GP FILE 25 Aug 98 
 SUBJECT: Shunsuke 
 AT: 0:28 
 
 Shunsuke wrote :

On Mon, 24 Aug 1998 21:57:30   David Homerick wrote:

MegaZone wrote:

You don't seriously think people write fanfics with screen editors like
VI, do you?  They use word processors, which can and do introduce odd
formatting problems when used to create e-mail messages.

I wholeheartedly disagree and see it exactly the 
opposite.  For writing fanfics, you should use a non-
formatting, 7-bit ASCII text editor.  Be it Notepad, 
VI, or edlin (I'm kidding), stick to a text only 
program.  The only time you need special characters 
is for printing on paper, which I would hazard a 
guess that most people don't do for fanfics.  Even 
if a reader did print it, plain text looks good on 
paper.  My writing is crap, but I always make sure 
it is at least readable by using a vanilla editor.

Actually, the best way to do it, if you can, is to use your email program's editor to 
write the fic. Simply email it to yourself and continue the story as a reply (setting 
your program to eliminate the quoted text markers first).  Some email programs such as 
Pegasus allow you to change the settings of the editor, such as the line-length and 
margins. They also have built in interactive spell-checkers.

Note: If you're using AOL or another email service which auto-empties your mailbox on a 
regular basis, you can save your messages as a .txt file and then import it into your 
message (by cut & paste if need be) when you're ready to continue.

If you can't do it that way, and you wish to use a format such as Wordpad or other 
similiar editor in order to get the fancy characters for printing out your story, then I 
reccommend first saving a copy for printing out and then highlighting the story and 
setting the entire text as plain text before emailing it.
Lt. Trakal
Operative of the Galaxy Police SIU