I've a little bit of a theoretical thing and I'm not sure where it belongs, so this is my best guess. I'm having a go at this typesetting and I've sorta learned that the very beginning of a chapter is not supposed to have an indent. Simple enough, but here's something I do sometimes: CHAPTER START [in] I didn't do it. [end single line paragraph] [in] Of course I didn't. He never did anything to me and obviously I couldn't beat him anyway. According to 'the rules', the indent for the first line should be removed, but with a short line like that, it looks bad. Out of balance, maybe? I'm aware that instead of starting a new paragraph, 'Of course...' should actually follow the first line, but that changes the tone. Visually. Does that make any sense? It should look like the narrator is giving you a moment to respond. To say, "Oh, what happened?" I've tried ellipses, but that, to me, signals doubt. Basically, I'm trying to figure out if I should leave this one indent there.
I would remove the indent from the first paragraph. FWIW, the articles I've read also advise creating a separate paragraph style (by name) for the non-indented first paragraphs. In other words, don't just use the "Normal" paragraph style and then manually drag or set the indent to zero (or "none"). Call it "First" or something like that.
I would definitely keep the indent. It's the start of a paragraph, even though the paragraph is only one very short sentence. It's important to keep formatting consistent. It's not going to look odd, when looking at the entire page of writing. It will obviously be a short paragraph, to start.
Because apparently you know me too well. I would, if it were anywhere else in the chapter, but this is at the start of the chapter, and I've been reading about how the first paragraph of a chapter shouldn't have an indent.
I suppose the easy way out of the dilemma would be to combine the first two paragraphs. Would you be losing all that much emphasis, if you did?
For a normal reader, probably not. It's mainly just personal taste. I think I'm just gonna leave it like this and see if any beta-readers or editors will say anything about it, when the time comes.
