At 03:16 8/24/1998 -0700, MegaZone wrote:

Once upon a time Nephilim shaped the electrons to say...

Noted hallmarks of bad fanfiction:

Two very basic things that always set me on edge:

1. Bad formatting.  Simple as that, lines like this one I'm doing

deliberately that are longer than 80 columns

or that have
seemingly random line wrapping.  It makes it a bitch to read, and what it

Another problem is text that's beautifully line-wrapped...and
paragraph-indented only afterwards, so that the indented line no longer fits
the wrapping.

This stuff is apparently produced by well-intentioned authors who
accidentally switched a couple of steps, but still looks pretty annoying.

A paragraph that's 

WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD
WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD

becomes 

WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD
WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD
WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD
WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD

after line wrapping, and fits on the screen.  Then it gets indented into 

       WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD
WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD
WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD
WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD

which ends up looking like 

       WORD WORD WORD WORD 
WORD
WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD
WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD
WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD

when it reaches the reader and the whole thing gets line wrapped again (for
example, Eudora does this automatically).

However, if one instead *first* turns 

WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD
WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD

into 

       WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD
WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD

and then line wraps *second*, it becomes 

       WORD WORD WORD WORD 
WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD 
WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD 
WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD 
WORD

which has both the indentation and the line wrapping one seeks.

Also, those of ye who MST/S&E/etc., please consider putting blank lines
between the original text and your additions.

FANFIC FANFIC FANFIC 
FANFIC FANFIC FANFIC 

CRITIC: COMMENT COMMENT

FANIFC FANFIC FANFIC
FANFIC FANFIC FANFIC 

is somewhat easier on the eyes than 

FANFIC FANFIC FANFIC 
FANFIC FANFIC FANFIC 

CRITIC: COMMENT COMMENT

FANIFC FANFIC FANFIC
FANFIC FANFIC FANFIC