FOR EDITORS, PROOFREADERS AND WRITERS

This post explains when and how to indent your narrative and dialogue according to publishing-industry convention.

The purpose of first-line indents
Each new paragraph signifies a change or shift of some sort ... perhaps a new idea, piece of action, thought or speaker, even a moderation or acceleration of pace. Still, the prose in all those paragraphs within a section is connected.

Paragraph indents have two purposes in fiction:

• Readability: They help the reader identify the shifts visually.
• Connectivity: They indicate a journey. Indented paragraphs are related to what's come before ... part of the same scene.

First lines in chapters and new sections
Chapters and sections are bigger shifts: perhaps the viewpoint character changes, or there's a shift in timeline or location.

To mark this bigger shift in a novel, it’s conventional not to indent the first line of text in a new chapter or a new section. You might hear editorial folks refer to this non-indented text as full out.

• This is standard with narrative and dialogue.
• The convention applies regardless of your line spacing.

NARRATIVE LAYOUT
The following example is taken from Part 5, Chapter 2, of Christopher Priest’s Inverted World (p. 287, 2010):
​

• Paragraph 1 is the first in the chapter.
• The first line is not indented.
• The first lines of the paragraphs that follow it (2) are indented.

And here's an example from Part 2, Chapter 6, p. 147, which shows how the layout works the same after a section break:
​

• Paragraph 1 is the first in the section.
• The first line is not indented.
• The first lines of the paragraphs that follow it (2) are indented.

Even if an author chooses to include a design feature such as a dropped capital (sometimes called a drop cap), it's standard for that letter to be full out, as shown in the following example from To Kill a Devil (John A. Connell, p. 6, Nailhead Publishing, 2020):

• Paragraph 1 is the first in the chapter.
• The capital letter on the first and second lines is not indented.
• The first line of the paragraph that follows it (2) is indented.

DIALOGUE LAYOUT
​The same applies even if the chapter or section starts with dialogue, as in this excerpt from David Rosenfelt's Dog Tags (p. 192, Grand Central, 2010):

• Paragraph 1 is the first in the chapter.
• The first line is not indented.
• The first lines of the paragraphs that follow it (2) are indented.

Body text: dialogue and narrative
The example below from Blake Crouch's Recursion (p. 4, Macmillan, 2019) shows how the indentation works in the body text when there's a mixture of dialogue and narrative.

• Regardless of whether the prose is narrative or reported speech, the text is indented.
• The convention applies regardless of line spacing.

IMPACT OF LINE SPACING
Even if you've elected to set your book file with double line spacing (perhaps at the request of a publisher, agent or editor), the indentation convention applies. Here's the Recursion example again, tweaked to show what it would look like: 

Indenting text that follows special elements
Your novel might include special elements such as letters, texts, reports, lists or newspaper articles. Authors can choose to set off these elements with wider line spacing, but how do we handle the text that comes after?

Again, it's conventional to indent text that follows this content, regardless of whether it's narrative or dialogue. That's because of the connective function; the text is part of the same scene.

​Here are some examples from commercial fiction pulled from my bookshelves.

1. REPORT: The Outsider, Stephen King, Hodder, 2018, p. 252
2. LIST: Life of Pi, Yann Martel, Canongate, 2002, p. 146
3. TRANSCRIPT: Snap, Belinda Bauer, Black Swan, 2018, p. 36
4. RECORD: Ready Player One, Ernest Cline, Arrow, 2012, p. 300

It's not the case that full-out text is never used, or can't be used, but fiction readers are used to conventions. When a paragraph isn't indented, they assume it's a new section, which creates a tiny disconnect.

That's what I think's happened in the example below from Kate Hamer's The Girl in the Red Coat (p. 325, Faber & Faber, 2015). Of course, it took me only a split second to work out that the narrator is referring to the preceding letter, but it's a split second that took me away from the story because I'd assumed I was looking at a section break.

​My preference would be to indent 'I touch my finger [...]' because that text is part of the scene, not a new section.

How to create a first-line indent in Word
Let's finish with some quick guidance on creating first-line indents. 

​Avoid using spaces and tabs to create indents in Word. Instead, create proper indents. There are several ways to do this.

• Open the Home tab (1).
• Select your text.
• Move your cursor to the ruler and select the top marker (2).
• Drag it to the position of your preferred indent.
• Right-click on the style in the ribbon (3).
• Select 'Update Normal to Match Selection'.​

OR​

• Open the Home tab (1).
• Open the Styles pane via the arrow icon (4).
• Select your text.
• Move your cursor to the ruler and select the top marker (2).
• Drag it to the position of your preferred indent.
• Go to the Styles pane (5) and right-click on the style (6).
• Select 'Update Normal to Match Selection'.​ ​

OR

• Open the Home tab (1).
• Open the Styles pane via the arrow icon (4).
• Go to the Styles pane (5) and right-click on the style (6).
• Select 'Modify' to open the Modify Styles pane (A).
• Click on the Format button in the bottom left-hand corner (B).
• Select Paragraph to open the Paragraph pane (C).
• Make sure you're in the Indents and Spacing tab.
• Look at the Indentations section in the middle. Make sure 'First line' is selected under 'Special:' (D).
• Adjust the first-line indent according to your preference (E).
• Click OK (F).

Create a new style for your full-out paragraphs using the same tools.
​

• If using the ruler, ensure the markers (2) are aligned, one on top of the other.
• If using the styles pane, adjust the indent spacing (E) to zero.

If you need more assistance with creating styles, watch this free webinar. There's no sign-up; just click on the button and dig in.

Himself, herself, myself, themself ... check the usage of pronouns in your fiction. You might just be overworking them, such that you’re stating the obvious, modifying the pace, and reducing tension.

Questionable usage
Reflexive pronouns can act as double tells by stating the obvious, and mar pace and tension.

Stating the obvious

• Max grabbed a fistful of dandelion leaves and shoved them into his mouth. Needs garlic, he thought to himself.
• Jenny wondered to herself about the dream – it had been so real, as if she’d had full control. And yet …

When it comes to internal musings, authors can ditch the reflexive pronouns. Thoughts take place inside a person’s head and, by definition, are offered only for the thinker – unless there’s telepathy going on in the novel!

Moderating pace and reducing tension

• Max ducked, rolled himself over the floor and grabbed the Browning. Fired out two shots. Both hit home.
• Ali sprinted down the street and swung herself into the shadows.

These are high-tension scenes. Max is in a shoot-out; Ali’s escaping danger. Every word stretches out the sentence. And as the sentence length loosens, so does the tension.

Look what happens when we remove the pronouns:

• Max ducked, rolled over the floor and grabbed the Browning. Fired out two shots. Both hit home.
• Ali sprinted down the street and swung into the shadows.

​The sentences shorten, the pace increases – and so does the tension.

Usage that works
We shouldn’t omit all -self pronouns. There are occasions when a sentence works better with them. Sometimes they’re essential.

Clarity
In some cases, the pronoun is necessary for clarity. The reader can’t be sure of what the verb’s object is without it. In the examples below, removing the pronouns could leave the reader with questions: Ashamed of what? A promise to whom? Stop what? Consider whom an expert?

• Ordinarily, she’d have been ashamed of herself, but there was no guilt – not this time.
• I made a promise to myself never again to lose my rag over something so inconsequential.
• He couldn’t stop himself; it took five minutes to demolish the chocolate egg.
• I consider myself an expert, and no one will convince me otherwise.

Emphasis
The pronoun can be used to emphasize the person being discussed. Omission would leave the sentence grammatically intact but change the mood and pacing. In this case, it’s a judgement call on the author’s part.

• Sarah told me so herself.
• The queen herself told me.
• John hadn’t been the only one having a hard time. I myself had been suffering from anxiety at the time.

Sense
Some sentences don’t make grammatical sense without a reflexive pronoun. Remove them and the writing leaves more than questions: it’s unreadable.

• She had to defend herself from that monster – no two ways about it.
• Cass doused themself in perfume.
• Why shouldn’t he call himself the King of Hearts? Who cares if it sounds daft? Daft is good.
• He dragged himself to the top of the stairs.

Reflexive pronouns: mood versus clutter
At the top of this post, I offered examples of how -self pronouns can reduce tension. There will be occasions when an author wants to do exactly that.

• I was trying to make a new life for myself. That’s all there was to it.
• I was trying to make a new life. That’s all there was to it.

There’s a more staccato feel to the second version above that might jar if the author’s seeking a contemplative mood.

Still, too much self-ing can make even a stress-free scene overly wordy so it’s always worth thinking about whether a leaner version would be more immersive and get the reader from A to B faster.

In the first version of the triplets that follow, the pronouns introduce a chilled-out sense of laissez-faire to the movement. In the second I’ve omitted them. And in the third, I’ve ditched the mundane movement and focused on the essential beat.

• He found himself a chair and sat down.
  
• He found a chair and sat down.
  
• He sat down.

• Maxie busied themself with the coffee machine and settled down to read the letter.
  
• Maxie made a coffee and settled down to read the letter.
  
• Maxie read the letter.

• She got herself up and called Mel.
  
• She got up and called Mel.
  
• She called Mel.

It’s always worth an author spending a little time on thinking about how much micromanagement of a scene is necessary.

Will the reader care about the chair discovery, or that Maxie had a hot drink while they were reading the letter, or that the protagonist was no longer on the sofa when she called Mel?

Perhaps. If that stuff’s central to driving the novel forward, to reflecting mood, to grounding the character in the environment, the pronoun and the stage direction might be necessary. If it’s clutter that can be removed without damaging reader engagement, lean up the scene!

Summing up
Use reflexive pronouns when they’re necessary for clarity, sense and emphasis. Otherwise, consider leaner prose that focuses on what the reader needs to know to move forward in the story.

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise discuss how to use exclamation marks, and why more than one is too many.

​Click to listen to Season 4, Episode 2

• RATE AND REVIEW

Listen to find out more about:

• What exclamation marks look like
• Functions: Surprise, emphasis, volume
• How many to use
• Social media use
• Reasons to omit them: web, business academic copy
• Balancing use and abuse

Editing bites

• How to Fix Your Damn Book, by James Osiris Baldwin, CreateSpace, 2016
• Purdue OWL​

Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button.

Music credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

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