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Help with story pieces-parts

Zen Master 🚫

SOL allows your story to have a bewildering array of different parts. Table of contents, forward, afterword, prologue, postscript, cast list, etc. I'm tired of asking LJ over and over about them. I want an essay on the Authors' Page to explain them.
Of course, if you want something done right, ya gotta do it yourself. I'm almost done with my essay, but it talks about how this website works. I DON'T want to post it for the great unwashed to see until LJ and his minions have reviewed it and told me what-all I got wrong. Where do I post something for staff review and feedback? Do I submit it like anything else and hope that someone reads my note to editors about not actually posting it? The local email system does not allow attachments, and I don't have an outside email address for "SOL Staff".

Replies: awnlee jawking REP Ernest Bywater

Zen Master 🚫

Oh, yeah. I know I can post some odd things to the website and see what actually happens, but it seems rude to run chemistry experiments in someone else's house. The staff would have to clean up the mess and they have better things to do. It would be better for the staff to review my assumptions and conclusions first.

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Zen Master

Thank you.

I see what some authors have done for their stories and wish that I could do the same.

Some facilities would obviously be impossible, since I've elected to stick to plain text transmissions, but I'd welcome a 'how to for dummies' guide.

AJ

Zen Master 🚫

For that matter, it's unclear to me exactly what some of the allowed options are for. How can I get a list of all stories that have an "Introduction" part, so I can see what they put in it? I don't see "find me this part" in either of the search options.

REP 🚫

@Zen Master

I agree that there should be some clarification as to what each section title means.

However, authors produce and post sections before their first chapter for various purposes. When we, as readers, read these sections we form an idea as to what the author is trying to accomplish. Our ideas may differ from the author's intent. Thus the author's title for the section may not be what we readers think it should be. What this means is, the author should not be censored for using a title different from that which their readers believe is more appropriate.

In my opinion, a clear definition for the different types of sections should be available to authors somewhere other than on the internet. For example, consider the titles that are used for a similar purpose:

• Foreword – a short introduction to a book, typically by a person other than the author. Note: the use of typically means a Foreword can be generated by the author.

• Introduction - a thing preliminary to something else, especially an explanatory section at the beginning of a book, report, or speech.

• Preface – an introduction to a book, typically stating its subject, scope, or aims.

As far as getting your document to Lazeez, I wish there was a way or email address to send an attachment. However, you can always click Contact and copy your document into the message form. You may have to divide the document into more than one message.

Replies: Zen Master

Zen Master 🚫

@REP

My list for SOL currently has:

+Table of Contents - A multi-part story MUST have a table of contents. Since this is a requirement, the website's software will create one if not provided by the author. Ernest Bywater's stories have good examples of what you can do if you submit your own TOC.
+Introduction - Introducing who or what? The author? The story?
+Foreword - A note from the author, perhaps thanking his mother
+Preface - Things the reader needs to know before reading the story
+Preamble - Things the author wants you to know?
+Prelude - Things that happened before the story
+Prologue - Things that happened before the story
+Cast - List of people in the story
+Chapter(s) - Finally, the actual story, in one or more chapters
+Epilogue - Things that happened after the story
+Postlude - Things that happened after the story
+Afterword - Things that the author wants you to know now that you've read the story
+Postscript - Things that you just wouldn't understand until you'd read the story

I'd like to be able to flesh that out a bit more....

Replies: PotomacBob awnlee jawking REP awnlee jawking

PotomacBob 🚫

@Zen Master

That's a great list for somebody who hopes to be an author. I thank you for the list. I'm slow. This being January, I guess I should refer to the pouring speed of molasses as my pace in writing.
A couple of questions:
1. Could you provide an example of a story where SOL created the TOC? Of is there some way I can determine for myself who created the TOC?
2. What do you mean by multi-part? More than one chapter? More than one SOL page? Where a very long story is divided into "books" or "parts" or "volumes" or whatever word the author decides to use (the way it's done in A Well Lived Life, for example)?
Again, thank you. I find the list very useful.

Zen Master
1/5/2021, 1:04:05 PM

@REP

My list for SOL currently has:

+Table of Contents - A multi-part story MUST have a table of contents. Since this is a requirement, the website's software will create one if not provided by the author. Ernest Bywater's stories have good examples of what you can do if you submit your own TOC.
+Introduction - Introducing who or what? The author? The story?
+Foreword - A note from the author, perhaps thanking his mother
+Preface - Things the reader needs to know before reading the story
+Preamble - Things the author wants you to know?
+Prelude - Things that happened before the story
+Prologue - Things that happened before the story
+Cast - List of people in the story
+Chapter(s) - Finally, the actual story, in one or more chapters
+Epilogue - Things that happened after the story
+Postlude - Things that happened after the story
+Afterword - Things that the author wants you to know now that you've read the story
+Postscript - Things that you just wouldn't understand until you'd read the story

I'd like to be able to flesh that out a bit more....

Replies: Zen Master

Zen Master 🚫

@PotomacBob

PB,

By far the chapters themselves are the most common 'part' used. The vast majority of stories uploaded here to SOL are simply a series of chapters. All of the others are options that are seldom used. Use my own stories as examples.
Several of them are so short there was no reason to divide them up into chapters. BOGO doesn't have chapters or anything else. You click on it and you go right to the beginning of the story. That's what I meant by multi-part. There's only one 'part' so there's no need for a TOC.
Shauna is also a quick one-chapter story, but apparently I got too wordy. If you click on it, you go right to the beginning just like BOGO, but you will also see a little grey box that has "Pages: Prev|1|2|Next". That means that this one chapter was so long that SOL was worried about exploding your web browser so SOL has split this one chapter into 2 different 'pages'.
If you click on my story "Jason's Tale" you won't go to the story at first. Instead, you will get sent to a Table of Contents page which allows you to choose a chapter. Of course if you've never seen this story, you will start at chapter 1.

And yes, you are asking questions answered in the rest of this essay I am writing. I want it posted on the author's resources page, but only after LJ and his elves have approved it.

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Zen Master

Prologue - Things that happened before the story

Some dead tree authors use the prologue to foreshadow an action scene that occurs during the story. Having started with a bang to grab reader interest, the author can then start the story in a more natural way, which is almost inevitably slower.

Several SOL authors also use Interlude, to incorporate a part of the story away from the main narrative. In my novel 'Gay!', I used Interlogue, a much rarer term but consistent with Prologue and Epilogue.

AJ

Replies: Keet

Keet 🚫

@awnlee jawking

Several SOL authors also use Interlude, to incorporate a part of the story away from the main narrative. In my novel 'Gay!', I used Interlogue, a much rarer term but consistent with Prologue and Epilogue.

Catchy! As far as I could find not an existing word but it does sit in line with prologue and epilogue. Works as a chapter title though so it's a trick Zen Master should include in his essay: How to set a different title (with it's own numbering) between all other 'Chapter ??' titles.

Replies: richardshagrin

richardshagrin 🚫

@Keet

all other 'Chapter ??' titles.

One of my minor dislikes is when there are letters after the chapter number. Chapters 3A, 3B, and 3C. Haven't seen it much lately. It is bad enough when something before the chapters start counts as a chapter. The numbering on SOL says the new chapter is chapter 22 when actually it is chapter 21 and there was a TOC or Prefix or some other thing in the first position.

REP 🚫

@Zen Master

+Prelude - Things that happened before the story

I have never heard of Prelude being used in writing. It is usually related to music.

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Zen Master

All those objects correspond to SOL chapters. Some authors do clever things to a story to group chapters into larger units eg 'parts' or 'books'. I have no idea how they do that.

AJ

Replies: Zen Master

Zen Master 🚫
Updated:

@awnlee jawking

   You are, of course, absolutely right. SOL allows a bewildering array of things you can post. They are all just chunks of text. "Chapters" are merely the most common chunk that people post here.

   Anyway, this thread started with a plea for an outside contact point so that I could submit a file, not for posting on the site, but for review by LJ and his elves WITHOUT getting posted. I got that, he got my proposed essay on all the pieces-parts allowed here, and we are working to resolve our differences. Hopefully there will soon be a new essay on the Authors' Resource page, named something like "SOL Pieces-Parts: How to organize your story".

   I've also created an 'Example Story" that illustrates all the parts, but LJ has told me that if it ain't a real story, he doesn't want it posted. Well, of course, not as a story, but how about somewhere else, as an example? We're working on it.

Ernest Bywater 🚫

@Zen Master

I don't have an outside email address for "SOL Staff".

top right corner of most webpages has a link for the web,aster, send them a message with your email address and ask for an email address to send a copy of what you propose to - they'll reply and all will go well from there.

Keet 🚫

I wish authors would move their author notes they currently put in the story description into a foreword. I understand the reason why: the description is displayed on the home page and author story lists, a foreword not. So it's easy to abuse the description for that, sometimes completely replacing it. I suspect there's too much history to introduce an extra section for a story: an author notes section under the story description. I dearly wish something like that would have been available from the start.
So authors: please use a foreword instead of abusing the description :D

Replies: awnlee jawking PotomacBob

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Keet

On the downside, to access the author's note means the reader has to use up one of their daily download ration - not a great hassle when it's 100, but liable to provoke howls of protest when it's 16.

AJ

Replies: Keet

Keet 🚫

@awnlee jawking

On the downside, to access the author's note means the reader has to use up one of their daily download ration - not a great hassle when it's 100, but liable to provoke howls of protest when it's 16.

Yep, that's why a 'second description' for author notes would be nice for both authors and readers. But it would require a database change (added field) so I will not request it as a new feature. Lazeez has enough on his plate as it is :D

PotomacBob 🚫

@Keet

And use the description slot for an actual description? What a revolutionary idea!

Keet
1/5/2021, 3:45:10 PM

I wish authors would move their author notes they currently put in the story description into a foreword. I understand the reason why: the description is displayed on the home page and author story lists, a foreword not. So it's easy to abuse the description for that, sometimes completely replacing it. I suspect there's too much history to introduce an extra section for a story: an author notes section under the story description. I dearly wish something like that would have been available from the start.
So authors: please use a foreword instead of abusing the description :D

Replies: Zen Master

Zen Master 🚫

@PotomacBob

And use the description slot for an actual description?

That's just crazy talk. Nobody does that.

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Forum: Bug Report and Feature Requests

Help with story pieces-parts

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