![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I mention this because I get to see a number of examples of submissions being sent in various wacky or just plain incorrect formats and styles that do the submission no favors. I will not say that I have never done any of these things on submissions, just that it is better to not have to learn not to do this from the cranky gram form letter rejection.
Why do editors want to see things on submissions, apart from sheer viciousness and caprice? For starters, it is unusual not to receive multiple submissions for any given call for stories/manuscripts. Generally, the average editor is going to be reading a lot of writing from a lot of different people. Purple cursive format with weird margins is hard to read. If an editor runs things off in hard copy or receives subs in hard copy, not knowing what page goes with what story makes it difficult to keep things sorted. A little secret of the trade: most editors are often working on other jobs and/or multiple projects besides things involving your deathless prose. They get confused, just like regular people. They lose things. They spill coffee. They have pets and lives and disasters. Ergo, they want things to be as standardized as possible because it helps make the trains run on time. This also leaves more time for caprice and malice, also known as rejecting your work.
Seriously though, submitting your manuscript the right way helps put your work in its best possible light. If you think it's good enough to submit in the first place, it should be good enough to put the effort into making it as readable as possible.
Some useful links:
- The things everyone wants, as a rule: 10-12 pt type (New York, Courier or Times are standard), one-side of the page, one inch margins, no weird color fonts, left-justified, standard tabs. No crayon, no experiments with emoticons.
- The things most editors and publishers want to see, unless otherwise specified: include contact information on the front page in the upper left hand corner. This includes name, address, email, phone and word count. On each header page except the first and generally in the in upper right corner: include the page number, author's last name and enough of the story title to identify it. Exceptions to this should be specified in the publication guidelines.
- The guidelines are your friends. They tell you what an editor or publisher is looking for (hint: sending your terrific contemporary urban fantasy story to a publication that specializes in historical Westerns will generally result in a rejection). They should also tell you things like word count; whether or not to query first; when the story or equivalent is due, also known as a reading period; and where and how to send it.
- Other things to check before submitting your work: spelling and grammar. Word or equivalent does not have magical powers and will not catch everything.
- This is just a good idea. Paragraph breaks and sentence length are important; along with sentence length, they help determine how your story is read. Really long paragraphs and sentences will cause most modern readers' attention to wander (unless they're big nineteenth century lit fans; even then, there are limits); really short paragraphs and sentences can make a piece feel very abrupt. If you have no paragraph breaks on a page, something's wrong. If you're breaking after every sentence, give it another going over and bring in a beta reader.
Why do editors want to see things on submissions, apart from sheer viciousness and caprice? For starters, it is unusual not to receive multiple submissions for any given call for stories/manuscripts. Generally, the average editor is going to be reading a lot of writing from a lot of different people. Purple cursive format with weird margins is hard to read. If an editor runs things off in hard copy or receives subs in hard copy, not knowing what page goes with what story makes it difficult to keep things sorted. A little secret of the trade: most editors are often working on other jobs and/or multiple projects besides things involving your deathless prose. They get confused, just like regular people. They lose things. They spill coffee. They have pets and lives and disasters. Ergo, they want things to be as standardized as possible because it helps make the trains run on time. This also leaves more time for caprice and malice, also known as rejecting your work.
Seriously though, submitting your manuscript the right way helps put your work in its best possible light. If you think it's good enough to submit in the first place, it should be good enough to put the effort into making it as readable as possible.
Some useful links:
- Writing accents and dialect: grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/writing-with-accents.aspx
- A version of standard manuscript format, with other excellent points: www.shunn.net/format/story.html