Custom single.php (NOT THEMES!!)?

Hello everyone,

First, the situation:
I’ve created a web-site for a local group of people I know. The group has a hand full of users that are able to log in and write content(news posts, articles…etc). So I’m using WordPress to allow them to do that. I created a web-site, just like I would for any other project. Installed WordPress on the server, and I just used The Loop to display news and articles on the pages that I want to display it on. NOW, with The Loop the titles of my page are links(that display articles using single.php I assume?), and also comments are linked to another page.

And now for the question:
How do I create custom single.php pages… and do I also need to create a custom page for comments?

I’ve tried editing single.php and uploading it to the server, and I’ve had no luck.
What exactly do I need to include from the original single.php into my new single.php?

I figured I would only need to copy my index page. Erase the content out of it. And then maybe paste a different loop into the content area… but I can’t get it to work.

I’ve looked all over the net for a solution, and I can only find any info regarding themes. I just want to set this up custom. Any help?

Thanks!