Young Writers Society

Hey there! I'm having a bit of trouble regarding the publishing center, which is driving me nuts! So, if anyone can help or answer my question, I would truly appreciate it!

Okay, so I'm in the publishing center and I'm writing a poem to publish. I've separated certain sections of the poem into stanzas or verses for a more organised and tidy look. I click: "save as draft". All of that runs smoothly.

I go to "drafts" in my portfolio, check the poem and the whole thing has been put together without the verses I already separated. So, I edit the work and separate the sections again, thinking it'll work this time and there will be clear indicators of verses or stanzas in the poem and it's not all rolled into one long verse. Nope! It doesn't work!

So, with all of that said: how can I separate lines within the poem in the publishing center? No matter how many times I try, it doesn't work.
Thank you so much for your help in advance, you're amazing!

Ah, this! The way you form stanzas on YWS is a bit counter-intuitive. Basically, YWS deletes any empty lines automatically, including (unfortunately) the ones you put in to separate stanzas.

Instead, the most simple way to make stanzas is to single-space all your lines and only double-space the ones between stanzas. Now, when you press "enter," YWS automatically double-spaces your lines, so if you want that line single-spaced you have to press "shift+enter."

That means you end up doing this to form a stanza:

Line 1 (shift+enter)
Line 2 (shift+enter}
Line 3 (enter)

Line 4 (is now in a new stanza)

If you have any other problems with formatting poetry or want to do something a little more complicated, I recommend these articles: How to Format Poetry and Formatting poetry #3

Good luck!

Saving a draft does not save any formatting you have in your work, I believe. I would test this but... it's Review Day. >_<