The original version of this page can be found at : http://forum.sfreader.com/default.aspx?f=19&m=75357
| Posted By : Nicholas - 4/1/2008 5:10 PM | | Like Erazmus, I admit to sending almost exclusively e-subs these days. As I get older, perhaps it's just a touch of laziness; also, I'm annoyed at how expensive postage has gotten. Sure, I'd like to get into Cemetery Dance or Asimov's, but do I want to go through all that trouble of handwriting addresses on a manila envelope and SASE, printing out story and cover letter, affixing postage and taking to post office, all for a market where I have maybe a 1 in 500 chance of being accepted? When I could instead just shoot off an email to a market where I might have a good shot?
But lately there are a few e-sub markets that I've passed up, even though I had a story that seemed like a good fit. Why? Because they insisted that the story be pasted into the body of the email without paragraph indentation. Instead of paragraph indentation, they want a space between paragraphs.
Now--on a longer story especially--going through a manuscript, removing the indent on every paragraph and then inserting an extra line break after each can be quite time-consuming. Is there some alternative to this hunt-and-peck, a single procedure that would automatically take out all paragraph indents and instead insert a line break?
http://ozment.livejournal.com
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| Posted By : Mark Eller - 4/1/2008 6:20 PM | Wow, I don't know what to do with the indent. I just spent an hour trying to figure that out. I got rid of it with a couple clicks on formatting on the pages I had up, but when I copied and pasted the formatting came back. However, the line spacing between paragraphs I can help you with.
Go to edit and select all. Go to format, select paragraph. In microsoft word there is a tab that says spacing and indents. Down a way there is a thing that says Spacing. The offerings are before and after. Click on the arrow for the amount of spacing you want then click OK...your document will now have spacing between paragraphs, and it does copy and paste that way into my aol mail. The process is similar but not exactly the same for microsoft works. |
| Posted By : crystalwizard - 4/1/2008 6:30 PM | for the indent (for Word):
(once you have a space between the paragraphs).
cntrl-A to select all
the go to format (menu option), choose styles and formatting, scroll all the way up and click on Clear Format.
(warning, that does take out italics)
OR
highlight a couple characters in one of the paragraphs, then go to format, choose styles and formating, and start scrolling through the list till you find the one selected. That'll be the style currently associated with the paragraph you highlighted a couple of letters in.
on the right side there's a small down arrow. Do not click the name of the style, that'll apply it. Instead, click the arrow and choose modify.
The modify style box will pop up. click the format button and choose paragraph. Edit the paragraph settings and remove the indent.
click ok a couple times and you'll see that all your paragraphs with the same style applied to them no longer are indented.
If any still are, highlight them, clear formating, then apply the style you just modified. |
| Posted By : Bill Ward - 4/1/2008 6:32 PM | Thanks for that Mark and CW, I've been wondering about this myself.
I absolutely hate pasteing my stories into an email, as my email program invariably completely ruins the way they look and often refuses to let me fix them (seriously, it will not allow me to tab things, or put spaces where they should be). It's infuriating, and I find that 'body of the email' markets are the absolute bottom of my list of markets to send to, though I do understand completely why some editors insist on it.
billwardwriter.com |
| Posted By : nathan - 4/1/2008 6:38 PM | This dove tails a bit with a growing pet peeve of mine. Submission guidelines that scoll on and on placing one qualification hoop after another for a story to jump through to be "considered" followed by formating guidelines that make MLA rules look casual.
Followed by payment rates that wouldn't fill my car's gas tank once its said and done.
What the hell ever happened to getting what you paid for? "I want top notch stories for spit" is starting to frustrate the hell out of me in a philosphical sense lately as I presuse my Ralan's.
I think this might be a hijack but I meant it as a fold in.
VIEW IMAGE"Writing the wet dreams of teenage boys" - Lindsey Llyod, Tangent Reviews
Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with Empire magazine, he said, "I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages." |
| Posted By : nathan - 4/1/2008 6:43 PM | Actually this is a hijack, I'm moving it to Gripe to grumple.
VIEW IMAGE
"Writing the wet dreams of teenage boys" - Lindsey Llyod, Tangent Reviews
Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with Empire magazine, he said, "I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages." |
| Posted By : Rob Santa - 4/1/2008 7:09 PM | Ditto all the sentiments. If a market's guidelines vary from "standard" format dramatically, I'm just not willing to make the changes (even if it is only a few mouse clicks...thanks guys for helping with that).
Rob Santa
Hopelessly Addicted Writer of Speculative Fiction
and CEO of Ricasso Press |
| Posted By : SC Bryce - 4/1/2008 7:26 PM | Here's what works for us in the critique group (since having spacing between paragraphs makes the stories much easier to read online). Do a global replace by:
Control-H (for "Find and Replace)
Find: ^p (which is the symbol for hard paragraph return)
Replace with ^p^p (which should now give you 2 hard paragraph breaks rather than 1)
I find that usually the indent tab at the beginning of the paragraphs removes itself during the cut and paste process. If not, you can select the entire document (control A), go into paragraph formatting, and change the paragraph indent to 0.
It also helps if you resave the document as a rtf or txt file and then reopen the document using your text editor rather than word processor.
SC Bryce
www.SCBryce.com |
| Posted By : R. L. Copple - 4/2/2008 1:30 AM | Hum, I've got macros for all of this. But, instead of just posting them, I'll work on a template that someone can download and import them into their stuff. I even have macros for removing tabs, whether they used the style setting, a tab character, or spaces (shudder).
I'll try to remember to post its availability when I get it done.
R. L. Copple
blog.rlcopple.com
www.raygunradio.com
www.haruah.com
Infinite Realities available at Amazon.com |
| Posted By : erazmus - 4/2/2008 3:55 AM | Nicholas,
I've adopted the solution you use, I just don't send those markets much stuff.
And having a Macro to make the changes won't change my mind about it either.
Anyone so paranoid they don't want RTFs is just silly. And RTF is easy to work with and safe.
Prefer to read in Lucida with ten point type? A couple of clicks and you are. Your first reader can only handle 14pt Times New Roman? Teach him the click sequence by rote and he's set. Don't know how to get the text from RTF format to PDF? Your a freaking publisher, learn!
This is like the pubs that only want mail submissions because they do all their reading in coffee shops. They should cut out one mocha latte a day and save the money up for a cheap lap-top. It will take less than three months and they will have moved up to the late twentieth century. I can't put enough postage for a return manuscript on an envelope anymore, because I have no idea how much it will cost to mail it to me next year, after they get around to reading it. I know how much it will cost to e-mail me a response. Nothing.
If you just can't handle RTFs, get a form page and let me paste it there, if you must. This can cause nightmarish problems, but they are your problems. I just have to let you know what I can't do. I'm busy trying to master the art of storytelling, I don't need to add mastering the ever changing world of word processor programming to my to do list. I started writing on Word Star, I've gone through five versions of it, five versions of word perfect and at least five of word. I don't know how to do anything on any of those any more, they've all blurred together. Give me a break and read the story, its a good story and if your cleaver and have a good buisness plan, it will make you money. Promise.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Dutchman Rescue"in Continuum SF #6
www.continuumsciencefiction.com/orders.htm
"An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern" in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises:
www.fantasistent.com/books/anthologies/BASH.php
"Stains" in Tales of the Talisman 3-1 www.zianet.com/hadrosaur/index.html
"Morning Coffee" in Every Day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/morning-coffee-by-michael-d-turner/
"The Jewel Below" in Flashing Swords
flashingswords.sfreader.com/issues/issue8/vol2-iss8-05.htm
"Happy Landings" in Every Day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/happy-landings-by-michael-d-turner/
"Teller of Tales" in Every day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/teller-of-tales-by-michael-d-turner/
Read "Silver Shells" In Every Day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/silver-shells-by-michael-d-turner/ |
| Posted By : Hermit - 4/2/2008 5:20 PM | Well, from the standpoint of an editor and a former publisher, I have to say you guys are rather a surly bunch . . . And I'll stand on your side of the picket-line. Erazmus, I totally agree with your stance on the formatting. That's the publisher's job. Don't know that I necessarily agree about the paranoia in regard to attachments, as I've gotten a system-killing virus one too many times; however, there are a numerous virus protection applications built to ensure against this hazzard. I like the idea of a post-in box, but I don't have the web savvy for that and would therefore not offer it. Of course, I take txt and rtf files as well as doc - and prefer to never-never-never-never have stories pasted in the body of an email. Possible exception being flash fiction of under 250 words.
I use formatting as CW suggested, only I create Styles for different projects so that I can just apply it all at once. I also create specific templates for poetry, e-sub poetry, fiction, e-fiction, e-sub fiction, and the like. It helps. Up-front it's a bit onerous, but it's something I do when not in drafting mode. I NEVER let crap like that interfere with actual drafting. NEVER. EVER. Really. 
Read me soon in The Return of the Sword!
Blog: http://bitterhermit.wordpress.com
Buy wine: http://fringemonkey.org
Poetry Blog: http://fringemonkey.wordpress.com |
| Posted By : Nicholas - 4/3/2008 2:14 AM | Thanks for the tips, Mark, CW, and SC.
Generally, though, I'm with Nathan and Mike. Unless there's a really compelling reason to jump through a lot of hoops, I'll just send to one of the markets that takes a good ol' standard manuscript in .doc or .rtf (poetry and flash I'll paste into an email, if requested, and just hope weird symbols don't show up on the other side).
Here's one I came across today: Sam's Dot Publishing doesn't want paragraphs in novel manuscripts to be tab-indented, but rather indented with five space-bar spaces. OMG--Mark, crystalwizard, or SC: one of you probably knows how you could do this in a couple easy steps. I was imagining the hours it would take to remove the tab on every paragraph of a novel and replace with five spaces. That would take hours, and might finally drive me over the edge of sanity upon which I precariously teeter.
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| Posted By : SC Bryce - 4/3/2008 9:42 AM | I would try going into find/replace and do this:
Find: ^t
Then in the Replace blank actually hit the space key 5 times.
SC Bryce
www.SCBryce.com |
| Posted By : Nicholas - 4/3/2008 5:13 PM | That's ALL?
It's obvious I never read my computer manual...
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| Posted By : SC Bryce - 4/3/2008 5:46 PM | Well, let's see if it works!
SC Bryce
www.SCBryce.com |
| Posted By : anna - 4/9/2008 8:59 AM | | That goes along with my frustration of going through an almost 7 k word story and manually removing one of the two spaces I always put after every sentence. THEN I learn from the more computer literate experts here that I could have done it with a simple "find and replace all". |
| Posted By : von Darkmoor - 4/9/2008 11:34 AM |
erazmus said...
I know how much it will cost to e-mail me a response. Nothing.
If you just can't handle RTFs, get a form page and let me paste it there, if you must. This can cause nightmarish problems, but they are your problems. I just have to let you know what I can't do. I'm busy trying to master the art of storytelling, I don't need to add mastering the ever changing world of word processor programming to my to do list. I started writing on Word Star, I've gone through five versions of it, five versions of word perfect and at least five of word. I don't know how to do anything on any of those any more, they've all blurred together. Give me a break and read the story, its a good story and if your cleaver and have a good buisness plan, it will make you money. Promise.
Mike LOVE THIS, Mike! You should be a writer 
~~~~~~~~~~
Jason M. Waltz
Managing Editor, Flashing Swords Press (site soon to come)
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| Posted By : von Darkmoor - 4/9/2008 11:36 AM |
SC Bryce said...
Well, let's see if it works! I think it would, but did it, SC?
~~~~~~~~~~
Jason M. Waltz
Managing Editor, Flashing Swords Press (site soon to come)
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| Posted By : crystalwizard - 4/9/2008 2:22 PM | von Darkmoor said...erazmus said...I know how much it will cost to e-mail me a response. Nothing. If you just can't handle RTFs, get a form page and let me paste it there, if you must. This can cause nightmarish problems, but they are your problems. I just have to let you know what I can't do. I'm busy trying to master the art of storytelling, I don't need to add mastering the ever changing world of word processor programming to my to do list. I started writing on Word Star, I've gone through five versions of it, five versions of word perfect and at least five of word. I don't know how to do anything on any of those any more, they've all blurred together. Give me a break and read the story, its a good story and if your cleaver and have a good buisness plan, it will make you money. Promise. MikeLOVE THIS, Mike! You should be a writer VIEW IMAGE You know, that's how I feel about being a systems administrator. I shouldn't have to master all the paperwork and other nonsense. I shouldn't have to learn all the various hoops that the rest of the business uses. I should just be able to work on the computers, fix them and keep them running. Unfortunately, part of my job as a system admin is to do all of that other stuff even though it's got nothing to do with actually keeping the computer running. Or at least, it is if I want to keep working for this particular company. The same goes for mastering all the word processor quirks and other things. That IS your job as a writer. Half of your job is telling the story, the other half is jumping through the hoops so that it's in a format we can use. if you were a musician, only half of your job would be playing music or singing, the other half would be mastering all the technology that you have to use AND making sure your setup works with the venues you want to perform at. |
| Posted By : crystalwizard - 4/9/2008 2:24 PM | Nicholas said...
Like Erazmus, I admit to sending almost exclusively e-subs these days. As I get older, perhaps it's just a touch of laziness; also, I'm annoyed at how expensive postage has gotten. Sure, I'd like to get into Cemetery Dance or Asimov's, but do I want to go through all that trouble of handwriting addresses on a manila envelope and SASE, printing out story and cover letter, affixing postage and taking to post office, all for a market where I have maybe a 1 in 500 chance of being accepted? When I could instead just shoot off an email to a market where I might have a good shot?
Maybe you don't. But you want your publisher to do all of that to get your story/book into the hands of reviewers. You want that done so you can get your contributor copy of Asimovs. Or at least, I assume you do. |
| Posted By : DAWaverly - 4/9/2008 2:52 PM | crystalwizard said...
The same goes for mastering all the word processor quirks and other things. That IS your job as a writer. Half of your job is telling the story, the other half is jumping through the hoops so that it's in a format we can use.
if you were a musician, only half of your job would be playing music or singing, the other half would be mastering all the technology that you have to use AND making sure your setup works with the venues you want to perform at.
Ahhh... but there is the rub. The music venue is not going to tell me that I have to play a banjo instead of a guitar. Amps, mics, soundboards...they are all standard stuff. The details of working a particular band into any given venue boil down to acoustics and power consumption.
To connect the analogy... I have read e-sub guidelines that insist on a .doc document, and one that called for an MSWord specific font. I do not own MSWord. (I don't own a banjo either.) I do not plan on ever buying MSWord. Also the details of working a particular story into any given submission process should be basic and important stuff. Theme or word count or standard, freely available, file formats.
Any editor is welcome to set up hoops for writers to jump through, but on those days when I don't want to be treated like a circus dog, I will simply not submit to a venue that has such requirements. Especially if the requirement seems to be a whim or a silly preference.
- Deven
Blogtide Rising
published
"The Journey" at Every Day Fiction
forthcoming
"An Awakening of Shadows" in The Infinity Swords anthology from Carnivah House
"All That Glitters" at Every Day Fiction |
| Posted By : Swashbuckler - 4/9/2008 3:40 PM | I'll still send paper subs, and I'll jump through reasonable hoops on paper and electronic slugs. By reasonabloe I mean anything I can do with little trouble; too many hoops and I'll probably just sub somewhere else.
I have noted a good many ezine and small press subs that want electronic submissions in very specific formats. I wonder in such cases if the idea is to get a piece of fiction that is pretty much ready to go on a web wite "as is." And then I wonder thoroughly subs to those venues are being edited ...
Steve Goble
Visit my blog, Swords Against Boredom, for news on published fiction and upcoming stories. |
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