ellen_datlow | A rant on proper manuscript formatting

Recent reading and editing has brought to my attention the fact that some writers have suddenly (well, since using computers and email) decided that the usual rules of mss preparation are no longer necessary.

Three examples:
1) I have received print submissions without PAGE NUMBERS (not often, but still, this should never happen).

2) I have increasingly been the recipient of manuscripts that don't underline words meant to be italicized in the story's final, printed form. The reason editors/copy editors/and whoever does the production on a mss need to see underlines is that some typefaces don't show italics very well, and even if they did--it's quicker to "see" underline than italics

3)I have been receiving mss without anything indicating space breaks. What happened to ###? I'm in the middle of reading a printout that seemed to be missing at least two pages because there were no transitions...When I checked the efile, lo and behold, the sentence breaks were in different places so I could actually see that there were supposed to be space breaks. Writers--new and pro--please please show your space breaks by putting in hash marks.

4) Paragraphing--before online publishing, paragraphing was shown by indenting margins...Guess what, folks? Most publishing (especially of books) is still print, which means that paragraphs are indented.

Rant over

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Minor data point: At the SFWA manuscript site, two articles (Vonda N. McIntyre, and Chuck Rothman) suggest "#" (single pound, on line by itself) for scene breaks.

Either way, agreed that a scene break indication is crucial. Otherwise the editor (aka the decision-maker) goes "WTF?" and leans towards passing.

Me, I use "#" for scene break and put a big "# # # END # # #" at the end. Just so everyone (including me) knows :-)

As for underline = italics, that's in those articles. What if a writer wants bold text? I've heard use "*" (asterisk, aka star), like "*This text would be bold*", but what's the latest thought?

And as

berry_k says above, and as Lawrence Watt-Evans says in John Gregory Betancourt's article on the SFWA site, if the market has specific guidelines, read them and use them.

- yeff

I too have always thought that the single pound is the kosher varient and it's what I use if I get that gritty with it.

Frankly. I'm a fan of using the LaTeX "sffms" style, which produces a properly formated manuscript every time. And I can write it how ever I want it, and it still produces a perfect mansucript. every time. And there are pretty simple ways of taking, easy to write formats into LaTeX and then science fiction styled manuscripts. and it's easy.

I'm no editor, but I'd do bold I'd use **two** asterisks. one seems flimsy. I also tend to read single asterisks as italics, but maybe that's just me.

Please don't use asterisks to show italics--or bold. How would the editor know what you meant by using a single asterisk or two of them unless you explained this in your cover letter?

I wouldn't dream of using more than one kind of typographical emphasis in a manuscript. Full stop. So it's sort of moot.

In situations where you don't have access to full typesetting capabilities, like livejournal comments, and email, and potentially your typewriter, one asterisk always scans italic to me. But any more in these situations, we'd probably not have underline either. so one asterisk for italics, and two for bold makes some measure of sense, but again moot point.

Electronically, there are different problems. eg. sff.net doesn't allow html (or if it does, I haven't figured it out) so you have to italicize like _so_...which to me is very unnatural. Sometimes, my email allows me to use italics but I have no idea if the person on the other end sees my italics. It depends on their email program...Colors, too. Computer to computer capability is another factor to consider in communicating. (although that's getting of the track).

LaTeX ... wow ... haven't thought about LaTeX in a long time. I imagine it's still in use, though, especially for typesetting very technical documents with lots of equations? Or can people do all that in Word/OpenOffice now?

- yeff

Math people still use it, and it's still the best way to get *really* sharp looking documents on paper. Academics and the like who need citation management and specific styles like it because it can automatically do things *the right way* and its easy to template and use. Not to mention the whole open source, open format, plain text argument.

the newly popular mac os writing tool Scrivener can output to LaTeX and RTF (secret: RTF is derived from TeX and is only a bit more abstruse, so there are lots of conversion tools), and I think there are a few other things which output to LaTeX, for just general run of the mill stuff. Anything that I write that I think is going to end up on paper I write in a way that I can get into LaTeX quick if I need to.

And like I said, there's a SF manuscript style that's easy as pie to use and pretty much guarantees to never incur the wrath of an editor, and I have a template with my name and info stuff all set up, so really even a really recalcitrant document doesn't take much more than a few minutes to wrestle into shape.

I rarely see manuscripts with bold and don't recall how the writer showed it...probably bolding the word--which does show up more than italics in most fonts.

Yeah, bolding is a rare occurrence. Though there was once I wanted to use it, when I was including what would be excerpts from an internet-like comment stream.

I figure I'd just maybe bold the font and make a mention in the cover letter. Or just forget the bolding. It wasn't *that* important.

- yeff

I DO think that's the best way to deal with bold. Just do it and mention in the cover letter where it appears.

So noted, and remembered. Thanks!

- yeff

A rant on proper manuscript formatting

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