Well, I just hit that backward P thing and I see a mess.
Some of my backward P's have no spaces, some have one, some two. I see backward P's where there isn't a paragraph...I guess from doing returns to add chapter numbers.
I also see a bunch of arrows pointing to my indented paragraphs. I'm sure it's because I used my tab key to indent because back when I wrote my MS, I didn't know about auto-indenting.
I also didn't do page-breaks for my chapters. Didn't know about that stuff either back when I started writing.
Will this all clean up? How? Do I need to rewrite my MS into a properly formatted new document?
And how do you all center your chapters and scene break symbols? I used that centering button, not any kind of style or heading whatever.
How do you all get your chapter heading centered and where you want it on the page (halfway down?) w/o using the return key?
Oh, man. This is gonna suck because I don't know much about anything.
I've set up new documents to auto-indent at .3", 1 inch margins, right font/size, and I do now know how to use the page break thing, but that's it. I'm not sure how to go about fixing things. I imagine I can't just copy/paste my MS into a new document and fix everything. And do I have to manually go to every paragraph end that has those extra one or two spaces and remove them or is there some trick where I can use my find feature to fix those extra spaces at the end of paragraphs?
Good grief.
Will all it clean up? Yes. Let's see if I can tackle each of these things for you...
Some of my backward P's have no spaces, some have one, some two. No big deal. I'm a format nerd and I don't even worry about it when this happens.
I see backward P's where there isn't a paragraph...I guess from doing returns to add chapter numbers. Probably, if they're only appearing at the end and beginning of chapters. Delete all but seven or whatever (like Sarah said, it's fine to use returns at the beginning of chapters. If you want to know how to do it without, let me know), then press ctrl+enter to create a page break between the end of one chapter and the beginning of the next.
I also see a bunch of arrows pointing to my indented paragraphs. I'm sure it's because I used my tab key to indent because back when I wrote my MS, I didn't know about auto-indenting. You're right about the reason, and it's surprisingly easy to fix, if you want to. It's actually just fine to leave it during submissions to agents. To fix it, ctrl+F for finding, and search for "^t" without the quotes. Replace with "" without the quotes (literally nothing. Make sure nothing is in the replace box), and then "replace all." Then what I usually do takes a few steps. I do ctrl+a to select the whole document, and use the ruler slider to set the indent for the whole MS to 0.5" (which is the usual, not 0.3"). Then I search for "#" or whatever you use to end scene breaks, and set the slider back to 0.0" for those, then I search for "chapter" (if you have chapter in front of chapter numbers) and set the slider back to 0.0" for those. (This is a really long paragraph. I promise it's pretty easy.)
And how do you all center your chapters and scene break symbols? I used that centering button, not any kind of style or heading whatever.
This is fine.
How do you all get your chapter heading centered and where you want it on the page (halfway down?) w/o using the return key?
This is totally unnecessary, but if you really want to know... I use Heading 1, and then set it to be Times New Roman, 12 pt, double spaced. Then on the paragraph tab, use the arrow that brings you to the popup menu and put in like 150 pt in the "space before" option (on the lower left). Then I do ctrl+F for "chapter" again, and click on all of them to make them Heading 1. But totally unnecessary.
