How to Post Fanfic and HTML Tips

Writing fanfiction is fun, but sometimes posting can be tricky.  Below is a 'how to' for posting to voy.com message boards and tips on HTML formatting.

HOW TO POST TO VOY.COM MESSAGE BOARDS

Since InsideTheWeb has disappeared from the web, most La Femme Nikita storyboards are now hosted by voy.com.  Posting stories to such message boards is a great way for your story to be seen by many interested readers, and a super way for those readers to post feedback to the author instantly, but it can be tricky and trip up even the experienced poster.  Here’s how to post:

Voy.com posting fields look similar to this table:
 

POST A NEW MESSAGE:  You can find the form for this if you scroll down to the very bottom of an Ivoy.com message board, or click the link at the top of the page.  It looks like this:

[ Post a new message ][ Archives: 1, 2, 3 ]

MESSAGE SUBJECT:  Most people put the title of their story in the ‘Message subject’ box.  It appears at the top in bold text and looks good.

NAME:  Most people use a pen name or their online nickname, and although Ivoy.com boards can be constructed to make this this step ‘optional’, many of the people who administrate the message boards have configured this field as 'required'.  ‘Anon’ has been used before, but put something.

EMAIL:  Most people also post their email address for feedback, but this is optional.  Receiving actual fan mail is heady!

TYPE YOUR MESSAGE HERE:  This is where an author introduces a story.  It can be an advertisement for your story, and a great way to ‘grab’ readers.  It is also the place to mention a rating (for content: violence, nudity, sex, language) and/or ‘spoilers’ for episodes of La Femme Nikita.  Not everyone practices this, but it is a courteous habit to develop.

SEND:  Click the 'Send' button to publish, or CLEAR if you make a mistake and need to re-type something.  Some voy.com storyboards are configured to give an intermediary step that allows you to view your post as it will appear, and make adjustments before you 'approve' the message.

After you post your message, you then publish your story under this main post by replying to this post.  Hit the reply button, and a field will appear.

Type in the chapter name or number in the ‘Message Subject’ line.  Most boards require the 'Name' field.  In the ‘Type your message here’ space, paste your story.  If your story is long, break it up into several chapters.  Voy.com replies can handle varying amounts of text depending on how the board is configured; the Challenge Board can handle well over ten pages at a go; five is a good amount, aesthetically.  Continue to reply to the main post when you post multiple chapters so they line up neatly.  If you hit the ‘enter’ button too quick, or goof up, don’t worry!  Everyone was new once, and everyone has made a posting mistake before, too.

If you think the goof was really bad, you can ask the adminsitrator of the storyboard if she would delete it so you can try again.  Some would do that for you.  Or, don't forget that you can take advantage of The Beta Board, a voy.com messageboard with the password posted at the top of the board.  This is the place to 'test-post' your stories to check the format, or you can post stories there for honestly constructive comments and feedback.  Details are right at the top of the message board.

HOW TO CUT AND PASTE

However you write, eventually the story will have to be typed if it’s to be posted to a storyboard.  Since many people use Microsoft Word, and that is the software I am familiar with, that will be the software I refer to.

Highlight the text in your Word document (.doc) or text document (.txt) you wish to post on a storyboard (click and drag your mouse over it).  Then you can A) click on the copy icon on the toolbar above in Word; B) click the Edit drop-down menu on the toolbar above and select ‘copy’, or C) press and hold down the ‘ctrl’ key while you press the ‘c’ key on your keyboard.  Those words are now on a clipboard.  Next, place your cursor in the ‘Type your message here’ area of the storyboard and press and hold down the ‘ctrl’ and ‘v’ keys.  The text will appear in the field.

HTML TIPS
 

HTML is an acronym that stands for ‘hypertext markup language’, a basic and handy tool for authoring web pages.  This very page has HTML behind it, manipulated with the Netscape Composer program.  Here is some of that code:
 

<center>
<h1>
<font face="Courier New,Courier">How to Post Fanfic and HTML Tips</font></h1></center>

Voy.com message boards comprise most of the story boards used by La Femme Nikita authors, and they respond to HTML tags.  If your story has italicized, underlined, or bold words in it, cutting and pasting the text onto these message boards will not carry the formatting with it: you must add those formatting touches yourself.  Luckily, HTML tags are very easy to use.

If you want a word to appear in italics, surround it with the tags that tell browsers to make it appear italicized. Here is an example.  If you want your sentence to look like this:
 

Section One is George's fair-haired son, he thought. George could not be confronted directly, but he had his weaknesses. Everybody did.

Put tags in it like this:
 

<i>Section One is George's fair-haired son,</i> he thought. George could not be confronted directly, but he had his weaknesses. Everybody did.

The same works for bold and underline, as well.
 

<i>italics</i>

<b>bold</b>

<u>underline</u>

Remember always to surround the word with beginning and ending tags or you will end up with pages and pages of italicized, bold, or underlined text -- and that makes your text very tiresome for the eye to read.  It does not matter if you use lower case or upper case ‘i’, ‘b’, or ‘u’.
 

The <hr> tag will insert a horizontal rule, like this:

<hr size=4 width="75%">

To center text (or images, horizontal rules, or anything), use the <center></center> tags.  Be sure remember the closing tag, or everything after the first <center> tag will be centered.

If you would like to specify which font you would like to use, surround the text you wish to affect with the <font face="pick a font type"></font> tags.  Replace "pick a font type" with the name of the font you wish to use.  This site uses 'Courier New' font in all the headings and much of the text.  Other examples are "Arial", "Garamond", "Elephant", "Abadi MT Condensed Light". Each browser defines the limits of what fonts will work, so be careful to choose common font faces.

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