Questions about writing format

I'll answer your first question. Don't use Word's word count. It's not the way publisher's compute it. See this thread for examples on how to do manuscript word count: http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32561

For example, my book by Word's count is 71,000 words. But it's really 87,000 words. I suspect your book is going to be closer to 150K words.

I'm not going to tell you that no publisher would be interested in a first-time novelist's 150K book, but they are difficult to sell, and I *have* seen agents say not to even bother querying them with novels over a certain page count. A 600-page novel sells for almost the same as a 300-page novel in bookstores, but costs more to print and takes up twice as much room.

First, go though your book and replace every instance of writting with writing.

Second, change the style of your chapter headings to heading1. Modify that style to automatically center and drop down a third of the page, on a new page.

Third, put your ms in standard format and multiply the pages by 250. That’s your real word count. (If it’s fantasy or SF, 120k might be all right. Other genres, forget it.)

Fourth, skip a line for change of POV or for any other reason that strikes your fancy (generally a location or time change, but not if you have sufficient transition). Put a centered # on that skipped line to indicate that it is skipped.

And finally, post your opening scene in the Share Your Work area of the appropriate genre, and let people have at it.

As to word count, it depends on the genre and subgenre, so we'd need more information to give a good answer. Romance, for instance, has fairly specific word count requirements depending on the publisher you're submitting to and even the line within the publisher. Traditional mysteries, from what I've heard, are getting shorter generally, more in the 80K range. SF/F is about the only genre where longer is acceptable. For instance -- Susannah Clarke's book last year, which was somewhere in a SF/F-literary hybrid genre.

If you let us know youre genre, we could perhaps head you in the right direction. Alternatively, pull a few random books (prerably by authors you admire and aspire to having a similar career to, and that are in your genre) from the shelves of a bookstore, and see what their page count is and do a quick count of the words on a few pages, average them and multiply it times the total number of pages.

As to scene breaks, yes, you want an extra line between the end of one scene and the beginning of the next one. Some people add a series of 3 or 4 asterisks or pound signs in another line between the scenes:

scene 1 ends

*** [but centered]

scene 2 begins.

The example you give with a transition of time is probably a scene break. (Technically, a scene requires unity of person, place and time, so whenever one of those changes, you're in a new scene.) And, as an aside, I'm not sure you need the line about checking on the patients, since it's covered in the "busy day," and if you're looking to cut stuff, that would be one you could cut. Then it would probably be more obvious that there needs to be a scene break.

As to the dialogue, I'd recommend breaking it up into smaller chunks, in the paragraphs the speech would have had when it was written. Sort of like what we all (or am I showing my age?) learned to do in high school, with those inverted triangles -- start the paragraph with the general idea and then work down to the specific, next paragraph another broad statement down the specific, or vice versa. But the bottom line is that the speech would have been broken into paragraphs somehow.

OTOH, I'm not sure how integral this speech is to the book (and, again, no idea of the genre), but another option that might pick up the pacing (and cut some lines) would be to write the scene in the POV of someone listening to the debate, so you could just quote the really significant handful of sentences, and then have the listener react to them with skepticism or belief or whatever and be doing something else, like looking for the bad guy. (Think of "The Fugitive," where, IIRC, toward the end, Harrison Ford is looking for the bad guy, and there's a fancy dinner going on, and the bad guy is up at the head table, getting introduced, so we hear the relevant snippets of the introduction, but the POV character -- Ford -- is trying to get to the bad guy.)

I don't know if you saw the presidential-debate episode of West Wing, but I tuned in, just b/c I was curious how the two actors would handle a live episode like that, where they were under a lot of pressure to get their lines right. And the episode didn't work for me, at all, b/c all I was doing the entire hour was noticing their acting skills (which were impressive, I thought), b/c I was bored by the content of what the characters were doing/saying. Anyway, just mentioning that as a caveat for readers who might well skip over the entire debate you write, unless you've got it extremely condensed, and have true conflict (these days, does a political debate matter to anyone other than the candidate?) in the scene, with tension that's escalating. Which was missing from the West Wing debate.

JD

Bette Davis said:

Thank you for the replies! I'm not completely certain the genre of book I'm writing (<--thanks Julie!). I've looked up the definitions and it could qualify as both literary fiction and mainstream fiction. It's a political satire, is that a genre?

Typed up (without adding my scene breaks yet) it's 386 pages. Once I add breaks it will be longer, but if I count it as 250 words per page it will probably end up being around 100,000 words. I will definately need to trim up some scenes as well.

The debate scene only contains one response from each candidate, which is related to the subject I'm writing about. The rest of the debate is mentioned by the characters as being something they don't care about.

The line breaks were driving me bonkers, thanks again for all the help!

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386 pages and the computer count is 120k? I think that's unlikely. You can only use the 250/page number if you have it in standard format: Courier New 12pt, 25 lines/page, 1 inch margins.

There are several ways. One is to change the spacing to a 1.9 multiple. (Best to do this in the style, but I'll bet you don't know what I'm talking about. If not, see here.)

Hi there,
Do you have Word? If so, go to Format --> Paragraph, and under Line Spacing, pick "Exactly" from the drop down menu. Then set it to 25 pt in the "At" window.

If you're using MS Word, go into it and disable every single option it has. Better still, delete Word from your system and get something useful.

Next -- I can't tell from your examples what to do in your particular case. Eliminate all the unnecessary words. If every word that's left is necessary -- then that's your book.

You don't skip lines between paragraphs. Each new paragraph starts with an indent.

You break things into paragraphs ... if they are separate paragraphs. If they aren't, you don't.

There is no magic "right length" for a chapter. Divide your book in a way that makes sense to you.

James D. Macdonald said:

If you're using MS Word, go into it and disable every single option it has. Better still, delete Word from your system and get something useful.

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Listen to James and you'll be using a manual typewriter.

Listen to James and you'll be using a manual typewriter

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Manual typewriter WITH a really good whiteout tool.

Bartholomew said:

Manual typewriter WITH a really good whiteout tool.

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Manual typewriter with a really good whiteout tool is all that any novelist needs.

Listen to Julie and you'll have all kinds of slop and claptrap getting between you and the words, and making it impossible for anyone else to read your files.

James D. Macdonald said:

...making it impossible for anyone else to read your files.

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Not impossible, necessarily.

But for the DAW anthology I worked on, one of the authors I invited e-mailed me a story which had ... let's call them formatting issues. It took me about 20 minutes to eliminate excess code and such, to get it into a standard format that I could read.

This was someone I had invited, who had talked to me about being computer illiterate and having trouble getting things formatted properly in this program, so in this case I was willing to do the work.

But here's the thing: that manuscript looked perfect on his PC. It was a mess on mine. The fewer special features you use, the less risk of a formatting mess on the receiver's side of things.

Bette Davis said:

I just went into paragraph and set the lines for exactly 25 pts and the last line on the page is still at 24 pts. Should I set it for 26 pts?

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More likely, you need to try setting your line spacing at 1.95 instead of 2.

Have you disabled orphans & widows? It might be automatically slinging one of your lines onto the next page, depending upon where you are in the paragraph.

Charlotte Dillon has an excellent summary of how to make proper formatting changes for MS in word. Hope it helps!

http://www.charlottedillon.com/ManuscriptPreparation.html

James D. [left said:

Macdonald[/left]]Manual typewriter with a really good whiteout tool is all that any novelist needs.

Listen to Julie and you'll have all kinds of slop and claptrap getting between you and the words, and making it impossible for anyone else to read your files.

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Can't argue with you, but I find the ease of a good electronic dictionary and thesaurus far more efficient than their paper counterparts. Most word-smiths will end up finding a comfortable place between the bare minimum and the garnish.

A good solution to formatting issues is to keep a plain text version saved as your backup.

James D. Macdonald said:

Manual typewriter with a really good whiteout tool is all that any novelist needs.

Listen to Julie and you'll have all kinds of slop and claptrap getting between you and the words, and making it impossible for anyone else to read your files.

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Not just novelist, either. My nonfiction magazine editor complains bitterly about the junk she has to strip out of files when authors ignore her guidelines for plain text.

Aconite said:

Not just novelist, either. My nonfiction magazine editor complains bitterly about the junk she has to strip out of files when authors ignore her guidelines for plain text.

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She has more patience than me. I'd send it back to them with a request to follow instructions.

Sassenach said:

She has more patience than me. I'd send it back to them with a request to follow instructions.

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They tend to be the same authors who send the files at 4:45 of deadline day and can't be reached immediately, from what I understand.* Otherwise, I suspect that's exactly what she'd do.

*They tend not to get repeat assignments, obviously. You have to be exceptionally brilliant to make it worth an editor's extra effort, and most people aren't exceptionally brilliant.

With Harlequin moving to computerized word counts, and with several agents (including Miss Snark) saying they've never heard of the 250/page method, I'd use the word processor's count unless the agent/publisher prefers another method.

Keep in mind that as long as the formatting's readable and consistent, the fine details will rarely make a difference. Still, formatting's the one aspect of a manuscript that we have fine control over, so don't feel bad about wanting to get it perfect. (But it's not necessary.)

Sharon Mock said:

With Harlequin moving to computerized word counts, and with several agents (including Miss Snark) saying they've never heard of the 250/page method, I'd use the word processor's count unless the agent/publisher prefers another method.

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Never heard of it? Makes one wonder about Miss Snark.

The change in Harlequin's policies is discussed here. (You'll want to scroll down to message 20.)

Miss Snark addresses the issue here. (I misremembered -- she's heard of it, but thinks it's unnecessary.)

I've heard too much conflicting advice. I don't think the case for 250/page is nearly as straightforward as it was even a year ago. Standards change, and I suspect this one is right in the middle of doing so.

I'd still format for 250/page, and I'd still use that word count where I know it's preferred.