Standard Manuscript Format

This set of formatting guidelines is more or less standard when submitting hard copy of a story or novel to an editor or agent. That having been said, some places have particular quirks regarding how they want to see material formatted; always follow the guideines of the place or individual you're sending your work to.

• Black ink on white paper.
• One side of the page only.
• 12 pt. Courier or other monospaced font.
• Double-spaced.
• 1" margins on all sides.
• Left-justified only (i.e. ragged right margins).
• Underline in place of italics.
• Header on each page, giving author's last name, title (or abbreviation thereof), and page number of total.
• Author's name and address in upper the left corner of the first page.
• Estimated word-count in upper right corner of first page.

What's the logic behind these instructions? Many of them have to do with readability. Black ink on white paper is easy to read; purple ink on pink paper is not. Same for 12 pt. font and double-spacing. Others have to do with the mechanics of how the business works; using a monospaced font, standard margins, and left justification means that the amount of space your words take up becomes fairly regular, meaning an editor can do their own estimate of length. (Think of students turning in papers with giant fonts or wide margins, to try and make it look longer, for example.) Underlining, as I understand it, is a holdover from the days when manuscripts were not typeset from digital copy; it's easier to see than italics, which is still good for readability. The rest is to make sure the editor knows what they need to about your story, and can put it back together if it does a Humpty-Dumpty onto the floor.

As for how you're supposed to estimate the word-count, well, no one agrees. Some people say to use the count from your word processing program; others say to assume 250 words a page in this format; others have complicated formulae involving counting the words on X number of lines and multiplying by the number of lines in the manuscript but allowing for shorter choppy dialogue bits, etc. These days, I use the program count, and have yet to see anyone complain. I believe magazines all have their own way of counting, and pay you according to that method. But again, as with the formatting guidelines as a whole, always check and see if the market has its own specific rules they want you to follow.