Layout of a story is very important. For pace and for emphasis. Is this taught on writing courses I wonder?

Depends on the course and the tutor, I assume. I do suggest things like paragraph breaks or running-on and so on where they seem to me not to be working as well as they might. But then it matters to me, as it were. It's one reason I prefer to work in page view, and hate it when I can't see a whole page at once - I work in two-pages-side-by-side view by choice (although Scrivener is forcing me to do others. Its only drawback, but it's worth it.)

Most how-to book talk about the basics, but I suspect they take the business of - say - paragraphing, slightly for granted. Which is maybe a mistake, as the power of where you put the paragraph breaks and so on is something that poets, of course, take very seriously, but maybe not prose writers so much.

It could be a blog post Emma. Hope so.
Just grabbing a few books from my shelf reveals quite a few writers who take time over layout.
Cruising Paradise (short stories by Sam Shepard) He seems to play with layout in every story.
Sophie Kinsella does it too for pace I think. I can see it in Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.
It's an interesting area.

It could be a blog post Emma. Hope so.

That's a really interesting idea - thanks for suggesting it! *strokes beard and broods*

Kid fic often does a lot with layout - emails, texts, shopping lists, weird fonts and stuff. I guess it comes naturally when you're on the cusp of having and not having illustrations.

Thanks everyone who answered my query about the C.B. online portal form entry. Actually it doesn't even keep basic indents in parts, and some pages of direct speech end up on same lines. I had a date centred under chapter heading and that shot to the end of the line.

I am afraid to touch it to pretty it up - hard to do anyway as it keeps jumping- just in case there is a process at the other end where they convert word docs?

I found this from Nathan Brandsfords blog:

"Further to my last comment, the only formatting element to avoid when it comes to pasting in your sample pages is the "block of text" effect where there are no line breaks at all and it's one huge jumble that's impossible to read. All the other formatting issues (indenting/single or double spaced/weirdness with quotes and apostrophes) I wouldn't worry about."

He is saying not to worry that the pasted in 5 pages for US style query usually loses its format. And he says in the blog, no one holds that against you - just readable is all they look for. Crazy all right with the whole double spacing, 12pt font, Times NR bla bla that we have to be so careful about. But considering he was a Curtis Brown agent until recently, that helps a bit but we are talking 10,000 wds here - not 5 pages.

Also I came across someone on another writers website who had entered through the new online form portal and was complaining about losing formatting, and they seem to have been asked for a full.

It's tense enough when you enter without this. It really is a pain that they don't give more info on it , like use doc.x etc

Does anyone know Rupert Heath's contact email address for online submissions. It requires some wizard email account being set up and i am not that tech savvy.

If you could privately email it or place it on here that be great. They accept online sub's.

Going slightly off the topic of Curtis Brown but still on the subject of submissions to agents. I have recently sent my ms to an agent who wanted the text pasted into the body of the email. It seems to have worked okay, in that the formatting is basically there. My issue is that the agent suggested on their website that the submitter could ask for a delivery/read receipt, which I did. But I haven't had one back! So what do I do now? Do I email to ask if they've received it? It's all so difficult!

It's your call Pen and Ink but I would email and check saying you have no receipt of your email and could they confirm pls etc

I think I will because it doesn't seem right - something must have gone astray.

<Added>

But then maybe it hasn't been read, so they'd be no receipt yet.

Go on your own intuition. You'd be right to think if it's automated it should be immediate.

But they are the agents and it is that fine line, etc,etc, yawn, sigh - that thing of not wanting to look too pushy

In case anyone reads this thread again re the Curtis B sub process - I found that being very sure that your own work is as glitch free as possible, before you paste in, helped.

I took out the extract to a new doc and went through it and then ended up with the paragraphs in tact on the CB website form. Some of it was my doc! I had a few italics and smaller font sizes (under chapt headings) which disappeared.

It was worth the effort to do what I could to help myself, though.

Also, they sent an immediate auto-acknowledgement -auto and all, that still seems reassuring -nothing worse that no response!

That's interesting that you received an auto-ackowledgement - I didn't. This seems to suggest that some of my mail has gone astray.

I know this is an old thread but my experience with Curtis Brown's submissions may be of interest.
I was also very disappointed with the formatting of my chapters when pasting from word into the text box to the extent that I emailed the next day to ask if I should have done anything different, and received a prompt reassurance that it was fine. However, I was still sceptical, but the ugly layout didn't stop them asking for the full manuscript (big smile). I was surprised when this came via a phone call rather than email, although she said an email had been sent but the online system sometimes didn't work properly (and I certainly never received this) which may account for some people here not having received any reply. Still a glitch in the system that needs to be sorted as I doubt they'd be able to phone everyone to check they'd got the emails, but perhaps not wilful neglect.

Thanks, Anne, for sharing that with us. And good luck with the submission!

Best of luck with it!

Thanks, still waiting!