I think the OP wants to remove two spaces between a period and the first letter of the next sentence and replace with one space.

There was a blogpost (sort of snooty in tone and I don't remember where I read it) a few weeks ago about this. When typing on a typewriter, the rule was two spaces between period and first letter-supposedly to help with keys not jamming, IIRC. With typesetting, the rule is one space. Since computers are most like typesetting, you should only use one space. I have not checked any style manuals to see what they say.

I found this article.

http://cybertext.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/word-change-the-spaces-after-a-period/

The article is written for changing 1 space to 2 space, but if you scroll down, one of the comments describes changing 2 space to 1 space. You have to turn on 'use wildcards'. I could not get Word 2007 to recognize the Find string though when I tried it on a simple test document. YMMV.

Whoa nelly, lots of replies. I don't think I can sort thru them all specifically.

I think of beta reader is there to test such things as plot, characters, continuity, and action scenes, grammar. Which pretty much agrees with most of the comments here. As a writer gains in skill, they should be able to fix most things on the first draft or maybe even the zero'th draft. Grammar issues should drive towards zero, but another set of eyes always helps.

Thanks for all the replies.

I figured that part. What I didn't get is how it became an issue in the first place; correct usage and awareness of the reader solves any potential problem with adverbs.

Yes I did see the adverb discussion.

Sometimes I just get in a rush to get the words in and one of those -ly buggers slips in, so I included it as something for test readers to highlight.

There are lots of UFs that aren't in first person. Harry Connolly's Twenty Palaces series, Thomas Sniegoski's Remy Chandler series, the Skinners series by Marcus Pelegrimas are some I can think of off the top of my head. 

The defining features of UF isn't the POV-that's rarely something that defines any genre/subgenre.  Mostly it's more the content, and with UF it's a very much debated thing of what it is.

Harry Connolly's Twenty Palaces series is most definitely in first person.

I agree that urban fantasy does not have to be in first person.

I don't know how to multi-quote, but your comment on Charles de Lint had me intrigued. I thought for sure Emma Bull's "The War of the Oaks" preceded his work, but it does not. De Lint's "Moonheart" came out 3 years before.

CS Lewis' "That Hideous Strength" might technically be urban fantasy, since the bad scientists are working for demonic entities, but most don't think of the work as such.

Charles Williams (a not so famous Inkling) wrote what look like urban fantasies, but I have not read them. I heard they were difficult to get into.

HP Lovecraft would technically be urban fantasy, but usually is considered horror. Or maybe his own special category - Lovecraftian (which the Twenty Palace series sort of belongs too, also).

The  urban fantasy Dracula is technically a epistolary novel, composed of newspaper clippings, diary entries, letters and so forth. (Hmm, I seem to have almost exactly quoted the Wikipedia entry by accident.)

Maybe I'm thread hijacking, sorry.

Hi,

What are the rules about including famous dead people in your story?

I suppose getting permission from the heirs is the safest way, but suppose you say something critical?  Did Alan Moore get permission to include Richard Nixon in Watchmen? Did Farmer get permission from the heirs to have Herman Goehring in Riverworld, or Samuel Clemens?

I guess that as long as you don't say anything untrue it isn't libelous.

And I suppose most heirs would prefer not to give free publicity to writers they don't support and will ignore the story.

Any thoughts?

I second the comments some have made about writing software having too many features. Writers Cafe was like that for me and I fiddled with the features and didn't write.

I wrote an article on storybibles on my blog that no one reads.  http://distributistatlarge.blogspot.com/2011/04/story-bible.html 


PS. Is there a maximum limit to posts? The forum software was giving me fits as I finished that last post.

Hi,

I found an online PDF of the Army Survival Guide. Its pretty good and even has some color pictures at the back of edible and poisonous plants. Since it was free, I decided to go with ti.

Some extensive google searching also turned up some info. 

Thanks for the reply.

Hi all,

There is also WriteWay:  http://www.writewaypro.com/  They have a 30 day demo version, standard version and professional version. I've started using this.  Nice character window, research window, and future book idea window. I copied most of JIm's blog post into the future book idea window so the info is readily available no matter which book I'm working on.

Scrivener for windows  is in beta :  www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivenerforwindows/    (I had some problems with the link, the site might be down.)

By way of introduction, I'm another wannabe writer, living in New Mexico. I'd like to write hard sf, but the research takes a long time.