hi, im new.

i was just wondering whether anyone could give me some advice about writing formats.

on the very useful bloomsbury site i found this advice:

> Don’t use blank lines between paragraphs (in the style of most typed letters nowadays), but indent the first line of each paragraph a few spaces. Blank lines should be used only to indicate a change of subject, or time, or scene, or viewpoint.



i've had several articles published in magazines, and have been allowed to use my normal method of writing, which is to use blank lines between paragraphs, and to use paragraphs that might only contain one line.

this suits my style of writing, the content of which is unconventional and controversial.

will using this style inhibit my chances of getting published? i am loathe to have to adhere to convention.

any advice would be gratefully appreciated, thanks.

sorry i should have added, getting my first novel published.

Hi Fluffy, I've had the same advice that Bloomsbury give from a successful published novelist, so I'd go with that. Indenting the first line of a paragraph makes the piece easier to read.

Good luck with your work,

Al.

Hi Fluff --

I'd say to go ahead and write the way that you prefer, then adapt the format before you submit. That way everyone will be happy!

Anne Marie

Hi Fluff and welcome to WW.

I would agree with Anne Marie up to a point; write your novel in whichever format you prefer BUT… and it’s a big one… getting a story accepted by a magazine (well done, by the way, that ain’t easy) is very different to submitting a novel to a publisher. Magazines tend to re-format work to fit onto their pages. Book publishers expect submissions to be as near publication-ready as you can get it.

The accepted format is to indent the first line of each paragraph and all new lines of dialogue when the speaker changes. You can set your Word document to do this automatically (ask if you’re not sure). The exception to this is you don’t indent the first line of a new chapter or immediately after a white space (read on…)

Don’t leave a white space between paragraphs and lines of dialogue. Use spaces to separate scenes etc, just as Bloomsbury advise. If you really want to, you can carry on leaving a space between each para as you write your novel – so long as you accept that, before you submit it, you will have to go right through it to take those spaces out.

The reasons? Mainly, it takes up too much paper. Mundane, I know, but the publishing world is cut-throat nowadays and publishers have to find all ways they can to keep production costs down. Even with a standard format they generally only hope to break even with a new writer’s first book. If it was going to take three times as much paper as they would normally use they would either ask you to re-format it or – more commonly – they would reject it.

So, if you are serious about novel-writing, be professional about it. Bite the bullet and get used to working in the publishing world’s favourite format.

Hope this is helpful – and good luck.

ee.

hi al, thanks for responding.

> Indenting the first line of a paragraph makes the piece easier to read.


i understand this advice as given by the establishment but i don't agree with it.

i won't quote you any passages from my novel as it's far too subversive for a polite forum such as this, but off the top of my head i will try and write a few paragraphs to give you an example of how i don't believe indented paragraphs make reading easier:

Simon and Dominique disappeared behind a tree. No-one wondered where they had gone. All five of the remaining guests were too engrossed in the game being played out before them by the intruders. A game the rules of which none of them understood, however much they feigned compliant comprehension.

The sound of a scream emanating from behind the tree swivelled all heads at once in its direction.

What was happening?


Simon and Dominique disappeared behind a tree. No-one wondered where they had gone. All five of the remaining guests were too engrossed in the game being played out before them by the intruders. A game the rules of which none of them understood, however much they feigned compliant comprehension.
The sound of a scream emanating from behind the tree swivelled all heads at once in its direction.
What was happening?


is the second version easier to read than the first? i don't think so, however it conforms to the established tradition, a tradition i don't want to adhere to, which makes me a bolshy git, i know, but that's me :-)

LOL! well the second version was indented in word but has not appeared like that on here, sorry. you will have to imagine it indented then :-S

hi anne-marie and thanks for responding.

i don't want to adapt it before i submit it though! the only way i feel prepared to adapt it is by changing the real names (as it is auto-biographical and is going to offend a lot of people) from real to fictional, apart from the famous people that is, who should remain under their real names for sales purposes.

thanks for your advice ee.

sigh....my partner is telling me exactly the same. bite the bullet and adhere to convention. however i am very stubborn and believe that rules are there to be broken.

take e.e.cummings for example.

he was born in 1894, and he used all baby letters in his poems. how long has it taken for that format to become commonplace? over a hundred years, and only now by people like me who constantly use email.

however my partner is telling me to sack off artistic credibility and just do what the publishers tell me to with a view to as little trouble and as much money as possible.

if i'd had that view throughout my life there would be nothing interesting to even go in my autobiography :-S

Fluffy, I have a lot of sympathy with your anti-establishment views, believe me. However, if you are really serious about being published, it makes sense to play the publishing game by the rules that agents and publishers dictate. They have a lot of aspiring writers to choose from, and, in my view, are not likely to take on authors who make their lives more difficult. Writing in a preferred format does not preclude you from using in an original or idiosyncratic voice, which I sense is your real fear.

Once you've had your first bestseller, then the balance of power will surely change...

Al

Well, I’m puzzled. Very puzzled.

Why ask for advice if you have no intention of even considering it?

If you believe you can submit work to the cosy world of 1894 you are living in cloud-cuckoo land.

Please accept my apologies for taking the time and trouble to respond to your request for advice. I thought you were serious.

Dee.

If you are serious that you want to have your work published in exactly the way you describe you may have to consider self-publishing. Unless, of course, you can persuade a publisher that there is strong - very strong - artisitic reasons for formatting your writing to your own specification and not their's.

The trouble with that line, of course, is that - as a new writer - I think you will have to accept that your demands may make your work topple from the 'I might consider this' pile onto the 'discarded' pile.

You may instead want to consider doing everything possible to have your work published, rather than giving the publisher a plateful of reasons why they should move on to the next keen/hopeful/...... aspiring author!

John

hi dee,

> Please accept my apologies for taking the time and trouble to respond to your request for advice.

no, please accept my apologies for giving the impression i was not grateful for your very useful advice.

> Why ask for advice if you have no intention of even considering it?

yours, and everyone's advice is really welcome; i was just wondering whether it is worth pursuing this stubborn idea of mine, and to be honest, from what you and others are saying, it isn't.

> If you believe you can submit work to the cosy world of 1894 you are living in cloud-cuckoo land.

well, i do live in cloud-cuckoo land it's true! i'm barking woof! :-) i don't think the world of publishing was cosy back then though dee. i have heard that dostoeivsky was rejected by 113 publishers before he finally got his work into print. whether this is true or not i don't know, but it does give one hope, considering that (imho) dostoievsky was a genius.

again, please accept my apologies for giving the impression i was not grateful for your advice, which i am :-)

dee:

> getting a story accepted by a magazine (well done, by the way, that ain’t easy) is very different to submitting a novel to a publisher.

thanks. ive only had articles published in climbing magazines - interviews and articles about the climbing social scene, hardly anything of the colour supplement calibre! so as regards dealing with publishers of novels i am completely inexperienced - again, so i am grateful for any advice.

john: thanks for your advice.

> The trouble with that line, of course, is that - as a new writer - I think you will have to accept that your demands may make your work topple from the 'I might consider this' pile onto the 'discarded' pile.

hmmm. i guess it's hard enough getting a publisher interested without making their life more difficult.

> You may instead want to consider doing everything possible to have your work published, rather than giving the publisher a plateful of reasons why they should move on to the next keen/hopeful/...... aspiring author!



oh well, maybe i am going to have to conform for once in my life!

as al said:

> Once you've had your first bestseller, then the balance of power will surely change...


LOL! i don't think my stuff is best-selling material :-) maybe im making another mistake here, because i'm not in all seriousness writing to try and make money. i'm writing because i've been bottling this novel up since my last article was published and after a kick up the backside by my best mate it's now all pouring out of me. now i have to write whether i like it or not :-S

however what al has said is true really. an unpublished writer has got no clout whatsoever with publishers, so a bit of humility and less of the stroppy artistic tantrum approach are probably in order! :-)