[Arona Posts: 449 Status: Offline The house didn't fall on me. It fell on my sister.]

Not sure if I've posted this in the right place.

In a verse-style ms,
For each new line,
I capitalize the first letter of the first word.

One person pointed out that that's not how it's done anymore, but no one has.

These days,
only the first letter
of a new sentence
is capitalized.
This is what one person
said.

While I've seen this in some published books, I haven't read that it's the new rule for manuscripts.

What do you do? Do you have any resources that list this as the new method?

I just formatted
a new manuscript this way.
Some sentences are short.
Others are long.
It looks wonky.
It looks like I forgot to capitalize the second line.


 

[dkshumaker Posts: 1,515 Status: Offline WWW]

I do not capitalize the first word of the next line unless it is the beginning of the sentence. So I agree with what your one writing friend told you. I was told several years back that capitalizing the first word of every line was an old-fashioned practice. I don't have any specific resources to confirm, but I think I was told this either by an instructor in a class I took once or a paid, professional critique.

And, just as an added thought, it's always good to try to meet "current practices" in formatting, but it really comes down to the writing. If you write a fabulous, "I must have this" piece of writing, I don't think capitalizing/not capitalizing a word in a line would change an agent/editor's mind.

I look forward to hearing others' thoughts!

[Vijaya Posts: 7,377 Status: Offline Encourage WWW]

I do it the wonky way.

[Arona Posts: 449 Status: Offline The house didn't fall on me. It fell on my sister.]

  both.

Wonky way it is.

It won't look wonky, though, once I get used to it.

[sarah_create Posts: 361 Status: Offline Sarah Johnson WWW]

I also don't capitalize the word the first word on the line, unless it's a new sentence. It does look funny at first.

[Debbie Vilardi Posts: 6,938 Status: Offline Language is so cool! WWW]

I think I may be the person who originally gave you this info. I got it from the poetry boards over at Absolute Write where many well-published poets hang out. It no longer looks weird to me, but be aware that Word automatically capitalizes the first word of a line. You'll have to double check before you submit.

[Arona Posts: 449 Status: Offline The house didn't fall on me. It fell on my sister.]

  It was you, Debbie!

I hadn't remembered that gem until I began seriously formatting a ms for critique.  to you for being the only one to mention it.

Check your PMs.

[AnneB Posts: 3,806 Status: Offline]

\be aware that Word automatically capitalizes the first word of a line. You'll have to double check before you submit.

You probably can turn off the automatic capitalization. In Office for Mac, the path is Preferences/AutoCorrect, uncheck "Capitalize first letter of sentences," Save.

The path in a Windows version of Word might vary but I'd be surprised if it's not there somewhere.

[Arona Posts: 449 Status: Offline The house didn't fall on me. It fell on my sister.]

Thanks, Anne. I hadn't even thought to snoop around for that.

Windows becomes intuitive the first time you backspace to make the first letter a cap...but only lasts until you type a period.