Here are some suggestions for writing style/etiquette on SA, for consistency's sake. It can be somewhat jarring, when reading a thread, when everyone uses their own technique and we at SA have tried to set a certain style as a standard for this board.

I. Italics

Italics are very helpful to make very clear what the character has said and what the character only thought. Quotes would do this also but this is just easy to read. Such as:

Mai walked through the dance club. The small woman slipped through the people with ease, never once straying from the straight line to her target. Once at the bar, she looked at her charge and said quietly. "It is time to go." She turned to leave, not looking behind her to see if he followed or not.

II. The Third Person

With the exception of the journal section of the board, all in character posts should be written in the third person.

Example:
Third Person (This is good):
Thaddeus reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. He felt somewhat distressed at this turn of events, though he was reluctant to actually say anything under the circumstances.

First Person (This will get you bitten!):
I reached up and pinched the bridge of my nose. I felt somewhat distressed at this turn of events, though I was reluctant to actually say anything under the circumstances.

III. The Past Tense

Using different tenses within a thread can really interrupt the flow of reading; thus we ask that all In Character posts use the past tense.

Example:
Past Tense (This is good):
Thaddeus placed the cover over the piano keys and turned to face the crowd.

Present Tense (This will get you bitten!):
Thaddeus places the cover over the piano keys and turns to face the crowd.

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We would like to remind people that there are different styles on the board. Not everyone is using the one you are currently seeing, so while bright pink and lime green might stand out on the dark style you would be causing everyone on the white worksafe style to squint and curse your name. Changing the font size to very large or very small is distracting at best or unreadable at the worst. We would appreciate it if people kept font and colour changes down to a minimum and to use them only when its necessary.

Such as (but not limited to):

Using an ability
Remembering the past
Speaking in another language (in which you don't actually wish to write in that language)
Writing a letter

If you -do- use a different colour or font, remember your reason for the use may not be immediately obvious and it would be helpful to those reading your post for you to ooc the reason for its use on the bottom so that we know what the change means.

Also for those using the wysiwyg editor and find that your font style and size is being copied from your word program you can hit the a/A with the red X (upper left corner) will remove all text formatting on the selected text.

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If you use Word or any other graphical text editor, Please be sure to hit the AA with the red X, located in the upper left area of the textbox to clear any previous text formatting. Word formatting interferes with our themes. Please see attached image.