Indents and Paragraphs...

[Hawke]

As far as I can surmise from books that I've read and posts on forums you need to include a new paragraph when there is a point of view change or a new person speaks but thats as far as I know and I have a few questions.

Where do you use indents?

How many spaces do you use for an indent?

Where do you separate two paragraphs completely with a line break?

I have a rough idea on these but need clarification please, thanks in advance.

Sorry if these have been asked before, I used the search but it came up with nothing.

[The Ace]

I was always told when taking a new paragraph to indent 2 spaces OR miss a line. I still have a tendancy to do both.

[Green]

Ok, all of this is purely a question of style/common usage. So most people aren't going to shoot you if you get it wrong (although a lot of agents/publishers will have their own specifications on all of these things and more), but here's my take on the above...

1. Indents - in normal text, an indent is used whenever a new paragraph begins. This is to indicate that the new paragraph has started (new paragraph also includes new speech). In some text formats (e.g. formal letters), everything is Justified and new paragraphs are indicated by line breaks. You don't need to do this in a manuscript, though it is very useful on a forum.

2. In publishing manuscript format (Courier, 12pt), indents are 5 spaces long, which I think is half an inch.

3. Line breaks are when you change scene, or there is some other break within the text. Perhaps when you change POV, or something like that. I use these line breaks to indicate both of these, and nothing else.

Have a read of the website below, if you haven't come across it before. It has a lot of useful info on things like ms format, and some really interesting articles.

TOC About Writing

[Hawke]

Thanks I'll check out the site.