The steps below are sequenced to make cleaning up a poetry or flash fiction book manuscript proceed smoothly and without too much frustration. Read over all the directions before beginning. Note: If you have used a lot of italics, understand styling, and know your document is already pretty clean, you may just want to revise your original document where these guidelines suggest you need to.
It's a good idea to print these guidelines and check off each bulleted item as it is completed. If at any stage you become confused, remember: along with Google, your word processor's Help feature is your friend. What you are being asked to do involves essential word processing skills that every writer should know. You will be reminded to save along the way, but it doesn't hurt to save more frequently.
Note: We have developed a very helpful template for those who are preparing their manuscripts in OpenOffice.org or Libre. It includes a mini-tutorial and a custom set of styles that allow for fine and largely automatic control of your manuscript after you've cleaned it up using the steps below. The Step 1 setup, page numbering, etc., is already done for you so you can skip that part of the work. You should still be sure the cleanup is done before copying sections of text into the template. You can, of course, start out with the template and assemble your manuscript by typing it sequentially. Work through the mini-tutorial first.
Step 1
In your word processor, create a new blank document, accepting the default letter-sized page formatting. (If not using OpenOffice, Word, or WordPerfect, be sure your word processor can save to .odt, .doc, .rtf, .wpf, or .txt as a last resort. Our preference is for OpenOffice files.) Save this file with a filename that is meaningful to you but different from your original file name. (-FCP is good to append to your filename so you'll know it's the FutureCycle Press version.) If not planning to use our OOo/Libre template, do the following:
- Edit the default text style (e.g., Normal in Word, Default in OpenOffice) to your choice of readable typeface (nothing "fancy”), set the size to 12, the justification to Left, the line spacing to Single, tabs every .25 inches, and (for poetry only) a hanging indent of .25" to handle any lines that might run over. Be sure the style is set up not to add extra spacing between paragraphs.
- Edit the Heading 1 style to start on a new page, plus set the typeface in bold and/or change it to a larger size to contrast with the text. (Do not select Underline or All Caps.) Be sure the "Above” spacing is set to 0 pt and the "Below” spacing is set to 12 pt. (If you have subheadings in your document, also edit the Heading 2 style to be slightly different in appearance from the text.)
- Save the document.
Step 2
Open your original book manuscript file in a separate window and Save As a text (.txt) file. (You should now see a .txt extension on the file. If you don't, close your original file and open its equivalent .txt file, which has likely been saved into the same folder as your original or in your word processor's default documents folder.) Note: This file is a temporary bridge; higher-level formatting like italics may have been stripped out and tabs may have been converted to spaces. Trust us: This is the quickest and most reliable way to correctly reformat your document. Now, do this:
- Select the entire .txt file (Ctrl-A/Cmd-A) and copy it (Ctrl-C/Cmd-C).
- Close the .txt file.
- Click into the blank (or at the end of the template-based) file you created in step 1 and press Ctrl-V/Cmd-V to paste the contents of your clipboard into the file.
- Save the file, but keep it open.
Step 3
Open your original manuscript document, which will have an extension other than .txt. You should have only two files open now, the original document and the one you saved in step 2. It is useful to view the documents in separate windows side by side. You are now going to reformat your new document. You will save frequently. If at any point you "mess up,” exit the file without saving and pick back up with the last version of the file you saved to disk.
- The entire new document should already be styled using your word processing program's default text style as set up in step 1. Any headers or footers, page breaks, etc., should already be stripped out, and this is what you want. Also delete your table of contents, if any. Turn on automatic page numbering; the first (title) page should be page 1. Save.
- Scroll through the new document, looking for large expanses of white space. If you find them, place your cursor at the very end of the line before an expanse begins, hold down the Shift key, and cursor down until all the white space is selected up to the start of the next line of text, then press Delete. If the text requires a line space or two to be added back in, do it using the Enter key. Save.
- If your word processing program has a means of searching for the line breaks created by pressing your Enter key (often called paragraph marks), globally search and replace all instances of three in a row. (If you cannot globally search, you'll have to manually scroll through the document to make sure there are no more than two "Enters” in a row.) Keep searching until all instances of three are found. Save.
Step 4
Take a break from the computer. Refresh your eyes. You are now going to be doing some fairly tricky work switching back and forth between your original and new documents. Work deliberately and slowly, and be careful.
- Make a visual pass through the document looking for titles, comparing the new document with your original file. If you have manually typed your titles in all caps, change them back to initial caps and style each one using the Heading 1 style. (If you have sections such as Part I or Section 2, go on and style them with Heading 1 as well. We will design them later to be different from your titles.) If you did as instructed in step 1, each title should automatically start on a new page. Notice that the Heading 1 style has added in the equivalent of an extra line space after your title; put your cursor at the beginning of the first line of text after the title and back-delete the extra "Enter.” Save.
- Do the same thing you just did with any subheadings, styling them with Heading 2. You can do this at the same time you're doing the titles, or you can do it in a separate pass. Save.
- Make another visual pass through the document looking for indented type. For prose, indent your paragraphs with one tab. For lines of poetry, find every instance of indented lines preceded by a manually broken (not hanging indented) line and make sure they are tabbed over, not spaced. (Because of ebook programming constraints for poetry, you must use the every-.25” tabs set up in step 1, even if the positioning is not perfectly what you want. That's the way it has to be, and it's why a lot of poets now set their lines flushed left or just tabbed over once or twice.) For prose poems intended to be set as a block, do not tab over, let the lines fall as you would a regular paragraph, and end by pressing the Enter key twice. If you happen to notice places where you manually put in a line break in the middle of running text, delete it so the text flows without breaking. Note: If you set up a hanging indent in step 1 and your prose poem is hanging, you can select the entire block and override the style by manually formatting it to set flushed left. If planning to use our template, you will use a special style to do this. Do not attempt to change the margins, tabs, or justification settings to make the lines break a certain way; we mean it. Save.
- Make one more pass, through your original document this time, checking against the new document for any italicized (or boldfaced) words that may have dropped. Recode the italics (or boldfaced type) by selecting the word or phrase and pressing your word processor's shortcut for italic (or bold). If you have underlined words, italicize them instead. If you have set-offs such as poem dedications, tab them over twice and italicize as appropriate. Note: Do not manually apply boldface or italics to any of the titles you have styled. If you want to change the look, edit the respective style instead. Save.
- Finally, globally search for all instances of two spaces and replace them with one space. Keep running search/replace until no more instances are found. Spell-check your document, then do a final save.
That's it. If you've followed the steps in order, your book manuscript is now in great shape to submit to FutureCycle Press, and you might even have learned something that will save you a lot of time later on. We will be able to design and produce your book interior more quickly and easily, and the bookmaking process will go far more smoothly for all involved.