posted
An additional reason for mono-spacing manuscripts:
Typesetting is done from the manuscript. Typesetters do not read the manuscript the way anyone else reads it--they are looking at it letter by letter and mark by mark. Typesetters do a much better job if they are working from a mono-spaced manuscript because they can see very clearly what each letter and punctuation mark is.
posted
I'm sure some of the old topics were longer...but come to think of it, I bet most of those have been deleted, since they were all flame wars. We used to have some great flame wars on this forum...nowadays we get about five flames and sputter out.
Posts: 8322 | Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
I only posted because I hate ties. I always feel like they're choking me. Hmmmm. Did I cofuse that word again? Anyway, here's to solo second place.
Posts: 198 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Well, at long last, here's my rejection made public. Tor passed on my story. "Not right for our list at this time." <sob>
So, planning to submit to agents, I entered six pages of editing notes I had accumulated since I sent the manuscript off (There's a thread asking when a book is done. Answer: Never.) and remembered this thread. Thought I'd refresh myself as to whether I could correct the dangling quotation marks -- apparently I can't -- and am debating about the scrunched ellipses. I have gotten several laughs from re-reading this thread, though. There's lots of good stuff here that may be helpful for those brave enough to read through all of it.
However, I've found that while you can create a non-breaking hyphen, you can't create a non-breaking dash, meaning you can avoid breaking up words like "non-breaking" but you cannot avoid ending a line with a mid-sentence dash. Which is not a big problem, really, but I just thought I'd mention it since I was in this thread again. (Although I fully expect someone to show that you can create a non-breaking dash. )
(Why do old threads lose all their symbols and get those funny squares all over?)
posted
Commiserations, Kolona. I know it would be better receiving a positive letter but at least a rejection slip shows your're actually trying. At least that's what I say to myself when I get them.
Not sure about a non-breaking dash but I agree about the laughs from reading this thread through again. However, in doing so I've been reminded of my vow never to write anything that needed ellipses ever again. Oh well, I think I broke it pretty quick in the end.
I think the weird symbols and things appeared after the site went down a couple of months back. Most of the apostrophes seem to have turned to question marks too.
posted
Well, in manuscript format it's not a problem if you use two hyphens to indicate an em-dash. And since you can use two non-breaking hyphens, that will solve the dangling quotation mark problem.
Posts: 1517 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
i'm one of those daring souls willing to read the whole thing!
WHOA! a lot of interesting stuff here. . . .
i'm never going to be the same again!
oh, and kolona: i just checked on ending with a em-dash (two hyphens) where they are the very last character's on a line and the (") follows on a line all by itself... i have a solution. try using ctrl-shift-(-) twice, that enters two non-breaking hyphens, exactly what you are looking for. . . . i think. . . .
posted
Well, Eric and dpatridge, that doesn't work. Oh, the dash doesn't break, which is fine, but the stupid quotation mark immediately after the dash still migrates to the next line all by its lonesome -- and the quotation mark is the wrong one. You have to type an extra letter and space after the dash, then the quotation mark, then go back and delete the extra letter and space.
But I give up. If editors are used to Courier New, then they're used to lone quotation marks. But thanks for taking a swing at it.
Nonsense, Gwalchmai, you did that whole post without an ellipsis. Congratulations.
quote:i'm one of those daring souls willing to read the whole thing....i'm never going to be the same again!
Dpatridge, it is a life-changing experience. Now you are truly one of us.
I should have specified that you have to turn off the autocorrect function that changes two hypens to an em-dash. If you use the two non-breaking hyphens instead of an em-dash, you will not get the lone quotation mark. (In other words, you will not be using the em-dash character at all; you will be using two hyphens to indicate an em-dash, which is perfectly acceptable in a manuscript.)
In any case, you should also turn off "smart quotes." Then you never have to worry about whether it's the right kind of quotation mark.
Once "smart quotes" are turned off, if you do a search for all quotation marks and replace them with quotation marks, it will convert all the "smart quotes" to regular quotation marks.
posted
If you want to use smart quotes, but are getting the wrong one, you don't need to do the "insert character, put in quote, then delete it" dance: Press Ctrl + apostrophe, then quote. This always inserts a closing quotation mark. Ctrl + backtick (the character that looks like a reversed apostrophe) can be used to force an opening quote if it would put a closing one in.
posted
You can turn the bits of it on & off separately.
The main things to switch off for manuscripts are the things in the "replace" section of the "autoformat as you type" tab in my copy of Word 97: smart quotes, superscript ordinals, fraction characters, symbol characters (this is what does the dashes), and hyperlinks. I leave "*bold* and _underline_" switched on, cause it's really handy for typing the occasional italicised word.
On a somewhat related note, I was reading a book yesterday (Heart of the Comet by Gregory Benford and David Brin, a UK Bantam paperback edition) which had an em-dash followed by a quotation mark in which the quotation mark had been moved to the next line. Either this is correct formatting, or the mistake is quite common.
[This message has been edited by Jules (edited November 17, 2004).]
posted
I have had a similar problem, does the quote mark point in the wrong direction? (backwards?).
I'm sure there's a fix for it, but I just worked around it by backspacing to erase the last several characters and then re-typing. When the last word and the quotes are in place, I moved the cursor into the right position and inserted the two dashes. At least I think that's what I did.
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