I have a novel that I need to convert to standard manuscript format, and have a couple of questions. Standard manuscript format specifies double-spacing with left-alignment and a one-inch margin all around. So far, so good. But what I want to know is how to handle chapter and scene-break headings. Should these be retained as they are (both chapter titles and scene-numbers are centred on the page in the piece's existing format) or should they be replaced with asterisk ellipses? My second question is whether chapters should begin on a new page. I've seen conflicting advice on this, and want to make sure I get it right. I'm afraid my RSA Word Processing qualifications never covered this topic - God, I was sold a pup. Sighs ... Any help greatly appreciated.
There are a few variations in "standard", these days, but as a general rule - yes, new page for each new chapter, but make sure you do it with a hard page break, not just a bunch of manually entered blank lines. (ie. in Word, hit CTRL-Enter at the same time). Scene breaks used to be centred ###, but lots of people have converted to centred * * * - just make sure Word doesn't auto-correct that to a dark line or whatever. I'm lazy and tend to leave my ### left-justified, but if you're sending the MS to a stickler, you probably want to centre. I don't know what an "asterisk ellipse" is... There could be regional variations on these, but these are what I use to submit to US markets and there's never been a complaint or a problem.
