Scanf skips every other while loop in C

Question

I\'m trying to develop a simple text-based hangman game, and the main game loop starts with a prompt to enter a guess at each letter, then goes on to check if the letter is

Answer 1

Newlines.

The first time through the loop, scanf() reads the character. Then it reads the newline. Then it reads the next character; repeat.

How to fix?

I seldom use scanf(), but if you use a format string "%.1s", it should skip white space (including newlines) and then read a non-white space character. However, it will be expecting a character array rather than a single character:

char ibuff[2];

while ((scanf("%.1s", ibuff) == 1)
{
    ...
}