This section will take you on a tour of the tools available for your library, as well as various useful tips to help you make the best out of your page.
Your Stories
This section gives you a complete list of stories you have uploaded, complete with the description, keywords, and a few tools you can use to edit each individual story. You can also view your story from here - either in its raw form (HTML tags and all) or a marked up version (how it would appear in your library).
This is where you can edit your story title, description and keywords. There is a Comment button for easy access to the comments on that particular story.
Your Files
How do you get your stories in here anyway? The Library only accepts two file types: HTML and text.
Before I go any further, bookmark this:
This is the single most useful Wyvern's Library tool to have at your side if you don't know any HTML. It supports plain text files, as well as HTML files generated by MS Word, Corel WordPerfect or Lotus WordPro.
I repeat: HTML files generated by other word processors.
Look for a function called "Save as webpage" or "Save as HTML" in your word processor. If it doesn't have one, save your story as plain text, or copy and paste your story into Notepad, and use the 'Plain text to HTML converter' on the J. King Text Tools page.
You might wonder why the other fixers in this page are necessary. Isn't it good enough if your word processor can save as HTML?
Programs like MS Word tend to generate a lot of unnecessary codes when you save a document as HTML. These codes may or may not have a visible effect on your final output. To be safe, the fixers strip off the codes that are not necessary in your story file. Experiment around with it.
Your File Names
Some of you may have uploaded chapters and found that they don't appear in the correct order. The arrangement of the items in your library is influenced by the file name, and is especially important for stories or novels appearing in several parts. You want your readers to move smoothly from the beginning to the end, not hop all over your library looking for correct chapters!
The usual mistake is naming your chapters in the following manner:
The extranet organises your file names alphanumerically. The above files would be arranged to appear in the following way:
The obvious flaw here is that your chapters will not appear in the correct sequence. The second flaw is that you are limiting your file naming prospects. Is this the only "novel" you'll publish in your Wyvern's Library? If not, a more descriptive name would come in handy. Here is a good way to tell your files apart from the other and have it appear the way it should:
novelname00.html - the prologue, if any
novelname01.html
novelname02.html
novelname03.html
Why do I use two digits? Why not "1" instead of "01"?
Numbers are also affected by the alphanumeric rule. This is a negligible detail if you have 9 chapters or less, but guess what happens when you reach chapter 10?
Another common file naming mistake is that things like hyphens and underscores do make a difference. 'novelname01.html' and 'novelname_01.html' are two very different file names; almost as different as naming them 'black01.html' and 'white01.html'. Here is the order they will appear in a file list:
If you are not sure of the sequence, put your files into one directory. Using Windows Explorer, have it arrange the files by 'Name'. That should give you an example of the order it will appear in your library.
File names are required to be kept under 20 characters. You won't get an automatic reject note if you upload a long file name, but it's likely to be rejected by a moderator when they get to your ticket. To the back of the queue with you.
Pick a word related to your story or poem. If your story title is "Take a Long Walk off a Short Pier", great file names would include 'walk.html', 'pier.html' or even 'walkpier.html'. A bad example of a file name would be: 'a_sucky_story_I_will_call_take_a_long_walk_off_a_short_pier.html'
Yes, people have actually done this.
Be extra careful about renaming your files. The comments on the story are tied to the filename, so if you rename it, you'll lose your comments.
Your Story Title
There are two problems with the Story Titles that get displayed on that cool parchment on your main page:
Only the first letter gets capitalised. It doesn't matter if you enter the title exactly the way you want it to appear. 'PoC: Prologue' will display as 'Poc: prologue' regardless of what you specify.
Only 30 characters of the title are displayed. If it's longer than that, it'll get chopped off. This only happens on the main page; individual library pages still show the full title.
This is a no-brainer. Either you keep your Story Title under 30 characters, or ignore the fact that the end of the title is abruptly cut off. The parchment is more pleasing to behold if the titles are complete.
Your Story Description
Between the Story Title and the story itself is an area for your story description. Rather than resort to a rather unimaginative "I wrote this one day when I was bored... just read it ok", try something more descriptive. "This is a story about a princess who meets a frog" tells a potential reader much more and may interest them into reading further.
Other interesting information you can include is your inspiration, where we can see illustrations, artist credits (if you used illustrations), and your last update (if this is a continuing effort).
Example:
I've always loved "The Princess and the Frog" so here's my personal take on the fairy tale. (Last updated: 23 Dec 2002)
Uploading Stories
The 'Upload Story!' link takes you to two options:
'Click here to upload a NEW story' sends you to a page where you can fill in the information for your story and upload it into your library.
'Click here to replace an existing story with a new upload' comes in handy when you have a new version of the file (i.e. you wrote more of the story) and want to update it without losing your comments.
Your Illustrations
Illustrations may consist of a customised title for the top of your file, or artwork related to your story. Uploading one is a fairly simple process.
All you need to do is make sure that your illustration is 400 pixels or less in both directions. The smaller the better. Large and poorly-placed images don't go down very well with your viewers. The width of the story page is also limited, so pictures that are too wide will stretch the page and force your readers to scroll around to see your full paragraph. You also must take your layout into account.
The following screenshots were taken on a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. The lower your resolution, the bigger the image is going to look. A 400-pixel wide image is already way too big for the lowest screen resolution of 640 x 480. So remember: the smaller the better.
To demonstrate, let's take a look at this:
Wyvern's Library is meant for stories, not artwork, so keep it to a minimum, get a gallery, or link to the image in your story description.
Although the Your Illustration page permits you to resize your illustrations on the Extranet itself, try to upload in the correct size to begin with. This way, you have exact control on the size of your picture, and not distort them with an inaccurate guess of the new size.
Inserting an image into a story
So how do you put an image into your story anyway? You need to know some HTML, of course. I'm not going to give you a HTML tutorial here. If you do not know basic HTML, you should go learn that first before even thinking about adding illustrations.
Once uploaded, the image can be found in the root directory of your gallery.
Open up your file in a text editor and insert one of the following tags in front of the paragraph where you want your image to appear:
<img src="full image URL here" align="left"> gives you the following:
<img src="full image URL here" align="right"> gives you this:
If you want to centre the image, insert this tag where you want the image to appear:
Illustrations & Ownership
If you think putting the image into the story is a lot of trouble, you haven't seen anything yet. Welcome to the anal retentive world of copyright.
We do care where the image came from. Elfwood is particular about copied or stolen work, and this extends to the illustrations you use in your story. You cannot grab and use any old picture that serves your purpose. The Moderators will want to know where it came from and whether you have any right to use them.
This is where it gets tricky. At the time of writing, there is no convenient way for you enter the additional information on your illustrations. You only get a field to enter its title.
If you are the artist, there is no problem. You only have to state it clearly in your story description and provide a link to your gallery (Elfwood or personal) so the Moderators can check.
If you are not the artist, you need to get permission, credit the artist and link to them in your story description.
If you fail to do this, your ticket will be rejected. To the back of the queue with you.
Additional Reading
This web page is part of a hosted copy of the WoodWorks eZine at Elfwood. (#111)
