My top tip regarding formatting, is to do as little of it as possible! Of course if the submission guidelines or competition rules request any kind of formatting, then you should do as you're asked. Other than that, just type out your work using the standard settings on for whatever word processing system you use (Word, Libre Office etc)
Anything 'fancy' you add will make the story stand out for the wrong reasons, and most likely have to be taken out again if the story is published. Editors won't thank you for the added work. There's also the risk of introducing incompatibility issues, making your work harder, or impossible to read. For example, if you pick a font which the other person's system doesn't recognise.
Oh, and don't put two spaces after a full stop!
This tip came from Patsy Collins who writes short stories and cosy crime novels. If you'd like to know more about her and her writing, take a look at her website.
9 comments:
A couple of times, for competitions, I have been referred to: https://www.shunn.net/format/story/ The problem is, I don't know whether it is UK or US and are they interchangeable? This, to me, seems as though competition organizers want to see how many hoops you can crawl through and plates you can drop before you reach any form of shortlist. I even had a competition once that asked for full justification, a one off. Womags seem to need the least possible — surely easier to deal with? They can manipulate the text exactly as they want.
It's taken me many years to drop the two spaces after a full stop that I learned when I learned to type! For years I had to go back through stories and sort it out... a slow learner or relearner, I fear...
Alyson
Thanks for the tip, Patsy.
Me too, Alyson!
HB
Two spaces went out years ago, people!
Amazingly I didn't know that about the 2 spaces, I remember when I was submitting a thesis being hauled over the coals for not having 2 spaces. Mind you that wasn't today or yesterday!!
It's Times New Roman in 12-point all the way for me. Like Alyson, I was originally taught to leave two spaces between sentences, but that was via a teacher who was mainly teaching aspiring secretaries, whereas I was training for journalism. In my first job as a local newspaper reporter, I was immediately instructed to drop that and leave only one space, which I've been doing ever since. Thanks for another interesting post, Patsy. In other news, I read an article online this week about late bloomers (which I suspect applies to quite a few of us corresponding on this blog, regarding our fiction activities); it stated the value of 'exploring' and then 'exploiting'. The idea seemed to be that we have spent years exploring life in a way that will pay off when we get round to exploiting it later, for creative purposes; also, we cannot just exploit, exploit, exploit - we need to continue exploring so that we can continue to exploit that resource productively. I thought this was interesting, plus it gives me a legitimate reason to watch old films, read and go on little adventures and put these down as 'work'.
If competition organisers and fiction projects make it difficult for me, then I stop submitting. A lot require certain fonts and some with writer names on, some without. Also, a lot now are asking for confirmation that your work is not produced by AI. Cafe lit required me set up an account with them on a complex online system. It was difficult, because I'm autistic, but as I haven't heard from them in months, I won't be bothering again! When I first set out, I was advised by other writers to use indents in my stories, yet none of the fiction guidelines stated that I must do this. I've never used indents and I've never been asked to by fiction editors.
@ Marguerite – I think sometimes the 'hoops' are deliberate, to make sure successful entrants have read and understood the rules.
@ Alyson – One advantage of never learning to type is I never aquired habits I needed to get out of!
@ HB – I'm also a slow learner with a lot of things.
@ Alex – About when word processors came in, I believe?
@ Sheelagh – Oh good, it was a useful comment for someone! It's the kind of thing nobody is likely to ever think of asking, and those who know assume everyone else knows, so I can understand you not knowing. No excuses from now on though!
@ Eirin - Ooh, interesting article! I totally agree about those points - especially little adventures being work.
@ Sharon – In many cases I understand the reasons for specific requirements, but there are times when instructions seem unnecessarily complex and confusing.
You were ahead of the game with the indents – it seems more and more places actively dislike them now.
A strong 'agree' from me. In a recent competition I was organising I specified 12pt fonts, black type etc. This has now been modified for future competitions to include white pages (we had one entry in a blue page) 2.4 cms margins (we had had one written in a central column!.) Of course we had a couple that went over the word count, one that had entire random words in shouty capitals...but fortunately also many fantastic entries!
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