microsoft word add in for writing stories

Put your cursor anywhere in a paragraph of quoted text within your novel.Under spacing, choose single spacing and then what you like for the amount of white space above and below your scene breaks (6, 9, or 12 all look fine).Under Indentation, click on Special, then choose (none).Make sure the Alignment is Centered and Outline Level is Level 2.Make the name “SceneBreak” or whatever you want to call your scene breaks.At the very bottom, click on the far-left square of the three squares to the left of Options (New Style). Click on the little drop-down menu button to the right of the word Styles on the tool bar.This time, we’re going to create a new style. In the toolbar style manager, find the Normal rectangle and click on it. Put your cursor on one of your scene-break lines.Under spacing, choose what you like for the amount of white space above and below your chapter titles.At the top of the dialogue box, click back to Indents and Spacing.This will start each chapter on a new page. At the top of the dialogue box, click on Line and Page Breaks.Under Indentation, click on Special, then choose (none). Make sure the Outline Level is Level 1.Click on Format in the lower left corner and choose Paragraph.Choose the font and size you want for your chapter headings.Put your cursor on Heading 1 and right-click on it. In the toolbar style manager, find the Heading 1 rectangle. Put your cursor on one of your chapter titles.You’ll never have to use a tab or a space again to indent your paragraphs! (Tabs and extra spaces can drive both you and your formatter crazy.) This automatically indents the first line of all your paragraphs. Under Indentation, click on Special, then First Line, and choose 0.5. Make sure the Outline Level is Body Text.Click on Format in the lower-left corner and choose Paragraph.Choose the font and size you want for the paragraphs in the body of your manuscript.In the toolbar style manager, find the Normal rectangle and right-click on it. Put your cursor anywhere in a text paragraph within a chapter of your novel.You can select different font sizes, alignments, and such as you wish. Let’s jump in and create styles for your manuscript! But first– SAVE A BACKUP COPY OF YOUR MANUSCRIPT, JUST IN CASE! Also, keep in mind that the following is just my recommendation for style choices. If you change it in the toolbar style manager, the changes will apply to all paragraphs of that type in the document. If you change a paragraph in the body, the changes will apply to that paragraph only. There are two ways to change a paragraph’s characteristics: in the body of the document or in the styles manager in the toolbar. The common styles you’ll use are for body text, chapter headings, scene breaks, and indented material (letters or messages read by your characters). You want to use a different style for each kind of paragraph that does a unique job. You’ll see the style section to the right with different fonts in the rectangles and labels like Normal and Heading 1.

In your document, click on the Home tab at the upper left of the toolbar. You can brute-force paragraphs into a certain layout by using your tab key or space bar, but the easier way is to use styles. So, okay-simply put, text in Microsoft Word is laid out in paragraphs. If you want to do it yourself, though, we’re here to help-keep reading.

Money: If you outsource your formatting, this will save your formatter time, and that’s going to ultimately save you money.īefore we start, let me say that if all this looks like WAY too much hassle for you, we offer pre-formatting at a reasonable rate and can usually get your manuscript back to you same business day or next business day.

Time: If you do your own formatting, this will save you time in the long run.

I can’t do that if it’s hard to make paragraph adjustments.

Editing: Part of my job as an editor is to make suggestions for dialogue pacing, group speech with action so that it’s clear who the speaker is, arrange paragraphs so that they flow from one to the next.

It’s hard to see dialogue and such when your text is all crammed together with no rhyme or reason.

Revisions: An organized manuscript makes it easier for you to make revisions.

There are actually some very good reasons. You may be asking yourself why pre-formatting matters.

Microsoft word add in for writing stories