Comments on: Secret Handshake

By: fritz freiheit.com » Stylin’ Manuscripts

fritz freiheit.com » Stylin’ Manuscripts — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:06:48 +0000

[…] was reading something Lyda Morehouse was blogging about at sfnovelists.com and, as she was making the point that manuscript formatting is important to […]

By: C.E. Petit

C.E. Petit — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 00:33:43 +0000

One caution:

Different parts of the publishing industry have different “standard manuscript formats.” For example, don’t even think about using underlining instead of italics for a text involving math, the sciences, or the social sciences. Know when to use footnotes, endnotes, and other citation/documentation forms. If it’s book-length, don’t bother with Courier, and do use true italics. And so on.

So-called “standard manuscript format” is for articles and short fiction only.

By: David B. Coe

David B. Coe — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 16:37:59 +0000

Great post, Lyda. The thing that many people starting out don’t get is that editors are inundated with work. Often they’re not looking for reasons to love your work; they’re looking for excuses to toss it aside and reduce that stack of unread manuscripts. If you submit a clean manuscript, in proper form, in a readable font, with no typos, you deny them excuses to stop reading, and force them to evaluate the manuscript on its merits. That’s my 2 cents.

By: Keilexandra

Keilexandra — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 22:46:05 +0000

I hate reading Courier on screen, though I’ve learned to live with it. But in print, I actually prefer the huge spacing for editing purposes–it’s just more airy and gives me more room to scribble.

By: bob charters

bob charters — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 07:48:28 +0000

I was told that perfection was the key. I guess that could include format. For me, it included grammar, spelling, style and typos. They said, if an editor finds more than two mistakes on the front page of the manuscript, they trash it.

For some, I guess, that means finding a professional editor. I had an aunt…

By: lyda morehouse

lyda morehouse — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:28:26 +0000

I’ve sold short stories that weren’t in official mss. format, too, but my point here (and to my students) is that it’s one thing — beyond the quality of their writing, luck, etc. — that they CAN easily control.

It’s so easy to do, and unless your publisher asks for something different, why not do it?

By: Alma Alexander

Alma Alexander — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:39:17 +0000

And I don’t remember EVER handing in a MS in courier, and the ones that were rejected were rejected because of the story and not the font, and the ones that were accepted were accepted in SPITE of the font. I write on-screen in Times New Roman, which is a perfectly acceptable adequate and common font, and nobody has actually complained about it yet…

By: Radish

Radish — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:40:52 +0000

Okay, I’m an oddball — I actually like Courier. Somehow the mss pages just don’t look right to me in any other font.

By: S.C. Butler

S.C. Butler — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:19:00 +0000

I got away with not underlining the italics. Then again, the only italics were separate poems, so I guess no one noticed.

Common format is a good thing.

By: Laura Castelli

Laura Castelli — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:57:22 +0000

Just being a newbie at writing, it’s good to know what is mostly acceptable at this stage.

I don’t think it’s too hard to understand why editos like this format, when you look at there job from an eye strain point of view.

When you read for a living one standard format saves your eyes. Anything flashy or even a different style can give you a headache. I speak from expirence.

My former career was as a Programmer Analyst. And when you are reading through several different programs written by umpteen programmers, you actually cry for standardization. You would even sacrifice a chicken to what ever diety would provide it.