BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 / Secret Santa Fic Exchange 2014

**Posted by La Jolie** October 22, 2014 7:02 am

SusiGo wrote:
Yes, dear, busy like a bee. (Yes, that was a canon nod).

Oi, I thought Schmiezi had the monopoly on doing Mycroft impersonations in this thread!

Good idea about the beta reader thread.

I have another question: So in December, Schmiezi will post all our fics here on the board. What if the fic needs a lot of formatting, like italics and bold print and that sort of thing? It can't be Schmiezi's job to convert our word docs into the forum code by hand... Is there a way to automatically convert word doc formatting into our forum code?

Last edited by La Jolie (October 22, 2014 7:04 am)

**Posted by gently69** October 22, 2014 7:07 am

Yeah, beta readers would be brilliant. I am absolutely uncertain about my English writing skills.

**Posted by SusiGo** October 22, 2014 7:21 am

La Jolie: Sorry, I have no idea if this is technically possible. Maybe you could ask the admin or open a thread in the technical section.

**Posted by Kerkerian** October 22, 2014 12:03 pm

La Jolie wrote:
I have another question: So in December, Schmiezi will post all our fics here on the board. What if the fic needs a lot of formatting, like italics and bold print and that sort of thing? It can't be Schmiezi's job to convert our word docs into the forum code by hand... Is there a way to automatically convert word doc formatting into our forum code?

Schmiezi and I briefly sort of talked about that. Last year, I had to edit every story after loading it up here, such as redoing the paragraphs etc, but I obviously didn't get to do the italics and everything as well. We might have come up with another solution for this year which Schmiezi was going to try.

In other news: I was at roughly 7.500 words, then stopped writing. The story is mostly finished, but it might be a while until I've got time to do it. I had fun writing it, though.

**Posted by Harriet** October 22, 2014 12:19 pm

La Jolie wrote:
Is there a way to automatically convert word doc formatting into our forum code?

The thing is that Word software produces a kind of odd code for HTML/XML and it will be not too easy to convert a doc converted to HTML/XML (which is an important stepping stone) properly further to BBcode. Like you have to convert something complicated into something less complex and then have to reduce it again.
I haven't tried the online converters I mentioned over there, so I don't know that kind of quality the results will have. Good luck!

**Posted by stoertebeker** October 22, 2014 6:15 pm

gently69 wrote:
Yeah, beta readers would be brilliant. I am absolutely uncertain about my English writing skills.

Me too. My grammar is rubish, especially the usage of correct tenses. I'm not sure I wish my story to be published without a beta reading.

Edit: I just saw in the other thread that we have some volunteers by now . I hope somebody can help me with my grammar (if this story will be ever finished, I'm only making slow progress ).

Last edited by stoertebeker (October 22, 2014 6:36 pm)

**Posted by La Jolie** October 23, 2014 1:29 pm

I've just tried out the format conversion thing with the two step option that Harriet suggested over in the tech thread (word to html to bbcode), and it works, at least for basic formatting like bold and italics. Case solved.

And YAY for our non-participant beta readers!!!

Kerkerian, sheesh - don't give us your word count, or you'll blow your cover straight away!!!

**Posted by Kerkerian** October 23, 2014 2:59 pm

Isn't that the average count?

**Posted by La Jolie** October 23, 2014 6:56 pm

Kerkerian wrote:
Isn't that the average count?

Oh, lovely. No pressure, huh?

**Posted by Kerkerian** October 23, 2014 7:24 pm

Exactly. Hehe.

(And I do recall that my story wasn't nearly the longest one last year...)

**Posted by Schmiezi** October 24, 2014 4:31 am

If it takes the pressure off everyone: I haven't written a single word yet. But I know that sometimes you just have to wait for the perfect idea. I am sure it will float soon.

Here is something for you to discuss: How do you feel about splitting up longer fics? One of you asked me about it, saying that her story is rather long. Her idea was to post it on several days. That would also fill the gaps we have because there aren't 24 stories.

Personally, I would prefer to read the fic written for me in one go, or at least to be able to do so. What do you think?
(Plus, I am already working on another way to fill the gaps, but don't want to reveal too much. )

BTW, feel free to send me your fics as soon as they are finished. If you need editing like italics or stuff, it would be really awesome if you'd send it to me in BBCode. Thank you.

Last edited by Schmiezi (October 24, 2014 4:41 am)

**Posted by La Jolie** October 27, 2014 9:31 pm

Schmiezi wrote:
Here is something for you to discuss: How do you feel about splitting up longer fics? One of you asked me about it, saying that her story is rather long. Her idea was to post it on several days. That would also fill the gaps we have because there aren't 24 stories.

Just my two cents on this:

I don't think longish stories should be split up and posted over several days as a matter of course. It might even be doing them an injustice to break the tension and keep people waiting for a resolution.

But I personally will probably not have the time to read fics of semi-novel length straight away on all days of December, and I really wouldn't want to get behind with my reading, least of all if the fic was written to my own prompt, just because there's too much material to get through in too little time. So having it split into chapters (with the author's consent, of course) might help.

What does everybody else think?

**Posted by gently69** October 28, 2014 8:48 am

I am busy with writing. Still need an exciting highlight. But I am well on track ... I hope. And then we will see if my grammar allows a proper reading of the fic.

**Posted by SolarSystem** October 28, 2014 10:05 am

I haven't written a wooooooord yet. Well, okay, I made some notes and have written about a page, but I probably won't use any of that. But there's a whole month to go, so... absolutely no reason to panic.

**Posted by gently69** October 28, 2014 10:13 am

Right, Sherlock, I don't panic.

**Posted by SusiGo** October 28, 2014 12:06 pm

La Jolie wrote:
Schmiezi wrote:
Here is something for you to discuss: How do you feel about splitting up longer fics? One of you asked me about it, saying that her story is rather long. Her idea was to post it on several days. That would also fill the gaps we have because there aren't 24 stories.
Just my two cents on this:

I don't think longish stories should be split up and posted over several days as a matter of course. It might even be doing them an injustice to break the tension and keep people waiting for a resolution.

But I personally will probably not have the time to read fics of semi-novel length straight away on all days of December, and I really wouldn't want to get behind with my reading, least of all if the fic was written to my own prompt, just because there's too much material to get through in too little time. So having it split into chapters (with the author's consent, of course) might help.

What does everybody else think?

I see your point. Not sure about your proposal, though. Do you mean posting everything on the same day but splitting into several parts? I think one has to do that anyway because there is a limit per post. Then you can choose to read it post per post but anyone who wants to read it in one go will be able to do so. Do I understand you correctly?

**Posted by gently69** October 28, 2014 12:38 pm

Hmm ... I think Schmiezi means different days. To fill in the gaps, because we don't have enough fics until Christmas.

**Posted by SusiGo** October 28, 2014 12:40 pm

Yes, I know. I was referring to La Jolie's post. I am fine with both ways of posting.

**Posted by La Jolie** October 28, 2014 3:22 pm

SusiGo wrote:
Do you mean posting everything on the same day but splitting into several parts? I think one has to do that anyway because there is a limit per post. Then you can choose to read it post per post but anyone who wants to read it in one go will be able to do so. Do I understand you correctly?

The way I understood Schmiezi, the idea was to post it over several days, with one chapter each day, to fill the gaps. You're right of course that people would be free to read it bit by bit even if it was all posted on the same day, but that would mean falling behind everyone else if you haven't got the time to read a lot on one specific day.

Last edited by La Jolie (October 28, 2014 3:41 pm)

**Posted by Schmiezi** October 28, 2014 4:11 pm

To be honest, I personally would not want the fic written for me stretched over several days. I might be egoistic, but I would want to read it completely as soon as possible.

Last edited by Schmiezi (October 28, 2014 4:12 pm)