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Entry tags:
Formatting, grammar, spellcheck
Lesson One. How to shoot yourself in the foot, before you even get it in the door.
Standard manuscript format is important. The overall basics are:
- Bright white paper
- 1 inch margins all around
- Double-spaced
- 12 point Courier (preferred) or 12 point Times New Roman font
Yes, Courier is a boring font, and Times New Roman isn't much better. But these fonts are readable, and in particular Courier works well for those involved in the editing and production stages of the manuscript.
When you send in your manuscript printed in Brush Script on scented purple paper, you are not making your manuscript stand out from the pack. Instead you are sending the signal that you don't understand the industry, or worse that you do understand the rules but have decided that they don't apply to you. In either case, the editor/agent will take away the impression that you are going to be difficult to work with. These are busy people with lots of demands on their time. If your manuscript is hard for them to read, then they won't bother.
Once they've started reading, you need to keep them reading. This is where spelling and grammar come in. When the reader encounters a misspelled word, it can jerk them out of the story as they pause to try and decide what the author meant to say. Just running spellcheck isn't enough-- spellcheck won't catch the difference between who's and whose, their or there, or allusion versus illusion. Run spellcheck, then carefully edit your manuscript before running spellcheck a final time to make sure you haven't introduced new errors. Frequent spelling errors are a sign of a sloppy author, or someone who doesn't care enough about their story to invest the time needed to clean it up.
The same goes for grammar. Poor grammar is a red-flag for "this author doesn't know her craft" and can often prevent the reader from following the storyline. Only your mother or best friend are going to take the time to struggle through your bad grammar to try and figure out what you meant to say. An editor or agent is simply going to toss your manuscript aside.
To explain it in a different way, it doesn't matter if you're the next Stephen King or Nora Roberts. No one is going to discover your talent if you can't convince them to read your story. Give yourself the best chance possible by taking care of the details so your manuscript makes a good first impression. Format, spelling, grammar should all be clean so there's nothing to distract from your writing.
Tomorrow, I'll talk about starting your story.
Standard manuscript format is important. The overall basics are:
- Bright white paper
- 1 inch margins all around
- Double-spaced
- 12 point Courier (preferred) or 12 point Times New Roman font
Yes, Courier is a boring font, and Times New Roman isn't much better. But these fonts are readable, and in particular Courier works well for those involved in the editing and production stages of the manuscript.
When you send in your manuscript printed in Brush Script on scented purple paper, you are not making your manuscript stand out from the pack. Instead you are sending the signal that you don't understand the industry, or worse that you do understand the rules but have decided that they don't apply to you. In either case, the editor/agent will take away the impression that you are going to be difficult to work with. These are busy people with lots of demands on their time. If your manuscript is hard for them to read, then they won't bother.
Once they've started reading, you need to keep them reading. This is where spelling and grammar come in. When the reader encounters a misspelled word, it can jerk them out of the story as they pause to try and decide what the author meant to say. Just running spellcheck isn't enough-- spellcheck won't catch the difference between who's and whose, their or there, or allusion versus illusion. Run spellcheck, then carefully edit your manuscript before running spellcheck a final time to make sure you haven't introduced new errors. Frequent spelling errors are a sign of a sloppy author, or someone who doesn't care enough about their story to invest the time needed to clean it up.
The same goes for grammar. Poor grammar is a red-flag for "this author doesn't know her craft" and can often prevent the reader from following the storyline. Only your mother or best friend are going to take the time to struggle through your bad grammar to try and figure out what you meant to say. An editor or agent is simply going to toss your manuscript aside.
To explain it in a different way, it doesn't matter if you're the next Stephen King or Nora Roberts. No one is going to discover your talent if you can't convince them to read your story. Give yourself the best chance possible by taking care of the details so your manuscript makes a good first impression. Format, spelling, grammar should all be clean so there's nothing to distract from your writing.
Tomorrow, I'll talk about starting your story.
Grammar
Re: Grammar
Way back when I was learning how to type on actual honest to god typewriters, we were taught two spaces after the period. This was the accepted convention, because when working with a monospaced typewriter font the two spaces made the sentence break clear and improved readability. Those of us who graduated from typewriters to wordprocessors continue to automatically add two spaces after a period.
But in a printed book that is in a proportional font, you don't need the extra space to clarify the end of the sentence. So printed books took the extra space out.
Once wordprocessors and proportional fonts became common, students were no longer taught to add the extra space. Now manuals of style state that one space is preferred, although most also note that in American usage two spaces is still acceptable.
Bottom line, if you are submitting a paper manuscript, you can use either one or two spaces. Just be consistent. My personal preference is for two, especially if you're using Courier (a monospace font).
If you are submitting to an e-publisher, check their style guidelines to see if they require one space. If they don't specify a house style, then again it's up to you.
Re: Grammar
Oh good. That is one little thing I won't have to relearn. : )
Thanks.