I've been an editor for nearly ten years, and in every one of those years, I have preached the necessity for writers to practice a life-long learning of the writing craft. With the proliferation of technology and writers' increasing ability to self-publish (print or electronic books), it is more important than ever for writers to grab the reins and study--writing and industry. One stop that most writers come to in their journey to Publishdom is Editorland . This is where writers submit their works to those who can help polish the manuscript and assist in making it a strong literary product before writers decide to either self-publish or submit their works to agents. Now, we all know editors vary in style and in purpose. Some focus solely on the project; whereas, others focus on the project and the writer--making the editing experience a teachable moment. That's for a whole other post. Despite the differences in types of editors and what they all do, I feel fairly safe...

Standard manuscript formatting requires that the first line of every paragraph be indented (except for the first paragraph of a chapter or following a scene break, where it should be flush left). One way to create this indent is to use your tab key for every new paragraph. Another way is to set up a First Line Indent style so that you only need to press Enter at the end of a paragraph and your next paragraph will automatically be indented for you. Word 2007/2010: On the Office Ribbon, Home Tab , Click the little arrow in the bottom right-hand corner of the Paragraph segment to open the Paragraph Dialog Box On the Indents and Spacing Tab , under Indentation , Click the down-arrow under " Special " and select " First Line " Set the width of your indentation under "By:" and click OK Right-click again on your indented paragraph and select " Styles " and " Save Selection as a New Quick Style " Name your style something you’ll...

Yes, do a little dance. Celebrate. You have finished your book. And of course, you know this means a new phase begins. A phase of editing and research and submitting your book to editors and agents. But before even that, you need to format your manuscript. Of course, as you are researching editors and agents to submit your literary baby to, you want to pay attention to their specific format rules and adjust your manuscript accordingly; however, what I provide for you in this article is a checklist of the most standard rules of manuscript formatting. Many of the formatting rules will no doubt make you go, “Duh, thanks, Shōn,” but you’d be surprised at how many people forget one thing or decide not to do something a specific way because they like the way they do it better. This isn’t about what you like; it’s about getting your foot in the door of PublishDom that is currently closed. GENERICS Use letter-sized white paper – 20 lb. 1″ margins all around. These days, most use Tim...

Last year, I took to writing screenplays…again. As a teen, I wrote them and then moved to writing short stories and novels. Something last year called me back to scripts, and it’s been a wonderful learning journey so far. In the last year, I’ve braved the contest world and submitted one feature-length script and one short script to competitions. Didn’t win, but both placed, giving me enough gumption to continue the journey. A friend of mine mentioned the idea of writing more short scripts because they could be used as calling cards – if produced – for larger works. Short scripts can be as short as one page or as large as 60 pages though most tend to fall within 3 to 25 pages. It’s important to note that in the script world one formatted page runs about one minute of airtime. The advice my friend gave me happened to coincide with The Muse Online Writers Conference , put together by the awesome everywoman Lea Schizas. If you don’t know about the conference, you should. One class I took d...

The time has come for you to print off a copy of your manuscript to send out to an editor, but something's gone screwy with Word. Surprise, surprise. Your quick glance through the document found a word that should have been in italics, but wasn't. So you corrected that, only to have your entire document converted into italicised text. Then there's those pesky curly quotes that won't go away. You know your editor wants them straight up, no twist. Here's how to troubleshoot some of the trickier formatting woes. Automatically Updating Styles MS Word's formatting tools have a feature for automatically updating the formatting as you work. This can be very handy if you're using it for a specific style that has a single function (like making notes), but it can also be a right pain if you forget that it is turned on and you start fiddling with the formatting. This is the feature you need to turn off if you find your whole document changing formatting when yo...

Hello, my name is Emma Larkins and I'll be running a feature called Emerging Authors Want To Know! I'm just starting out on the path to publishdom (and, hopefully, to making a living as a professional writer someday) so you can imagine I have a lot of questions on my mind. Dear Exalted Editors, My first question is based on an event that heaped a whole lot of stress on me - my first story submission to a literary magazine. I had the usual worries about whether the editors would like the story or not, and whether there was anything I could have done to improve the flow or the character interactions. But the one thing that truly terrified me, that made my finger quake as I pressed the submit button, was this - what if I hadn't formatted my submission correctly? I'd like to hear it straight from the experienced editors here - how important is correct formatting? I already know that spelling and grammar mistakes can easily get a story thrown on the slush pile, but what abo...