Indenting Paragraphs
When one starts topublish books, and wants them to look ‘professional’, there are many things onemust think about that you probably haven’t stopped to think about before. Ithink the first thing I ran across that surprised me was the rule, “Thou shaltnot indent the first line of the first paragraph of each chapter.”
Huh? Why not? I thoughtit was a rule that all paragraphs should be indented, unless you are going fora block format, in which case no paragraphs get indented, but you do put a linebetween the paragraphs, so they don’t become a run-on mess (like this sentence).
But the onlyexplanation was that it was to ‘look professional’. They even went further thanthat and said that it would be even better to make the first letter of thefirst paragraph of each chapter oversized and ornate.
For some reason, I foundthat suggestion silly and downright medieval. What are we, monks calligraphingour way through these books?
I’ve read a lot ofbooks during my lifetime. I tried to think back, remember if any of those bookshad indented or not indented the first paragraph of each chapter. I didn’tknow. I apparently never noticed.
Oh, I did rememberoccasionally reading a book that had oversized and ornate first letters foreach chapter, and I vaguely remembered that those paragraphs were not usuallyindented. But it didn’t seem to be the norm in the books I read. Sometimes, Istruggled to figure out what letter it was, it was so ornate and seemed to havenothing to do with the word it started. I probably thought, “How weird,” andthen promptly forgot it as I plowed my way through the rest of the story.
Now I am faced with thequestion of whether or not I will indent the first paragraph of each chapter inthe books that I publish. To be truthful, I want to. It is much simpler toindent all the paragraphs and be done with it. To indent all the paragraphs andthen go back and un-indent the first paragraphs, all while trying not tomake it a global command, making ALL your paragraphs un-indented… It seems likea tedious and unnecessary endeavor. Too easy to make a mistake. And I have mademistakes during formatting. It’s no fun having to rip out ALL the formattingand then go back and put all the formatting back in again.
But I’m taking a veryunscientific survey. What is your opinion of not indenting first paragraphs ofeach chapter? Do you expect it? Have you ever noticed it being done in thebooks you have read? Drop me a comment and let me know your opinion.
Ebook Coupon
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Woman on the Dock
“Woman on the Dock”takes place in my Atlan Universe, where tribes of women have certain powersthat others don’t have, and are thus called Witches. When their island home wasdestroyed by a volcanic eruption, their evacuation boats got separated, andpockets (usually just 4 or 5 survivors, from old crones to infants) of thesewomen set up new homes wherever they could hide. Those women who are calledBlackbirds—one of the Atlans’ best warriors—are sent out periodically by theirvillage disguised as traders, to search for rumors of other Atlan villages. Butas generations go by, it is hard to believe that other Atlan settlements exist.
Inna, coming to afishing village disguised as a merchant, was shocked to find a woman tied tothe dock, battered and near death. She didn’t know the beaten woman, but shewas clearly Atlan! And Inna wasn’t going to let one of her kind be treated likethat!
