So I've been attempting to use italics to indicate the thoughts of characters and I find it really frustrating when I save the story as a draft and suddenly all of the italics is gone and replaced by underscores surrounding the text. For example: This is what it looks like while I'm writing. _This is what it looks like when I save it._ Any help would mean the world to me. Thanks.
This tens to happen when you include a space at the end. _This_ results in This _This _ results in _This _ It's really easy to not notice that you have included a space at the end of your text.
If you deactivate the RTE option on your Settings page, you can directly use Markdown syntax and write italics like _this_ or *this*. That way, also *this * would become italics after saving the chapter. In my opinion, this is much easier than highlighting the text to do the formatting as it doesn't interrupt the writing. (Additionally, it is more reliable than the output of the RTE as the RTE output gets converted into Markdown syntax.)
The way I have been doing it is by using ctrl + I. Is there something wrong with that? Are you saying that even though the underscores show up when I save as a draft that it will be italics when the story is published?
There is nothing wrong with that. (It is also the default option when you create an account.) It is rather my personal preference. I use italics for thoughts as well and for me it is easier to just start with an asterisk like I would use a double quote instead of writing the thought, highlighting it and then using the popup bar to apply italics. (I didn't know about the shortcut yet which makes it easier as well.) If you do it that way, you will see the formatting only after you saved your chapter as draft or published it. In general, direct Markdown usage is more reliable as there is no conversion in between. You also have some options which aren't available with the RTE. If you create a line break with RTE, you should get a new paragraph. If you do the same with Markdown, you will get a single line break. It is also easier/more reliable to add pictures to the chapter. I also have backups of all my chapters in plain text files, which allows me to keep the formatting without the need of a special file format. (I can also write a chapter within any program including the formatting even if the program isn't able to do that.) So it is basically a matter of your own preference. No. What you see as the draft is what you get after publishing the chapter/story.
Thank you! This clears up so much of my confusion. From now on I will use asterisks for italics because that seems like the easiest option to me. I really appreciate your help. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to respond to me.
