Lesson Two: Story Lay-Out
Unlike the previous two lessons the stage is fully set; the lights are on, the blackboard has the lesson title listed, and a single piece of paper rested on the podium. There were even a few people sitting in the red seats, but no Alice in sight.
Five minutes later she strolled in looking completely unbothered about her belated arrival. She strolled over to the podium while glaring at the purple band aid wrapped around her thumb. When she reached the podium she raised an eyebrow at the one paper that waited there, finally she looked up to begin the lesson.
"Okay class today-" she broke off in surprise. There were people in the seats and she had been late.
"Well, it seems I owe you an apology. I shouldn't have kept you waiting, but I honestly wasn't expecting anyone," she said before continuing, "Today is Lesson Three: Story Lay-Out. This is not exactly about writing but is important none-the-less."
"The organization of your story can play a big role in how readable it and can be a deciding factor if the story is already in the grey area of worth-reading. In this lesson we will address Text Blocks, Empty Air, the Teeny-Tiny Chapter, and Author's Notes."
Alice picked up the paper, carefully avoiding the edges and walked around to the front of the podium so she could lean against it.
"Now Text Blocks are very simple, they're large blocks of text that are cumbersome to read and cause headaches. They can be either an entire chapter or just a part of it. Text needs spaces, and this doesn't just mean starting a new line. It means have white space in between sections, and in more extreme cases means remembering to put spaces in between words."
"Now to avoid Text Blocks," she said, "keep a few things in mind. First, seeing as this is fanfiction remember that people already know what the characters look like- unless you're talking about an OC. So for canon characters you only need about a sentence, it shouldn't take long to tell us that Harry Potter has messy black hair, green eyes, and a lightning bolt scar and for an OC you could fit their basic description in about a paragraph. Don't forget that another good way to describe a character is to not directly describe them to the reader but to slip in facts as you go."
After brushing her bangs out of her brown eyes Alice continued, "That goes for clothes too. If you have a big paragraph describing someone's outfit I can almost guarantee it will be skipped. This goes for most descriptions actually: large paragraphs about the scenery, a room, someone's appearance, clothes, an attack and its effects, or the history of something will be skimmed. There is no reason to barrage readers with these facts."
"Next we have the opposite problem, Empty Air. This is when instead of having a huge block of text you have too much white space. When you consistently have just an ellipses or 4-5 words per line you get Empty Air, just tons of white and a few words. No one wants to scroll for half a page and read maybe a full sentence.
Alice paused for a moment to see if anyone looked confused, "Is everyone with me so far? Yes? Excellent."
"Our next problem," she said, "is the Teeny-Tiny Chapter. This is more subjective as chapter length is mostly dictated by plot and pacing. However your chapter has to be long enough to allow for some plot to be present and give the story a decent flow. I'd say an absolute minimum would be about 200 words not including any A/N's or titles. Just know that if it can take longer for a chapter to load than it will to read, it's probably too short."
"To avoid this you can try combining short chapters. You also shouldn't post a short chapter just because you feel obligated to update with something. You don't owe anyone anything so don't feel pressured, it's fine to go a bit without updating because you have writers block or your real life got in the way."
Alice walked back behind the podium to grab a bottle of water before continuing, "And now on to the final piece of today's lessons: Author's Notes, or A/N's. Now while this is often seen as another subjective area I believe that there are certain rules that should be followed. First, Author's Notes should be at the beginning and/or end of a chapter and should not be longer than or close to the length of the chapter itself. Second, don't interrupt the story with a note (A/N: Like this!) because it's distracting and jarring. If you have places that really needs extra explanation number them (1) and then address them in an Author's Note at the bottom."
"Finally, there will be times when you will need an entire chapter to be an Author's Note. Maybe you are going on hiatus, abandoning the story, or rewriting it; this is okay. However, if you are going to post new chapters after the A/N chapter please use the 'replace chapter' button to change the A/N or use the 'delete chapter' button to delete the Note and then upload a new chapter. Do not leave obsolete Author's Notes pages in the middle of your story."
"Thank you, that will be all for today."
Finally finished Alice waited for the few attendees to file out and then snapped for the lights to go off. She made sure she had her water bottle and walked off to the left of the stage. Just before the exit she paused and turned, that paper was still lying on the podium and not on the ground. It would be a shame to break the tradition.
Hesitating for only a moment, Alice ran back to the center of the stage and pushed the paper of to the podium. As soon as it fluttered to the ground she hurried off stage, vaguely hoping no one had seen her immature moment.
No one had, except for the guy still in the lighting booth.
A/N Now even though I just said this it has been a problem in the past so I'm restating it. It is fine to have a chapter be an Author's Note, just don't leave one in the middle of the actual story. I know I have had chapters that are just A/N's, however they are only at the end of anything I have ever posted. There is no need to contact me to say 'But you've had chapter's be A/N's before!".