Build a story
frame
Writing a book is a lot like
building a house. The story line (storyboard) is the blueprint, and the
formatting outline is the frame.
Step 4—Formatting
After you’ve made a visual
roadmap for your story, outline the chapters and headings with your favorite
text program. Create a page in your Family
History Organization Notebook for text formatting. Write down
your font choice, size, color, and attributes for the chapter titles, chapter
drop-caps (oversized first letter of a paragraph), headings, sub-headings,
image captions, quotes, page numbers, text, etc.
Instead of the traditional
alpha-numeric outline, break down your family history outline by Chapters and
headings. Open the Styles and Formatting window of your text program and
use it to keep all the elements of your book consistent. When you put in a
chapter heading, choose the designated format for chapter headings from the
styles and formatting window rather than manually change each attribute on the
tool bar. By the time you’re finished with the outline, you will also have your
book formatted.
Formatting tips:
- Serif
fonts (the ones with (Little Tails) are easier to read on paper than sans serif (no tail). We read paper pages differently than electronic
ones. The tails guide the eye left to right. On computer monitors we tend to
scan vertically.
- Indent
the first word of paragraphs 3-5 spaces. Don’t indent, however, the first
paragraph of a chapter.
- Chapters always start at the top of a new page. Insert a page break at
the end of a chapter. Insert>Break>Next Page.
- First letters of chapters are often a drop cap (oversized letter)—usually in a fancy font. To make a drop cap, insert a text box and type the first letter of the first word of the chapter.
- Leading
is the tool used to adjust the vertical space between lines of text. Works
better than sing—1 ½ spaces—double space.Read
the Rules of Graphic Design for
proper text layout.
