Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Q & A 39 Manuscript Format

Most tip sheets and guidelines states "follow standard format." The thing is, we've been reading conflicting info on what is standard format. 12 pt. courier, 25 lines a page, underline for italics, use page count: 250 x number of pages? Which is the standard and the format editors prefer? This kind of stuff has made writer's nuts. Please set us straight once and for all.

If you're seriously concerned that your editor cares about this, seek out submission guidelines. If you can't find them anywhere, try requesting them. My guess, however, is that most editors don't care about your typeface, as long as it's easy on the eyes. A 12-point serif font, of which courier and times are examples, is standard. Since your computer will tell you how many words are in the manuscript, there's no need for a mathematical formula. The formula isn't reliable anyway:

"Margo?"

"Yes?"

"Shall we?"

"Here?!"

"Why not?"

"Animal!"

"Please?"

"No! Not in the jury box!"

Fifteen words in eight lines. At that rate, fewer than 50 per page.

"Do me now," Jo said to Eb as she lay on a rug in a red and blue pj top.

Twenty words in one line. At that rate, 500 per page. Evil Editor's suggestion: Round the computer's count to the nearest 1000.

As for italics, in the end, the publisher will want a digital file. They'll probably be prepared to change all your underlining to italics, if they haven't asked you to do so already. Of course, they may do this by changing them all at once, in which case any underlines you wanted to stay that way--like under the headings in a chart--might also get changed. Proofreading would catch this, of course, but it's one reason to go with italics if not told otherwise by the editor. Another is that underlining doesn't look as good. Hell, there isn't even an underline icon available in creating blogger posts!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

This kind of stuff has made writer's nuts.

That kind of sentence makes my entire *day*.

-A, who clearly has a dirtier mind than she admits

Anonymous said...

So as far as the manuscript is concerned, do we paperclip the bribe at the beginning or the end?

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Evil Editor! This Q & A has been most helpful!

Anonymous said...

I've often wondered where writers got their nuts.

Anonymous said...

Actually, I'm allergic to writer's nuts.

Word verification is fultzur. Another place-name for my book!

Anonymous said...

Ouch! I can't believe I let a typo that obvious pass.

should have been: writers nuts.

Anonymous said...

You're all just weird. Or is that wired? Or, should it be Your all just weird/wired? Or, maybe, We are all just . . .

-JTC

Tawny Taylor said...

Nick, the bribe should ALWAYS go at the beginning. If the editor doesn't make it to the end of your submission, he/she may not see it :)

Anonymous said...

As for italics, that's just freaking grand. I just recently spent an entire evening changing all my italics to underlining based on several articles I found, and now I hear I should change it back because underlining is ugly?

Arrghhh!!! Curse you all, you arbitrary gods of publishing! A pox on all your houses!

Evil Editor said...

Don't change it back. Some may prefer it that way, most won't care either way.

Not to annoy you further, but with some, if not all word processors, you should be able to use codes to change all italics in the entire document to underline and vice versa.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, but when you're talking thirty chapters--thirty documents--it still ain't any fun! :)