Manuscript formatting torture.

[anthorn]

I am having extreme trouble with my formatting. So far I've figured out that 2.50 is as close to an inch I'm going to get.
That to number each page seperately you use a header.
That it needs to be double spaced.
The bloody trouble is the paragraph indent? Is there a way to have it indent only certain paragraphs? I find that I can only indent everything and I then have to go through deleting the indent on every first paragraph of each scene.

I am using Openofficeword.
Help appreciated.
Also. If underline is for italics. What is Bold?

And am I also right in thinking that. There should be NO **** or space between paragraphs and that a new scene and such should be shown by no indent

 

[Langadune]

My understanding is that you use and indent for every paragraph. New scenes or "breaks" should be indicated with *** or ### (I believe ### is pretty standard). I also understand underline is the standard for formatting in place of both bold and italics. Some publishers will accept italics but most discourage use of bold as it doesn't show up well in manuscripts. Each publisher has his own standards and usually will specify them in submission guidelines.

Under format option, select page then the "page" tab. The standard margin is .79" you can easily change those to 1.0"

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Each publisher has his own standards and usually will specify them in submission guidelines.

This is wrong. I know you've seen it written a thousand times, but it is wrong. Most publishers have the same standard, therefore they do not specify it in their submission guidelines.

Check to see if they say something different than the usual, and if they don't, you can feel safe using the standard.

 

[Culhwch]

I've locked this thread. I would suggest that if you have any questions about formatting, you consult this thread:

http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/foru...r-manuscript-read-this-before-starting-a.html

If you read it through, it deals with every aspect of formatting your manuscript, and answers most any question you can think of. The reason we started it was to avoid these individual threads that start up on a disturbingly regular basis, asking the same questions again and again without checking to see if the answer had already been given.

Incidentally, that thread has also been closed for the same reason - people rehashing the same questions that had been answered earlier.