Spelling and grammar are the next most easily learned aspects of writing. Manuscript format is the most trivial and easily learned aspect of writing. Show different speech patterns and word choices in ways that are easier on the reader. Otherwise, a typesetter is left having to decide if the hyphenated word or phrase requires a hyphen, or if it was used here just because of the line break. Use a hard hyphen or other method of forcing hyphenated phrases to be kept on the same line. This is particularly helpful if you like to write ambiguous endings.ĭon't hyphenate at the end of a line. Make it easy for the editor to know all the pages are there. Use a one-inch margin all the way around. Include incidental pages such as chapter separators if you use them. Page numbers are sequential, not restarting at 1 for each new chapter. The extra information is in case the manuscript gets dropped at the same time another manuscript is dropped. The position of the page number allows a flip through the manuscript to reveal pages numbers. They should all be in the upper right, or they should be spread across the line so the page number is in the upper right. (Using a pen name should be avoided if you possibly can.)Įach page after page one should include a header, ideally consisting of your last name, a key word from the title, and the page number. Your title goes about half-way down page one, centered, and followed by "by (your name)." This is an indication that you are not using a pen name. Contrary to what Writer's Market says, don't write what rights you're wanting to sell generally this is understood, and no rights are conveyed until you sign a contract. In the upper right, put "Approximately X words" where X is your word count rounded to the nearest thousand or hundred or ten, depending on how long the manuscript is. Page one typically includes your name and address in the upper left. (Use ! or ? or whatever's applicable avoid ?!, ?, !!, and variations.) Don't use the comic-book style of multiple exclamation points. Emphasis is typically not indicated with ALL CAPS. (The typesetter will convert this to italics.) Don't use italics in your manuscript even though your word processor is capable of it. Words to be emphasized are shown with underlining. This requirement is evolving in the era of word processors, but for the moment it still works and no editor will complain.ĭo not right-justify the margins leave the manuscript ragged right. Point is the height of the characters pitch is the horizontal spacing. It should be 12-point (which works out to 10-pitch). Use a fixed-pitch font like Courier, not a variable-pitch font like Arial or Times Roman. (The exception is a scene break, shown as a centered # in manuscript, and shown many ways, including a blank line, in typeset material.) Each new paragraph is indented typically one tab setting or five blanks. There is equal spacing (double-spacing in manuscript) between every line and the next. Generally, a manuscript page resembles a typeset book page in several ways. Inertia is the reason for some of these guidelines. a number of publishers still wanted hardcopy manuscripts and they paid people to re-keyboard them, and asked you to help spot errors introduced in this process. Don't give an editor the first impression that you're still working on the chapter-one fundamentals.Ĭurrently there's still a fair amount of inertia in the publishing business. In other words, if you were learning writing from a book with sections ordered from easy to hard, grammar and spelling would be in chapter one, while plot, character, and setting would be somewhere later on in the book. The most basic homework includes knowing fundamental formatting and avoiding the most frequent wordsmithing errors. Seeing small errors in early pages of a manuscript makes it easy to put down the manuscript and see if the next one in the stack is ready for prime time. Enough people submit novels that provide both an interesting story and a professional manuscript that there's little incentive for publishers to look to writers who haven't yet worked hard enough to provide both components. Why worry about providing a professional manuscript? Competition and wanting to be published. Basic rules for formatting manuscripts and how to avoid the most common mistakes. See some highlights from this post in "Building Stories with Words" on Unleashing Readers.
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