the nonsense of alignment

Your opinion on alignments of all kinds is well known

 

[TheLobster]

Personally I wish there were a few MORE formatting options on lit, like properly accessible Heading and List tags. But maybe there's a nostalgic element for some folks for a plain file directory full of raw txt files

<hX> and <ul>/<ol> "work" insofar that they are not stripped away in the Preview (same as <blockquote>, btw). It's just the question whether they are styled appropriately on the story page.

 

[TheLobster]

Your opinion on alignments of all kinds is well known

 

[FrancesScott]

Thanks @FrancesScott. Appreciate you creating the resource, especially for explaining blockquote. I've recently submitted a story using blockquote for the first time. But, knowing blockquote doesn't render correctly in Preview, I added a way too lengthy Admin Note to Laurel explaining my intended outcome. Wish I had this resource beforehand!

When it comes to blockquote, I think your essay makes clear that it automatically italicizes the text within the tag. I'd added an <em> alongside the <blockquote> to ensure that the text would come out italicized as intended. Turns out that that was unnecessary. I hope I didn't create a "double negative" that undoes the italics, or the indent itself! Unlikely, but we'll see.

Also related to blockquote, I've noticed when I use <p align=""></p>, I think it adds an additional line break below. I've subsequently had to delete that extra line break in the submission box or word processor to get my desired formatting.

^Do you (or anyone) know if blockquote also creates additional line breaks?

Based on my lengthy experience of <blockquote> here… aka one usage in one essay. It seems to italicize (as you mention) and to throw an extra line break before it.

<p>…</p> throws an extra line after it. So I always start the next paragraph on the next line. So:

<p>…</p>
Blah, blah, blah…

And not

<p>…</p>

Blah, blah, blah…

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

I am aligned with the unaligned.


Or is that malaligned?

 

[8letters]

Both of mine were for short, technical essays: How To… Punctuate Dialogue and How To… Format Stories With HTML. So neither were recognition of my flowing and luminous prose. I had heard that the green Es were once much more common, so can anyone recall an instance of them being awarded for successive publications in the past?

It felt like an honor to get one, I was just curious whether back to back had any precedent.

[no links as a) it’s easy enough to find them if you want and b) I wasn’t focused on self-promotion here, just the question]

Your "How To...Format Stories With HTML" was good. I didn't know about the emdash.

Two minor points:
1. You talked about tagging each paragraph. From what I've seen, the only time you lose the emphasis in the second paragraph is when Literotica puts a page break between the two paragraphs. As the previewer presents your story as one long page, you'll never catch there that you've lost the emphasis on the second page. So, if you put several paragraphs with italics at the start of your story, you should be okay not having <i> and </i> around each
2. This is getting into the weeds, but Literotica uses a program that strips out HTML and such from stories. I've seen inconsistent results with it over time. It used to let emdashes go by, but I've seen it convert emdashes into two dashes. Sometimes it does funky things.

For example:

I thought of an old joke, smiled, and then sang:<br><blockquote><i>I’m looking over<br>A four-loaf cleaver<br>That I overlooked before!</i></blockquote><br>I glanced at Sinead and she looked dumbfounded.

got translated to:

<p>I thought of an old joke, smiled, and then sang:<br></p>
<blockquote>
<i>I'm looking over<br>A four-loaf cleaver<br>That I overlooked before!</i>
</blockquote>
<br>I glanced at Sinead and she looked dumbfounded.
<p></p>

 

[mrs_mackenzie]

Both of mine were for short, technical essays: How To… Punctuate Dialogue and How To… Format Stories With HTML. So neither were recognition of my flowing and luminous prose. I had heard that the green Es were once much more common, so can anyone recall an instance of them being awarded for successive publications in the past?

It felt like an honor to get one, I was just curious whether back to back had any precedent.

[no links as a) it’s easy enough to find them if you want and b) I wasn’t focused on self-promotion here, just the question]

Having a bookmarked reference for formatting is great, so thank you for putting that together.

The only thing missing (if this is even in the same area) for me is getting emojis to display in stories. As much as they're divisive, it can be done on Lit so it's nice to know how.
(Unless we're keeping it secret so people can't write entire stories made only of emojis. Which might make for an interesting authors' challenge...?)

 

[TheLobster]

Based on my lengthy experience of <blockquote> here… aka one usage in one essay. It seems to italicize (as you mention) and to throw an extra line break before it.

It's actually a margin, not line break. Here's how <blockquote> is styled story-side:



The "margin-top" is the relevant bit, specified to be three character heights. Unfortunately this means you cannot avoid that extra space; even you do this:

As Einstein said:<blockquote>Don't trust everything you read on the internet</blockquote>

you'll still get that extra spacing

 

[TheLobster]

The only thing missing (if this is even in the same area) for me is getting emojis to display in stories. As much as they're divisive, it can be done on Lit so it's nice to know how.

You can use popular Unicode characters just fine, emoji included. I've seen people do all sorts of things with trefoils or fleur-de-lys in dinkuses, arrow symbols in chat transcripts, and I did include Greek symbols in one story myself.