Young Writers Society

When you format a story, how do you format it? People want me to format my novel-in-the-works all sorts of ways and since I write it in several places, when I format it here it gets messed up everywhere else. So how do I format it so that it doesn't get messed up everywhere else?

Just select 'Story' beside Special Formatting when submitting a post. I think that should do it for you.

Ok, but some people suggest it should be formatted differently. So, I do that , but it messes it up on my other places.

The way I format a story is simply hit enter between each paragraph and select "no formatting."

And it would help if you clarified what these "other places" were. ^^ We can only tell you how to format a story for YWS.

I have a version in MSWord 2007, one on Google docs and one on the online version of MSWord. I think I'll switch to open office, because the one on MSWords been kinda glitchy, and the one on Google docs and the online version of MSWord don't work well in Opera.

The reason why you're having trouble with the formatting is because you're using so many different programs, and each of them save information differently.

One thing you can try is to save your file in the Rich Text Format (.rtf). That format is pretty much universal, so anything you do to the formatting ought to stay consistent no matter what program you use to edit.

Also, if you have italics, bold, or different alignments in your story, when you want to post it on YWS, you have to go back and add them in manually using the BBS codes as the text editor is text-only.

I do that. How do I save in .rtf?

In Word:

File > Save As > filename.rtf

Alternatively, near the bottom of the Save As dialog box, there's a File Type dropdown menu. Rich Text Format (.rtf) will be listed there. Select it.

On Google Docs:

File > Download As > RTF

Ok, thanks!