A PSA coming, like, seven years too late · 6:01pm Jun 6th, 2020
Dear Fimfiction authors,
If you dislike or do not know about Fimfiction's built in "hr" page break separator and decide to use a string of punctuation to denote a change in scene, please, for the love of all that is holy, do not use underscores.
Especially do not use more than five underscores.
Because Fimfiction's text-to-speech function is pretty derpy, let's not mince words. But it tries really hard to do what it's supposed to, and it will read every single one of those underscores to my earholes, eventually becoming so confused by their sheer number and its own derpiness that it will end on an "un" and then have to pause for a few seconds to collect itself.
Hopefully you're already using the hr's, or a handful of asterisks or dashes or dots, and not causing me headaches while I listen to your story on Fimfiction dot net, America's number 1 home of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfiction! Because hearing "underscoreunderscoreunderscoreun" for a minute straight really sucks. :)
My editor first clued me in on the HR page break and it looks so neat and fancy. It's even included already on my Google docs drafts so that it's ready to go when I copy paste it over to Fimfiction.
underscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreunderscoreun
…
where was I? oh yeah, that sounds annoying
5279176
lol I thought this post was from a spam bot at first
5279172
The hr is honestly very aesthetically pleasing and simple to use. I keep a trio of dashes for section breaks in my personal files, then just find-replace them with the hr when it's time to publish.
That said, I've seen some people use cool ASCII waves or even images, and those are fine too. Just not twenty underscores. See above.
I've always used the /hr/ function or bold ... that have been centered. They're the only options that don't look excessively tacky, anyway.
Hah! Yeah, massive numbers of repeat characters as a page or scene break are mildly my nemesis. I use the text to speech extensively, and lots of authors love their hyphens or whatnot.
While we're on the subject, a similar pet peeve; older fics that used custom line breaks hosted on TinyPic or the like. Now that the site's shut down, every single scene transition becomes "ERROR: IMAGE NOT FOUND".
I have to agree with you, although, I don’t use the FF text to speech, I use my tablet’s setting to do that. But yeah, it gets EXTREAMLY annoying when you’re listening to a female robot voice repeat the same thing over and over again.
Who rules?
Horizontal Rules.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2014/7/29/686337.gif
I like to harass my friends until they make a nifty custom divider for me to use c:
camo.fimfiction.net/6qIRMyJxOAedfV4FmhzEjE3R4rBr-6DVpWM3qFbGqmw?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FtE26LON.png
....
To be fair, when I started writing on this site, we didn't have fancy doo-dads like text-to-speech. This is the first I've ever heard of it.
5279182
Excellent. HRs are broken for me in a few places, so I like other things. How about em dashes? 3 em dashes is my default and I'm not always bothered to go in later to fancy it up with one of the numerous wavy/emoji types I keep on file.
Importantly, how can I test new variants? Or what to be aware of besides underscore.
My newer stories already use the HR button but I should really go back someday and update all my old ones that use the underscores.
Five underscores divided by four?
:B
Four underscore and seven years ago...
This really underscores the need for horizontal rule breaks.
Does it do this for the "~~~"?
Quick check, does this also apply for em dashes? I sometimes use those for a rapid series of scene changes.
HAHAHA
5279198
Older fics, especially those by authors who left the site years ago, are just kind of a problem sometimes. c.c
5279219
Publish your chapter (in an unpublished story would be best) with whatever dividers you want to use. Click the paragraph that is the divider line, hit "Read", and listen to the madness.
5279245
5279263
5279270
Goddammit.
5279321
Not to my knowledge, but I cannot say for sure.
5279328
It does, but I'd rather hear "Dash dash dash" than "scorunderscorunderscorun" etc.
Alternately, a lot of separators, including the hr, get past TTS with nothing having been said, so I sometimes have a hard time knowing when the scene has transitioned. Usually more a problem with less experienced writers, though.
Got it, I'll use a line of ten 'x's from now on
.
In all seriousness I stick to three centered dashes because it still looks like a scene break to me in pure unformatted text, whereas most fancier options just look like HTML barf.
I'm also still a little sour on how fimfic handles indentation. I think I commented on that long-ago sitewide post saying it brought me a step closer to publishing everything I write as an image of text formatted how the author intended it to be formatted… but I get why it's useful for readability and general ease of use.
I'm just crazy, is what I'm saying…
5279203
And yet nobody talks about RD's rarely seen or understood relative, Auntie Em-Dash.
5279176
Madlad!
Dear Faust,
Why did we invent underscores?
Temp
5279212
Yoink.
So if I need a break I should use (((((((((()))))))))) instead
note: I don't use the underscore either.
Who the hell are these people not just importing from GDocs and using its horizontal rule?
No. Like seriously. GDocs is absolutely amazing for writing. Any device, anywhere, and your editors can leave comments for review. Like, why would you use notepad? Ever?
It might be just me but I say its funny to see the Text to Speach try and fail. But yeah, use hr
I don't really care because I actually read a story not listen.
5279538
*shrug* I don’t like using GDocs. I use Word. So.... here’s one, I guess.
5279699
Why say "actually" like it's somehow lesser to listen to a story? c.c I wouldn't have read nearly as many stories as I have if not for audiobooks and text-to-speech.
5279871
I think I just don't like the idea of audiobooks and text to speech.
5279894
Well, it sucks to be you. Aside from helping my productivity, they also allow people with sight and reading difficulties to enjoy stories. Their existence is not the issue here, only implementation.
5279906
Well, I said nothing about your productivity and people with sight and reading difficulties and the problem is not with the audiobooks themselves but with me, it's just one of this times when you don't like something but can't really explain why.
Who knows, maybe one day I will change my opinion like I started to enjoy anime after 10 years of hating it.
5279928
I only ask because this is twice you've posted something blunt and rather negative on one of my blogs. I don't know if that's your style or if you're just having a bad time (who isn't?). Either way, I hope you can sort things out.
5280112
Can you tell me what the previous time was?
5280339
Here. That was pretty insulting to the author who paid to have his stories reviewed.
5280409
Ow, I honestly missed the fact that he paid for it. As for my bluntness that the way I express myself from time to time and sometimes I fail to see if what I say will be insulting or not, I always trying to choose my words carefully since I know what kind of argument could be created (happened to me couple of times and it wasn't pretty) but as I see here... I need to try harder.
5280425
Sorry for pointing things out, I know that can be damaging to the face. I also know how hard it can be to change your behavior, but I know it can be done, and the first step is knowing it needs to. I believe in you! :)
5279178 Wait--you mean Majin isn't a spambot?
5279538
If anyone is using Notepad, it's probably because AOL doesn't have an on-line editor.