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Hello Writers and Readers, and welcome to this weeks article on formatting your story into a manuscript that will help your editor tremendously. This may sound like a boring concept but it is very important to know in the long run when you have shipped off your works to an editor. With these tips so generously given by author Blake Atwood, we will hopefully be able to bring some things to your attention that you had not previously noticed. Now, you may let the air of anticipation flow out of you, as we are about to begin the, oh so fascinating, topic of formatting.

To view the original article click here.

In writing you should always start out with a black text, 12 point Times New Roman font. Do not go messing around with fanciful fonts (such as the eloquent Comic Sans) until much later in the editing process. Set your manuscript up to the standard paper size in the U.S, that is to say 8.5 by 11 inches. Also set your margins to 1 inch on all sides. Set your text into ‘left justified’, which is where you align all of your writing to the left side of the page, and also keep the right side in check. Remember to only use ONE space after a period, as two will create to far a gap, if you have learned in the past to type two spaces then disregard it, as it was for older online writing software that you had to hit the space bar twice. Use double-spaced lines, as this can provide a tremendous help to editors in leaving notes and being able to see lines more clearly. You may be used to indenting via hitting tab or the space bar, but once again we will ask you to disregard that for creative pieces, in writing you should have your indentations to 0.5 inches, for more information on how to do this view the article. Find the specific formats for your medium and genre of writing, as there will be different ways of splitting things up between fiction and non-fiction. If you are having trouble trying to find the format for your genre online you can peer into the book of someone else in a similar genre. After starting a new chapter don’t just spam the enter button until you have reached a new page, instead insert a page break (check the article once more on how to do this). Number your pages as soon as your story begins, which means to cut out numbers from any acknowledgements, or other extra bits you may throw in the beginning. Send your manuscript in one full document, not in segmented chapters, as this can be very tedious to sort through, and be much more trouble than it’s worth.

10 Tips Summarized:

  1. Use black, 12 point Times New Roman Font
  2. Stick to U.S standard paper size (8.5×11), and keep 1 inch margins on all sides
  3. Set alignment to left-justified
  4. Use only a single space after periods
  5. Double space your documents
  6. Indent every paragraph with 0.5 inches
  7. Format according to genre standards
  8. Use page breaks
  9. Number the pages with your story on it
  10. Send it all as one document

We hope you all enjoyed this weeks article, or at least found it helpful. We hope to see you here again next week, have a great day.

To check out the original article click here.

To check out Blake Atwood’s author page click here.

To view the website where the article was posted click here.