Hi, I've started writing, by hand, one of the many stories i have floating round my head but i want to put it on comp. I have openoffice on my comp and happy to that but if there is something else i can use i'd try it. Do i need to think about font, margins and such like? if so What are they? The story i'm writing is a kids story so if there's any advice anyone can give it would be greatly recieved Thanks J
I think for right now, just getting it down onto "paper" (so to speak) is much more important than fonts, margins, etc. Those can be changed later on. Go with a font that is easy for you to read. As for word processing programs, I prefer Open Office over any other program I've tried. That's just me, though. I find it MUCH easier to use than MS Word or MS Works.
the thing is, ms word is the lingua franca of the writing/publishing world, so no matter what program you use, be sure you can convert the mss to ms word when you're ready to start submitting to agents/publishers... as for how to write it, it's always best to start out using the proper format, to avoid getting into bad habits, as well as saving a lot of time and duplicated effort later... go here for the best ms format guide you'll find: www.shunn.com be sure to do your homework first and bone up on the basics, such as appropriate vocabulary, sentence structure, word count, etc. for the age range you're targeting... a priceless resource for doing this is amazon's 'stats' and 'concordance' info you'll find on many of their listings of children's books [have to scroll down to find 'em], as well as the nifty 'look inside' feature... i write children's stories/books for a chicago publisher and i mentor many children's writers, so if you need any help along the way, just drop me a line anytime... love and hugs, maia maia3maia@hotmail.com
LibreOffice is a fork of OpenOffice that is more actively developed and seems to be better at conversions to MAJors. The usability of all of these is comparable.
