I'm working on the final stages of manuscript preperation, sorting out all the little problems that I told myself I'd sort out "when the time came".

I was grateful for the thread on underlining for italics, as I used to do that for novel manuscripts.

But there's another thing I was told to do and I'd like to know if it is still necessary; using "#" to indicate a blank line or gap between paragraphs.

Does anyone use it? Would agents / publishers expect it? I've not seen any in the work uploaded on this website, so perhaps its another "rule" than does not apply nowerdays? Anyway, best to sure.

Michael

Never heard of that in my life! I wonder if it comes from the typewriter days when you wanted to make it clear that a double-line space was deliberate.

Emma

Thanks for your reply, Emma.

It was something I picked up on a corresponding writing course many years ago. Perhaps it is just a throwback to the typewriter days as you say.

I’ll forget about it (otherwise the agent might think I’d gone berserk on the keyboard).

Michael

No, I've not heard that either, Michael. Are you confusing it with * ? From reading, and from having my own novel edited, I believe white spaces should be left blank except where they fall so close to the end of a page that the space isn’t obvious. When this happens, most books use a group of three stars ***

Dee

I usually just use a blank line. I think that's clear enough unless you're dealing with the most uptight of agents/publishers.

JB

Ah yes, Dee, I've heard of the three stars but forgot about them till you mentioned them.

But it's true that there is a small issue of your double-line space happening to fall at the bottom of the page. Though of course the next paragraph wouldn't be indented, but if the preceding line is more-or-less full-length then it's not obvious at all. Copy-editors do mark this up on manuscripts for typesetters, tho' I can't remember how, so I suppose if you were really worried a reader would miss it you could use that marking.

In an actual book proper old-fashioned typesetters would rejig the spacing of four or five pages to stop this happening, but I don't think they bother now.

Emma

Why isn't the first para indented when all the rest are? I only just noticed this and thought it very odd. It seems inconsistent (though if you do it consistently it's consistent within itself).

I had the problem of a line space near the end of a page when I was sending stuff off to my mentor. It meant the space was not at all clear. I just left it because I wasn't sure what to do. But perhaps I should have used ***.

Deb

I suppose the first para at the beginning or after a break is obviously the beginning of a para, so why waste paper by indenting, whereas with all the others, if the preceding line is longish, it's not.

I do find when people neither indent in the traditional style, nor leave a space between paras in the online style, the result is horrible, and horribly confusing.

Emma

I guess you're right about there being no need, Emma, but it still seems counter-intuitive to me.

Until recently I wrote my fiction in what you're describing as "the online style". I hadn't even thought about these things!

Deb

I had to read a whole MS in online-style recently, and it was awful, and did the writing a real disservice, because it made it incredibly hard to keep going with the story, because try as I would, I'm hard-wired to read that double-line space as a real jump in space or time.

Emma

Is *** the standard english method? My mentor is American suggested authors shouldn't give instructions to copy-editors and typesetters in the page. If we want to denote a break, he insists on it being two double line spaces. I have to say, I don't have any problems reading published novels which use that style.

Juliet

My mentor is American suggested authors shouldn't give instructions to copy-editors and typesetters in the page.

This is certainly true. It only really arises when the MS happens to fall so that it's not clear that there's a big break there, and if you've really got to mark it some way, I guess the copy-editing mark is as good a bet as any.

Besides, I quite often want an asterisk - centred - for a bigger break than a mere double-line space, but less than a chapter. It would be confusing to use it for something else as well, I guess.

If we want to denote a break, he insists on it being two double line spaces.

Presumably as in twice the normal line spacing, whatever that is? I'm so used to double-spaced MS that I tend to forget that technically that's what it is, and would call it a 'double line space' when I do it with two carriage-return, whatever the maths adds up to!

Emma

I had TWH professionally edited when I was first thinking about self-publishing it, and the editor did style notes for the typesetter. I've just found them, and she specified a blank line space unless the break fell at the end of a page, in which case a symbol should be inserted. She put a note in brackets for me to chose a symbol – so I guess it could be anything. I would recommend something like three stars, though, as you’d want it to be as unobtrusive as possible with disappearing altogether.

Dee

Thanks, Emmas and Dee. That helps!



Juliet

<Added>

Emma :)