How to HTML

How to HTML How to MiST Hey all, Whomever here. Seeing on Booter was suggesting that she could do a tutorial on her skill, MiSTing, I decided to do one for my skill, HTMLing. So I wrote up myself a crappy story, said it was by "dabustybrunette" and MiSTed it myself, for the sake of having an example.

Q: What the hell are you bitching about?
Here. This is a MiST that's been HTMLed. This is what would happen if you just took the text and submitted it.
You see the difference? Good. Now, let's go on.

The Basics:

There are three basic tags to HTMLing. , and , and and . And occasionally <DEL> and </DEL>. In other words,
Line breaks, bold and italics (and ~~crossed out.~~). The way things work around here, the MiST comments are bold, there are two line breaks between MiST and story, and two paragraphs / two MiST comments together get one line break. Confused? Here's an example:

an explenation of the history of the Hoshi Festival. 
A thousand years ago, there was the Princess of Fire Nation and the Prince of the Water Tribes, who had never met.
 
Whomever: They were like two hummingbirds, who had also never met.
 
But on this fateful day, they did. But they were needed in their respective nations (they were royalty after all),
 
Whomever: I agree, they were royalty. 
the Duke: After all.

Q: Wait... does this mean the codes show up?
Nope.

Q: Why not?
Because I didn't use the < and >. See, some one came up with the code & LT ; and & GT ;, which shows up as a < or >. Because anything within the < and > is assumed by the computer to be a code. So if I didn't use the lt and gt codes, then the computer would read the code and bring me the final result. While that is what we want, it does not help in a tutorial.
Which also means that if you wanna have a < or > in your MiST, be sure to put spaces between them and the word.

Now, that doesn't look so hard, does it? Well, it isn't. But doing it over and over, and making sure you have every tag and end-tag is what's the pain in the ass.

Q: Meaning?
As I said above, there are three tags, but the bold and italic commands have two commands, <letter> and </letter>. If you want something italic, you have to use the right before "If" and the right here. If you want something bold, same thing goes, just with the b.
(Quick note: HTML is not case sensitive. Meaning is the same as . I usually use the lower case, but so it'll stand out, I'm using the upper case for this.)

Q: Why does this matter?
Let's do an example again then. Say you want

Whomever: Cinderella explained to her fairy God Mother.

Katara said dejectedly, picking at her blue kimono.

the Duke: Which her wicked step sisters had torn to shreds.

Everything else.

but you do:

Whomever: Cinderella explained to her fairy God Mother.

Katara said dejectedly, picking at her blue kimono.

the Duke: Which her wicked step sisters had torn to shreds.

Everything else.

You closed the bold tag, but the fact you had another bold tag make it pointless, for it'll come out like:

Whomever: Cinderella explained to her fairy God Mother.

Katara said dejectedly, picking at her blue kimono.

the Duke: Which her wicked step sisters had torn to shreds.

Everything else.

So make sure to close your tags!

Q: Why doesn't the have a closing tag?
I did not invent HTML, so I have no clue. But if you want a tag with a closing, then try and . Your MiST would roughly look like:

an explenation of the history of the Hoshi Festival. 
A thousand years ago, there was the Princess of Fire Nation and the Prince of the Water Tribes, who had never met.
Whomever: They were like two hummingbirds, who had also never met. But on this fateful day, they did. But they were needed in their respective nations (they were royalty after all),
Whomever: I agree, they were royalty. 
the Duke: After all.

It comes out exactly the same as the way, but some of you may find it easier. Do whatever works for you. I tried it for the fourth chapter of Detours, but I didn't like it, so I stick to the .

Q: Okay, I've HTMLed my MiST, what do I do know?
You send it to me. Along with:
A summary to go on the archive page.
An introduction. Can be long, short, quick, slow, whatever, it's your choice.
The chapters labeled. (It'll just help me when I go to post it.)
A conclusion.
A rap-sheet, listing the fic's "crimes."
A rating. Awful, level one, the one with the Crazy Foaming Guy, it doesn't matter how you word it, just as long as I understand it.
One sentence/paragraph/short passage/part of a scene that you think would most deserve to be the craptastic quote at the bottom.

All of the above are optional, meaning if you don't want to write an intro, just say so. I won't refuse to post your MiST if you don't want to do one of those. But you must have these two things in order to have your MiST posted:
A link to your story. If the story you MiSTed cannot be found on the web, we will not post your MiST, end of story. (Unless you get permission from the author, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.)
A redeeming feature. It can be characterization of Character A, or the description of Object B, the writing style of the author, just something about the story that wasn't so terrible.

Q: Wait, what about the top and bottom? With the logo and linebreak? And then the back button?
Forget it. I've made a default copy of all the codes, I just need to copy and paste. It takes three seconds, no biggie.

And that's pretty much it. I can't say much more, for I'm still learning a lot myself. If you want to learn more about coding, go to the most helpful website ever.

I hope this is helpful, I've never been good at explaining stuff to other people. Send me all your questions and comments, they're more than welcome. And with that said, happy coding.