Thread: SMF Question - Paragraph Spacing

I've always added a blank line between paragraphs, and have been doing this while writing the piece I'm working on now, which may end up being submitted to agents and/or publishers if/when it's finished. I thought I'd read that there should be no space between paragraphs in a pre-coffee haze this morning, and was wondering if I needed to change my habit before getting too far into this (I'm at a little over 14,000 words at the moment). For example, this is the way I format when writing:

Cupcake ipsum dolor sit amet marzipan faworki. Halvah marzipan marshmallow apple pie halvah. Ice cream jelly beans dessert cake tootsie roll chupa chups. Topping chupa chups tart oat cake sugar plum. Dragée oat cake macaroon. Cheesecake gummi bears pastry. Jelly-o croissant sugar plum pudding. Cupcake danish chocolate cake dragée lemon drops. Brownie caramels ice cream bonbon toffee macaroon donut icing jelly beans.

Topping jelly beans dragée toffee. Chocolate bar jujubes sesame snaps gummi bears jelly carrot cake. Gummies bonbon tart macaroon jelly cupcake. Halvah candy apple pie toffee topping. Pudding halvah chupa chups sweet cookie. Jujubes caramels candy canes. Lollipop chupa chups lollipop sweet. Pie icing cotton candy.

Danish lollipop pastry sugar plum lollipop carrot cake marzipan. Muffin gummi bears muffin ice cream apple pie dragée pudding halvah. Gingerbread tiramisu sweet topping. Lollipop pudding croissant brownie apple pie cotton candy oat cake soufflé chocolate bar. Chupa chups cookie jujubes pastry. Jelly-o sweet roll chocolate candy cotton candy jelly beans croissant. Carrot cake marzipan lollipop. Marshmallow carrot cake marzipan. Applicake muffin jelly-o apple pie candy canes wafer muffin cake lollipop.

Or is this the preferred format (there would of course be indents at the beginnings of paragraphs, and I did add them, they just aren't showing up here):

Cupcake ipsum dolor sit amet marzipan faworki. Halvah marzipan marshmallow apple pie halvah. Ice cream jelly beans dessert cake tootsie roll chupa chups. Topping chupa chups tart oat cake sugar plum. Dragée oat cake macaroon. Cheesecake gummi bears pastry. Jelly-o croissant sugar plum pudding. Cupcake danish chocolate cake dragée lemon drops. Brownie caramels ice cream bonbon toffee macaroon donut icing jelly beans.
Topping jelly beans dragée toffee. Chocolate bar jujubes sesame snaps gummi bears jelly carrot cake. Gummies bonbon tart macaroon jelly cupcake. Halvah candy apple pie toffee topping. Pudding halvah chupa chups sweet cookie. Jujubes caramels candy canes. Lollipop chupa chups lollipop sweet. Pie icing cotton candy.
Danish lollipop pastry sugar plum lollipop carrot cake marzipan. Muffin gummi bears muffin ice cream apple pie dragée pudding halvah. Gingerbread tiramisu sweet topping. Lollipop pudding croissant brownie apple pie cotton candy oat cake soufflé chocolate bar. Chupa chups cookie jujubes pastry. Jelly-o sweet roll chocolate candy cotton candy jelly beans croissant. Carrot cake marzipan lollipop. Marshmallow carrot cake marzipan. Applicake muffin jelly-o apple pie candy canes wafer muffin cake lollipop.

Paragraphs are always one space, indented. When you submit to publishers, you change the line-spacing in Word to either 1.5 or 2. This will automatically put larger spaces between each line, removing the need to take two spaces at every paragraph.

When submitting work here, though, it's best to double space between paragraphs. It's easier on readers' eyes.

OK, I'm still confused, so I took a screenshot of how it's currently formatted (typed in a combo of Storyist for iPad and MS Word on a PC, shared back and forth via Dropbox). This is in Courier New 12pt, double spaced, with me hitting enter 2x after each paragraph. Too much space in between paragraphs?

Check a Writer's Digest copy. In it, specific agents and publishers will tell you how to format for their taste. Most prefer very little formatting, since they will re-do it to suit themselves anyway.

For aesthetics alone, I wouldn't double space between paragraphs, but that is the personal preference of one human being.

The most important part is to get the words down on paper. Then you can worry about the 'pretty factor.' Also, your writing makes me hungry.

I'm not sure how to take the "hungry" thing...my first instinct is compliment, but I also wonder if there's some sort of inside writers' joke that I'm missing, lol! If it was meant as a positive, then thank you! If not, I'd love constructive criticism

As for the formatting, I'm really just asking so that if I need to NOT do the spacing between paragraphs as it is, I'd much rather just start doing it correctly as I type, rather than have to go back through everything wearing out my backspace key when it's all finished. I'm probably overthinking it, I know, but I'm too much of a planner.

No, you don't need the spacing as you have it.

Originally Posted by Sam W

No, you don't need the spacing as you have it.

OK thanks

The only time you take a double space is when you're shifting to another time frame or POV within the same chapter. Usually it's broken up with three asterisks (***) but not always, and you generally don't indent. For example:

When Wright opened the door, he was staring into the barrel of a gun.

Two days later, James Wright awoke in New York-Presbyterian hospital, having been treated for multiple gun-shot wounds.

Normally, you show this change, as I said, with asterisks. It isn't necessary to do so, though. For everything else, one space and then an indent.

Yes, change the habit, and get into this one: use styles (in practically any respectable word processing program) rather than keystrokes to define the look of your document. I write in single-spaced, block paragraphs (the format used on this forum) because I find them easier to read onscreen (as do most of my reviewers!), but of course a completely different look may be required for submission. Luckily, I can change the look of the entire document by simply changing the style applied to my normal paragraph text.

It sounds complicated, but it's not. Exactly how you do it depends on which program you use, but it's a good trick to know, and it's worthwhile to learn it.

The style thing might be tricky, as I'm passing the files back and forth between Storyist for iPad and Word on PC, but I will look into it. I did spend about 2 hours last night editing the extra spaces out of what I already have, and applying first line indent rules via the paragraph format menu. Is that what was meant by styles?

I am actually not sure what you mean by that, so... Well, let's hope the style thing itself didn't take two hours and that the two hours referenced there was how long it took to remove the extra hard returns.

Anyway, I do have some examples, just in case that helps.



In the above image, I'm previewing a style set other than the one I normally use. As you can see, this style set, or theme, would change from block paragraphs to indented paragraphs. In this next picture, I'm previewing the theme I usually use, which does have the whole block paragraph thing going.



These themes work by having different styling rules applied to the default styles available for word documents. In this next image, I'm editing the style rules applied to "Normal", which is the style applied to practically every paragraph in your average document, or at least all the paragraphs that aren't headings or whatever.



To actually change the way paragraphs in the Normal style are spaced and indented, you'll want to select Format > Paragraph via the button on the bottom left of that menu titled Modify Style, which will open the following menu.



Your standard novel has paragraphs which make use of a "Special" indent setting, which is found just about in the middle of the menu. Select "First Line" and "0.5" inches to indent the first line of each paragraph. This will accomplish the same thing as hitting tab every time you hit enter.

To use the block paragraphs I prefer for editing, you would remove the first line indent and instead, under the Spacing heading nearer the bottom of the menu, set the "After" spacing to something around the size of your letters. Mine is set at 10 pt, but obviously this is a matter of preference; it's not like you're going to show this to the editor.

Now, these instructions will work for Word 2007 and Word 2010, so... Well, any version that's come out on PC in the past five or six years, anyway. Looking at yours, though, I'm guessing that you have a slightly older version? I actually think that older versions of Word still have styles, but I'm sure I never used them (I was young and stupid then!) and I don't remember how they worked if I did. A quick search should find a tutorial or two on the internet if you're curious what you can and can't do in your version, and of course even your standard-issue freebie word processor definitely has styles in 2012 (like whatever they're calling OpenOffice nowadays).

As for editing word documents on an iPad, I feel for you. I tend not to do that, myself; rather, I will type up new stuff in the word processor thingy that I do have on the iPad and then email it to myself for incorporation in my actual manuscript at a later time instead of just trying to edit the manuscript directly. However, it seems to me that if your mobile word processor supports actual word documents (like, actually supports them rather than just allowing you to open them), it should not be fudging your styles any simply because you open your document on the mobile device. There may be no issue there at all.

Thanks for the screenshots

The last one is exactly what I did to mess with the spacing and indentation on my files. The other style stuff...I'm going to have to find and mess with that later. Our desktop PC is fairly old, but styles seem like something that have been around for a while, so I should have them available.

And yes, it was going through and deleting all of the extra returns that took me a while. That and, of course, I can't look over a page that I've written without adding and editing as I go, so that definitely lengthened the process, lol!