Help:Editing
This page explains the technical part of entering chapters. We have a separate page with some guidelines such as chapter length. If you're wondering where the table with layout codes has gone, it's here.
If you want to practise your formatting skills, you can use the sandbox.
Headers
Headers are completely optional. We only ask you to include warnings at the top of your chapter if you are introducing a new squick to the thread, but there are general warnings at the start of the story, and our readers are used to a little something, so in most cases those are not necessary either.
If you want, you can include your name, email, author's notes (maybe thanking your beta reader, or someone who gave you a plot bunny), and whatever else you want to include, but it's all optional.
The chapter's title is always the text of the option that you followed from the previous chapter. You will notice that some older chapters start with a chapter number and subtitle; these are chapters moved over from the old system. If you want, you can give your chapter a subtitle, but you do not have to. Chapter numbers have completely lost their function.
If you are a registered user and signed in, clicking the Signature button (second from the right) will enter your login name (or nickname / real name, if you're entered one), plus the server time and date. You can also type something like "By ~~~" for just your login name, without the time and date.
In both cases, your name will appear as a link to your user page, where you may want to write a little about yourself, or a link to your site / LJ. People can also leave messages to you there, and see what else you've written here.
If you're not a registered use, you can simply type your name and put it in double brackets, like so: "By [[Liz]]". This will link to your makeshift userpage, where again, people can leave messages to you and see what else you've written.
Chapter Text
In your chapter you can use bold and italic text by selecting text and then clicking the buttons, or typing ''' (three single straight quotes) before and after bold text, and '' (two single straight quotes) before and after anything that should be in italic. It might be helpful to preview before you save to check you've got it all right.
Avoid using asterisks (*) at the start of a line. In wiki markup an asterisk is used to create an unordered list, so it will show up as a little blue square, just like the ones in the navigation menu on the left of your screen. If you want to use an asterisk at the start of a line, you'll have to turn off wiki markup for a bit: use the 'Ignore wiki formatting' button for this (third from right), or the <nowiki> command.
Also avoid starting a line with a space. This is the wiki command for monospace fonts, which shows up in a blue box. This font is used mostly for displaying programming code. An example is the options code below, and we use it for the Overview page.
There's a table of the most commonly used formatting on Wiki markup - but please: less is more!
Options
New Method:
To get automatically formatted options, please hit the options button ( http://wiki.faramirfiction.com/skins/common/images/button_option.png ) to produce this line:
{{options|Your first option goes here|Your second options goes here}}
Then replace the text 'Your first options goes here' with your first option, and 'Your second option goes here' with your second option. Be sure to leave the vertical bar (|) separating the two options in place, without adding spaces.
And last but not least:
Overview Page
Then when you've saved your chapter, it would be helpful if you could also enter it in the Chapter list. Read the talk page to learn how.
Admin will add your chapter if you don't, but as it's not an automatic system, it may take a day or two.