MS Word for Novels

[blacbird]

Still waiting for the definitive anwswer otherwise this witblits is going to kill me...this work has to be properly formatted by tomorrow...so you see I am in quite a quandary.

Art

Art, you haven't explained your problem very exactly. Are you writing the novel, or formatting the manuscript for submission? Or, formatting for publication (if so, you probably need to get the thing into a publication layout program such as MS-Publisher).

Submission formatting, at least for what is expected in the U.S., is really pretty simple. As Scarletpeaches and Icerose have suggested, just insert manual page breaks after every chapter break, and start the next chapter about 1/3 of the way down the page (seven lines down works for me). Double-space the manuscript throughout, and leave it aligned to the left (do not right-justify). Use a standard font, either Courier 12 pt. or Times New Roman 12 pt. And set margins to a minimum of 1" all around. I paginate using a header, my name on the left, name of work + page number on the right).

All of this takes me about five minutes to accomplish after I've finished the manuscript. I don't do it in advance, because for my eyes, I don't like the screen-readability. I have poor eyesight, and prefer to work in Garamond font, 14-pt., and single-spaced, when actually writing.

I find all the whizbang templates and styles, etc., a pain in the butt, mainly, at least for working on a fiction manuscript.

caw

 

[Bufty]

Control + Enter when I wish to start a new chapter serves me fine. Also means if I'm subsequently adding or deleting stuff in any one chapter it doesn't affect the formatting in later chapters.

 

[wyntermoon]

DeeJay, you may want to erase your email address from your post so as not to tempt the mighty spambots. I'd suggest PMing Rabe directly.

 

[Matera the Mad]

Bear in mind that more than half of the people likely to try to answer a question about Word as they understand it have no idea that there is such a thing as Outline View or don't know what it is for.

I don't write in Word (I consider it an abomination for that) but when I am beta-reading someone else's doc I like to go through it and establish an outline so I can find my way around. (That's how I know...)

 

[J C Coy]

Go simple, Ctrl + enter = page break. Then start the chapter a third to half way down the next page, depending on formatting requirements by the publisher you wish to submit to.

Yeah, what Icerose said.

 

[zornhau]

Whilst writing a novel in Word which is the best line of attack in handling the formatting ie keeping the chapters separate and being able to shift them around freely in MS Word.

Should I use the Outline feature...or is there a website with more precise information.

Art

It depends on how you write.

I'm a technical author by trade, so have a professional knowledge of MS Word having used it as my workhorse for about a decade. I've also used MS Word to write a 100K novel. So what follows is a personal view, but an informed one.

If you have MS Word, use it. The Outline View feature is fantastic and much better than on Open Office. Overall, despite the bloat, Word is a reliable professional tool. (Do not, however, use Master Documents since this means having lots of separate files, with the potential to get into a guddle. A modern PC can easily handle a full sized novel as a single file).

I composed mainly in Outline View using the built in heading levels. (Heading 1... Heading n) to create and maintain my outline, and Normal for the actual text. However, if you are not writing from outline, then you might as well set up Heading 1 to show chapter numbers and Heading 2 to show scene breaks only ("# # #'"). This will let you shift them around.

If you are writing from outline, you'll eventually need to strip out the sub headings. I have macros to do this, which I don't mind sharing.

Other useful features are: footnotes, which are great for world building on the fly - put thoughts in the footnotes as you write, then collate them later; and comments. (Do not, however, write a novel with Track Changes switched on.)

As I said, it depends on how you write. Hope this helps. Really it's very straightforward, but if you get stuck PM me and I'll write a blog post in response.

 

[Birol]

Um... Guys... Feel free to keep commenting. The information you're giving is quite useful to many... I hesitate to point this out... but you realize Art originally posted in 2006?

Deejay's bumped the thread up in order to ask Rabe to forward a template.

Just sayin'. Carry on.

 

[RJK]

Good point Birol, but some good points were brought up, especially by Zornhau.

If I can add my $.02, in addition to using a heading level (I use level 3) for scenes, while I'm working on the document, I include a description of the scene in the heading. i.e. # INT. Assessor’s Office City Hall Tue 6/24 1540. The description helps me keep track of the day, date, time and location of each scene. I delete all but the '#' when I'm ready to print.

 

[ricgalbraith]

loads of great tips and tricks in here, as someone who's wondered whether or not word is the best app for the job it's answered a few questions, thanks guys

 

[Roger J Carlson]

There are quite a lot of tips and trick for MS Word in the Tech Help Forum. There's an Index to them called, oddly enough, Index of Tips and Tricks.

 

[James81]

Just use a hard return (Cntrl+Enter).

 

[James81]

Or maybe it's Shift + Enter. Can't remember at the moment.