Otter's Rock

I just got a request to add one of my fics to a collection titled "Fics that deserve a podfic" with the collection description "A list of various fanfics that deserve a podfic version so I can listen to them while I do homework. If your work is in here let us know if you are cool with someone making one."

Except that fic already has a podfic.

Like. Did they somehow ... miss the link to the related work at the bottom of it? If you like podfics, and you want a podfic of a particular fic, checking for a related works link would be the logical first step, right? Also, if this is a really weird way of asking permission to make a podfic of it, I have a blanket permission to podfic statement on my profile.

They don't have any other accounts linked on their profile, so I can't contact them and say "I don't generally allow my fic to be put in collections without a really good reason, but if you want a podfic of this fic there already IS one, and if you want permission to do another podfic yourself, you are welcome to do so."

1. Write your fic as if it is a normal story.  If you want to have something italicized, just do it using Word's normal functions.  If you want something bold, do it using Word's normal functions.  Do this with all formatting like that.  Don't put in any html coding at all.  Just remember what formatting you put in that you will want to keep.
   1. EXCEPT scene breaks.  If you use something like this *** and Word turns it into lines for you, stop it from doing that.  (You can do this by hitting the backspace every time it does that, it should revert to *** for you.)  Use consistent characters for scene breaks, the same every time.
   2. Put a manual line break between each paragraph.  This looks nicest if you set it so that it doesn't automatically give you extra space between paragraphs, but you don't have to.  (This can be adjusted in the "Paragraph" dialog box, or in the Layout tab if you're using Word online through OneDrive.)
2. When done and ready to post, hit ctrl-F.  This will bring up the Find box.  There are three tabs at the top; Find, Replace, and Go To.  Click Replace.  There will now be two fields in the box, Find What and Replace With.
3. Put your cursor in the Find What field.  Type in whatever characters you use for scene breaks.  Then put your cursor in the Replace With field, and type < hr > (remove the spaces).  Click the "Replace All" button.  You now have the html code for horizontal lines at all the scene breaks.
4. Delete the scene break characters from the Find What box.  Click the "More" button; more options should show up.  Down at the bottom, there will be a "Replace" section with three dropdown buttons, one greyed out.  Click the "Format" dropdown and select "Font."  A new dialog box will appear.  Click Italic in the Font Style box, and then Okay.  This dialog box will disappear, taking you back to the Find/Replace box, and underneath the Find What field it will now say Font: Italic.  Move your cursor to the Replace With field and type in < em > (without the spaces).  With your cursor still in the Replace With field, click the "Special" dropdown at the bottom and select "Find What Text."  A caret and ampersand (^&) should show up in the Replace With field.  After the caret ampersand, type < / em > (no spaces).  It should look like this, except without the spaces: < em > ^& < / em >.  Click "Replace All."  All of your italic text will still be italic, but it will now have the html tags around it.  You don't have to worry about remembering to close tags--the open tag will be inserted just before the italics begin, and the close tags will be inserted just after they end, leaving the text in the middle just the same as you typed it.
5. Do the same with bold text, changing "italic" to "bold" in the Font Style box and using the strong tag instead of the em tag in the Replace With field.
6. Do the same with any other formatting you want to do in html.
7. Save As.  Instead of just hitting "Save," click "Save As" button and select .txt from the file type dropdown.  It'll ask you if you're sure, because that will strip out a lot of the formatting.  Click yes--you want to get rid of all of Microsoft's bulky and weird formatting, leaving nothing but your text and html tags.
8. Open the .txt version of your story in a program like Notepad that does nothing but read .txt files, and copy and paste from there into the HTML posting interface of the site of your choice.