Appearing in Public With Your Zipper Open

[Alex De Kok]

I was just now looking at Writing for the Internet, published by Oxford University Press, author Jane Dorner, and this bit caught my eye -

For continuous reading in print, serif fonts ( ... * ) are thought to be more readable. On screen, the opposite is true and a font like Verdana gives a clearer, more readable image.

This would seem to bear out Liar's assertion, and I have to say that I agree with it. I'm happy with a serif font in print, but prefer sans-serif on screen.

Alex

* the omitted bit here was a reference to the text on the page - a Roman Serif font.

 

[magmaman]

???...I thout this was bout appering in public with my zipper open...?

I does that alla time..

Sometims I forgets my teefs too..peeple look at me funy but they go away.

But I can wrtie tripe too...

I am good at that..

MGM

 

[gauchecritic]

Well, what can I say, I am always as pleased as punch when I see the story posted, it was exactly as I wrote it (cept a few typoes), but please, please don't ask me to go look at the earlier stuff, I cringe when made to compare.

Gauche

 

[shereads]

I can't speak as a Lit writer, but I don't think that teeth-gnashing urge to edit has anything to do with the format. As a copywriter, I go through the same thing once the work is in production, no matter what it looks like.

In print, the writer at least has an opportunity to fix awkward word breaks, eliminate "widows" at the ends of paragraphs, and add or delete paragraph breaks if the layout seems to need it. When I started writing for the Web, it was appalling to realize I had no control over the way my copy looked on the page.

But even in print, there's are always things I wish I could rewrite once it's too late. Not because it doesn't look like it did in Word, but because it's out of my hands. Thank God for deadlines. Some of us would never finish anything if we had the option of continuous editing.

I've read your contest story, if that's what you're referring to, and there isn't a syllable out of place.

 

[Guest]

Every story I have posted here went through several rewrites before I was happy with it. The a dozen reads making minor changes before I submitted it. Once they posted I saw a dozen things (at least) in each one that could have been better.

All except one.

My halloween story poured out of me like water from a bucket. It was finished in about 6 hrs of writing. I never rewrote a single line. I gave it a quick proof read and submitted it. And while I'm sure there are a couple typos in it, there is nothing I would change about it.

 

[shereads]

It's the little bends and "feet" at the end of lines in fonts like Times as opposed to Arial, that is straight all the way.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

 

[shereads]

No, that would be "Appearing in public with karl rove's hand up your ass."

YORFL




(The letters don't stand for anything. They're the sound my Frappucino made when it came out through my sinuses and hit the keyboard just now.)

 

[bloodsimple]

Oh my God,

I'm so amateurish compared to everyone else here. I have no idea what font I use - it's whatever the default is.

Once I've written, I go through once to try all the spelling and grammar errors, though I'm not so hot on grammar. Then I leave it for 4-5 days, and re-read. Not to find errors, but to see if it carries the emotion and atmosphere I was trying to convey. Then I submit.

I NEVER read it online. It's the written equivalent of hearing your own voice on tape, or seeing yourself on video. Don't wanna know. I can read it in Word if needs be - why should I read it online instead?

My personal take is that more than one editing sweep and you start to change little bits in the hope of improving, but run the risk of fragmenting or losing the original flow that your inspiration provided. But then, Gem has a load of H's and I have about three. And she's won a comp. So she's probably right.

 

[millennium_bard]

Grrrr

A new story of mine was posted last night.
I double and triple checked it against the .doc file that I had copies and pasted it from.

There are line breaks in the middle of sentences, and no line breaks in a couple of places where I had put them.
the result is that the story looks disjointed and nowhere near as good as it did on the .doc file.

Is it something automatic with lit that I can work around? Or am I doomed to have my stories shredded at random?

 

[cjh]

I write professionally. I have not written for the Boards. Having said that, some really great tips have shown up in this thread.

One of the best is to walk away from your work for a few days. All of the things that you thought you wrote, but did not, suddenly appear. So do typos.

One tip that has not surfaced (unless I missed it) is to do your proofreading and editing on paper rather than on the screen. It's more efficient to do it on the screen, of course, but not nearly as effective.

Finally, read your story out loud before you finalize it. Even better, have someone else read it to you. You would be amazed what a difference that makes in you ability to detect clunky prose, awkward transitions and such. There are a number of text-to-speech programs that make this a fairly easy process: http://www.winappslist.com/business/text_to_speech.htm .

 

[cjh]

<snip>Is it something automatic with lit that I can work around? Or am I doomed to have my stories shredded at random? [/B]

Are you forcing breaks in Word? If so, don't. Also, consider saving the file as a *.rtf file rather than a *.doc file.

 

[Just-Legal]

I type it up in word, check grammar and spelling, then use the text box to upload it.

I've had no break problems so far *pats head* touch wood

 

[Just-Legal]

I type it up in word, check grammar and spelling, then use the text box to upload it.

I've had no break problems so far *pats head* touch wood

 

[SlickTony]

This is why I tweak and inspect my stories forever before I send them up. Of course, that doesn't protect you from errors in memory and knowledge, like when my husband read my first story, "Carnival," and pointed out that I had alluded to the wrong parade. However, I don't think anybody else had any problem with it.

One of my stories is pending. I hope to God it doesn't have any technical errors like that when it comes out.

My church circle produced a cookbook, and we did all the editing outselves. Problem was, we edited each other's stuff. So someone else saw fit to make a change in a recipe which was not only the first in the appetizer section, it was the first in the whole book. Fortunately, it was not the kind of error that spoils the recipe--it just made the description of the results sound a little strange.