I don't HTML!

I was thinking of writing a story for this site, which would be my first ever online for any type of site whatsoever. I have only used the most basic html before, such as italics blah blah blah, and do not know how to format an entire story, even in the most basic form. I looked on the Add a Story page and noticed "< a n g l e s >" (italics?) didn't work and that you had to use &gt and &lt, and then "< ! - - break - - >" after your teaser...

In short, I'm lost. Should I take the time to learn an html editor and use that, or are there some simple tricks for a basic story that I might use?