Forum: Writers


Subject: Hints on the Craft of Writing Fiction - Thursday November 10, 2005

drace68 opened this issue on Nov 10, 2005 ยท 3 posts


drace68 posted Thu, 10 November 2005 at 1:46 PM

White Space = Reader Relief Everything we do as writers should be done for the Reader. Without readers, we aren't writers. Show consideration to those on the other side of the monitor screen or page. To make the reader comfortable: 1 Keep your sentences short less than 15 words if possible. The punctuation mark of a solid black round shape is the reader's friend. Use them, use them often. Avoid convoluted sentences. 2 Keep paragraphs short less than 150 words, if possible. 3 When making hardcopy submissions, try to keep a line of typing less than 12 words. Editors consider one word is five letters on average. At 10 words per line, that's roughly 60 spaces on non-compensating typewriters. Lines longer than 12 words become wavy for the reader and he will wish for a straight-edge to be certain he stays in the right row. Editors also like wide margins to make notations it's your blood they're spilling. We are fortunate what Renderosity does for us here in the Forum with line length, less fortunate in the Writers Gallery. 4 Indented paragraphs are easier on the eye, but with the many wildly different writing software packages out there, we are stuck with extra-line between paragraphs. 5 If you have a choice, never use sans-serif letters serifs are the little blobs and mini-barbs on individual letters (sans = without). IBM pushed sans-serif as "economical." Maybe, but it is not pleasing to the eye; eye-fatigue sets in earlier with sans-serif. PLEASE THY READER! Dick aka drace68