Microsoft Word for Fiction Writers: Fixing all that $#*()#) Auto-formatting

This post was inspired because I considered doing a 15 minute talk for a writing conference on Microsoft Word for Fiction Writers. The process of submission was too arduous, so I passed on it. But waste not, want not since I’d already spent the thinking time on it.

What makes me qualified:

I’m high input (#3). I collect information. At one point, I thought about getting certified in Microsoft Word, so I collected a lot of knowledge. If I use a program, I learn everything I can about how to use it.I also instruct people in my day job. I often write my own instructions because a lot of instructions are too detailed and not detailed enough. Someone might refer to the mystery word “progress bar”; whereas, I’ll say “left menu” because that makes it easy to find.I’m a fiction writer.

The biggest problem with Microsoft Word is that it’s designed for business use. The default formatting assumes that you will use it to create reports and other documents for your boss. Of course, that creates problems with fiction writing. Manuscript format requires those default settings to be turned off or changed.

That creates the second problem. Even the help sites assume business use, so it’s hard to find exactly the information you’re looking for. Many also assume that you just need to know how to do this task, not that you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for. Last time I checked, it’s hard to find what you’re looking for if you can’t ask the right questions. Which is hard in itself if you’re using the tool for business standard.

Problem number three is that Word is a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). The WYSIWYG assumes you’re doing a business standard, so if you try to do something different, it becomes a frustrating experience. Add that with not knowing what you’re looking for…ugh.

People complain about the program not doing “X” and find other tools. Each tool has its own problems. The conference submission was in Google Docs. I’m a tech nerd and it was frustrating for me to work with it. Granted, I wasn’t familiar with Google Docs, but it wasn’t friendly for a first-time user working with a document formatted by someone else.

Plus, most publishers want Word documents. Just extra administrative overhead to switch it from one program to another. Nothing ever converts exactly or cleanly. I’m always about doing less work.

So, the first tip is how to turn off the Auto-formatting. That’s when you type an asterisk for a scene break and Word converts it to a bullet point. Businesses use a lot of bullet points; fiction writers do not (at least not unless you’re doing an epistolary story where it might be a feature. But that can be manually added easily enough).

1. Open Word to a document. Can be a blank document, can be your manuscript.

2. Select FILE from the top menu bar and then OPTIONS (down near the bottom of the list that pops up).

3. The options dialog box opens. Click PROOFING on the left menu.

4. Click on the AUTOCORRECT button near the top of the dialog box. That opens yet another dialog box.

5. Click on the AUTOFORMAT AS YOU TYPE tab.

6. Go down to the APPLY AS YOU TYPE section in the middle and uncheck everything. Whee! Whacking of those Auto-formatting!

7. Click on the AUTOFORMAT tab (yeah, I’m not sure why there are two of these).

8. In the APPLY section, uncheck the AUTOMATIC BULLETED LISTS.

9. Click OK to save the changes and you’re done!

The Word system updates will sometimes change your settings back to default, unannounced. When I wrote this up, I discovered #8 had turned back on. So just save this link or copy the instructions into your note-taking system so you can refer to them later.