How to Format your Story Body

Cream Shaboogie Cock Style Guide

Whether you’re posting a Feature Story, a Flasher, a Poem, or just a Hot Chapter or Sexy Snippet, you’re going to have to include some text.

Here’s how to format it.

Style Guide

Mercifully, Medium is very restrictive with text styles, so this is simple.

Body Text

• Use plain, unadorned text for the bulk of your story.
• Use italics sparingly for internal monologue and very sparingly for emphasis.
• Use Medium’s small-quote format where it makes sense, such as a sign or letter that a character is reading.
• Do not use bold text in your story.
• All stories must be presented in English. National grammar and spelling variations (US, UK, Australian, Canadian, etc) are all welcome, but must be used consistently. Please use US standard punctuation. That means no UK-specific punctuation. Use a single space after a full stop (period) before the next sentence, double quotation marks for dialogue, em-dashes without surrounding spaces for asides and interruptions.
• New authors often fall in love with advanced punctuation and then apply them like KFC applies chicken-salt. If you include ellipses (…), semi-colons, or colons, you’d better be certain you know how to use them properly, otherwise your story will be rejected.

Headings and Breaks

• Format chapter headings in Heading 1 style.

• For short pieces (especially Sexy Snippets, do not use any additional headings apart from the standard Medium Title and Sub-title.
• Place text breaks between chapters. Open a new line, click the (+) and then (--)

• Use either a single blank line for a scene break or use Medium’s text break (looks like three-dots centered). Do not leave blank lines elsewhere.

Paragraph Breaks and Line Breaks

Do not hit Enter at the end of each line like on a typewriter. Just keep typing and let Medium wrap the lines of a paragraph.

When you hit Enter at the end of the paragraph, Medium will automatically leave some white space before starting the next paragraph, so you do not need to leave your own blank line.

On very rare occasions (eg. your author by-line, or in a poem), you may want to start a new line without leaving a paragraph break. Hit Shift-Enter to go to a new line without leaving a paragraph break.

Centered, Justified, and Right-Aligned Text

At the time of writing, Medium does not support centered text, justified paragraphs (straight right and left margins), or right-aligned text.

If you need a special format (eg. Formatting a TXT exchange between characters), consider sparing use of italics or small-quote format.

Author by-line

At the end of every story, place your by-line in small-quote format followed by a text break. ie. Your pen-name, the year (or month and year), and if you like, your location, and a copyright statement. You may hyperlink your pen-name to your web site or blog. Please, no author bio — that can go on your Medium author page. For example: