How to (Really) Format Your Manuscript
Some publishers specify guidelines. There’s plenty of general advice out there about margins, font, etc. But have you tried using styles?
When I started writing my first (and still back-burner WIP) novel, I followed the formatting guidelines I’d been taught: 1” margins, size 12 Times New Roman, a cover page, etc. I’d had creative writing professors in both my undergrad and graduate programs advising how a “professional” manuscript should look — or how most publishers preferred them to look. Formatting our manuscripts this way was supposed to show publishers we knew what we were doing and, when a submission opportunity specified formatting guidelines, that we could follow directions.
But to get the right look, I was using the enter key way too much. I filled the cover page with empty lines to place my contact details at the top and the title toward the middle; to add a little more definition, I started every chapter with a manual page break and two empty paragraphs before the chapter number, hammering away at the return key each time. I should mention that this is what we were supposed to do, and there’s plenty of formatting guidance out there still that recommends this. But what if I’d changed my mind about how many lines I wanted before a chapter number, or what…
