Salty Rants

How to Be Unsuccessful on WP (#4 Formatting)

Friday, June 10, 2016

Good morning, class!

As you all know—or don't know, albeit you have no excuse for that considering I've been talking about this for a week now—today is pop quiz day!

*whips and nae naes with the test sheets* *moonwalks* *chicken-dance*

You over there, Timothy, right?

*the student clarifies that his name is actually Thomas*

Timothy, Thomas, Jeffrey, it all sounds the same. Plus, I don't have to remember your name because I'm a teacher! Come up here and pass out the test papers—the longer it takes for you to do so, the longer my class will cut into break time. So if your amigos here decide to beat you up after-school, know that I've warned you.

 It's all on you, Jeremy. 

*Arthur hastily distributes the quiz*

It's a really short one, so you only have twenty minutes to complete it. We have important things to cover afterwards, so ready, set, go!

*twenty minutes later*

I forgot to mention that this quiz will account for 15% of your semester grade, so I hope y'all studied! *cackles* Anyway, for the last twenty-five minutes of the class, we'll be talking about Formatting. Because it's not a topic that's as comprehensive as the others—or maybe it is, we'll find out soon whether it is or not—I've decided to cover it now. So quit your weeping, sharpen your pencils, and let's get started!

~Don't start your first chapter as the first part.

What does this mean? Well, it's simple, but I'll explain it anyway since you all have the brains of a chicken.

The main point you want to remember about this is that you want to put off the crappy first chapter of your story as much as possible. This means including as much useless stuff in the beginning, so that, by the time an interested reader gets to your first chapter, they'll be too irritated with you to even read it! It's like building an obstacle course—the first five parts are the sandpit, wall, barbed wire, and fire, while the first chapter is the finish line! The parts you should saturate your book with are:

1. An author's note.

Dedicate an entire part to this one, because I reckon that it's the most important one of them all. Tell people your life story, from the very beginning. No, not since the Big Bang, but since your parents Woohoo that lead to your creation.

Discuss how your mother spent the first 7 months of her pregnancy vomiting in a toilet bowl, talk about, in great detail, the birth, and everything between then and first sitting down to write your story. It will amount to 200 pages (50 if you're like, twelve), but it will all be worth it. Your readers will know so much about you, they won't even bother reading your actual story!

2. Trailer + Alternate book covers

Imagine, just imagine, that one day your book will become the next After. It sells out in the bookstores, poison the minds of impressionable teens, and even gets turned into a shitty movie that would make the strongest of stomachs lurch with disgust. Well, get someone to make a trailer for your movie, or do it yourself! It's important that you dedicate an entire chapter to the trailer itself, but also, show your readers the six other covers you had before settling on this one. They will definetly give a shit. 

3. Playlist.

People like to listen to music when they write, because it helps them forget how shitty they are are it. Personally, I listen to Screamo, because I really feel like it conveys the emotions I want for my story. If you listen to a different song for each chapter, make a playlist nobody will bother listening to! It will probably consist mostly of Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, and One Direction, and that already tells the reader a lot about what the story will be about.