Your manuscript needs to be perfect. There is no place for misspellings, grammar errors, poor formatting, or plain sloppy writing. Once you’ve corrected the problems, present your manuscript in the standard industry format.
Those of you who have been around for a while know what I’m talking about. Newbies, not so much. So here’s the deal.
- Double-space.
- Use a 12-point, Times New Roman font.
- Use 1-inch margins at the top, bottom, and both sides of the page.
- Use white paper; do not bind it (if you’re submitting a physical copy).
- Make sure your last name and the page number are on each page.
- Do not include illustrations.
- Put the name of your novel, your name, and your contact information (phone number and email address are sufficient) on the title page.
- Don’t bother with a copyright notice–it’s meaningless and the mark of an amateur.
- Submit your manuscript electronically as a PDF, not a word document.
While this is the standard format, you should read the submission requirements carefully whenever you present your work to a publisher or agent to ensure it is formatted per their specifications. Don’t give them a reason to toss your work to the side.
Something to think about.
-Jan R
If you are constantly looking over your shoulder, you may not finish your novel. You will be too busy battling the thoughts of it not being good enough. No one wants to be humiliated or rejected. Your inner critic will paralyze you by telling you just how bad it really is (even if it’s not). This is an obstacle that I have had to overcome. It hasn’t gone away, I’ve just learned to deal with it.
People Do:
Add authenticity to your writing by exploiting your experiences. Use what you know and what you’ve gone through as a person.
According to Orly Konig, if you use it wisely, social media isn’t a time suck – it’s a gold mine, and I agree.
I love Writer’s Digest. If you’re a serious writer, you should consider subscribing to the magazine. They have great articles from published authors that cover a multitude of subjects-related to writing of course 🙂
I remember when I first started taking my writing seriously. I did a lot of research and read a lot of information on how to write a publishable novel. Somewhere along the way, I missed the part were narrative and exposition were not the same. As a matter of fact, I used the two interchangeably.
You have to find the right balance between dialogue and narrative, especially in the first chapter of your novel. While slow to start openings with a lot of narrative were popular at one time, these days, readers prefer a faster-paced opening.
I’m trying a little experiment this morning. I wrote what I thought was a really good blog on suspense, and I got very few hits. I decided the issue was the title. So for those who read this blog under the ineffective title, I apologize. For those who are reading this blog for the first time, I hope it helps. The title does matter, but that discussion is for another day.
Write with your reader in mind. You want to keep things simple: no over the top flowery sentences that belong in poetry not in a novel, no run on sentences that are a paragraph long, or clumsy writing that is hard to understand. When you write this way, you are making your reader aware.
Writing your first novel-Things you should know 