Manuscript formatting, or, how I learned to stop worrying and love double-spacing.: seanan

Manuscript formatting, or, how I learned to stop worrying and love double-spacing.

Periodically, someone will get a look at something I'm working on and demand to know why it looks the way it does. (Most common question: Why are you double-spacing? Don't you know that wastes paper? Second most common question: Why can't you use italics like a normal person?) So I thought I'd take a few minutes and explain standard manuscript formatting. Because I can.

(Note that in today's world, where an increasing number of markets will allow electronic submission, these rules may be relaxed or even changed completely. Always check the submission guidelines of a market or publishing house before you submit to them. Also, these are novel formatting instructions, not short story formatting instructions, which are similar but different.)

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Formatting Your Manuscript.

1. On the first page of your manuscript, please give the name of your project (underlined), skip two lines, and then provide your name and contact information, and the number of words in your work. Number of words is somewhat approximate, but try to stay within a hundred. Editors know. The submission rules mean that many of them can glance at a page and tell you how many words are on it. Deeply spooky. Do not screw with the editors. All this information should be tidily centered.

2. Most of us compose on computers these days. Computers have a lot more fonts than typewriters do...and you should forget about them as completely as you can. Set your font size to 12, select a basic font, and go to town. People will recommend both Courier and Times New Roman. Courier has the advantage of being monospace (every character is exactly as wide as every other character); Times New Roman, on the other hand, is so generic that it's rapidly becoming invisible. You want your manuscript to be invisible. Invisible manuscripts make for visible stories.

3. If you want something to be italicized in your final manuscript, use underlining. Seriously. You are not allowed to use any tricks your computer can do that your typewriter can't. If you want to be like Stephen King and make your readers crazy with little handwritten notes and such inside the text, become famous and talk to your editor.

4. Minimize non-essential emphasis. Titles will still be emphasized; depending on your genre, thoughts may be emphasized. But try to really consider how much underlining you have on a page, and keep it low.

5. Many rules of punctuation have become excitingly optional on the Internet. They are not optional in your manuscripts. Always put two spaces after any sentence-ending punctuation. Optional on the Internet? Yes. I don't care.

6. Begin the first chapter of your actual manuscript on line number eight.

7. Insert a hard page break at the end of every chapter. Begin the next chapter on line eight of the next page.

8. Signal intentional line breaks with either '#' or '*' alone on a line. The jury's out on whether this character should be centered or flush left. It's kinda up to you.

9. If you are printing your manuscript for submission, rather than submitting electronically, use only plain white non-erasable paper. You can get this at any office supply store. Better quality paper is always, well, better. Only print black-on-white. That's the easiest for people to read, and it's what's expected of you. Printing on weird paper doesn't make it more likely that you'll get published, sad to say.

10. Whether you're printing at home or submitting electronically, be sure to leave margins of at least one inch around all four edges of the page. This allows for taking notes, and makes it easier for people to read quickly.

11. Always double-space. If you're anything like me, this is going to look super-weird, at least at first. And yes, you'll kill a few more trees, but that's the way it works. You need to leave room for people to make notes on your document. Don't space-and-a-half, don't triple-space. Double-space.

12. Do not print double-sided.

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There are a lot of other little tricks, opinions, and personal formatting touches that people use, but on the whole, 'black on white, double-spaced, underline instead of italics, leave plenty of space in the margins' is going to give you a really good start. There are entire books on the subject. Read one before you submit a book. You'll be glad.

spectralbovine

September 8 2008, 17:26:41 UTC 8 years ago

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Second most common question: Why can't you use italics like a normal person?
For damn serious, woman.

Thanks for the tips! I hope I need them eventually.

seanan_mcguire

September 8 2008, 23:48:41 UTC 8 years ago

Sorry! I didn't make the rules.

I hope you do, too.

lapintada

September 8 2008, 17:42:17 UTC 8 years ago

whether i take that plunge or not, let me just say i'm very glad we friended each other.

all of this is very insightful.

thank you for sharing.

September 8 2008, 23:49:06 UTC 8 years ago

You're very welcome! I like to share, and not just because it cuts down on people asking what the heck is wrong with me. :)

azurelunatic

September 8 2008, 17:54:58 UTC 8 years ago

I blame HTML for the double-space thing on the internet. Even when you do properly double-space, HTML eats it and only shows the one.

archangelbeth

September 8 2008, 19:04:39 UTC 8 years ago

Actually, blame typesetting programs that do this on the fly -- the submission guidelines for Steve Jackson Games, for instance, have been single-space (after I got into the "two spaces" habit in school!) since before I was writing for them. "We do the formatting, not you," is the rough guide there.

Definitely a "check the guidelines" thing.

8 years ago

September 8 2008, 18:18:36 UTC 8 years ago

Some questions/comments:

2. Most of us compose on computers these days. Computers have a lot more fonts than typewriters do...and you should forget about them as completely as you can. Set your font size to 12, select a basic font, and go to town. People will recommend both Courier and Times New Roman. Courier has the advantage of being monospace (every character is exactly as wide as every other character); Times New Roman, on the other hand, is so generic that it's rapidly becoming invisible. You want your manuscript to be invisible. Invisible manuscripts make for visible stories.

My eyes can't stand to look at either of those fonts for an extended period of time. I'm hoping that it's acceptable to type in a cleaner font, and then when it's actually ready to submit, I can do a universal font switch and print in the acceptable font.

3. If you want something to be italicized in your final manuscript, use underlining. Seriously. You are not allowed to use any tricks your computer can do that your typewriter can't. If you want to be like Stephen King and make your readers crazy with little handwritten notes and such inside the text, become famous and talk to your editor.

I didn't know this - thanks!

4. Minimize non-essential emphasis. Titles will still be emphasized; depending on your genre, thoughts may be emphasized. But try to really consider how much underlining you have on a page, and keep it low.

The problem I have with this is that people do emphasize words when they talk, and I can hear my characters speaking in my head. That's not to say that I have a word that needs italics in every line of dialogue, but I have been making use of it when the character is being particularly emphatic about a word. Is that OK?

5. Many rules of punctuation have become excitingly optional on the Internet. They are not optional in your manuscripts. Always put two spaces after any sentence-ending punctuation. Optional on the Internet? Yes. I don't care.

I can't remember where, but I thought I read something somewhere that said the double-space (which I do) is now no longer considered mandatory, even for print...

8. Signal intentional line breaks with either '#' or '*' alone on a line. The jury's out on whether this character should be centered or flush left. It's kinda up to you.

Is this what you'd do for all new paragraphs, and all dialogue? I'm trying to think of how you'd do this - if you've set your computer to automatically double-space, then you won't be able to put that little symbol on the empty line. Do you in essence do a double-double space, and the symbol goes on the first double-spaced line?

I should mention that I've been doing my draft single-spaced for now because it's easier for me to look back up at previous text when it's single-spaced as opposed to double-spaced. However, I know I'll have to double-space it eventually, but right now, it's more important for me to be able to quickly scroll back up to see what's already written.

September 8 2008, 19:06:48 UTC 8 years ago

In my experience -- freelance author/editor for a gaming company, would-be author of fiction -- editors don't give a flying flip if you write it in mirror-text on parchment, so long as by the time the manuscript reaches them, it's in the appropriate formatting.

That last part is very important.

dornbeast

More Expand

kathleenfoucart

September 8 2008, 18:21:35 UTC 8 years ago

Ooh, thanks. Very helpful. I knew a few of these, but not all. Looks like I have some polishing to do!

Any recommendations for which formatting book to read?

September 8 2008, 23:56:18 UTC 8 years ago

I actually learned most of the basics (initially) out of The Writer's Guide to Novel Markets in like, 2006. Anything by Writer's Guide is not going to steer you wrong, as a general rule.

mayir

September 8 2008, 18:45:49 UTC 8 years ago

I am curious why the "underline, do not italicize" advice. I understand that underlining is printer's code for italicizing, which is why it was used when type-writers could not italicize.

But now that computers can italicize, why not let the computer do it? In legal writing, for instance, leading authorities are urging authors to move away from underlining and towards italicizing.

(Not debating. Honestly curious).

September 8 2008, 19:08:57 UTC 8 years ago

From what I've heard and read and experienced: Can't see italics as easily as underlining, basically, especially in preferred monospace fonts. (Courier does sucky italics.)

I wish there were a one-click "turn all Underline to Italics in this document" in MS Word. Haven't found it yet.

erinwrites

September 8 2008, 19:20:58 UTC 8 years ago

Hey...let me know if I can ever wrangle you into writing an article for Toasted Cheese. ;)

September 8 2008, 23:58:13 UTC 8 years ago

Absolutely. Just tell me what you want an article on.

dormouse_in_tea

ayoub

September 8 2008, 19:49:08 UTC 8 years ago

All good tips! :D

September 8 2008, 23:58:23 UTC 8 years ago

Thanks!

syntaxerror37

September 8 2008, 19:57:27 UTC 8 years ago

You know, when I had a typing/computer class my senior year in high school my teacher made such a big deal about the double space after periods that I do it all the time. Even when using a messenger program.

I just can't stand the look of double space while typing. Of course it's child's play to highlight my finished text and make it double spaced in any word processing program out there. That's how I wrote every paper I ever typed for high school and college.

I never knew about the underlining for italics, I'll bear that in mind if I ever submit a manuscript, thanks!

September 8 2008, 23:59:00 UTC 8 years ago

Underlining for italics is currently the bane of my existence, because people keep telling me I'm doing it wrong (people = not my publisher), and then I start to twitch.

serafina_zane

September 8 2008, 20:29:51 UTC 8 years ago

Interesting stuff.
Though I really had honestly never heard you're supposed to put two spaces after a period until my History teacher started raving about that today, so I'm putting that in the category of someone going back in time and changing punctuation rules or something to mess with my head. Weird.

September 8 2008, 23:59:38 UTC 8 years ago

It's a somewhat obscure rule these days -- 'obscure' in the sense that a lot of people have no idea anymore, unless they're writers, but it still applies.

talithakalago

September 9 2008, 02:10:52 UTC 8 years ago

I keep getting mixed messages on the underlining vs using itallics. Sigh.

September 9 2008, 13:57:44 UTC 8 years ago

Here is a professional copyeditor's list of how manuscripts should be:
http://deannahoak.com/2006/01/31/doing-our-best/

In the absence of seeing something on a specific place's guidelines, go with the underlining. It's what all the professionals seem to say, far as I've been able to find. (Of which our hostess counts, since she's made a sale. I'm brazenly hoping that some of that will eventually Six Degrees itself to me by magic osmosis, I do admit. O:> )

September 9 2008, 03:57:50 UTC 8 years ago

Curious cat is curious.

WHY are new . . . ahem. Excuse me.

Why are new chapters to begin on line 8? This has always baffled me and driven me crazy.

September 9 2008, 14:20:20 UTC 8 years ago

I have no idea. That's just how I've always been told to do it, that's how most of the authors I've asked have been told to do it, and it's worked out pretty well so far.

mokatiki

September 9 2008, 08:48:03 UTC 8 years ago

*reads numbers 3 and 4*

*Falls over laughing*

Yes Miss!

I have to say I never mind the double spacing, that is how we had to write our essays and stories at school.

September 9 2008, 14:20:53 UTC 8 years ago

Hey, the 'why can't you use italics like a normal person?' question drives me CRAZY.

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Manuscript formatting, or, how I learned to stop worrying and love double-spacing.

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