I kind of got a burst of inspiration today and churned out the draft of a short story. I like it. Problem is, it kind of raised an interesting issue with formatting that I am not totally sure the best way to resolve. Without getting into details, two characters are watching something on a television. Since it's a short film (and is a large and essential part of the plot), I basically detail the entire film, almost as if it's a short story within the short story. (If that's the right way to put it.) The issue's coming in that I am also detailing the two character's reactions to the film at a few places within the film. I am unsure how to really make this flow right. I considered putting either the reactions or the movie narration in a different kind of type (ie italics or something), but that seems like it wouldn't look right and I've heard such things advised against. I don't really want to make new scenes just for a brief reaction. And I don't want to cut out the reactions altogether because the film would definitely provoke reaction from one of the characters. Any ideas on how to format this so it looks right? Thanks.
do NOT use different font or type style!... submit it like that and you'd be branding yourself a clueless amateur... what you can do and what would work best, imo, is to insert the film scenes as block indents... that way, you can intersperse the film scenes with story scenes and not confuse your readers...
Wasn't really planning on submitting it anywhere anytime soon. Was basically just an impulse write that I'll pass around to friends to see if it has any legs. Merely wanted it to look right to avoid confusion. But yes, thanks. That's kind of the effect I was going for. Indentations should work. Any idea on a good number of points to indent? Also, should I remove paragraph indents and perhaps make this single spacing? The block indent did help a little but I could still see a few areas where the transition may not be quite as apparent.
How about making sure that the viewers' comment are all in thought or speech so that you can indent new paragraphs and use speech marks to differentiate that way, Alex
I think I essentially did that. I just don't want the speech comments to run together with the movie scenes. Obviously, those paying attention will know who is who, but I'm a bit worried about the rough transition between scenes.
block indents are generally 10 spaces on either side... everything in a ms must be double-spaced, no exceptions... what purpose would be served by removing indents?... you still need to separate action and dialog, so either format the film scenes the same as you do others, or arrange them more like an actual script, with dialog headed by characters' names...
Well, as it was, I could see some momentary bleeds between movie and viewers, and I wanted to keep both distinct. 10 p. indents would help with that though. It does look a little better and should likely do. But I'll probably just pass it around to some people to see how the transitions flow.
