This Way, That Way, CENTER!

[Breezy]

I've been trying to wrap my head around this idea for quite some time now, but I just don't understand it. It makes me wonder.

Now what exactly is making me wonder? Formatting. Rather, sentence aligning. On occasion, while doing my casual closet reading reviewing like a good girl should do, I stumble upon stories that have their sentences

formatted

like​

this.

Then continue typing here.

Sometimes italicized

And in different font.

Then they come back here.

And contemplate.

Ease the reader back into it.

THEN SHARPLY JAR BACK RIGHT AGAIN.
​

​

But ... I'm not sure I understand why the author chooses to do this. I'm not saying this is wrong or right (you might disagree, of course), but I really ... don't get it. Does it emphasize the flow in thought or human's ability to think about one thing and then the next? Does it point out things? Is the point trying to make the reader "hurt himself in confusion".

har har pokemon jokes

Back to the point, I remember, when I did comment on why an author chose to format their story something like that, he merely replied with "it seemed like the cool thing to do".
​

So is formatting in such a way more than just being aesthetically pleasing? Or is there a reasoning behind it?

No, I'm not complaining about it, lol. I really am curious.

 

[Yami Ryu]

I think the only time I've seen something like that used, aka Center and italicized, or center/different font, is when the author wants to futher denote that This here is something not part of the flow of the general story. Like a note or letter, message or lyrics or something.

Outside that, it's for the most part annoying and distracting imo.

So tbh I think most who do that, do it to look, as the person said, 'cool'.

 

[Starlight Aurate]

I'm not sure, I've never come across it before. Where have you seen that? If I had to take my best guess, I think it would probably be to show thoughts or Put up something big to catch attention.

The only times I've seen text italicized is when they're showing that somebody is thinking, but I haven't seen them doing it by putting the text to the right or in a different font.

 

[Manchee]

^Like she said, I've seen the center/italicized to show that the part that has those tags is not part of the story, or also to add emphasis.

I've only really seen the text off to the side when it's a chapter title of some sort, amd never really anywhere else. I don't remember if you mentioned authors spacing out sentences like this:

She knew she couldn’t keep it; it wasn’t hers.

Kira got up and moved over to where Professor Elm stood. As she held out the egg, something no one expected happened.

For the first time in months, Professor Elm saw what he never thought would happen.

It came from the egg, the unborn organism in Kira’s hands.

Its entire surface shone with a dazzling flash, which only meant one thing:

The egg would hatch soon.

But I've only seen that when it's used for a dramatic exit, like I usually do xD

Hope I helped you understand part of it

BA~~

 

[Synthetic]

I usually use it as a technique to show instability. Thoughts flitting from one place to the next, uncontrollable, ideas coming and going at a drop of a hat with emphasis on some ideas more than others.

The style (if one could call it that, I suppose) can also just be an aesthetic thing; some people just like to read text that way. I find it slows you down and make you take your time with it. If you like to really stop and think about what you're reading, then that's a good thing. Otherwise it'll drive you mad.

Personally, I prefer it used as a way of showing chaos and flitting from idea to idea in a very... mentally disturbed way.

Of course, as Negrek below has pointed out... it is very possible to go overboard too. XD

 

[Negrek]

You just must not be sophisticated to appreciate these great works of art, Breezy. It takes a highly-developed sense of artistry to recognize the

subtle nuances​

of this highbrow class of fanfic.

Who cares if it's difficult to read and StUpId LoOkInG? It is​

ART​

Reminds me of the +::[CƦAƵγ ┼I┼Lἓ]::+ fad we had a couple of years back, though to be honest at least that one made a little more sense in that it made your 'fic stand out on the thread index. I think people feel that font/style/alignment make them look sophisticated and "deep" or something. Great way to tell which 'fics to avoid, really.

 

[Ysavvryl]

Actually, if you can get a sensible piece of text formatted in such a way that it forms a simplistic picture, that is art. It's a form of poetry, but tricky to work with. For another purpose, I've seen someone use text aliegnment to indicate two spirit beings arguing back and forth; it was still hard to read and I would have liked it done another way.

For yet another purpose, I've seen someone use quote boxes to indicate certain characters using telepathy. Now that was cool because it was integral to the story, made perfect sense, and gave the reader the feel that only these certain characters knew what was being said.

Although if it's simply to look cool without being a poetic picture, that's a rather weak reason.

 

[oRaNgE~1337]

It may not be related to the first post itself, but sometimes people write without quotation marks. In one story, it just was really confusing, but in the other, it made me pay attention a little bit more. Then again, one was in first person and one was in third, but I forgot what I meant.

The spaced out text is

reallydamannoyingbecause my mon​

itor screen is REALLY DAMN
WIDE​

but it seems cool in my mind

Poetry used to be more about rhythm or something. The format of the text doesn't really make it poetry in my mind, but the opposite of music. Poetry is just the words, but music gives it another dimension by having notes. The unusual formatting of written words also gives another dimension to the text, one that can't be quite accomplished as audio.

I don't know I'm really thirsty.

 

[sweet_piplup123]

I use italics for thoughts and texts on block of stone/page from book.

I think people mostly use italic for thoughts these days...

 

[Breezy]

I'm not really commenting italics = thoughts because that has been done countless times with stories. Rather, I'm commenting on words that, in my opinion, that don't have a need to be italicized other than to, well, be italicized.

I used italics to put stress on words, and I'm sure other people do it, too, in fanfiction and actual novels, but some write entire sentences in italics (that are not thought) that make me wonder why.

 

[oRaNgE~1337]

I haven't seen italics for thoughts recently. Usually I see thoughts in third person when the story itself is in third person.

 

[Azurne]

Usually I see thoughts in third person when the story itself is in third person.

Wait, what? That doesn't make any sense to me... Oo;



Um, I think I've used the center option once, at the end of one of my chapters to put emphasis on the ending line, but other than that I see no reason to put whole sentences spread out like that. That seems tedious to read.

As for the italics, I've no idea why they'd use it other than the fact it might look nice. Same for the fonts.

 

[Yami Ryu]

I'm not sure what book it was, I've read like 5k books in my lifetime, I remember the good ones and the bad ones the most, the rest just sorta.. blur...

...

Anyways.

What I'm getting at is italicized or not, centered text usually denotes a important thing that's not more mindless flow of words of a story.

Not saying it's bad but imo abusing

LEFT​

CENTER​

RIGHT​

SIZE And FONTS​

just to try and look cool, and get readers, then you don't really know the first thing about writing

Negrek your post made me lol- and I admit I was part of the fad, but I liked the ones that were simple.

Like. .:.

or. :.:

TETRIS FACES!

 

[Caithyra]

(People probably get away with strange formatting because authors like Roddy Doyle can write the entire first chapter in a book in parenthesis, like I'm doing here, and still win a Nobel Prize because it's ~*aRt*~ and #{cREAtive}#!!!1!!one!)

Centering a title, okay.

Alternating the text's place over the course of the story. Not okay. Compare to having every third subtitle on your movies switch place (starts at the bottom, move to the top, then the right and last the left. Rinse and repeat). It destroys the reader's flow and rips them out of the story.

 

[Praxiteles]

I, uh, did that once or twice (Aftershock, Resolution 1 and then Resolution 3). All over the page. Best way to show a fractured consciousness is to make a fractured paragraph, hm? Words were more or less randomly distributed across the screen, unless they actually physically wanted to demonstrate an idea, in which case they formed rudimentary shape(s). The invasive entity was naturally given the largest font, especially if it was saying something very emphatically, and the MC had a few small-sized suppressed lines in places. I was considering messing with he sequence of the phrases, but that would make it unnecessarily complicated.

Why? I suppose I like being graphic with my words.

Other formatting I usually produce to pick out different voices from a particularly confusing scene, with one voice signifying this character in my MC's mind and so on. Italics are always good for picking out dream sequences, unless you want the reader to share the experiences of the dreamer in thinking that the dream is real until it ends. (I once made a word right-aligned to make it look like it had smashed into the right wall. This, I admit, is stretching it.)

(Hm, yes, people do

sometimes​

format very oddly​

to make it seem more dramatic. Ha ha. Just remember that they still have to make the words to go in between the align tags, so it's not advisable to dismiss a fic only because of that.)

 

[Bay]

Mind, Zap, Insect, Sky, Toxic, Icicle

When the universe was created, its shards became this Plate.
The power of defeated giants infuses this Plate.

Splash, Flame, Stone, Meadow, Earth, Spooky

Two beings of time and space set free from the Original One.
Three beings were born to bind time and space.
Two make matter, and three make spirit, shaping the world.

Draco, Iron, Dread, Fist

The Original One breathed alone before the universe came.
The powers of Plates are shared among Pokémon.
The rightful bearer of a Plate draws from the Plate it holds. ​

In my story, this part I did the center, bold, the works to connect the plates and the description of them. I center the plate's description and italize cause I'm doing it as if it's an excerpt from a book or another source (which they are XD; ). As to why I bold the plate's names- so that the readers won't get confused. :X

Showers of fire were coming down and destroying the city.
When called for help, the alpha appeared and gave out a roar
That shook the stars and created a tsunami.
Thus the city of Michiina was saved
But with a heavy cost,
Scars all over its body and breath deep and short.

-excerpt from “Stories from the Michiinan Ruins”​

There are some records from Michiina of how the plates were made. Thousands of years ago, Arceus saved the city from a meteor, but was greatly injured. A man named Damos took care of the legendary Pokémon though, and in return Arceus gave him the Jeweled Orb of Life, which contained sixteen life forces of its own. Damos was supposed to return the orb to the legendary, but did not. Why, not much is known, but one possibility was due to Damos’ minion, Gishin, a man with Pokémon carrying devilish accessories. Arceus carried on its rage in its sleep and vowed to bring judgment on the humans when it awakens again.

During Arceus’ slumber, though, there were people that managed to find the Jeweled Orb of Life and were able to create sixteen plates with them. Not only that, they were able to write the history of Sinnoh on some of the tablets. As for the whereabouts of the Jeweled Orb of Life, it was gone when the people got the powers from it. There are some assumptions Arceus was killed in the process, but others that claim Arceus might had gone to the Halls of Origin after Damos’ betrayal. Either way, the Pokémon has not been seen since.

What power the plates created was unknown due to many records from Michiina City having been destroyed, but one thing for sure was the artifacts corrupted the people. At first, the people used them for good, but then they got greedy and were fighting for them. There was lots of bloodshed, taking lives of both Pokémon and humans. Eventually, the plates were scattered all over Sinnoh and beyond.

Once a beautiful place full of very green grass and Pokémon drinking from the streams, Michiina is now only filled with ruins of the past of how the plates came to be. This is only one interpretation as to how the plates were made, though. However, this was the one most embraced.

-- Carved in Silence, “Michiina City’s History.”

Now, in this one I centered one part but not the other cause this is how you would read it if you guys read "Carved in Silence" (made up book in my story). XD The book has gotten an excerpt from that poem, so yeah.

Most of the times I would do the crazy bolding and such if it's either excerpts in the story's world or like the above, to put sometime not actually part of the narrative but very important to the chapter (and to make things more readable if I deem so). However, I won't think of having center and such on the narrative itself cause that'll ruin the flow.

 

[Diddy]

Yeah. Thread somewhat inspired by me.

I can say the only reason I did that in my one-shot was because of the exact reasons people are posting.

My character at the time was reflecting back and thinking about her life. Now during this one-shot, I experimented with a few different styles (Overly descriptive etc.) and that section was a pretentious super artsy 'I iz all epic cos I align stuffz' section. Hence why I randomly centred the word 'Time'



So I was parodying it in my own small insubstantial way.

OR

WAS​

I​

?​

Yeah I was.


Although I do agree that alignment can be used to a more visual effect, like poems written in the shape of a person etc.

 

[Negrek]

The thing is, prose is not poetry. Alternatively, "You are not e. e. cummings." Because lines of poetry tend to be short and convey information in a somewhat nonlinear fashion, they lend themselves much better to that sort of manipulation. Narration, on the other hand, relies a lot more on conveying complete thoughts in a structured fashion in order to construct a cohesive and directional flow of ideas. As a result, prose tends to be more difficult to sprinkle about the page without serious consequences for readability and comprehension.

There are certainly some things for which unusual formatting is a convention. Italicized thoughts are common, for example, and typically yes, you would set a poem/quote that was not directly a part of the text apart (and sometimes if it was something being read in the context of the narrative as well). However, these only really work if used sparingly, as with many other devices. For example, you could choose to italicize a flashback to set it apart from the rest of the text, but if that flashback goes on for a good page or so, it's just going to turn into eye-murder. While I still think that alignment in particular is really something you should be careful with, it's at least tolerable if it doesn't go on for too long and appears to have some good reason for being so disjointed (never seen it in fanfic yet). That kind of stuff is something where you really need to understand how the way different formatting affects the way that people read your prose, which takes a lot of experience.

IMO, you should be trying to get across things like confusion and so forth with your actual writing, rather than trying to let the formatting do it for you. There's a difference between making the reader think hard and pay attention because you're using syntax and punctuation in a particular way and making the reader think hard because they can't find the next sentence, or find their eyes being drawn to a different area of the text due to emphasis or placement. There's nothing wrong with trying weird formatting out, but I can't say I've seen a 'fic on these forums that was improved with more than sparse exercise of "creative formatting"--to me it looks as though some people do it as a kind of crutch rather than change what they actually write to communicate a particular tone, or because they want to look avant-garde. Again, no problem with people trying it, but when it catches on to the point that it has because people think it's cool or what have you, it makes me cringe.

 

[Breezy]

Actually, if you can get a sensible piece of text formatted in such a way that it forms a simplistic picture, that is art. It's a form of poetry, but tricky to work with.

Shaped verse, or whatever, you mean? Example:

Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,
Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poore:

With thee
Oh let me rise
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

My tender age in sorrow did beginne:
And still with sicknesses and shame
Thou didst so punish sinne,
That I became
Most thinne.

With thee
Let me combine
And feel this day thy victorie:
For, if I imp my wing on thine
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.​

The thing is, even though I'm sure it's not coincidental that the poem takes the shape of wings, what makes this poem work is the metrical form (fall and rise of man and whatnot). What I'm questioning is whether or not the sentence formatting in prose is absolutely necessary to bring the point across. Does shifting text to the right or center make the point more apparent? More ... hum ... made? I'm not sure if I'm ready to believe that you couldn't make your point if you just wrote in a more structured format.

Anyway, I'm not sure if I should compare a published poem to pokemon fanfiction, but eh. ;P And besides, poetry =/= prose.

I think Negrek is right; i 2 dum for dis heer art.

Edit: Oh, and I apparently stole her opening line. >_> whoops.

 

[Jonouchi]

Hey, excellent IDEA!!!!

Let's type like E. E. Cummings and
....................................................t................................t
...................................................s................................y
..................................................u..................................p
.................................................j...................................e

......w
...o....e
h.........v
...r....e


W
E

want!​

Hey, this is fun =D


Seriously, though. The only alignment should be left side. Center should be for stuff like titles and stuff like letters (I use them centered and italicized).

And last, but not least. NEVER USE RIGHT ALIGNMENT!!!! Don't really know what you can use such a thing for, but it's odd to use right alignment. Especially on the iMac that I tend to use, where it's so far off the forum screen that you outright miss it.

Then again, I suppose right alignment could be used for something like, letter signatures, but still. Don't do it.

So yeah, There are reasons to use center sometimes. Not within paragraphs, please no.