How to format a story for posting - a few questions.

[whirlwind]

This may seem like a silly question, but when posting a story to the lit site,
what is the expected number of characters per line.

The reason that I ask, is that in the past I have formatted items at one page
width, and then found that they have been reformatted at a narrower page
width. The result of this is the 'overspill' text gets put on it's own seperate
line. This looks silly, as this text is typically only one or two words.

Did see an item on the boards about text spilling into the blue area of the page,
but it did not give a suggested maximum line length.

Do the submission scrips sort this out or not?.

Just don't want to look silly when I post my first story!.

On the subject of looking silly, spent ages trying to find the search
function. Finally logged in to post a question about it, only to find
that it then appeared on the menu bar!!.

One other question about posting - is there a guide expanding on what types
of stories are most appropriate for each catagory. I have several ideas, but am
not certain as to what catagories they would be best posted under.

Regards, Whirlwind

 

[only_more_so]

I've never had a problem with this because I used automated word wrapping when I write a story, and Lit uses the same thing. The only time you get text bleeding over into the blue area is if you have a very long continuous block of text like, "UUUUUUUNNNNNNnngnNNGGGGNNNHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!" which isn't very good writing anyway. You can also get that if you use excessive numbers of characters when you insert a section break, ie. "+++++++++++++++++" except many more.

The only time I would use manual line breaks is if it is important to the story, such as in poetry.

As for which category to post a story, I have never really found a great guide, but certain categories seem to trump other categories. Like if a story has any incest it is generally placed in incest, even if it has anal and loving wives, etc. Non-consent also seems to trump many categories.

If you are still confused when it is time to post your story, ask again, perhaps with a brief synopsis of the story. You might even get someone to volunteer to read it over and help you decide. Although, I've heard that on occasion the editors will move a story to a different category (mostly due to the above trumping rules, as I understand it).

 

[whirlwind]

Thanks only_more_so that explains it.

Thought I better get this right at the start as I did not want to write a story and then have to change the formatting at a later date, as this would be a pain and really boring to do!.

Well, as auto word wrapping is required, then obviously Edit will be of no use, so it looks like I will be using Beaver 0.2.7 instead to do my writing!.

The use of auto word wrapping would also explain why only a long unbroken string of characters causes text to spill over into the blue area. This being due to the inability of the automated word wrapper to find a suitable position to wrap the line.

Thanks for your helpfull comments on the catagories. I thought that I had seen a link to such a guide. It was my intention to click on it after checking another link, but then I could not find it. I suspect that this happens to most people - if only occasionally!.

Many thanks for your very rapid reply.

Regards, Whirlwind.

P.S. Sorry for the delay in replying, but my modem dropped out and I had to reboot!.