Writers don’t have it easy. Creating something purely from your imagination is an achievement in itself, but if you’re brave enough to send it out into the world then you have to be prepared for a lot of rejection.
Of course, there’s a difference between an editor reading your work and deciding that it’s not for them (vampire erotica doesn’t fit everyone’s press branding) and throwing it in the bin without reading the whole way through. A lot of places have strict submission guidelines these days. It saves the team some time and ensures entries are readable. It also gives them grounds to reject your work.
It’s not just to be mean. Writing is competitive, and even the smallest of presses can get swamped with submissions. It allows them to whittle down an intimidating pile. And if a writer can’t follow a set of guidelines correctly, why should their writing be any good?
It’s a bit cruel perhaps, but guidelines should always be followed religiously. It doesn’t take long to do and it means it’s much more likely to be read and considered for publication. But it’s not immediately obvious at first exactly how to format your masterpiece, so here are a few pointers. I use Word 2016 but all versions are mostly the same. (If this just makes things more confusing then consult the Google gods. They know many things.
- But first… Polish! Make sure your piece is 100% done to the highest standard, with no spelling or grammar mistakes. If you need to delete stuff later you can mess up the indenting if you’re not careful. Is it within the word limit? Is the theme clear enough? Does Sally turn into Susan halfway through?
- Double speech marks. I find online presses aren’t too fussy, but the magazine market often prefers double. If you’ve used double instead of single, a quick find and replace is a quick fix. Ctrl + H on Word 2016, Ctrl + F for older versions. Find double, replace with single.
- Single speech marks. If you’ve done it the other way round and need to change everything to double, it’s a little trickier. If you just type an apostrophe into the find and replace box, Word will quite happily “correct” all the contractions too (so don”t do this, it”s not right). However, when you use an apostrophe as a speech mark in dialogue, Word automatically converts it into a “smart quote” symbol which is subtly different from an apostrophe. If you highlight one of your single quote marks in your story, right-click and copy it, then paste that into the find and replace instead, Word will only replace dialogue single speech marks! Don’t ask me why it works. Feel free to send me cookies.
- Times New Roman, size 12. Every writer’s favourite font. My preferred writing font used to be Bookman Old Style, these days it’s Calibri. But unless the guidelines specifically ask for Verdana or Garamond, assume they want Times New Roman. First, select everything (ctrl + A), then on the Home tab, find the Font section.
- Double line spacing. May also be written simply as double-spaced. For years I thought this meant two spaces between each word, and even sent a few entries like this! (Oh the horror!) But it just means bigger gaps between each line. Select everything again. On the Home tab, look for the Paragraph section in the middle.
- Indents or indentations. This is to make it look like what you’ll see in a finished book. Pick up any novel and you get the idea. Word defaults to 1.27cm and unless specified otherwise I usually stick to this. Highlight everything. Then find the Paragraph section on the Home tab again. At the bottom-right there’s a little box icon with an arrow. Click this to bring up a dialogue box. Under Special click First line. If Mirror indents has been checked, I usually uncheck it. Then click OK. I recommend temporarily deleting your title and author name from the top, or the centred text gets indented too and doesn’t look right.
- This makes your piece easier to read. Now go up to your first line, click at the start of the first word and press backspace. The first line of the story is not indented. If you have any scene breaks (where you leave a line or a * because we’ve changed time or place) then the first line of the new scene must also not have an indent. Pick up your nearest fiction book and you’ll get the idea.
- Wide margins. This one’s pretty quick. On the Layout tab, select Margins under Page Setup. The default margins are pretty generous, and the Wide is a little silly. I recommend going into Custom Margins and widening them slightly, or more specifically if they’ve given an exact value.
- Page numbers. On the Insert tab, find Page Number in the Header & Footer section. I usually go for one of the boring ones, but scroll through if you want to fancy it up a bit. Page 1 of 9 might look cooler than page 1. But if your work spans 30 pages it might be best for the editor to discover that themselves. Gently.
- Name and title at top of page. This is helpful if an editor prints your work and a rogue whirlwind tosses the pages out of order – at least they know which story page 3 belongs to! You can either double click in the blank space at the top of the page (if it’s not there you may need to double-click the crease between the pages. I often hide it when I’m in writing mode) or go back to the Insert tab and click Header. I like the three columns one, you can always delete the middle one and not use it. Then just type in what you need. Some places don’t want your name on the story to ensure fair judging, so keep this in mind. It can be fun to invent a pen name (I fancied myself as a George) – just keep it sensible. Since author name and title are also going to be included at the start of the document, I often tick the “different first page” box. It shows up when you double-click where the header is.
- Finishing touches. Re-add your title if you haven’t already. Leave a couple of lines at the top. The title should be centred and underlined, a size or two larger than the body text. Author name just below it. Here, I used size 14 for the title but kept my name size 12. As long as it’s distinct from the story and not eye-wateringly big. Sizes vary by font, so just use whatever you think looks sensible. Make sure you’ve not changed the page colour or left any highlights in there (I’ve been known to change the background blue, though it’s done little to calm the rage of editing the terrible first draft I wrote originally).
And here’s one I made earlier!
You should end up with something like this, which looks a lot more professional than what we started out with. It’s worth repeating that this is only a guide, and the press’ actual guidelines should be followed first. But if they haven’t provided any, this is how I’d format it. There may be more to do: if they’re not happy with the .docx format then make sure you save as a Word 97-2003 document. Check your submissions email is correct, and that you’ve included a subject line if specified (otherwise Submission: Anthology Name) is probably fine. Include a bio if they want one. Unless they want a covering letter including your experience, I usually write something along the lines of “Hi, here’s my submission to X. Thanks, Name”. Quick and to the point. Make sure it’s sent on time… you get the point. And don’t chase up your story two days after the deadline.
Hopefully some of this was helpful! Every place varies in what they want so be sure to check there first. And when in doubt, Google is your friend for formatting things. After me, of course. Though I’m probably not as cool.
Ask me about Word shortcuts and watch me start hopping with excitement. That’s how cool I am.