cantdog
Waybac machine
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2004
- Posts
- 10,791
I liked my italics. I used them for shorthand for "he thought" "he said to himself" and all that. the inner dialogue.
It was because of Dune, the Frank Herbert book, whose sequels sucked so badly. The device if those italics of his for the interior monologues of his characters made every major conversation in the book a multi-leveled thing. Very effective, and I always admired it.
But text is text. You can do italics in .rtf and nearly everybody's modern word processor can pick it up and read it, but .rtf is a handicap to posting stories here.
I export to .rtf for peer-to-peer networks, and other sharing forums, and people pick my stuff up and read it, and I am gratified.
So be it. I can't be choosy if I want my work on the table here, it just means another edit.
No big deal, another edit, but I am a little wistful about my italics. How ivory tower of me, to be sure.
It was because of Dune, the Frank Herbert book, whose sequels sucked so badly. The device if those italics of his for the interior monologues of his characters made every major conversation in the book a multi-leveled thing. Very effective, and I always admired it.
But text is text. You can do italics in .rtf and nearly everybody's modern word processor can pick it up and read it, but .rtf is a handicap to posting stories here.
I export to .rtf for peer-to-peer networks, and other sharing forums, and people pick my stuff up and read it, and I am gratified.
So be it. I can't be choosy if I want my work on the table here, it just means another edit.
No big deal, another edit, but I am a little wistful about my italics. How ivory tower of me, to be sure.
