Lit & linebreaks

[Blind_Justice]

So far, I thought the submission process using the form field was rather painless, but as my stories get longer and longer, I find myself spending inordinate amounts of time fiddling with line breaks, to avoid lines with only one or two words in them. Would it be easier to send the file instead and have Laurel sort it out? I rather like the ability to make last-minute changes, which isn't possible when submitting an attachment.

Any tricks I could use to make things even easier on me? Normally, I'm hacking my files together in the simple windows edior, no bells and whistles at all. Linebreaks where I want them and stuff. Only problem is, when I'm pasting my work into the Lit submission form, it usually gets hacked apart. One would think it couldn't be more basic than plain text.

Any advice from a seasoned pro? What program are you using? Do you have a format mask or some such especially for Lit submissions? Help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[PennLady]

Added:

Sorry, I think I read too fast. Are you saying you put hard line breaks in, instead of letting the lines just wrap? B/c if so, that's probably why you're getting so many weird breaks when you submit. Your word processor settings are likely different than the box, and the box is just text, so it's going to wrap the lines so they fit, and then you also have the breaks you entered. Does that make sense?

Also, I don't do that. I let the lines just wrap as I type, and only put in hard breaks after paragraphs.


Original post:

Not sure how much help this will be. I've been posting for about three years and honestly, I've never bothered with the formatting as you seem to be. I figure it's not something I have much control over, so it isn't worth a lot of worry.

I use Word 2003, and I cut and paste my submissions into the box. Then I preview the story, but I'm usually checking for things like italics that don't have a closed tag.

And the funny thing is, now that I think about it, that I used to do desktop publishing for a newsletter publisher and we were very conscious of things like this. We would tighten the lines or loosen them as needed to pull one word back a line or push another two or three out. So I'm frequently conscious of formatting and layout. I've gotten annoyed at books because of it. However, I guess b/c I can't control it here, I don't bother with it. Plus I post on multiple sites and they all post stories differently. I'd go nuts trying to make it work.

I suppose you could try setting your word processor settings to mimic your monitor. For example, if you're looking at Lit with approximately 12 pt Arial font, you can duplicate that in your wp, and change the margin settings to go along. But other people use different settings and browsers, so what looks good on your browser may not look good on theirs.

I have to be honest, I don't think it's worth the stress. I've never had (or seen) a reader complain about too many orphaned words, or an widow line on the next screen. I don't think they care.

Also, be careful with those last-minute changes. Any time you preview a story and make changes and re-submit, it sends your story to the back of the queue, which means your posting time could be delayed.

 

[lovecraft68]

So far, I thought the submission process using the form field was rather painless, but as my stories get longer and longer, I find myself spending inordinate amounts of time fiddling with line breaks, to avoid lines with only one or two words in them. Would it be easier to send the file instead and have Laurel sort it out? I rather like the ability to make last-minute changes, which isn't possible when submitting an attachment.

Any tricks I could use to make things even easier on me? Normally, I'm hacking my files together in the simple windows edior, no bells and whistles at all. Linebreaks where I want them and stuff. Only problem is, when I'm pasting my work into the Lit submission form, it usually gets hacked apart. One would think it couldn't be more basic than plain text.

Any advice from a seasoned pro? What program are you using? Do you have a format mask or some such especially for Lit submissions? Help would be greatly appreciated.

I don't know how much this will help, but I use word 2007 and normally write with .06 spacing.

Now I notice if I copy and paste it into the box then hit preview there is no spacing between the paragraphs so when writing a lit story I use .12.

Other wise nothing different than my normal writing.

 

[Blind_Justice]

@PennLady: As I said, I usually use the simple windows text editor with line wrap enabled. The only hard linebreaks (i.e. hitting Enter) I use is when ending paragraphs. The reasoning behind it is the fact when there's no linebreaks, there should be no problem with formatting at all. But somewhere during copying the file into the clipboard and pasting it into the Lit form, it all goes to hell.

Maybe I should start manning up and begin using a "proper" word processor

 

[PennLady]

@PennLady: As I said, I usually use the simple windows text editor with line wrap enabled. The only hard linebreaks (i.e. hitting Enter) I use is when ending paragraphs. The reasoning behind it is the fact when there's no linebreaks, there should be no problem with formatting at all. But somewhere during copying the file into the clipboard and pasting it into the Lit form, it all goes to hell.

Maybe I should start manning up and begin using a "proper" word processor

Sorry if I rambled. I realized I might not have understood the question.

If you're looking for a word processor, you could try Open Office. I don't have much experience with it myself, but it is free and mimics Word (and the whole Office suite) pretty closely. I'm sure there are others out there.

I still wonder if your text editor is putting in hard line returns. When you're finished and save a file, are these text (.txt) files? Or something else, like .rtf or .doc? I ask because as I said, I use Word and save .doc files (or sometimes .rtf) and cut-and-paste with no problems.

 

[Blind_Justice]

No reason to apologize.

Regarding my choice of word processor: I've just finished downloading the latest Open Office suite, and damn, that's pretty overwhelming. But I'll find my way around eventually.

When I'm saving my files, I'm getting .txt files. Viewing them online (when checking mail attachments, for example) I get only a handful of very, very long lines of text, so I'm positive there's no hard line breaks in them apart from those I place manually. But maybe that's the problem - too many characters per line. I'll try writing my next installment using open office and see how it fares.

Sadly, I'm terribly concerned with how the right margin of my story looks, and the huge gap near the end of "Ghost in the machine #4" is annoying the bejeezus out of me. I have no clue how THAT got there - when I checked the submission, it wasn't there.

 

[PennLady]

I just looked at that story you mentioned; you're talking about these lines?

Also, replaying their time together, Cat found this:

"Still afraid?"

I don't know that as a reader I'd notice this as any kind of error. The layout person in me would be thinking that the "Still afraid?" should have been in italics, but then I didn't read the whole story so it could be that quotes are more appropriate. But that's all I'd notice.

I'm not sure what to tell you about the line breaks. I'm no expert on text editors and such. I can tell you what it seems to me is that hard returns are there -- whether you're seeing them or not -- and they do not match with the limits or margins of Lit's submission box. Hence things break incorrectly.

Sorry OpenOffice is so big. Perhaps if you concentrate just on the word processor, it won't seem so bad. Out of the Microsoft Office suite, I pretty much only use Word and Excel, so it doesn't seem too much to me.

Good luck.

 

[Weird Harold]

When I'm saving my files, I'm getting .txt files. Viewing them online (when checking mail attachments, for example) I get only a handful of very, very long lines of text, so I'm positive there's no hard line breaks in them apart from those I place manually. But maybe that's the problem - too many characters per line. I'll try writing my next installment using open office and see how it fares.

Wat you're seeing is the .TXT format Lit looks for -- as long as there is a blank line between paragraphs. (If there isn't a blank line/paragraph Lit can see the whole story as a single block of text.)

However, you're doomed if you obsess about orphan words/lines because Lit uses dynamic formatting -- If you change your screen resolution, (or zoom in/out in newer browsers,) Lit will still wrap the lines at 80% of screen width. There is no possible way to synch your word processor/text editor to Lit's format so that lines will wrap in the same place.

 

[Blind_Justice]

@WH: Thanks, that made an awful lot of sense. Dang

@PennLady: The bit you quoted was actually an intentional line break. A paragraph or so up, between the words "Exhaling slowly", there's a huge gap. And I've found at least two others like that in the story. Maybe I'd better upload an edited version of it in hopes of getting rid of these unwanted gaps

 

[PennLady]

@WH: Thanks, that made an awful lot of sense. Dang

@PennLady: The bit you quoted was actually an intentional line break. A paragraph or so up, between the words "Exhaling slowly", there's a huge gap. And I've found at least two others like that in the story. Maybe I'd better upload an edited version of it in hopes of getting rid of these unwanted gaps

Harold certainly said it better than I did. That was what I was trying to get across.

As for "Exhaling slowly," on my screen it just shows up as a broken paragraph; I mean, a graph with an unintentional break in the middle. I think I noticed it but it didn't bother me.

 

[LordMhoram]

If it helps...

I have from time to time created rather extensive posts for a forum by first creating them in Notepad.

I cannot say for certain that Notepad inserts hard breaks when it wraps a line, but I can tell you that when I paste this text into a forum (or several other text mediums like and email or even OpenOffice) that I have to go through and fix unwanted line breaks.

As PL said, OpenOffice is free. Also it can export to may formats. I'd recommend going in that direction.

 

[TxRad]

Try saving it as MSDOS Txt with line breaks.

I think this might solve a few of the problems.

One thing, before you post it, change the .xxx to .txt.

I don't remember what the original .xxx is but most boxes don't want to play with it, so use the .txt and everyone is happy.

Or you can use MSDOS Txt with formatting but some boxes like it and other don't.

Brought to you by an old geek.

 

[Blind_Justice]

@TxRad: Ah, command line user, welcome to the club

I'll have to deal with this issue until I begin the next installment of my ongoing series. I've tried importing my previous files into OpenOffice and had to manually edit out all the line breaks, which is basically the same thing with the Lit form, only this time I'm doing it in the word processor. So I figured I'll finish posting the stuff I already have and begin writing in OpenOffice once my stuff is used up, to see if it will make any difference. Thankfully, the current pieces are rather short (about two to three Lit pages), so having to manually look for bad line breaks, orphans and shot paragraphs isn't THAT big of a deal.

@PennLady: That's kind of you to say. I'm extremely obsessive about stuff like that though. Maybe a bad case of being both Virgo AND German

Thanks for all the insight and help, everyone. I'll get back to you on this once I've posted my first attempt written in OpenOffice.

 

[sr71plt]

I don't see that there's an issue to "deal with." The publisher determines format design, not the author. And it does so here so the reader is delivered the same look across the collection. Widows and orphans aren't part of the format Lit. uses. Just copy and paste the story with no more than italics being coded for, and you'll fit the presentation style that Lit. has determined for its product.

 

[Blind_Justice]

No reason to jump down my throat here, really. If it were as easy as you're implying, I wouldn't have bothered to open up this thread in the first place. Simply copying and pasting results in a completely messed up format for me, despite what you're saying, both in the form and in the preview. I don't want my story to get rejected for bad formatting, so I have to edit out all shot paragraphs and bad line breaks, and I was merely asking if it was a problem on my end (which it appears to be) and if there's any solution to it (which there is - change programs). So why are you so snarky at me?

 

[PennLady]

@TxRad: Ah, command line user, welcome to the club

I'll have to deal with this issue until I begin the next installment of my ongoing series. I've tried importing my previous files into OpenOffice and had to manually edit out all the line breaks, which is basically the same thing with the Lit form, only this time I'm doing it in the word processor. So I figured I'll finish posting the stuff I already have and begin writing in OpenOffice once my stuff is used up, to see if it will make any difference. Thankfully, the current pieces are rather short (about two to three Lit pages), so having to manually look for bad line breaks, orphans and shot paragraphs isn't THAT big of a deal.

@PennLady: That's kind of you to say. I'm extremely obsessive about stuff like that though. Maybe a bad case of being both Virgo AND German

Thanks for all the insight and help, everyone. I'll get back to you on this once I've posted my first attempt written in OpenOffice.

Not sure if this would work in OO, but in Word, I could do a search and replace for line breaks and paragraph breaks (I do it for work all the time). In Word, you can search for "^p" for a paragraph (hard) break, and "^l" line (soft) break. Not sure if it's the same in OpenOffice.

What I end up doing for my office is searching - for example - for two consecutive paragraph breaks (^p^p) and replacing them with some other string, usually "zzzzz". Then I can search for a single paragraph break (^p) and replace it with a space. Finally I search for the "zzzzz" string and replace again with two hard breaks.

If you could do that in OpenOffice, and I'd bet you can, it would save you a lot of time. Much easier than going line by line.

 

[PennLady]

I don't see that there's an issue to "deal with." The publisher determines format design, not the author. And it does so here so the reader is delivered the same look across the collection. Widows and orphans aren't part of the format Lit. uses. Just copy and paste the story with no more than italics being coded for, and you'll fit the presentation style that Lit. has determined for its product.

I think the issue B_J is referring to is that importing/pasting his stories into OpenOffice results in the same thing as posting into the Lit box, which is hard returns that don't match up with the word wrap in the box. I hope what I suggested in my previous post -- a search and replace -- might help.

 

[Blind_Justice]

@PennLady: I'm fiddling around with OO just now and it seems as if your suggestion is working. Got the advanced view with all formatting characters going, and copy/pasting them seems to work fine.

Also, I've noticed that the problem only persists once I get my files back from my editor. Maybe (and it's a wild guess) he's importing my raw .txt files into his word processor and saves them back as a .txt with hard breaks or whatever. I'll ask him about that asap. The first installments he sent back as .doc, wonder why he stopped doing that

 

[PennLady]

@PennLady: I'm fiddling around with OO just now and it seems as if your suggestion is working. Got the advanced view with all formatting characters going, and copy/pasting them seems to work fine.

Also, I've noticed that the problem only persists once I get my files back from my editor. Maybe (and it's a wild guess) he's importing my raw .txt files into his word processor and saves them back as a .txt with hard breaks or whatever. I'll ask him about that asap. The first installments he sent back as .doc, wonder why he stopped doing that

Maybe he thought you wanted a txt file?

Glad the search and replace is working for you. I'd be lost without it.

 

[Blind_Justice]

Maybe he thought you wanted a txt file?

Glad the search and replace is working for you. I'd be lost without it.

Like a charm. It took me about five minutes to get the latest installment presentable, and posted, a fraction of the time I spent fiddling in Lit's form messing around the text of the installment before that.

Case closed, happy me. Oh, and a huge, friendly hug to you, PennLady

 

[sr71plt]

I think the issue B_J is referring to is that importing/pasting his stories into OpenOffice results in the same thing as posting into the Lit box, which is hard returns that don't match up with the word wrap in the box. I hope what I suggested in my previous post -- a search and replace -- might help.

I see no reason for there to be hard returns other than a paragraph return--or why a paragraph return shouldn't work in any system--or why word wrap is something for an author to worry about at all. *shrug*

I guess I don't understand what the problem is.

 

[PennLady]

Like a charm. It took me about five minutes to get the latest installment presentable, and posted, a fraction of the time I spent fiddling in Lit's form messing around the text of the installment before that.

Case closed, happy me. Oh, and a huge, friendly hug to you, PennLady

Glad it all worked! And thanks.

 

[PennLady]

I see no reason for there to be hard returns other than a paragraph return--or why a paragraph return shouldn't work in any system--or why word wrap is something for an author to worry about at all. *shrug*

I guess I don't understand what the problem is.

It appeared that B_J was using some kind of text editor, like Notepad, that was putting in hard returns at the end of every line, or that perhaps his editor's program was. This resulted in messed up line breaks when he pasted it into the submission box -- the lines would wrap in the box and then there would be a few extra words on the next line, and a hard return and the next line. Then he'd go in and have to take out those hard returns.