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I'm writing a story for a competition but I need advice on formatting. I'm using the formatting option in word where you click format- paragraph and then 1st line hanging. This changes every first line at the start of a new paragraph to be indent e.g.
end of paragraph, then the new paragraph will look like this
new paragraph
Is this right? And on speech? I ask because I did a short story home study course once and I've been looking over it to learn from past mistakes and it says something about this. I hope you understand what I mean.
I'm trying to make sure I get the format/grammar right for this competition (i'm trying to enter the one in writing magazine it end this week, hope to send it on fri/sat). Double line spacing etc through Word formatting
thanks in advance. This is the first time in years I've entered a competition and I want to do the best I can.
Comments
The first line of the story, however, and the first line of any subsequent new section (i.e. after a whole line break as above rather than just a new paragraph) should start again at the margin (i.e. without the indent).
Speech is the same, even if the story starts with dialogue.
I always use first line indent for the whole story then go back and manually take it out at the start of each section using the arrows at the top of Word. There may be an easier way, but I don't know what it is!
A new speaker is the same as a new paragraph, therefore indent unless it is the first line of the story or the first line of a new section.
I have to remember to not do it at the start of a story or chapter of a novel. :-\"
*feels foolish*