Poetic License-- but, what does that mean? Traditionally, it would indicate stretching what something can do, for the sake of poetry. A good example is "looking daggers at" someone. If that wasn't stretching things, there'd be a lot more homicide.

Interestingly, thanks to how web-scrolls are made, they sometimes take poetic license with your work, making your poems very hard to read! A clever line break can be missed, or dueling voices, so this time, I take you through some of the basics of putting your poems on web-scrolls. As always, all comments on this column can go to maal@tropicalstorm.com (yes, even bad ones!).
 

Waking Nightmares
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have faced a thousand nightmares,
. . . . . . .with eyes awake and staring
Some were simple frights,
. . . . . . .yet others were more daring
In each and every one there was
. . . . . . .but one thing I found sparing
I never stopped the fight,
. . . . . . .and I never dared stop caring

~Maal

I'm using a short poem, above so I can show you what the mechanics of it look like. Here they are, and don't worry, I'll be on the other side to explain it to you.

<BLOCKQUOTE>
    <BLOCKQUOTE>
      <P><B><I><FONT SIZE="+1">Waking Nightmares</FONT></I></B> <BR>
      <B><FONT SIZE="+2">~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</FONT></B> <BR>
      <B>I have faced a thousand nightmares, <BR>
      <FONT COLOR="cyan">. . . . . . .</FONT>with eyes awake and
      staring<BR>
      Some were simple frights, <BR>
      <FONT COLOR="cyan">. . . . . . .</FONT>yet others were more
      daring<BR>
      In each and every one there was <BR>
      <FONT COLOR="cyan">. . . . . . .</FONT>but one thing I found
      sparing<BR>
      I never stopped the fight, <BR>
      <FONT COLOR="cyan">. . . . . . .</FONT>and I never dared stop
      caring</B></P>
      <P><B><I><FONT SIZE="+1">~Maal</FONT></I></B></P>
  </BLOCKQUOTE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>

Okay, I know, that looks scary-- but it IS the code for the poem you see above! The first thing to know about web-scrolls is that, to make anything work, you use "tags". Tags are those things that look <like this>. Now, you'll notice that my poem was indented from the text. I do that by using the <BLOCKQUOTE> tags around the poem twice: two of those tags before the poem, and two with a / in it, to close their effect. Each one moves my poem over one step, and each </BLOCKQUOTE> tag puts the next paragraph one step closer to where it normally is.

Now, for line breaks, there are two different kinds: <P> will give you a line break with a line space, letting you start a new paragraph, while <BR> will just give you a line break. In poetry, the lines of a "stanza" (that's "paragraph" anywhere else) need to be broken up with just <BR>'s. When you come to the end of a stanza, use a <P> on the next line to show that it is the beginning of the next "paragraph", even if it is just your signiture. The added space helps set things apart cleanly.

Now, one of the problems with web poetry is that web scrolls don't let you have multiple spaces, only one at a time.. so what can you do? Well, there's a trick to how I got every other line pushed over like I did. In the code, you'll see that, in order to use so many spaces, I put periods between them, so that there was never more than one in a row.

So, why don't you see the periods? Well, I used a tag called <FONT> that can have additional commands inside the brackets with it. So, I used the Font tag to tell the web scroll to make the periods the same color as my background: cyan. I juat made sure to put </FONT> to end the effect before the text for my line began. I did this for each line I wanted to space like that: <FONT COLOR="cyan">. . . . . . .</FONT> and that line was formatted the way I wanted it.

Now, for the finale, your signiture, I prefer to make it bigger than the rest of the text, so to do that, I go back to the Font tag, and say this: <FONT SIZE="+1">~Maal</FONT> ..and there you go! A nice big ~Maal. I slap an <I> and </I> tagset around it to give it italics, and it is done. Try using <FONT SIZE> to have fun with your title as well.

I know I only touch upon some of the basics here, but please do email me at maal@tropicalstorm.com for more information. I'll be more than happy to help you get your poems looking as good as possible.

~Maal