It's Better to Look Good

You've finished writing your novel, it's been revised and proofread to the point of perfection, and you're ready to send it out. Stop! Don't send your baby to the ball in raggedy jeans. Make her look pretty: Format your manuscript to professional standards. 



Below are the formatting guidelines used by most industry professionals for book-length manuscripts (novels and creative nonfiction), but there are differences of opinion on some points.* Formatting specifics are often posted on an agent's or publisher's website, so check there first. 

Basic Formatting Guidelines

Alignment. Your text should be left-aligned, never justified. The right margin will look uneven, just like it does in this post.


Chapters. Never hit "Enter/Return" to reach a new page in order to start a new chapter. Instead use the "Page Break" command. 


Begin a new chapter halfway down the page. Keep the chapter starting point consistent throughout the manuscript. Some editors do take the contrary view that chapter heads should just start at the top of the page, and this may be related to whether the manscript is edited on paper or electronically. But if you go with the traditional presentation (part way down the page), no one will fault you (unless they told you not to do this in the submissions guidelines).


Digital or paper. The first thing you need to know is whether the manuscript needs to be submitted digitally or on paper. The agent or editor will let you know which is correct. If it's paper, use a good quality white paper printed on one side. You can rubberband the pages together and place the whole thing inside an envelope large enough to fit it comfortably but without too much wiggle room. Or you can purchase a manuscript box to send it in. (Don't forget your SASE.)

There's actually a whole book on formatting all kinds of manuscripts.

If it's a digital submission (sent as an email attachment or file delivered to an electronic drop box), do not use anything but Word, unless specifically offered another option by the recipient. I know it's unfair, and it may feel like a Microsoft plot to dominate the world, but you need to use MS Word as your word processor. So no Apple Pages or Adobe PDF or Gnu TeXmacs. If your busy editor or agent can't open the file, she will be very annoyed.


Fonts. Choose a font that has serifs, is not condensed, and is set to 12 points. Preferences for font type vary, but most editors prefer either Courier New or Times New Roman.** But don't, for the love of all that's holy, choose Arial or Helvetica or a funky display font. Just don't. And no fun colors either. Black, and only black, is correct.

I once received a manuscript written entirely in Comic Sans MS. My eyes started to cross after a few paragraphs.

Headers and Page Numbers. Put your last name, your main title (or the keywords of your title), and the page number, separating each with slashes, in the upper right header. 


Your header should look like this:

Lyon / My Novel / 3

All pages of the actual story must be numbered. (But don't number the title page.)


Images and Photos.  Never, ever embed images in your manuscript. If you need to include images with your manuscript, check with your agent or publisher for their guidelines on submitting artwork.


Margins and Line Spacing. Your text must be double-spaced and have 1-inch margins on all four sides.

Paragraphs and Indents. Mark new paragraphs with an indent in the first line. Don't put extra spaces between the paragraphs. Set your tab to 0.5." (Usually this is the default setting.) Don't try to indent manually with the space bar unless you are an expert typist who never makes an error.

Scenes. Type a # sign and center it on its own line to mark a scene break. Lots of "Enter/Return" commands are not a good way to mark a scene, especially if you don't keep them consistent.

The End. Let the agent or editor know she's reached the end by typing and centering a # sign or just by typing "The End."


Title Page. You need one, and it has special formatting requirements. 

• Put your contact information at the top of the page (left aligned and single spaced): your legal name, address, phone number, email address. At the end of the contact information block or on the upper right of the page put the word count. (Use the "Word Count"option in Word to get this number.)
• Halfway down the page, put the full manuscript title in all caps or in headline style (upper and lower case). Double space and then put the words "by" or " a novel by" or "a story by" followed on the next double-spaced line by your pen name. (You can also put your real name plus alias: "Kathy Lyon writing as Dara Dawson".) 
• If you have an agent, enter his or her name and contact information, starting on a new line below your name.
• Don't put a header or page number on the title page. 

Some Other Formatting Stuff To Do (Or Not)

Emphasis. I know it's tempting to use bold face and all caps to emphasize things. But don't. It looks amateurish. It is always better to let your words speak to the reader rather than trying to force the issue with character styles.

Bold face is for display type, such as the run-in headers that start each formatting topic in this blog post. It's not meant to help you show the reader what's important in the text of the story.

All caps look like SHOUTING. Is your name JK Rowling? No? Then  DON'T use all caps.

It's OK to use italics for emphasis, but keep it to a minimum. It's tiring to read long stretches of text in italics. If you are using Courier New, you must underline to indicate italics. If you are using Times New Roman, it's normally acceptable to use the italics option for the font rather than underlining.

Don't underline, unless you actually intend to use italics for empahsis. Underline = italics in the typesetter's world.


End of Sentence Spaces. Just put one space after the final punctuation mark in a sentence. Not two and never three. Just one. (I've seen as many as five and often combinations of two, three or more spaces randomly used throughout a document.) There are some diehard Courier New users who insist that two spaces follow the end of a sentence, but they are in the minority these days.

It's easy to unintentionally create extra spaces and it's easy to correct them. To find and remove extra spaces, use your "find and replace" function. For the "find," hit your space bar twice (or three or four times if you think you have that many in there). For the "replace," hit your space bar once. Choose "Replace all" and voilà! All fixed.

To double-check, you can turn on "show" function in Word, which will display a tiny dot for each space.

#

Remember, always check the submissions guidelines first! But if you follow the basic guidelines in this post, you can be confident that you're submitting a professionally formatted manuscript.

Questions? Comments?

—Kathy

*There's no absolute consensus on every aspect of formatting. Researching this post, I found the biggest point of contention was font choice (Courier New vs. Times New Roman). There are also some who disagree with using just one space at the end of a sentence and others who disagree with starting a chapter halfway down the page. I've noted where there is disagreement.


**There are die-hard Courier fans, but I think they are becoming a minority.  In Courier's favor, non-proportional fonts like Courier make it easier to spot misspellings. Against it is the fact that you can't use the italics option with Courier. (It doesn't really look that different from the regular font.)  That's means you'll have to use the old time-y method of indicating italics by underlining. Typesetters read underlining as italics.