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Give
Your Manuscript The Professional Edge You've poured your heart and soul into your manuscript, and probably a bit of sweat (especially this summer) and maybe a few tears. You've found a market and typed your cover letter, and now you're ready to stick your story in the mail. Wait! Is your manuscript as professional looking as it can be? Earlier this year I had the good fortune to attend not one, but two professional fiction writing workshops taught by Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Gardner Dozois. In addition to being prolific writers, Kristine Kathryn Rusch was the editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for six years and Dean Wesley Smith is the editor of the yearly Strange New Worlds Star Trek anthology. Gardner Dozois is the award-winning editor of Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. When these professionals give advice on how to make a manuscript look professional to an editor, it's a good idea to listen. So without further delay, here are a few tips directly from the horse's, er... editor's mouth. 1. Editors are busy people with a limited amount of time to read a huge number of manuscripts. Make sure your manuscript is easy to read. Use a larger font, 14 point if you're using Times New Roman on a PC or 12 point if you're using New York font on a Mac. Yes, it looks really strange the first time you see your work so LARGE on the page, but the editors like it that way. 2. Don't print your manuscript in Courier font. On many printers, Courier is fainter than other fonts, which makes it hard to read. Remember, anything that makes your manuscript easier for an editor to read is a good thing. 3. Don't put "approximate" in front of your word count. Round your word count to the next hundred, such as 3,500 words, not 3,486 words. 4. Give the editor the easiest way to contact you. If you have an email address, include it in your address block. 5. Don't put "disposable manuscript" on the first page of your manuscript. If you don't want the manuscript back, note that in your cover letter. 6. Don't put "by" in your by-line. Simply type the title of your story and your name, or your pen name, on the following line. And it's fine for the title of your story to be in a slightly larger font than the rest of your manuscript. 7. Leave enough white space in between your address block and the title of your story, at least one-third to no more than one-half of the first page. But don't end the first page at a paragraph break. That gives an editor an easy exit from your story. You want them to turn that first page and keep reading. 8. Don't put The End or ### at the end of your story. If an editor can't figure out that it's the end of your story without the visual cue, well... maybe it's not really the end of the story. And one final tip from the pros, this one for your cover letter: Don't describe your story in your cover letter, don't even specify the genre. Let the editor discover what your story's about by reading your manuscript. Editors have to get through that mound of manuscripts on their desk as quickly as possible. You don't want yours rejected based upon a one-line summary in your cover letter. 8/17/02 |