Note to authors

[C van D]

Originally Posted by Slammr

You certainly do better than many of those to whom English is a native language



In dialog, each speech, even if only a single word, is usually a paragraph in itself. Although the rules of grammar can occasionally be violated to achieve an effect, the common practice is to give each speech a paragraph of its own. This is a rule of English grammar. Site rules don't differ from the rules of English grammar.

I reread your story, and you did violate this rule occasionally, but you don't have a lot of dialog, and it didn't greatly impact the story, and most of the time you did start a new paragraph with each new speech. You're not going to have a story rejected for one or two violations of this rule. It becomes a problem when the speaker continually changes all in one paragraph.



A new paragraph alerts the reader that a change has taken place. Sometimes that alone is enough to indicate the new speaker.For example:

"Why did you rat on me?" asked Ryan.

"I didn't rat on you," said Sam.

"The Hell you didn't."

"The Hell I did."

"If you didn't, who did?" said Ryan.

Here's one of your paragraphs that I find a little confusing the way it's written:


Very early next morning, Martin got up to help Old Bill milk the cows. Tommy was sleeping soundly, but not for long, because mom would soon enough throw him out of bed and put him on his way to school! Martin had grown up trusting Old Bill more than even his dad, and so he felt he could talk to the old man freely, without the boundaries that usually limit father-son talks. While Old Bill was on his third cow, and Martin had started his second, he found the courage to start, and time was pressing: They had only three more cows to go! “Bill..?” “Yes, boy?” Martin’s heart was pounding hard. “Do you know about those Italian singers that have high voices even when they grow up?

Here's how I would write it:

Very early the next morning Martin got up to help old Bill milk the cows. Tommy was sleeping soundly, but not for long. Mom would soon have him out of bed and on his way to school.

Martin had grown up trusting old Bill, more even than he trusted his dad. He could talk freely to Bill without the boundaries that usually limited talks with his dad.

Bill was on his third cow, and Martin was on his second, when Martin found the courage to speak. He was running out of time; they only had three more cows to milk.

"Bill..."

"Yes, Boy," said Bill.

His heart pounding, Martin said, "Do you know about those Italian singers that have high voices, even when they grow up?"

You can possibly get by with fewer paragraphs than than I have, but there should have been a new paragraph each time a different person spoke. If the first three paragraphs were combined, you wouldn't be necessarily violating any rule of grammar. Such decisions are somewhat subjective. I started new paragraphs, because there seemed to be a new thought or shift in emphasis. Whenever there is, I like to start a new paragraph.

The last three paragraphs are necessary according to the rules of English grammar.

I agree totally with Slammr's remarks, but find myself frustrated by EA's new software, particularly in regard to my "playlets". My originals go somewhat like this:

Speaker's name underlined.
Speaker's tone of voice in italics
Speaker's words in Roman
Stage direction in italics

However when I transmit the piece to the tank all these different styles get obliterated and even the spacing goes pear-shaped; you end up with:

Simon (blankly) I don't know what you mean (he sits down)

Any suggestions?

C van D

[curious_guy]

Originally Posted by C van D

I agree totally with Slammr's remarks, but find myself frustrated by EA's new software, particularly in regard to my "playlets". My originals go somewhat like this:

Speaker's name underlined.
Speaker's tone of voice in italics
Speaker's words in Roman
Stage direction in italics

However when I transmit the piece to the tank all these different styles get obliterated and even the spacing goes pear-shaped; you end up with:

Simon (blankly) I don't know what you mean (he sits down)

Any suggestions?

C van D

I think you can use the same commands in the stories as you can in messages.

Speaker's name underlined.

Speaker's tone of voice in italics

Speaker's words in Roman

Stage direction in italics

If you reply to this message, you will see the codes I used. (Actually I selected the text and used the toolbars in the edit window.) The easiest way to add the message commands would be to type the story part in plain text, paste it into a PM, and the commands and then copy the text back into the clipboard.

[Misha999]

Here is the US Gov style URL: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/stylemanual/browse.html

M

[Il Musico]

Gareth,
I wanted to reply to Misha about the tags being there mostly to make clear who's speaking, but you did that nicely for me! Thanks!

Thanks also for clearing up the issue about never using two marks of punctuation. I don't know many rules, I write mostly "by instinct", which in reality means "by visual memory", repeating the same things (including the mistakes) I have seen other people do. Things like

"What's up?", Brian asked.

"Nothing, OF COURSE!", was the eunuch's angry reply.

indeed look wrong to me, but when I delete the commas, it still looks wrong to me! After a question or exclamation mark and closing quotation marks I would expect a new sentence to begin, in uppercase, and not a lowercase dialog tag! The comma somehow seems to tie the tag to the question. But not very well...

OK, so I will try to go by the rules you explained. The question is just how many of them I will remember. Also, if I have to think about too many rules while writing, the hero of the day might find time to run away! I guess that's also the fear of so many other authors, and this makes them write very fast, making more mistakes than necessary. Actually in many stories it can be observed that where the actions gets hot, grammatical correctness suffers!

Klaus-Peter:

By "writing in both languages" do you mean dass ich in beiden Sprachen gemischt schreiben soll? Daraus könnte man a mighthy fine story machen! Of course, nur wirklich zweisprachige Leser would be able sowas fließend zu lesen!

Writing the same story first in one, then in the other language, is too much effort. Very often some formulations or some word play used in one language won't work in the other. It would be more productive to write two completely different stories, each in one language.

[Slammr]

Originally Posted by curious_guy

I think you can use the same commands in the stories as you can in messages.

Speaker's name underlined.

Speaker's tone of voice in italics

Speaker's words in Roman

Stage direction in italics

If you reply to this message, you will see the codes I used. (Actually I selected the text and used the toolbars in the edit window.) The easiest way to add the message commands would be to type the story part in plain text, paste it into a PM, and the commands and then copy the text back into the clipboard.

Don't believe it will work. The story editor uses html, while the message board uses bb code.

Back a ways I could post a story to one of my web sites, select and copy it, pasting it to the story editor, and it would preserve the html, providing the correct formatting including underlining and italics. I don't know if that will still work. That was before IEunuch redid the story software.

[curious_guy]

Originally Posted by Slammr

Don't believe it will work. The story editor uses html, while the message board uses bb code.

I think I have used the bb code for italics in one of my stories and it worked.

Is there a way to test story formatting without actually submitting it?

[Paolo]

To test it, no.

If you want bold or italic in a submitted story, use the BB code. [ b ] and [ / b ] and the like. Italic is "i". Underline is "u".

You cannot submit complex HTML code for a story. It just won't work.

[curious_guy]

Originally Posted by Paolo

To test it, no.

If you want bold or italic in a submitted story, use the BB code. [ b ] and [ / b ] and the like. Italic is "i". Underline is "u".

You cannot submit complex HTML code for a story. It just won't work.

Will the BB code for Times New Roman work in stories?

Inserting BB codes into a text file is somewhat cumbersome. Is there a text editor or word processor that can do it somewhat automatically?

[Paolo]

To the best of my testing, no.
If you like that font, set your browser to display it.
B, U, I, center, and the like are the only ones that work for the story formatter.
As for a word proc. that will do all of that for you, I don't know of one.

The story formatter here is not a complex one, say like the one HPFF dot com. Then again, it doesn't work right either.

[curious_guy]

Originally Posted by Paolo

To the best of my testing, no.
If you like that font, set your browser to display it.
B, U, I, center, and the like are the only ones that work for the story formatter.

C van D wrote that he wanted to use Roman for the speaker's words. It looks like that might not be possible.