Semi-Standard Electronic Format

There isn't really a standardized model for how to format electronic manuscripts the way there is for hard copy, but as more and more places accept e-mail submissions, a certain pattern is emerging, which we might call the semi-standard electronic format. This tends not to apply to submissions sent as attachments (which usually go into SMF), but rather to those where the story is included in the body of the message.

• No HTML; make sure your e-mail program sends it as plain text.
• This means fonts, etc. don't matter.
• Don't indent paragraphs.
• Leave a blank line between paragraphs.
• Anything that was centered goes to the left.
• For italics (SMF underline), put _underscores on either side of the text_.
• For bold, put *asterisks on either side of the text*.
• Turn off auto-formatting tricks your word processing program helps you out with, such as curly quotes or apostrophes that angle to the left or the right, ellipses (use ... instead), and em-dashes (use -- instead).

The people running the publication you're submitting to can reformat your story with relative ease if they need to; these guidelines help make sure your story is readable when it gets there, without the text all mashed together or salted with strange text glitches. (If you've ever seen text where all the apostrophes are replaced by ^O or something of the sort, you know what I mean.)

And again, as with SMF, always check the market's own guidelines, and follow those if they're different.