Smart quotes, em-dashes, and other Unicode characters

[JustForALittleWhile]

I've submitted my first story, it got accepted and, apparently, even read.

Now I've noticed two minor spelling mistakes I want to fix, so I am going to submit an edit, but I've also noticed that all of the opening and closing quotes were replaced by 'flat' quotes (“, ”, ‘, and ’ were turned into " and '), and that —, ―, and … were replaced by --, --, and ...

The story was submitted as plain text copied into the web editor.

I've read on these forums that it is possible to prevent the em-dash (—) from being replaced by two dashes (--) by using the corresponding HTML entity (i.e., —). Is it permitted to do this for all of the above characters? That is, use the following replacements:

— → —
― → ―
“ → “
” → ”
‘ → ‘
’ → ’
… → …

I haven't found anything about this in the documentation, except for a note on using 'uncommon ASCII characters' being a reason for rejection.

 

[JustForALittleWhile]

I'm not sure why the table above won't work. Sorry about that. Am I overlooking something? I've removed the table for now and replaced it with plain text.

 

[SPARTAN047]

I'm quite sure I tried to do these the way they're submitted in wiki code. I can't recall if they worked. I don't think I'm able to get the above table to work either though.

 

[dmallord]

I use the — substitution in stories when I can remember to add them.

Add them using find and replace in MS Word since it messes with your mind if you put them into the story as you write–makes editing a headache!

Lit accepts that one. Don't know about the others.

HTML codes that I also use and are accepted:
<b> </b> for bold
<center> </center> for well ...

 

[JustForALittleWhile]

The edited version of the story I published is live now, and I can report what works and what doesn't:

• &mdash; and &hellip; get converted into their proper characters (— and …). Use these if you want these characters.
• &horbar; (a dash longer than an em-dash useful for aborted thought/speech and censored words) is turned into an em-dash. This is not correct, but a lot better than '--'.
• All opening and closing quotes, double and single, are replaced by plain ' and ".

From the other threads in this forum I get the impression that the (sole?) editor is already labouring under a heavy workload, so I won't bother trying to dig deeper. It's not clear to me which of these choices are stylistic (to match the house style) or technical limitations. All text is served as UTF-8, so if there is a technical reason, it sits deeper in the stack.

I do think it would be useful if story writers could get some guidance on the typographical side of Literotica. Readers rightfully expect opening and closing quotes to be present in any decently typeset story or book. This lovely smut we write shouldn't be exempt, surely?

From a technical standpoint it is weird that em-dashes input in the on-site editor get replaced by '--', but &mdash; isn't kept either, it gets replaced by (the proper) '—'. So why the replacing of any '—' directly written by the writer themself?

At least the horrid '--' stand-ins for the em-dash are gone now.

 

[SugarStorm]

Thanks for this. As an abuser of the em dashes I'll use the HTML code going forward.

 

[RejectReality]

The only em Dash that the text processor seems to like is the one coming out of Word. Any other program has a good chance to result in the dreaded double-dash spitting out the other side.

A lot of html special special character codes work. I used to use quite a few of them for scene breaks.

Straight quotes are probably a stylistic choice — and perhaps a way of getting around a similar problem to em dashes, where different programs produce different versions. It's easier to default to one thing than it is to try to puzzle out straight vs. curly as well.

 

[butters]

Just dropping this link here, too, as it might be the reason some pieces are being rejected as suspicious, created by AI rather than a living person.

https://www.indy100.com/news/em-dash-symbol-chatgpt-debate

 

[ElectricBlue]

I haven't found anything about this in the documentation, except for a note on using 'uncommon ASCII characters' being a reason for rejection.

I wouldn't waste your time nor the site's time doing an edit for formatting trivia like this, nor for two spelling errors. Readers don't notice that kind of thing unless you're inconsistent, and every story here has typos. Don't worry about them - unless they're so bad and frequent that you shouldn't have submitted the story in the first place.

With regard to the formatting, the site strips stuff back to present a consistent house style. Neither the site nor readers really care what you want the text to look like. It's standardised for good reasons - multiple devices, consistent presentation, digital conventions etc...

I'd say, put your time into writing another story. That way, you'll have two stories, not one that is unnecessarily "pretty". The format doesn't matter, it's the words that count.

Edit: haha, should have read the rest of the thread, because I see you submitted an edit. The only person who'll notice is you .

 

[SugarStorm]

With regard to the formatting, the site strips stuff back to present a consistent house style. Neither the site nor readers really care what you want the text to look like. It's standardised for good reasons - multiple devices, consistent presentation, digital conventions etc...

It isn't consistent though (online editor behaves differently when previewing the story compared to the published output) nor is it standardised—Lit doesn't seem to strictly follow UTF-8 which is the standard but mixes UTF-8, HTML and CSS.

And while I kind of agree on not wasting the site's time for this, I think a page (like this one: https://www.literotica.com/faq/publishing/publishing-text-formatting) could be beneficial, in order to set alignment and expectations with the authors here.

There are, after all, a few of us who do care about format, punctation and presentation. For me, it's part of the writing process.

 

[JustForALittleWhile]

And while I kind of agree on not wasting the site's time for this, I think a page (like this one: https://www.literotica.com/faq/publishing/publishing-text-formatting) could be beneficial, in order to set alignment and expectations with the authors here.

Yes. It would be nice to know if what you are seeing is a bug or intended. Em-dashes and horizontal ellipses are clearly permitted; just not handled consistently. There is no technical reason not to support any of the characters I used. They work fine on multiple devices and follow the normal conventions for typesetting.

There are, after all, a few of us who do care about format, punctation and presentation. For me, it's part of the writing process.

Not caring about that is also just being rude to your readers. There is no need to kick sand in their eyes with typos or grammatical errors if you found them yourself (or they were pointed out to you).

Just dropping this link here, too, as it might be the reason some pieces are being rejected as suspicious, created by AI rather than a living person.

I haven't had anything rejected though (and I wouldn't use LLMs for writing in any case). The edited version now includes em-dashes.