2.2 Making Things Look Pretty

ie; Paragraphing and Text Formatting

ie; The pointlessly subdivided second chapter of Presentation which sort of mutilates everything it harps on and on about

2.2.1 Paragraphing

Now, as such, there's no rule to having paragraphs which go on forever and forever. But, especially considering the average age of the PJO fanfic readers found here, it helps to break down stuff into bite-sized chunks. You'll find that it's easier for people to get through paragraphs which don't take up about half the screenspace.

Approaching matters from the other side; one sentence is not a paragraph. It's a sentence. The occasional one-sentence paragraph can be very expressive, but for the most part it's a good idea to limit it's usage. And if you can't find out anything to say in a paragraph a few lines long, you probably aren't describing enough. But we'll deal with that in detail later. Or possibly not at all.

Note: You can tell this guide is going to be thorough and organized already, right? 8)

I will now desperately try to ignore my tendency to lean towards one-sentence paragraphs when I write my stories. But you're not supposed to be following my example, oh dear god.

*coughs*

Anyway, it may not always be easy to know when to start a paragraph. Mostly, it's done to separate train of thought or pause at appropriate points between narratives. One point where you absolutely must start a new paragraph is when a new character starts speaking. Assigning one paragraph each to any character who speaks goes a long way towards minimizing confusion.

Let's take an example.

Percy and Annabeth were strolling along the beach, hands intertwined. Suddenly a monster popped out of nowhere and charged at them. Annabeth gasped and gripped harder at Percy's hand, but he pulled away and said, "Run! I'll deal with it!" Annabeth stared at him in disbelief, "It could kill you!" Percy pulled riptide out of his pocket and ignored her, squaring his shoulders and facing the monster head on.

The above is a stellar example of how not to write PJO fanfiction in many, many ways. But let us focus on the issue at hand.

Now, that "It could kill you!" could have been said by either of them. This is a moderate example of the sort of mix-up not starting new dialogue on a new paragraph can result in. It's usually more possible to decipher who's saying what, but it's always clearer when you do this;

"Which of the classical orders do you like better?"Annabeth asked, tapping a pen onto the tome she was reading.

Percy, the other half of her romantic moonlight stroll across the beach, was seated right next to her and staring blankly into the water. He then transferred said blank stare to her. She sighed and resisted the urge to get her hands around his throat.

"Gods, Percy. How many times do we have to go through this? Three classical orders, Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. Haven't I explained this to you already?"

"Uhm. I… think so?"

"I can't believe you! It's the most basic thing there is-"

And her tirade at her boyfriend for never listening to anything she told him was interrupted by the thing with blue horns and matted fur which appeared in the distance and immediately charged at them.

Now, separation into paragraphs was not really required in that admittedly poor example. Because unlike the first sample, the characters of Percy and Annabeth have something more of an individual personality each. You can tell it's Annabeth from the way she's bossy and dominating. You can tell it's Percy from the way he's passive and a little spaced out. I am not saying that the two of them are always like this, but they are more likely to be like this than lovestruck, at least according to the series.

But anyway, putting starter dialogues of characters into individual paragraphs? Very important. Do not avoid.

2.2.2 Visual Formatting

Ah. Visual formatting.

I've been wanting to do this forever. By Visual Formatting, I mean the way you use the limited formatting tools has given you to present your story to the rest of the world.

Bold, Italics and Underlined text options.

Now, most people know how and when to use these things, because it's more a tool for emphasis than anything else. The problem comes if you do an entire chapter in any of the above three formats; (with the possible exception of italics.) which can go a long way towards irritating anyone reading the fic. When writing, stick to standard, non-formatted text. Chunks of italics, however may be preferable to standard format if you're going to have a flashback in the middle of your story. It actually works better than a FLASHBACK/END FLASHBACK tag. The latter tends to disrupt the flow of a fic. Similarly, chunks of text in Bold is acceptable if you're using it to separate the Writer's Notes from the actual story.

Underlining, however, should be kept exclusively for headings and similar things. Of story or in story. Try to minimize it's usage except in small quantities.

Centering Text

The site lets you arrange your paragraphs in two alignments, left and centre. For stories, stick to LEFT ALIGNMENT. Trust me, it's much easier on the eyes to read long paragraphs with that than with centered alignment. Use centering for headings/notices etc. Narratives of the story should be in normal alignment.

Sometimes, the site screws up your formatting when you're trying to center things. It's a trial-error process and you'll get where you want eventually if you keep fiddling around with the align and save buttons.

Page Breaks

Typically, a story has several sections. Writer's Notes, Chapter Name (if you're putting it in the chapter), scenes from various perspectives, scenes which skip ahead in time by a few units and leave a blank between them; stuff like that.

Now, I've seen people use rows of asterixes, hyphens, dashes, letters and acronyms to split these sections from each other. There's a simpler way.

A page break is what that grey line between my heading and the Paragraphing entry is called. It's worked by that little grey line icon in the Document Manager toolbar. It's work of two seconds, and it serves to make stories look a lot more neater.

You will notice that I haven't used too many page breaks to format this chapter. This is because the last section is not big enough to have it's own page-break enclosure and all the other sections have to follow that last section for the sake of continuity.

Neurotic, I know.

2.2.3 Miscellaneous

(Where things don't fit in anywhere else go to.)

chtspk is 2 b avoided. Even in your notes. Use it whenever people in the story use it, but never otherwise. Nothing makes as bad an impression as chatspeak in a story. This also applies to WrITinG like this.

I mean, yeah. I harped on and on about paragraphing and formatting, but making errors in those areas is natural. You're not going to get hunted down and beheaded by a tribe of language-loving cannibals for forgetting a comma, or missing out a couple of letters in a word. For chrissakes, this is fanfiction, and we can understand the occasional mistake. The whole point of this thing is to minimize errors, not eliminate them.

But using chatspeak or variations thereof? Capital offense when writing something. To continue with the metaphor, the tribe of cannibals chasing you will be accompanied by airspace assistance. And possibly laser beams.

Stick to standard text if you're writing a fic. I cannot stress that enough.

And with that, we will abruptly end this chapter.

Up next: 'Story' formats!