Something I’ve noticed over the last couple of years is that most writers have trouble getting their manuscript formatting right.
I suspect this is partly due to the Internet. A few years ago, the standard way (in the UK) to plan your submissions was to get hold of a copy of the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook, which had handy sections on manuscript preparation. They were right next to the lists of magazines and book publishers, and hard to miss for writers getting ready to send out work.
These days, a lot of people submit just by Googling variations on ‘short story submissions’, or just by contacting their favourite publications direct, and so maybe miss out on that useful information. But even in the digital age, getting manuscript formatting right is very important. It doesn’t just show professionalism on the author’s part: it also helps the editor to connect to the words themselves. (If the editor spends the first 30 seconds with your manuscript adjusting it to be easily read, that’s your first impression gone.)
The key thing to remember about manuscript formatting is that it’s not about looking pretty, or showing off creative or literary credentials. The idea is to make the formatting itself disappear, so that the focus is on the words and nothing else. And the easiest way to make the formatting disappear is to make it look exactly the same as all the others. The six rules below should help you to do that.
Incidentally, I’ve written this post specifically with regard to electronic submissions, but the rules below apply equally to printed submissions (though the reasons may vary). And all publishers vary: if a specific publisher asks for different formatting, it’s always best to give them what they ask for.
The Basic Rules
1. Use 12-point Times New Roman. Everybody is used to seeing Times New Roman on their screen (or on paper), and every computer has it. It’s the most invisible font there is. On a standard paper size (see below), 12-point text is comfortable to read, and if reading on a screen, the editor will be set up for it.
2. Double space your text. Even if the days of making notes between lines are over—on the screen, at least—the extra white space helps your writing go down easily. Always apply double-spacing through the formatting menu: don’t just hit ‘return’ twice at the end of each line. (We get a few of those.)
3. Mark a new paragraph by indenting the first line; don’t leave an empty line between paragraphs. Each new paragraph, or line of speech should be indented. Again, there’s an option to indent the first line of each paragraph automatically in the paragraph formatting options: don’t use the tab key to do it. Leaving a complete blank line between paragraphs is something you’ll see when reading online, including on this site but, has no place in text documents.
3a. If you want to mark a change of scene or time, the kind of thing that would have a blank line left in a printed book, mark it with a centred hash, as I’ve done at the bottom of this list. This means it will still be visible when the text is copied into other software for typesetting. An empty line may just get lost at this stage.
3b. Don’t indent the first line of the story, or the first line following a chapter break or scene change – anywhere you would expect to see a blank line left in a printed book, or marked with a hash as in (3a) above. (The job of an indent is to make it clear that there’s a new paragraph starting, and this isn’t necessary in these cases as there’s no paragraph immediately above.)
4. Leave margins of roughly an inch and a half. A little more or less won’t hurt, but don’t go too far in either direction. There’s no need to shrink the margins to squeeze more words onto the page, or to make them larger to give the text ‘breathing space’.
5. Use a normal ‘paper’ size. In Europe this means A4, in the USA use US Letter. Don’t try to mimic the page of a book or use any other size.
6. Use a simple header. Personally, I’d suggest having author name on the left, title centred, and page number on the right. For the first page, use a unique header (it’s a Word setting) that has your full name and contact details, and word count. All of these details belong in the header and nowhere else: never try to put the page number at the top of each page within the body of the manuscript, because the smallest edit near the top will make a mess of the whole thing. (It’s rare that people do this, but it does happen.)
#
So there are six basic rules. If you can stick to those, your formatting will be in the top 1% of manuscripts we see. And while it may feel like you’re jumping through hoops, it’s really just about making sure that you’re showing off your writing to its best advantage.
July 5th, 2012 at 5:18 pm
Very good, and I tend to agree. Yet sans serif is so much easier on the eye when reading on the screen (as on your webpage); Times is best in hardcopy. Maybe there should be duplicate submissions, one in Arial (or similar) and one in Times Roman
:-)
August 5th, 2012 at 5:07 pm
Don’t know if I agree with you on #3. Not as a general rule. Ten years ago you would have been spot on.
The internet is changing a lot of the ways about how we communicate, and I believe that insisting on indenting is a lot like insisting on oxford/serial commas. Nice but kinda archaic.
August 6th, 2012 at 1:58 pm
Hi Bob,
Although as you say there are certainly times when a blank line is used instead of first-line indentation (for example on the Internet), the ‘old-fashioned way’ is still the best for manuscripts.
August 6th, 2012 at 2:06 pm
So 12 point is comfortable to read is it??? What about those of us with sight problems who find anything smaller than 14 point difficult to read comfortably??? Don’t we count???
August 6th, 2012 at 2:08 pm
Hi Ineke,
Bear in mind that these guidelines are for when you come to submit; you can always use different fonts and sizes while writing if that feels more comfortable, and then reformat it for submission once you’re done.
December 30th, 2014 at 11:16 am
Hi. It’s been a long while since I submitted anything anywhere, and I was wondering what your preference was to demonstrate or emphasis a sound or a thought?
Once upon a time it was simply to underline the text, which would end up as italics. Is that still the case?
January 7th, 2015 at 9:15 am
HI, this is a conversation I;ve been having with other wroters recently and although the rules above are right for the US it seems it not always so for the UK.
I guess they are still OK for the UK (see what I did there?) but the more modern standard here now seems to include:
1. To only indent the first paragraph of a chapter or change of scene e.g. following the centred hash # or tilde ~.
2. Insert a line between paragraphs instead.
Some things seem to be in transiiton. For instance I’ve seen guidance to no longer underline text you want to appear as italic and instead use actual italics. I’ve taken that up so I hope it right!
January 7th, 2015 at 9:16 am
Sys the man who didnt check his text in the previous comment.
HI – Hi
I:ve=I’ve
wroters=writers
*sigh* fat finger syndrome.
August 24th, 2016 at 1:04 pm
Thanks for the info, although there seems to be different rules for the UK than the US???
January 1st, 2017 at 8:58 am
Thanks for these guidelines.
Putting the contact info in the first-page-header is a neat way to avoid the word count getting confused… however there is a small downside. I know a lot of agents / readers now send the docs to their Kindles for reading. If you do that, anything in the headers is hidden – so they won’t be able to see any contact info.
As publishers, is that something that you come across? Is the feeling that this doesn’t really matter? (Presumably they could go back to the source doc).
cheers,
Alastair
July 17th, 2018 at 12:44 pm
About item 3b. If you use Word (or other WYSIWYG word processors), you can, of course, make the first paragraph not indented when every others one is. You can also set up styles, and automate the styles that it’s done automatically.
However, It’s problematic when you try to edit your document. It’s cumbersome. Word is clearly not set up to handle this. Ever try to change a document that’s set up one way and change it to the other? Typically, it means going through the document and finding the “first” paragraph. The automation that Word offers does not work reliably enough. It’s too buggy.
With Word, I would stick with indenting all paragraphs (of the normal body text), or with block paragraphs.
There are programs that can handle it without much problems, and make your live not miserable. LaTeX does it, but I don’t think that it this is recommended for general texts (only for science, heavy on math, and the few scientific publishers that deal with those texts). Scrivener can do it when it compiles your text.
March 27th, 2021 at 7:44 pm
I am not disagreeing with you about the importance of formatting your work in some sort of consistent and acceptable way to optimise the editor’s experience of reading it. However, I have completed an MA in Creative Writing recently and every tutor seemed to have a different preference for formatting and presentation, and I have submitted loads of work to magazines and they all seem to have their own preferences. Different mags often have subtle differences in their requirements. This takes up loads of time for writers who have to check and double check every individual journal’s guidelines in close detail – I seem to spend more time doing this than I do actually writing. So, my question is (and I am sincere when I say I’m not being arsy, just wanting the truth): if a great story was submitted to you but it was formatted incorrectly, would you reject it on those grounds?
March 30th, 2021 at 10:27 am
Hi Louise. The above guidelines are an ideal, and not by any means a strict rule. We rarely receive two stories formatted in the same way, and would never reject a story based on formatting issues.