Writing for Story – A Review

Posted on August 8, 2016 by Mandated Memoranda

Jon Franklin, two-time Pulitzer prize winner, wrote: Writing for Story – Craft Secrets of Dramatic Nonfiction to teach authors his methods. Franklin illustrates his technique with annotated versions of his two essays: “Mrs. Kelly’s Monster” and “The Ballad of Old Man Peters,” the first of which won the 1979 Pulitzer prize. The goal of his technique is to impart knowledge and truth to readers. To paraphrase Franklin:

The secret to professional writing is a fusion of learned craftsmanship with artistic vision born of experience. The successful writer is the one who grasps the separate parts of their story and sees how those components work together to produce a compelling and dramatic tale.

Franklin’s writing process consists of three parts: outlining, roughing in the draft, and polishing. Outlining concerns the conceptual associations between the character and action which, for a short story, consists of a time sequence of five major focus narratives: the beginning complication focus, three development focuses which constitute the story body, and the ending resolution focus. Roughing in the draft (i.e., the structural level) involves the internal makeup of major focuses: sequence, emphasis, pacing, and orientation of action. Polishing entails good grammar, word usage, imagery, and principles of sentence and paragraph structure. More details of this process, abstracted from Franklin’s book, are described next. First, he describes the object of his process: the story.

Content of a Story

A story consists of a chronological action sequence that a captivating character undertakes and/or endures to solve a complication that they face. The flow from the complication’s introduction, through the action events, to the resolution constitutes a fiction story’s plot or a non-fiction story’s structure.

The resolution results, often, from a character’s flash of insight as to how to solve their problem rather than directly from the action. A story is said “to work” when a real character struggles diligently to solve a significant problem that confronts them, overcomes the problem, and becomes a changed character as a result.

Story Anatomy

Active images, built on action verbs, are the focuses of action. They are the smallest possible unit of story. Collections of these units form minor focuses. These join via simple transitions to form larger focuses glued together by increasingly complex transitions. Transitions guide the reader through changing times, places, moods, subjects, and characters. These larger focuses combine to form several major focuses that compose the principal subunits of stories.

There are typically five principal subunits in a short story and more in longer form copy. Each subunit has a specific role: the first is the complicating focus. The complicating focus consists of a series of subfocuses that grab the reader’s attention, introduce the characters, and reveal the complication that the story depicts. As examples, jokes may consist of a single image that doubles as a major focus whereas a psychological novel may consist of hierarchical image aggregations at multiple levels.

The next three development focuses (i.e., the story body) describe the actions that the character takes to resolve the complication. These are longer than the first or last focuses but easier to write. The first developmental focus enters deeper into the story and the third (last) developmental focus carries the story to the brink of the resolution.

The climax of the last developmental focus (at its end) is where the character has a “moment of insight” when they realize what they must do to solve the problem. Screenwriters call this flash of realization the second plot point. The complication is the first plot point.

The resolving focus which ends the story can be long or short but reads very quickly. This is possible because the necessary background has been laid and the character has made choices and taken actions to get them to this point. All that remains is the character’s psychological or physical action to clearly solve the problem.

Sagas

The saga is a variation on the five focus short story. Sagas consist of a major complication and resolution; but, instead of having three developmental focuses it has five, more or less, interlinked substories (or episodes) with their own complications and resolutions. These episodes interlink by presenting the complication (or cliffhanger) of the next substory either before or after the resolution of the current substory. This preserves and reinforces the tension of the story as a whole.

The Writing Process

The practicing writer is concerned with three hierarchical processes: outlining, roughing in the draft, and polishing.

Outlining

Outlining is based on complications and resolutions. There is one statement for each major focus (e.g., typically five for a short story) and every subfocus. Use a subject, active verb, and object (i.e., noun-verb-noun form) for outline statements to reduce the story to its essentials. In storytelling, the dramatic action that makes your point comes at the end of each section where the climax belongs. So each outline statement represents the focus ending.

The most dramatic aspect of any story is growth and change in the main character. The outline centers on this growth and change so that it will emerge as the story’s backbone. The outline presents the story’s drama via action that proceeds from complication to resolution.

The main advantage of constructing the outline first is in discovering structural flaws before any text is written. Structural problems can be simply resolved without wasted effort and emotional commitment. The outline is the psychological roadmap of your story and brings out eternal truths.

Rough Draft

Expanding the outline’s focus statements into rough copy marks the halfway point in story creation. Most of the creative work of the story is complete at the start of this stage. At the structural level, word choice is important only at dramatic high points.

This is where the writer constructs transitions, scene-settings, action sequences, and other products that enable the reader to slide through the story. Phrase order and sentence rhythms are not critical when roughing in the draft narrative.

Three Types of Narrative

There are three major types of narrative: transitional, preparatory, and climatic. Transitional narrative switches scenes and keeps the reader oriented. Preparatory narrative comes next and sets the reader up to understand the ensuing dramatic scene. Climactic narrative evokes the reader’s emotions via detailed action descriptions. After the climactic narrative ends, transitional narrative moves the reader to the next time and place so preparatory narrative can hasten them to the next climactic scene.

Transitional Narrative

Transitional narrative enables the reader to negotiate a story’s twists, turns, and changes without getting disoriented or lost. Good narrative makes the reader forget their reality and step into your character’s world. It establishes the time, place, character, subject, and mood at the story’s start and maintains “threads” of continuity through focus changes to the story’s end.

Three Transition Types

There are many types of transitions. Three major ones are: the break, the flashback/flash-forward, and the stream-of-consciousness appeal to emotion. The break transition breaks all five threads with typographic symbols, jars the reader, and is therefore weak. The cinematic equivalent is a fadeout or commercial break.

A flashback, if necessary, is best located immediately after the complication. It is used only once in short or medium length stories. The flashback’s danger is that it forces the reader to break with their experience of time flow, disrupting several threads and weakening others. It is a point of confusion for the reader.

The last transition method is psychological: a stream-of-consciousness emotional connection (e.g., rhyming, common movement, etc.) The human mind is easily directed by exploiting its emotional engine. Psychological transition is a very useful tool to associate images not usually brought together in order to display enduring truths.

Preparatory Narrative

Preparatory narrative follows a transitional narrative to prepare the reader intellectually and emotionally for a dramatic highpoint. An example of preparatory narrative is strong scene-building and character-strengthening text, preferably incorporating action, to help the reader understand and enter into the story.

Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing is a powerful technique used in preparatory narrative. It unobtrusively inserts details early in a story that enable later dramatic scenes to be told without explanation of background details which would distract the reader from the ongoing drama.

Climactic Narrative

Climactic narrative expresses a story’s dramatic action and accounts for almost all of a story’s emotional impact. Climactic narrative focusses tightly on events and supporting details. It never tells how a character feels or what he or she does; it shows what happens, what the character does in response, and what happens next. The proverb: “actions speak louder than words,” reflects this understanding.

In climactic narrative, you see generalizations described with detailed action that would be explicitly stated in preparatory and transitional narrative.

Creating the Rough Draft

Start at the ending of a story in order to know what to foreshadow. Write the end of last developmental focus where your character’s point of insight occurs; then write the transitional and preparatory narratives that set up the first scene of the resolution. Finally, write the rest of the resolution scenes to the end.

Next, write the story complication (i.e., the first plot point); introduce your characters, set up the situation, and bring them face to face with the problem. Capture it in as few pages as possible. Once you have the beginning, write successive developmental focuses until you’ve completed your (short) story.

Whenever your story seems to be going wrong, stop, go back to the outline, and read it carefully. Determine why you deviated and modify the story or outline accordingly. This process of refining the story per the outline and outline per the story is called calibration. Once the story and outline match (and you like the story) stop.

Pacing and Intensity

Pacing consists of transitions leading to smooth preparatory narrative cascading into dramatic scenes. Pace is determined by how rapidly the narrative moves from climactic point to climactic point within a major focus.

Intensity is built by closely focusing on the characters and surroundings. The interplay between pace and intensity is complex and can produce a variety of effects.

Cutting Dead Wood

A critical part of the rough draft process involves throwing away words. Remove unnecessary text, no matter how well written and, therefore, distracting, if it doesn’t fulfill Chekov’s law (i.e., a shotgun described as hanging over the mantel must be fired by story’s end.)

Unless you are willing to redefine the story to incorporate the distraction and remove aspects of the original story, the dead wood must be removed.

At this point, the rough draft is finished. Take a few days off to let your subconscious process what you’ve written before conducting a read through.

The Read Through

The read through should ask questions that a reader would ask: who is the character, what happens to them, what does he or she learn from the experience? What does the story make you feel?

Look for errors: is a transition too long, is a scene shortchanged, does a flashback come too quickly after the complication because the transition is too short, etc. After you make any necessary structural corrections then you can retire the outline.

Polishing

Polishing converts rough copy into clear, active, and integrated narrative that moves the story along without intruding into it.

The rules of polish are straightforward and not abstract. They are, however, one-part: logic, prejudice, authority, and tradition. The three rules of polish are: do it consciously, read and apply Elements of Style by Strunk and White, and read good writing voraciously.

Polish – Procedures

Polishing procedures, as opposed to rules, are similar to those for outlining and rough composition. Polish your story without regard to sequence, concentrating on the most critical scenes first and working from focus to focus in the order of their importance.

Once a story is completed, the lead or narrative hook is easier to rewrite. The lead helps the reader transition from their world to that of the character by establishing (or starting to establish) the story’s five threads.

Polish – Imagery and Sequencing

Polishing principles divide into image clarification and image sequencing. To achieve image clarity, make proper word choices and use strong verbs which cohere the words around it in only one way. Sequencing organizes the flow of paragraphs, images, and words to unfold the story image-by-image in a way that best accomplishes the story’s structural (i.e., dramatic) goals.

Complex sentences laden with prepositions and qualifiers alert the writer to inadequate or inessential images. If the copy seems confused, reorder the images as necessary, and rewrite them into new sentences. If the order of two images isn’t important (i.e., one doesn’t build on the other), one of them needs to be discarded.

Rhythm is important in sequencing. A series of long sentences, establishing a slow rhythm, may be broken by a short terse summation thereby adding impact to the conclusion. Rhythms such as blank verse can add psychological effect.

Recap

To sum up the results of Franklin’s process: active images build upon one another to reach an evocative statement at paragraph’s end. The drama drops off through a minor transition, if necessary, and starts rising again in preparatory text. Successive paragraphs rise and fall building towards the climax of a small focus consisting of that focus’s most dramatic images. This focus ends with a statement that summarizes the focus’s drama.

Small focuses transition one to another in sequence. Each one peaks with a dramatic summary statement. These small focuses build toward the major focus resolution where the focus statement is demonstrated. The narrative then passes through a major transition to start the next major focus. At the end of the story, the final few images of the narrative resolve the story’s complication and the story ends.

We heartily recommend Franklin’s method and urge you to read his book yourselves to discover his annotated essay examples and the numerous nuances that we, by necessity, left out.

Writing for Story: Craft Secrets of Dramatic Nonfiction, by Jon Franklin

Speech and Mannerisms

Posted on January 30, 2016 by Mandated Memoranda

Mandated Memoranda reviewed David Keirsey’s book Please Understand Me in a recent series of posts. This book is a useful reference for writers who want to fully flesh out their characters. I created detailed outlines for my personal use. You may profit from the same effort.

This week, we’ll look in more detail at speech characteristics and mannerisms of artisan, guardian, idealist, and rational personalities. Creating authentic dialog and describing specific mannerisms are good ways to flesh out a character.

People who possess an artisan personality type talk about what’s going on at the moment, what is immediately at hand, and that which is specific or individual. They do so without definitions, explanations, fantasies, principles, or hypotheses. In short, they are empirical. Artisans are sensitive to what sounds good. They use colorful phrases, current slang, sensory adjectives, and similes for comparisons.

Comfortable with their bodies, artisans’ most common gesture while speaking is a pawing motion, bent fingers with thumb loose at the side. More aggressive motions are an index finger to jab a point across, a closed fist to pound that point home, or an index finger opposed midjoint by thumb to peck at opponent.

Those who are guardians talk about what’s solid and sensible: commerce, household items, weather, recreation, news items, and personalities. Their speech moves from topic to topic associatively; whatever comes to mind. Never fancy, they use conventional vocabulary and phrasing and favor proverbs and adages.

Guardians avoid showy gestures: an index finger wags warnings, a fist with thumb atop curled index finger (as if holding reins) slows up discussion, and bringing a hand or hands down in a chopping motion emphasizes a statement or cuts off discussion.

Idealists talk about what is seen in the mind’s eye: love, hate, heaven and hell, comedy and tragedy, heart and soul, beliefs, fantasies, possibilities, symbols, temperament, character, and personality. They follow hunches, heed feelings, and intuit peoples’ motives and meanings. They find implications and insinuations in the slightest remark (word magic); this hypersensitivity leads to mistakes now and then.

Extending open hands to others, idealists offer or accept. They row hands like oars or wings to facilitate flow of ideas and words. Idealists bring hands together with fingers wrapped, palms together, fingers vertical, or fingers interlocked, as if trying to hold together two halves of a message in order to reconcile their differences.

Rationals choose the imaginative, conceptual, or inferential things to speak of over the observational, perceptual, or experiential. They avoid the irrelevant, trivial, and redundant in conversation. Their assumption that what’s obvious to them is to others, leading to an overly compact and terse speech style that sometimes loses their audience (to their bafflement.)

Preferring to appear unemotional when they communicate, rationals minimize body language, facial expressions, and non-verbal qualifiers. When they become animated their hand gestures express their need for precision and control. They bend their fingers to grasp the space before them turning and shaping their ideas in the air. They use fingers like a calculator, ticking off points one by one. They arrange small objects (salt and pepper shakers, pens, paperweights, etc.) to map out ideas. Most characteristic is the apposition of thumb to fingers as if bringing an idea or argument to the finest point possible.

***

We’ve said this before: all these traits describe some peoples’ predispositions. Their experiences can mold them, as far as they are willing and able, so that they acquire attributes of the other personality types. These attributes in sum could be said to be their overall dispositions. We covered an example of this kind of change in our posting “Why Are There Four Gospel Accounts?”

As an editor once urged me, “Details are what draw a reader into your story, add them.” If you are a writer, I heartily recommend reading Keirsey’s book for yourself.

The Four Temperaments of Mankind (l. to r.: Idealist, Artisan, Guardian, and Rational,) Preparatory drawing for the sculptors of the Grande Commande, Charles Ie Brun (1619 – 1690), Public Domain in the United States

Writing – A Review

Posted on July 31, 2015 by Mandated Memoranda

I recommend two books on writing: Gotham Writers Workshop: Writing Fiction edited by Alexander Steele and Essentials of Screenwriting: The Art, Craft, and Business of Film and Television Writing by Richard Walter.

GWW covers the fiction writing craft–character, plot, point of view, etc.–suitable for all formats: short stories, essays, novels, etc. If I had to guess, this is one of the sources from which the myriads of writing books on the market draw their lessons. GWW purports to give the same materials you might get at an expensive writers workshop (except without the feedback, or the expense).

There’s a remarkably detailed overview of EoS on its Amazon page. I was interested in screenwriting which is covered in the first third of the book. I didn’t read the rest of the book which describes the sales and management involved in a screenwriting career.

My major take away from GWW is: rewrite, rewrite, and rewrite a third time. The idea of writing a draft, rewriting it from memory, and rewriting that one, again from memory, strikes me as an excellent way to deeply involve the subconscious in the story’s development.

I admit it goes against my personality to do this repetitive process. But I acknowledge its value and will endeavor to reduce it to practice in some form or other. My stories need more than just multiple revisions before sending them off for professional editing. These editors have never urged total rewrites because of policy (i.e., they like the return business).

EoS emphasizes developing an integrated story. Any element that advances the story and/or develops the characters is in; whatever doesn’t do these two things is out. If it moves the story or characters forward almost anything is in. However, if the story starts out as a sweet romantic comedy set in the South Bronx, don’t have the Martians invade and conquer the Earth in chapter 7.

Here’s an entire ‘Essentials of Screenwriting – Complete Film Courage Interview’ with UCLA Professor Richard Walter on YouTube. Please be aware that there are a few instances of coarse language during the interview. The following is an excerpt from this interview with a self-described crazy old hippie.

‘Most Important Thing I Teach My Screenwriting Students,’ UCLA Prof. Richard Walter, June 11, 2013

ADC Punch List

Posted on December 5, 2014 by Mandated Memoranda

No, it’s not something that one makes before sitting down around the Thanksgiving table. From Wikipedia, a punch list:

…Takes its name from the historical process of punching a hole in the margin of the document, next to one of the items on the list. This indicated that the work was completed for that particular construction task. Two copies of the list were punched at the same time to provide an identical record for the architect and contractor. ^{[citation needed]}

Although, I suppose, a punch list could be used for nefarious purposes, Mandated Memoranda Publishing formulated and used one to develop and market our newest book: A Digital Carol – A Tale for Our Generation. We refer to it as ADC.

We’ve become fairly practiced at generating Kindle books. We’ve reported on our eBook development for previous books: Tragic Wonders – Stories, Poems, and Essays to Ponder and Tiānmìng – Mandate of Heaven.

Earlier descriptions give more insight into the detailed development. As we’ve said before, your mileage may vary. Please consider this list as what it is: steps in a conditional and evolving process meant for adaptation and improvisation.

As an amusing aside, we helped surface a software bug in the Kindle Fire HD device’s Kindle Reader application (version 9.5_1190027510 (before Oct. 28, 2014) progressing to 9.5_1190027710 (as of Dec. 4, 2014)). According to some Amazon Customer Service representatives, it’s been widely reported from multiple users. I managed to send Amazon a device log to examine (using the Fire HD device’s help service). Additionally, one worker was able to duplicate the issue on her Fire HD device with her own book selection. It seems to occur generally with all Kindle eBooks.

We assured ourselves it was a device application issue by downloading our eBook (the AZW file) to our PC. Then we ran Kindle Previewer, version 2.923 in Fire HD emulation mode to check the book cover under midnight, sepia, and normal backgrounds. It rendered correctly and repeatedly in emulation mode. We also tested four randomly selected books we had purchased before the update (system update 4.5.1) was installed.

This testing followed running the original KDP generated MOBI file of our own book through a full Quality Assurance schedule using Kindle Previewer in E-Ink, Fire, and iPad (w/ side-loading) modes. We also tested the original KDP generated MOBI with the Kindle PC application and an AZK file side-loaded onto an iPad. Our book rendered correctly on all platforms but the Fire HD device. We almost halted publication because of the issue but went through with it anyway based on our intuition and experience.

What happens when the issue occurs is that any eBook’s cover (the JPG or GIF image at the book front) renders correctly when the selected background is midnight. It renders incorrectly when the background is changed to sepia or normal (white). The cover is surrounded by a background toned frame but the cover is either blacked (or whited) out or obscured by a dark semitransparent overlay.

The phenomenon is repeatable so long as the book is open. Once the book is closed and reopened, the issue changes. In this second instance, the cover renders correctly with sepia and normal background, but this time the midnight background obscures the cover.

One Amazon Customer Service rep said the issue was viewed as content related (i.e., the eBooks were at fault). She recognized the issue was a device application issue.

The best analogy I can give is this. Pretend you’ve taken a photo with your phone. You view the photo with the camera app and it looks good. You decide to improve how the photo looks so you open a photo-enhancement app on the phone. There, the photo is blacked out. Puzzled, you reopen the camera app. The photo is there and seems unchanged from when you took it. You close the camera app and reopen the enhancement app. This time the photo is whited out. Concerned, you email the photo to your PC where it looks just as colorful as it did in the camera app. Clearly, the enhancement app on the phone is at fault, not the photograph itself.

The photo represents all Kindle eBooks. The camera app and the PC app represent all Kindle Reader apps except the one on the Fire HD device. The enhancement app on the phone represents the Kindle Reader app on the Fire HD device. It is the Kindle Reader app on the Fire HD device that is at fault.

I hope Amazon Software personnel find and fix the bug (perhaps a test software artifact left active after product release?). Not resolving the issue could adversely affect all Amazon eBook sales this Christmas buying season. I wouldn’t want to be on the customer service staff if it is not fixed.

Obviously, these are our personal observations and opinions. EBook development seems never to be without excitement. Maybe it will be different next year? We resolved the previous bug we reported on our own (a rectifiable Windows ‘run with graphics processor’ selection for Kindle Previewer’s phantomjs_mobi82html executable file). Not so with this one, I’m afraid. As of yesterday, I think they still think it’s a data (or user!) issue. Such is the way of medium to large-sized software organizations.

POST UPDATE (12182014): Amazon has upgraded the Kindle Fire HD (3^rd Gen) System software version to 4.5.2 and the HD device’s Kindle Reader to 9.6_1190216910. The reader was updated before the system software and appears to have resolved the cover rendering problem. This puts Amazon software in the ranks of Microsoft who actually fix their issues in a timely manner rather than letting them linger for weeks, months, and years.

Here’s the structured procedure we followed in the development and marketing of A Digital Carol – A Tale for Our Generation. We’ve also added some details on our HTML generation. This is our punch list:

Fact find from recent KDP newsletters

Kindlefy ADC version 1 – 3

Add ISBN
Spell check and search for errant spaces
Create HTML
Prepare Two Structure Files (Check To Press archive)
Create File Folders (Check To Press archive)
Update Kindle Previewer (KP)
Generate MOBI and AZK files using KP
Examine with KP (use spreadsheet for QA)
Examine on Fire, PW, and iPad
Revise original and go to 3 or Finish

Revise Blurb (do word count based page estimate ~130 pages; ASIN assignment)

Author interview, ADC Status, and MM posts: ADC status, Author interview (hit themes: Economic divide, Jobs automated, AI demons, War, and Population), Character Interview, Excerpts (?)

Dry run finalization of manuscript and generation of PDF

Recheck KF8 on HW

Start KDP entry for ADC [DO NOT SUBMIT]

Receive Copyedited Manuscript back from Kirkus (due November 17, received November 12)

Finalize manuscript, generate PDF

Submit PDF for review

Kirkus review ($575 for rush – suppressible if bad)

Books and Culture (?) – delayed

Publishers Weekly Indie aka Booklife (free if accepted)

Red City Review ($40) – delayed

Kindlefy ADC version 4

Compare new manuscript with existing HTML (Use KDP generated version)
Transcribe deltas into existing HTML
Spell check updated HTML for transcription errors
Buff em> versus i> and em> punctuation issues leave well enough alone (also French sp. not perfect; issue with images and font size, too)
Repeat general HTML check over (used IE)
Compare PDF source with HTML in Word
Update Kindle Previewer (KP)
Generate MOBI and AZK files using KP
Do Kindle Fire only QA check on KP version
Run KP MOBI (KF8) through KDP to get testable MOBI file, folders with HTML [check book data; DO NOT SUBMIT]
Generate AZK from KDP file
Examine KDP MOBI with KP (use spreadsheet for QA)
Examine on Fire, PW, and iPad
Revise and go to 3 or submit to KDP

Investigate Bowker listing?

Submit ADC for sale via KDP [Submitted to KDP Wednesday Nov 19, 2014, Published on Wednsday, Nov. 19, 2014] [ADC Pre-order unrealistic (Up to 90 days early; By Nov. 18 for 28 release?)]

Submit application for Copyright to LOC (need publication date)

Buy book and push to all devices, check out background color on cover issue

Follow up with KDP and Kindle development on this Fire HD device issue (kindle app version 9.5_1190027510).

Submit PDF for review:

Red City Review ($40)

Books and Culture (Free)

Update Author Central as necessary

Solicit reviews from Vine and other Amazon reviewers (see Dickens’s works)

Use Goodreads Authors program posts and adverts

Solicit Amazon Singles

Update Blurb/Press Release with ASIN and Amazon page estimate

Update MM Blog posts with ASIN and Amazon page estimate

Create PR Newswire Press Release from Blurb and Red City or Kirkus Reviews (Times Square and don’t forget Twitter Leisure, $400~)

Solicit other Reviews (if Kirkus Review good)

Economist

WSJ

Here’s the HTML process:

On Word file (97–2003 versions seem cleaner upon HTML conversion)

Remove cover

Reinforce styles (especially in author bio)

Substitute en dashs for hyphens (to account for Kindle rendering)

Replace book signing image with jpg

Save as ‘filtered web file’

Name: Adolphus Writer

Title: A Digital Carol – A Tale for Our Generation

On HTML

Simplify page breaks as per KDP guidelines

Move ‘<a> </a>’ out of ‘<h1> </h1>’ for chapter titles

Change ‘a name’ to ‘a id’ in all occurrences

Fix centered stars custom style

Remove excess formatting styles (i.e., those not used in manuscript body)

Clean Styles

Add ‘../image/’ to JPGs

Add text size: 200%, 150%, and 120% to centered title, centered subtitle, and h1 respectively

Add back font variant small caps to centered title

Make sure all styles have text indent as appropriate (0pt)

Remove color, text size (except as specified above), spacing

Adjust margin left to 0in instead of 0.3in as appropriate

Replace i> with em> except for foreign words

Assure punctuation italicized appropriately (see copyedited version)

Remove font color, text size, text spacing, lang[uage] references, and all span references in text

There you have it. I wish you well in your publishing adventures.

ADC Cover quarter scale, Copyrighted, All Rights Reserved

Mandated Memoranda

A WRITER'S BLOG

Tag Archives: Development