Sometimes I tend to avoid certain things, usually with dialogue, that in appearance, just doesn't look right. I as wondering what things you guys have, here are some of mine: First off, I can never have a capital word being the first word of a line, even if its the first word of the sentence. The first word of a paragraph is obviously okay. I hate it when the same letter, especially the same word, are like, on top of each other. As an extension of the aforementioned one, I hate it even worse when two of the same capitalized letters are on top of each other. Another iffy thing of mine is more like I never know if it looks right. I hate it when interior quotes are at the end of a sentence, as so; wow can't really think of an example. On a side not its the same with parentheses (like this.) Or is it the other way (like this)? It really is just that they never look right. Y'know?
I can never have two of the same word on top of each other either. I'll reword my whole paragraph if necessary in order to avoid it. In quotes the punctuation goes inside, in parentheses it goes on the outside.
One of the main things that gets me every time I reword everything to avoid having the words on top is that it is usually only in that single file that it will appear that anyway, but I still do it!
Unless it is poetry, the capital word at the start of a line, or words or letters on top of each other could (and probably would) simply be altered if the font, font size or margins were altered, even slightly. Unless you're discussing poetry, but since you mentioned paragraphs instead of stanzas, I did not think that is what you were discussing. Now, I do try to avoid repitition of words, especially verbs or adjectives, near each other when writing fiction. But otherwise, capital letters at the start of a line in a paragraph isn't an issue for me. Terry
What appears in your manuscript or a particular printout is not necessarily how it will look in every incarnation. Web pages, in particular, tend to reorganize at different browser window sizes or with different browsers. What is important is the flow of the writing, as a linear stream of words, punctuation, and paragraph/scene/section/chapter breaks. Never compromise that for the sake of the visual layout, unless what you are composing is a graphic containing text (like an ad layout).
