alg | (no subject)

The thing I've never gotten is that formatting is the only aspect of your manuscript's reception that is completely under your control. The editor may take against your character, your setting, your world-view, or your inability to find the caps key, but by gum, she can't quarrel with your format! If, that is, you follow some quite simple guidelines...

P.S. The manuscript rules have changed since I began submitting: it used to be Courier or Death, whether or not you were using a word-processor to produce the Mss. I'm glad Times is okay now. Does it make the manuscript harder to mark up?

This makes total sense to me, as do

jonquil's comments. Two of my jobs as a writer, as far as I can tell, are to write the best story I can, and submit it in as appealing a format as I can -- which means standard manuscript format, in an envelope which can be opened easily by the editor.

I read your other post and was going to leave a comment.

(Yes, this is shallow, here's what it was.)

*runs around rejoicing*

Not guilty! I didn't do it!

(Yes, well, I told you it was shallow. *g*)

I think (though I cannot be sure) that many writers don't understand that they can use any formatting they want to *write* the novel/short story/whatever. The editor will never see that, and if some editor were to magically intuit that I like Palatino, single-spaced and double-space between paragraphs I have trouble believing they would care as long as they didn't have to read it like that.

And fixing the format takes, like, five minutes. Really.

Heck, it's part of my process to shift over into correct manuscript format, print, and mark-up. It means I've changed process. I'm not writing this anymore, I'm editing it...

I'm another who just doesn't get why people might have issues with formatting a manuscript the way a publisher's guidelines asks them to format the manuscript. It ain't exactly tough. And if you make yourself a template for manuscript files in your word processor of choice, you don't even have to worry about reformatting the whole thing later.

Now if I can just whip one or two of these books bubbling out of my brain back out into the wild in their properly formatted glory... ;)

And here I was recently having spasms over a contest entry where the rules specified (among other things) that the page numbers be on every sheet except the first. I cannot figure out how, in Pages, to turn it off on the first page (I remember how in Word, but Pages has its little quirks). After a while of fighting with my printer over a cranky cartridge, and a good thirty pages' worth of test printing just to get things looking decent, I gave up and printed everything exactly as it already was, page number 1 and all.

Now, if I get disqualified for THAT, I will be officially pissed off. ;)

...but, um, yes, I double-space everything in Courier.

I think I love you.

Am linking. Again. :)

Most of the folks I know who hate standard ms fonts--and the reaction was stronger when Courier was the only acceptable option--couldn't seem to get past the fact that the ms looks so bad to them in that font. When how it looks to them doesn't matter--it's whether it looks OK to the person reading it.

But then, I never really minded Courier. It'd be a dreadful book font, but an ms isn't a book, and those couple years typing before I discovered word processing (and finished a college paper before midnight, and never looked back!) were just enough to make it something I could deal with looking at.

So I guess this loops around, because people who don't follow the rules don't get to play in the sandbox.

I totally dig this and agree with you--and I'm as big a rule-breaker, which is why I didn't enter that many contests. Wasn't worth my while to follow all the damned rules and why waste my time and/or money?

However-- don't you think that some of the screaming frustration expressed by so many comes from seeing manuscripts that openly break rules (whatever the rule du jour happens to be) get noticed/published/receive acclaim?

I'm just playing a little Devil's Advocate here.

At fifty dollars I think this lesson was a bargain. We're too ready to grant extensions and exceptions. Only consequences change behavior and as soon as this writer takes ownership of her own mistake you can bet that she's going to pay much closer attention to submission guidelines.

*hee*

Well, I've got two responses.

One, I'm glad that my hyper-paranoid quadruple checking of the Proper Format is a Good Thing.

Two, I'm now aware of a new contest I can enter.

Thank you so much for both pieces of information.

Stasia

I am a dinosaur and until very recently edited an honest to god *zine* -- you know, the old-fashioned things where fanfic gets put onto dead trees. And yes, that's edited, not just published. The things I learnt sitting on that side of the slushpile were extremely useful when it came to sending in my own submissions, both fanfic and profic. Editors who ask you to format your manuscript a particular way, or to send it to a specific address or... have reasons for wanting things done that way, usually good reasons. I am firmly in the camp that thinks that writers who bitch about stupid pernickety pointless submissions requirements should be sentenced to serve a minimum of one week as slush reader at whatever publication they're bitching about.

The information about the Courier New font being easier on the editors is a great piece of information. If I have a choice where Courier New is one of the options, I'll take it over any other option.

I felt sorry for the one woman having lost her $50 but I think to have granted her an exception from the written guidelines would be a slippery slope. Often the only way you can keep people to the rules is to not cut them any slack. Otherwise I can just see the next person being upset because (as an example) she accidentally used Courier 10 instead of Courier 12.... One exception, no matter how minor, tends to breed others and soon you have no rules.

Great information again, thanks! If I find you at RWA in Atlanta, I'm buying you a drink - we can talk about cats or something :)

- Maura

I have to agree with almost everything you commented on. Yes, the MS, should have been in format. (There is a reason for these rules. Easy reading, consistency.) If it didn't qualify, RWA should've return the money. Come on, its only 50 bucks, to this very large organization. It maybe next weeks groceries for the person. Who knows.
We are all human, and use it as an excuse from time to time for our mistakes. I worked in Law enforcement for 20 years and retired last year. I was one of those cops who sort-a-bent the rules to make things work a little easier for me and the criminal. (If you can believe that.) I considered it Karma...And actually it did work, when the time came. My slight act of past kindness was remembered, and usually it came at a very pivotal moment. Yep, I would have let the lady go on her ticket, because of the graduation, with a warning. "Don't let me catch you in this hood speeding again."
A lesson learned out of all this, the author will probably read the rules a little bit more carefully and check her work to make sure it's in format. Sometimes, as much as it hurts, often times its our mistakes that makes us a better writer, cop or whatever it is in our life where trying to be.
Lee

(deleted comment) (Show 1 comment)

I got disqualified from the GH my first year out although I formatted all the print pages and margins right and used courier new-I forgot to put page numbers on my 7 page synopsis...yes it cost me fifty dollars and 5x55 pages, $25 postage and I never made that mistake again.
Kate

I read that letter. I also read the entry rules for the GH which state clearly both the required format and that improperly formatted entries lose their fee.

Don't have a lot of sympathy for the girl. How long was her synopsis, that she needed to single-space it? Was she trying to sneak in a too-long synopsis, single-spaced, in order to get more pages entered?

If they let her slide, what happens when someone finds out, and they were disqualified for another "minor" submission error? And they start writing angry letters?

The rules are clear. If you don't follow them, that's the risk you're taking, and not someone else's problem.

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Return the 50 bucks....Come on....

Golden Heart

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