Formatting

Manuscript Formatting is a very tricky and subjective thing.  Everybody has their preferred format when looking through submissions but most of the bigger publishers will only accept an industry standard.

What does that mean?

·      It usually means 2 inch margins all around.

·      Double Spacing

·      1 inch indent

·      Writers name & Story Name with page numbers on the top right.

·      Courier Font (This has been superseded with Courier New it’s the same thing so don’t worry.)

·      If you must have paragraph breaks use the # symbol on an empty line.

Q:

Why all the arbitrary rules?  Aren’t they making things overly difficult?

A:

Yes they are making things more difficult than need be but there is method to the madness. If you can’t follow simple guidelines then you’re wasting everybody’s time.  Time and patience is something an editor has very little of and reading through 100’s of submissions all using different fonts, spacing, and such drags down the editing process.

Typically a double spaced page with a monotype font (all fonts are equal in height and width) and 2 inch margins will contain approximately 250 words per page.  An experienced editor will be able to quickly see errors and determine the length that’s needed in their publication to print your story.

You can visit the Downloads page for preformatted Microsoft Office manuscript templates. 

We also highly suggest you read through William Shunn’s Guide to Manuscript Formatting.