Formatting Scene Headers

As promised—as if anyone’s as insane as I am about formatting—I shall show you how to make the nice little scenes show up in your Document Map! (if you haven’t read my last post on Chapter Headers, you need to do that first!) Again, this is for MS Word, 03 edition. (I just found out that Scrivener is soon coming out with an edition for PCs—how exciting is that! Thanks Nate!)

Now, go ahead and open your Document Map along with your Styles and Formatting pane. At the bottom of the Formatting pane, from the drop-down menu, click Available formatting. A list of different heading styles should show up.

Place your cursor in the paragraph that starts a new scene and then click Heading 2 (it is likely bold and italicized). This changes that entire paragraph to a heading, but also changes the formatting, which we can easily adjust. At this point, the first words of your new scene will show up in the Document Map under a collapsible Chapter header! Now, highlight the new scene paragraph. You can either adjust the font at the toolbar to Times New Roman, size 12, and unclick bold and italic, or go to Format>Font>and do the same from that dialogue box.

Next, with the paragraph still highlighted: Format>Paragraph>Line spacing>Double, and spacing before and after at 0 pt >OK 

If you like, you can also make the opening paragraph in each chapter a heading—I like to just because I can see it at a glance for navigation. To do this, place your cursor on the first paragraph. In the Formatting pane, click Heading 2 (the one in Times New Roman…). Now it shows up in your Document Map, right under the Chapter. If you had an indentation in the paragraph, it’s gone now, so we have to restore it. Go to Format>Paragraph>Indentation>Special>First Line>.05”>OK. *

When you hit Enter (Return) to begin a new paragraph, you need to format that back to indented, or all subsequent paragraphs will be headers. Simply place your cursor on the next paragraph, In the Formatting pane, click Clear Formatting. Now, go back to Format>Paragraph>Indentation>Special>First Line>.05”>OK. Now, each subsequent paragraph will have a .5” indentation and you won’t have to mess with Tabs. This will also provide you with First line: 0.5” in your Formatting pane, which you can use to adjust any future paragraphs—such as those following a scene, where you’ll want to restore an indent.

If anyone knows a simpler way to do all that, please share!

 

*If you want to know how to get rid of the bold headings from the Formatting in use, you’ll have to e-mail me. Either way, it won’t interfere with anything)

Formatting Obsessed!

Okay, I love formatting! I admit it! Whenever I receive a manuscript or piece of text from another writer, divided into chapters and scenes, I get an urge to format it! I wasn’t always a formatting geek—it came about quite by accident. When I write, I do it in clumps of text, without regard for chapters or scenes. Later on, I go back and add my page breaks and scene changes. Problem was, I constantly adjusted them, splitting and combining chapters and scenes, and then had to go back and renumber everything. What a pain.

Then I discovered how to make my chapters number themselves, and even improved the way I could navigate through my own manuscript. Humor me here...if you’ll notice in the snapshot of my screen, the Document Map panel on the left shows all my chapters and scenes for easy reference. And the Formatting Pane on the right shows only the formatting I have in use. From there, I can adjust everything in my manuscript. If you want to play around, do so on a duplicate or new document. (Be aware, though, that this is for MS Windows, 03 edition. I don’t know anything about the 07 version or Macs—sorry.) And you may want to be sure you have the Formatting toolbar displayed: View>Toolbars>Formatting. I will explain using the menu bar across the top.

From the menu bar click View>Document Map. A pane opens on the left side.

Now, Format>Styles and Formatting—which opens a pane on the right. At the bottom, choose Formatting in use. Keep that open.

Place cursor where you want your chapter heading. Format>Bullets and Numbering>Outlined Numbered tab>Chapter 1>Okay.

Chapter 1 will show up on your document, likely at your left margin (it will also appear in the Document Map)—probably Arial font, or whatever your default font is. If this is for a manuscript, highlight the words Chapter 1. If a font button is not on your toolbar, Go to Format>Font>Times New Roman. Font size: Regular. Size:12. Now, Center it, either from the toolbar, or Format>Paragraph>Alignment: Center.

Now, highlight Chapter 1 on your document. In the Formatting pane, Chapter 1 Heading 1 + Centered will be ‘highlighted’. Each time you start a new chapter after a page break, click on that and the next chapter in sequence will appear. If you combine chapters or split them, the sequence will be synchronized automatically.

If anyone knows a simpler way to do all that, please share!

Tomorrow, I will show you how to make each scene a heading under the chapter.

Any questions so far? Anything you want me to mess around with?