I added paragraph marks to a short story so that it could be
read with a browser -- rather cleverly, I thought, using a
hanging indent so that the file could still be read as plain
text with perfect convenience -- the <p> is in the left
margin, rather like the original beside- the-writing
(para-graph) marks, then I narrowed the lines so that there
is a matching right margin, and if it weren't for the
headers, one would never suspect that one was reading source
code.
(Actually, the file worked in my browser just fine before I
pasted in the head, which leaves me wondering whether I
really need a head. None of the garbage that comes in
e-mail has heads -- but then I certainly wouldn't want to
imitate *that*!)
Well, the do***ent looked fine, except for the scene breaks.
In typesetting, a scene break is indicated by leaving a
blank line. In manuscript format, the blank line doesn't
show up well against the double spacing, so one types a "#"
-- the proofreader's mark for a missing space -- to tell the
typesetter that that line was left blank on purpose.
I left the hashmarks on the blank lines, and they proved
necessary -- blank lines show up even less against
paragraphs indicated by blank lines than they do against
double spacing.
But the browser set the hashmarks flush left, which looked
funny, so I went back into the source and replaced "#" with
"<center>#</center>, which didn't mar the plain text any and
made the HTML version look better -- but centered, the hash
is kinder puny and doesn't attract enough attention. So I
figured I'd better use the alternative manuscript format of
*three* hashmarks -- or maybe some sort of dingbat . . .
At which point I pulled up short, saying waitaminute, isn't
that what hypertext is *for*? I don't tell the browser how
to indicate a scene break, I put in <scene break> and it
puts in a blank line if it's using indents for paragraph
breaks, puts in a dingbat if it's using blank lines for
paragraph breaks, and does something else if it's doing
something else.
So I've got to check out the books again come Monday -- but
I have a sneaking suspicion that it will take a long time to
find the paragraph on scene breaks -- and scene breaks might
not be in the beginner's books at all. Or it might be that
I should be looking for "section break". Or some other
phrase.
Or maybe I could ask my elders for advice.
Joy Beeson
--
http://home.earthlink.net/~joybeeson/
-- needlework
http://home.earthlink.net/~dbeeson594/ROUGHSEW/ROUGH.HTM
http://home.earthlink.net/~beeson_n3f/
-- Writers' Exchange
joy beeson at earthlink dot net
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