Formatting Issues w/Most Recent Block (several skins)

I am having the same issue on several skins, so I'm hoping that someone can help me out here.

The test site:  http://www.mickiclark.com/efiction33

What I am trying to do:

I want, instead of a large "most recent" in the middle of the page, to put the most recent in the smaller blocks.  However, I can't get it to look like I want.  Ideally, there would be
{title} by {author} {rating} {score}<br>
{summary}
<hr>

So essentially each entry would be separated by a horizontal break.

I have tried setting up a template in variables.php, but that hasn't worked, because it doesn't recognize any break or horizontal break after the {summary}.  Here's how I've set that up:

$blocks['recent']["template"] = {title} by {author} {rating} <br /> {summary} <br />

(and then just use {recent_content} in my index or header, depending on the skin)

I have also tried to use my template in the index or header, using this:

<div class="block">
       <div class="title">{recent_title}</div>
       <div class="content">{title} {author} {roundrobin} {score} {featuredstory} {summary}</div>
     </div>

And that doesn't work at all.

I have been looking through the skinning threads, but I haven't really seen anything that would help me figure this out.  The skins we are using as a base are MidnightBlue, HighDesert, CivilWar, and Zenlike.

I get the impression that I *should* be creating a template, but I don't understand why my template doesn't recognize <br> or <hr> tags.  If I could figure that out, that'd help a lot.