How do I mark up the author's note in a fanfic?

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BenoitRen
Posts: 5946
Joined: April 11th, 2004, 10:20 am
Location: Belgium

How do I mark up the author's note in a fanfic?

Post by BenoitRen »

I'm in the process of reading and marking up fan fiction for The Phantasy Star Cave. One thing that has always bugged me is the author's note. The author's note is a short message from the author about the story or the circumstances that brought it about right before the story itself.

Up until now I've always treated it the same as the rest of the document. But I figured I should at least give it a class so it can be styled differently from the rest. It's a good idea, but semantically it doesn't add anything. So then, add a "Author's note" header? But then I'd have to add another header right after it to distinguish the actual story from it, lest the entire story become an "Author's note". But it seems kind of silly to have a "Author's note" header followed by a "The story" header, especially considering that both will be under a header with the title of the story.

Does anyone have some better ideas on how to mark this up?
morat
Posts: 6404
Joined: February 3rd, 2009, 6:29 pm

Re: How do I mark up the author's note in a fanfic?

Post by morat »

Maybe use a <blockquote> element instead of a <p> element.

Maybe something like...

Code: Select all

/* Firefox userContent.css */

@-moz-document url-prefix("http://www.pscave.com/") {
  p.authors-note {
    border-left: 1px solid black;
    position: relative;
    padding-left: 1em;
    margin: 1em 2em;
  }
  p.authors-note::before {
    content: open-quote;
    position: absolute;
    font-size: 6em;
    left: -38px;
    top: -24px;
  }
}
Phantasy Star Cave
http://www.pscave.com/fanfic/joelfagin/fallenangel.html
User avatar
BenoitRen
Posts: 5946
Joined: April 11th, 2004, 10:20 am
Location: Belgium

Re: How do I mark up the author's note in a fanfic?

Post by BenoitRen »

That's an interesting idea. I guess it could be interpreted as quoting from somewhere else, since it's not part of the story.
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