What formatting is preserved when submitting a story?

[GentlesirJellyfish]

I was wondering if anyone could tell me what specific formatting is kept when a story is uploaded? Are things like font color or deliberate spacing choices and indentations carried over? What about specific characters utilized by ALT codes? For example: ⚩♆⚗☽♵⚔⚑㤶፰ਵ

I am writing a secondary chapter to a story with absurdist elements and feel that these elements would enhance the reading experience.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I was wondering if anyone could tell me what specific formatting is kept when a story is uploaded? Are things like font color or deliberate spacing choices and indentations carried over? What about specific characters utilized by ALT codes? For example: ⚩♆⚗☽♵⚔⚑㤶፰ਵ

I am writing a secondary chapter to a story with absurdist elements and feel that these elements would enhance the reading experience.

Indents are not used in Lit publications, spacing gets stripped down to a single space, and it's usually recommended that you keep fancy fonts to bold, italics and underlining.

You can use colour and graphic fonts, but many devices won't reproduce them, and there's a high likelihood that the html coding will go wrong, and your story will turn into a shambolic mess.

Use words first, would be my advice, not bells and whistles.

 

[29wordsforsnow]

What I can say from some poetry I've seen. Forced indents by using non-breaking spaces or differently sized spaces using specific HTML characters (thinsp, ensp, emsp) were in - mostly - poems published on Lit. But I would rather quote "less is more" here and use it only for something you want to make stand out from the standard format.

Also saw someone using emojis or other special characters like music notes, but again "less is more"...

 

[GentlesirJellyfish]

This is good to know. Thank you both.

 

[KeithD]

Look through the story file. Literotica (like all publishers) has its own format standards, which provide for minimal creativity. This is a rolling anthology--it all should have a standardized format look.

I don't remember seeing any color permitted here and didn't think it was allowed. Can someone cite a story where color was permitted?

 

[29wordsforsnow]

Look through the story file. Literotica (like all publishers) has its own format standards, which provide for minimal creativity. This is a rolling anthology--it all should have a standardized format look.

I don't remember seeing any color permitted here and didn't think it was allowed. Can someone cite a story where color was permitted?

Nope, and, with the available color schemes in mind, I wouldn't even recommend it: Gray an grey shades is a horrible thought

mixed up in the gray
of a clouded day
memory returns
but I hope it fades
eek, those fifty shades
oh my, how it burns!
​

 

[ElectricBlue]

Nope, and, with the available color schemes in mind, I wouldn't even recommend it: Gray an grey shades is a horrible thought

mixed up in the gray
of a clouded day
memory returns
but I hope it fades
eek, those fifty shades
oh my, how it burns!
​

I've seen coloured font in a story, but have no clue whose it was. It was full of emojis too, goodness knows what commands they used to do it all. It was, to be polite, colourful but unreadable.

 

[29wordsforsnow]

I've seen coloured font in a story, but have no clue whose it was. It was full of emojis too, goodness knows what commands they used to do it all. It was, to be polite, colourful but unreadable.

A few months ago I read an article about how modern social media messages - full of emojies - are experienced by blind readers...There was a transcript of a text-to-speech-processor which made be really thinking.

Coming back to the original idea, I would suggest to use descriptive words instead, you never know which symbols might, for example, be offensive in a different culture. I think language is a very rich tool to express a lot of absurdism.

 

[Sextified]

... are experienced by blind readers...There was a transcript of a text-to-speech-processor which made be really thinking.

In all the years I have been posting stories, I only had one complaint about how I divided my POV changes and thought pauses. It was from a severely Dyslexic fan who regularly use to paste my text into his 'basic' reader program.

The things he hated most were:

POV change: < < < < > > > >

Thought pauses during sex or mental breakdowns (or both at the same time!): " . . . I really don't know why . . . I started doing that to myself years ago . . . now I just seem to need it . . . every time I have sex . . . "

Upset stuttering: "He actually s-said that about her? Why? I've never known him to b-be that cruel!"


The reader said that when his program hit those spots, it took him out of the story. I apologized but told him that since he was already on the second book, years after the first one had first started appearing, I couldn't ask the (other) website admin to help me revise thirty plus chapters.

I did suggest that he upgrade to a program that would let him add or correct words to its dictionary. I was always very consistent, and felt he could easily paste in the offending characters, and 'replace' them with whatever auditory sound he thought best. That would leave just the occasional stutter to get thru. He was already cutting out the brackets around the chapter headers.

He kept on voting for a long time, but I never learned if he solved his issue that way or not. I think that most Reader programs would totally ignore italics, bold words or all caps. Imagine listening to a long chapter with every commonly used special character getting sounded out. ' " ! ? ( ) [ ] . ...

 

[ElectricBlue]

He kept on voting for a long time, but I never learned if he solved his issue that way or not. I think that most Reader programs would totally ignore italics, bold words or all caps. Imagine listening to a long chapter with every commonly used special character getting sounded out. ' " ! ? ( ) [ ] . ...

Thanks for posting this, Sextified. Just by itself, that's the best reason I've ever read as to why writers shouldn't use bells and whistles and why words should be enough - to help blind or dyslexic readers navigate through our content. I'd never considered how... repeated use... of ellipsis might sound (and am glad that I don't use them much), and the stutter effect (which I don't use). I must use the spoken text feature more often during edit. Makes you think a bit more about the way stories get read. Thanks again.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Thanks for posting this, Sextified. Just by itself, that's the best reason I've ever read as to why writers shouldn't use bells and whistles and why words should be enough - to help blind or dyslexic readers navigate through our content. I'd never considered how... repeated use... of ellipsis might sound (and am glad that I don't use them much), and the stutter effect (which I don't use). I must use the spoken text feature more often during edit. Makes you think a bit more about the way stories get read. Thanks again.

May be of interest: https://www.deque.com/blog/dont-scr...creen-part-1-punctuation-typographic-symbols/

 

[Sextified]

May be of interest: https://www.deque.com/blog/dont-scr...creen-part-1-punctuation-typographic-symbols/

That is a very interesting article, and confirms that at this point in time, no 'Reader' actually works the way we hope they would. I remember about the same time we had a deaf intern for six months, there was also a great push to find volunteers to 'read' books for the blind. Just ordinary books, magazines and the like. To make it easier for them to stay current and feel less isolated.

If a 'screen reader' actually worked, think of all the Audio Book companies that would be put out of business. Maybe that is part of the reason why one doesn't exist yet?

I think that the only thing that might thrive is the full 'Dramatized' series that are so very expensive to create.

What I have done over the years is learn to limit and isolate using such tricks. Mainly to my actor's dialogue sections, and leaving the narration relatively free of gimmicks.