Manuscript formatting:get it down pat!

The instant an agent or editor takes your materiel out of the envelope, s/he gets whapped in the face by one feature which is so highly visible, its impossible to miss. Not your cover letter, nor the SASE. The first hurdle you must get over is right here, in the two or three seconds after your pages see daylight.

It's the manuscript formatting. The simple formatting of the page itself -- including the paper size, the font, the lot. Some editors and agents are so overworked, they'll reject right here, if you make one mistake. You could have written Harry Potter, and an editor wouldn't care. Mistakes at this stage are so visually obvious, you can be slapped onto the "rejects and returns" pile without a single word being read.

Which makes this a delicate and crucial subject ... read on!

All publishers have their own quirks and special requirements, but they all agree on the majority of points regarding how a manuscript ought to be formatted. There are so many different formats into which the same piece of text can be fed (the book, the webpage, the catalog, the magazine extract), and your job is to make sure the plain, ordinary body text supplied by you fits the bill. You can't afford to get fancy at all. Period. Don't insert any formatting, as neat as it might look on your own computer. For all you know, you might be trying to make square pegs fit into round holes.

Publishers, editors and agents should always be specific about what the want. The real chore of editing, at this point, is to ensure compliance. Every house will have a handout, a requirements guide. You can usually download it from the publisher's website these days.

Here are some of the things you'll be looking out for:

Most publishers still demand paper. (This is changing to accommodate email, but at the time of this writing it's still much more normal to send paper when submitting to a mainstream, and major, publishing house.

The paper American publishers want to see is US Letter size, which is 8.5" x 11.0" ... and some of them won't accept A4, though it's the normal paper size for the UK and Commonwealth. You'll need to get some larger paper (A3) specially guillotined to US Letter size.

Set a 1" (2cm) margin all around the page. If by any remotest chance you're typing on a typewriter, don't let your margins get too narrow; you're not fooling anyone by squishing in those extra words per page. Editors were up to these tricks decades ago! And, if typing, always adhere to one fixed "hard" margin on the left, never let the margin "wander in."

Format the text in a specific font. This is probably Times Roman 12pt, or 10 point courier. Do not set type in fonts other than the publisher specifies, not even the title on the cover sheet! There are excellent reasons for this. Editors might have to speed-read (or scan) 1,000 pages per day to sort wheat from chaff. (The chaff gets chucked back, fast.) The easier the page is to read, the more likely it will be to be read. It doesn't have to be pretty, just clear and easy on the eyes.

Never justify the right hand margin of the text. Editors swear up and down that justification makes reading harder. (Go figure.)

Use underlines to indicate where italicized words should be. (Because italics are harder to read. Same reason for using Times or Courier as the font.)

Indent the paragraphs to exactly .5"/1cm on the left only. Do not double-space block paragraphs. (Block paragraphs are paragraphs without any indent. This is the norm on webpages -- like this one -- but it won't pass muster on a manuscript intended for paper publishing.)

Never use more than one (two at most) spaces between sentences within the same paragraph. Huge gaps between sentences irritate the eye. Also, if your work is accepted and you're asked to send a disk, or an email attachment, with the work in electronic form, these extra spaces will have to be removed before typesetting ... and you're the one who's going to spend hours taking them out! Better not to put them in, in the first place, right?

If you're word processing on a computer, never use spacebar strikes to indent paragraphs. In fact, the "proper" way to do it is to use the tab-set rule at the top of the word processor page:

Click on this image to see it at full-size. Notice the rule at the top of the page; notice the two "teeth" or guides ... notice that the bottom one sets the left hand margin (it's aligned with the extreme left side of the text). Now, see the top 'tooth." Wherever you pull that little guy to, sets the paragraph indent. Now, all you have to do is hit ENTER (carriage return) at the end of a paragraph, and there you are. Auto paragraph indents ... which you can change at whim by adjusting the tab-set "tooth" there.

In keying-in, make sure you use the correct kind of quote (speech) marks for the country of your submission. In the US this means double quotes ("/"); in the UK, single quotes ('/') .

Always start a new person's dialog on a new line.

Always start a new sentence with a capital letter: no exceptions!

Always end a sentence with a period (.), ellipsis (...) or emrule (—), never comma or colon;

Always use curved "brackets" (/) for contextual parenthesis, never square brackets [/];

Print out in double-space lines (see the picture above). Never use single-spacing or even 1.5 spacing. Editors have tired eyes ... also, they like to scribble "corrections" on manuscripts, and you have to leave them plenty of scribbling space.

Never double-space paragraphs. You're already double-spacing the lines. If you double-space the paragraphs as well, your manuscript will blow out hugely. It could end up at 600pp for a fairly small novel, and the thickness of the stack of printout paper will be an off-putter before anyone looks at page 1. (It'll also cost a fortune to mail!)

Never use bold or bold-italic in the text; use underline only. Do not use capitalization or asterisks to indicate italics. Always use underline.

Make sure every page is numbered, on a manuscript. You know what offices are like. Someone turns on the a/c and the whole stack goes flying. It's gathered together, but it's out of order ... rejection. Instantly.

Place the author's name in the header on every page, and place the title of the work in the header on every page ... for the exact same reason as you're using page numbering!

Never use footers, only headers.

Never type in, or print out, colored fonts. They're just tough to read.

Where you want blank lines left to indicate a new line, use a hash mark (#) on that line. Indicate the end of the document with three hash marks (###).

These can be boring and aggravating rules. You ask yourself why you ever bothered to get a computer, since you just had to configure the machine to behave like a typewriter ... copy editing isn't always easy, or fun!

Remember, however: this is how the manuscript will be formatted for submission. Once an editor has approved it, and you're expecting a contract ... then, they'll need the whole file on a disk or jumpdrive. They'll take the absolutely plain file, as supplied by you, and they'll format it to suit their own typesetting.

The best thing you can do at this stage of copy editing is to meet them halfway, supply exactly what they want. If you can do this, you'll stand the very best chance of having your work read.

Tired eyes need big, plain fonts, and double-spaced printouts. And every publisher, editor and agent has a different way of working. Some might not notice footers, therefore footers are useless. Others might want only the author's byline in the header, not the whole book title. You won't know till you inquire, and get the "cheat sheet."

Always do some research before you call your copy editing finished and print out the manuscript. Find out exactly what your target publisher wants and needs. Do your best to meet their requirements.

Remember, a wrongly-formatted manuscript will be tossed back unread! One glance at it, and the editor opening the parcels knows instantly, you never bothered to find out what the company wanted. This certainly won't endear the editor to you, and if s/he is inundated with work, and tired, and annoyed, your SASE will be used at once!

Do a little extra work at the preparatory stage ... a little judicious copy editing right now, right here, it can pay dividends later.

Freelance? Do I have to freelance?

Fiction writing (or anything else!) ... do you have to freelance?
Most writers begin as freelancers for obvious reasons. Fiction writing (or non-fiction, books and articles) is seldom commissioned from unknown authors ... and in the early days, remember, you're going to be absolutely unknown!

If you're good, a day will come come when editors and publishers will offer you a contract before a book has been written. You'll talk to your editor, send a synopsis or an outline of your proposed work. This company specializes in fiction writing, and they 'bite' on your project, sight-unseen, because they know you from several previous sales. You'll sign a contract and get an advance before the work is delivered.

An even better day is on the horizon. The day when an editor asks you for a book. Their list has a gap which needs to be plugged, and they come to you — to you! — for a novel to fill that space! Finally you're known for great fiction, writing is your business. Then, you know you've arrived.

But in the early days you'll be a stranger to the publishing industry; and few people will take a risk on a stranger. It can happen, but if you dig a little, do a little research, you often find the truth. The new writer was a relative or friend of the publisher; or had already won a major fiction writing prize at college level; or was willing to invest cold, hard cash in a joint publishing venture.

If you can get through the door by virtue of your relationship with an editor, or if your skill was recognized in college — frankly, more power to you. Go for it! Take the shortcut and don't look back. Remember, you'll still have to be good: even pro writers with a string of books to their credit can be savaged by the critics. If you don't write an excellent book, it won't sell so well, and you'll almost certainly get some bad reviews. So never offer anything but your best work. Over-deliver, 110%, whenever you do anything.

The rest of us, however, won't have this shortcut. Most writers are long, long past the college stage by the time they decide they have a story that must be told — or the time to invest in climbing the learning curve as a writer, writing enough to be significant, and finding the agent, editor and publisher who make it all come together.

Many people who long to be involved at any level in fiction writing, pro or otherwise, must wait till their kids are grown up, or the mortgage is paid off — and some are in retirement before they can find the opportunity to make a start ... and few of us indeed are related to publishers and editors!

So, above 99% of writers will begin as freelancers — fiction writing, non-fiction, children's books, adult, genre, whatever. It all begins with a piece of work created by you, from your own imagination, or research, and inspiration. A piece of work which is finished, edited, polished, and submitted.

If you're good enough, your hard work should be immediately obvious to an editor. No one thoroughly masters the skills of the writer without making a high degree of commitment. (To put it another way: a concert violinist is born with the skill to play ... and though it will take the best teachers in the world to hone that talent, s/he still needs those teachers!)

So ... jump the queue, take the shortcut if it's available to you — and if you think you're ready. There's a big, deep pitfall right here in front of you. Watch out for this one, because it's so deep, if you find yourself at the bottom, it'll take a lot of work to get out.

Don't jump the queue before you're ready. Your friend, or relative, who made the opportunity available to you is doing you a massive favor, IF you're skilled enough to deliver the goods. Fiction writing, and doing it well, is a complex business. You won't 'fool' critics and discerning readers.

Book critics can be tough — they can also be extremely cruel. And discerning readers can tell immature, 'rough' writing at a glance. They probably won't buy your book in the first place ... and if they do, it'll go right to the book exchange, and they won't buy your next book. You need "subsequent sales" from established and loyal readers, to earn your livings as a fiction writer, or journalist, or diarist, in whatever your genre might be. Digging your way out of this pit can take years, hard work, many excellent books, and a good deal of heartache.

The old saying, 'Look before you leap' came to be a cliche by being so wise, it was repeated a thousand times!

There is absolutely nothing wrong with starting out as a freelance in either journalism or fiction writing ... and the freelance beginner has one vast advantage. Professional editors and agents literally won't let you debut until you're ready. You'll be told (kindly, one would hope; but they can be brusque) if your writing is not yet up to the full professional standard. The description used to be, "Unsuitable for publication."

This didn't mean the plot line was bad, or the material was inappropriate. It just meant that the writing style was immature and not (yet) wearing a veneer of professional polish. Years later, you'll come back and take a look at the manuscript which was rejected, and you'll see exactly what that editor meant.

(You might even shudder to see how rough your early work was. There's no harm in submitting, when you think you're ready; but it's vitally important to keep an open mind, take criticism in the spirit it's intended, and never stop striving to become better at your art. This is true of new, aspiring writers at every age, both the teen and the retiree. Fiction writing is a challenge; you'll master it, but not in a month, and not in one book.)

Never be insulted if an editor responds in this vein. It will probably hurt, but they're telling you the truth as they see it, and they have the experience to know these things. Few editors will lie outright to get rid of you; what would they profit from this?

It is true, however, that publishers do use 'professional readers' to screen books before they even get to the chief editors ... and here's the rub. Professional readers specialize in a certain subject, say, fantasy fiction. They read it all the time. Every week. Every day. In fact, they read far too much of it, and like any of us they get tired, jaded, bored. Professional readers can definitely kick back some very good books, because they themselves have reached a point where they're bored even by the best that fiction writing has to offer. The truth is, they should resign the job — but who's going to give up something as easy as reading, when they pay you to do it?!

If this happens, try not to take it to heart. Have faith in your abilities as a fiction writer, or documentarian, or diarist. You can at least know without a shadow of doubt that your work is flawless on a technical level, because you worked hard on grammar, punctuation, format and elements of style, to make sure of this. Having faith in your plot, characters and abilities will carry you through, and if you're right — if the work is as good as you think it is — the odds of you running into the same 'ennui factor' with another reader are slim.

Caveat: if you do get the same response from two or three readers and/or editors, you're looking at a considerable weight of critical opinion stacking up against you. Time to back way off and take another look. Try to see the book through their eyes. If someone was good enough to give you notes on what they perceived as 'wrong' with your story, you can at least start there and see if you can find a place to set up an analysis of the work.

These are the measures taken by inspired freelancers. You can always respond positively to rejection and criticism. Back off and take another look at your book. Recruit some beta readers. If necessary, take a course, participate in a fiction writing workshop. Read several books by writers whose work you admire — and be analytical about them! Take their work apart, see what makes it tick ... pick their brains. Let Greg Bear and Megan Davis and Matthew Reilley be your teachers! Then come back to your own work, and get out the rags and polish.

A book always gets better in the rewriting. In fact, it has been said (and this is perfectly true), great books aren't written, they are rewritten.

As a freelance in journalism, fiction writing, the art of the documentarian, any kind of writing, fields of opportunity open up before you. It may take a while longer to get financial results, but the pitfalls of taking the shortcut won't be strewn before you like a minefield.

Bottom line: take great care in your endeavors; never offer anything but your best work; and hone your skills until you know one thing for sure ... an editor won't be able to pick fault with your work on any technical level. In order words, don't just be good — be the best. If your chosen genre is fiction writing, it has become the area n which you absolutely excel. Then go out and knock 'em dead.