posted
In your cover you can make a note of it--explain why you used a different font. I wonder why you need one though. If you are thinking of what the book will look like published as in some sections that look handwritten but not italics--that's often something worked out before the book goes to print.
posted
Thanks, Shawn. I'm using a completely alien species in SF, and the form of communication utlised strongly intimates that I must use a different font to create the required emphasis. I'll look to make a note in the synopsis.
Posts: 286 | Registered: Jun 2002
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As I recall, OSC would set apart the hive queen's mind speak like this:
<Hello Ender.>
I thought it worked well for him; however, you might try first to convey the strangeness of your alien form of communication through the language you use and the way human characters react to it.
posted
Probably the best way to indicate that you want a different font for certain parts of the text is to do it the same way that editors tell typesetters they want to have italics in the text.
What you do for italics is underline the text to be italicized and then in the margin write "ital" (without the quote marks).
In the case of your story, you should include what is called a "style sheet" and in that explain that you want a different font for the aliens and that you have indicated where the font is to be used by underlining and writing something like "alien font" in the margin.
Style sheets are something every writer should use whenever there is going to be something special or different or unusual in the text.
A most excellent suggestion. It would make the MSS look much neater. Now I can worry about using an actual different font when I have an agent and a publishing contract!
posted
Something to keep in mind is how you are going to submit your manuscript.
I was reading one a publishers website that they take electronic formats, however it has to be in Times (though I think Courier is actually another option), and the only variation in can be italics. Their reasoning is that many computers won't read something exactly the same way even with the same software (and of course their is the fact that not everyone has the same fonts).
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