A poorly formatted document is the first thing that alerts an editor to your new resume. Imagine the office of an editor for a moment: he reads one submission, tries to move at his own pace, as the stack of shops gets bigger by the minute, the manuscripts rolling in from E-mail, mail, and fax. (This happened to my editor; 180 pages were pulled from the machine when it was from fax service. Warning: faxing your new rude is, and probably puts your name in the notation somewhere.) Editors spend hours and hours every day looking over it from professors and colleagues, squinting their eyes at crisp notes and well-formed paragraphs. . Then they turn to the ever-growing pile of unclaimed documents and see the size of the seven fountains of bloody wings in the margins, which they know to mention in the author’s notes. The best first sentence on earth will not save this document from the recycling bin.
MS Word is the most common word processor out there, so let’s talk about how to use it to format your new one. The first thing you need to do is look at the publisher’s guidelines for your target. If they give you detailed instructions on how to get your new forms: follow them. One well-known short story editor insists that electronic submissions come in ASCII. For the most part, the specifications are loose, telling only a few simple things, such as “double space” and “I like to use twelve font sizes.” Little know that these loose features leave room for all the beautiful horrors.
In MS Word, go to FILE | PAGE SET UP. Click on the paper tab. Make sure you use the “optional” formatting “letter” or set your margins to 8.5″ by 11″. This is the default setting – but we’re talking about a Microsoft product, so it’s bound to go at least once while you’re using it. Plus, kids love to find and play with these settings, so it’s always good to double check. Return to the Margins tab; I’ll tell you how to use MS Word to make your new forms with double spacing accurate, picture perfect 25 lines per page. We will talk about why in a minute.
Under the Margins tab, set your margins to 1″ in all settings, with an inch pipe. Close the page setup box to return to your MS Word document, then navigate to FORMAT | PARAGRAPH. Under the “Indent and Spacing” tab, you’ll see a “Line Spacing” box .Put this to read, “ad” and then type “25” in the “ad” box. This word should be 25 lines apart. Make sure the rest of the boxes read “Left”. be and special be either blank or “None” PAGE BREAKS tab.
Next, navigate to your MS Word document and highlight all the text. Change the font to “Courier New”, make sure the font size is 12, and the color is black. But Waah! Now it looks like something out of a 1920’s script! It is part of the idea; I don’t want to use the garo source. Always. AGE The new font format is great: every single character takes up the same amount of space. What does it matter to you? It combines the same features we want with 25 lines per page: it leaves plenty of white space and is easy on the editor’s eyes, it provides a crisp, professional look, and an accurate way for the editor to estimate how much space you want. take it with the printer.
If you have followed all these instructions and MS Word is only giving you 24 lines per page, don’t worry about it. As long as it stays in shape, you’ll be fine. This brings us to a common formatting question: one space at a time, or two? Many of us are trained to tap the space bar twice after a period. Some of us grew up with the word MS for the keyboard, and only made a sound once. Which is true? The same as above. Pick one space or two, and then use it consistently throughout the document. If you’ve been an alternate, and you have an ungodly amount of work to type, don’t worry – you can control it with one simple command. Tap Control H to bring up the Find and Replace box. In the “Find What” box, type in: “.” (period, space.) In the “Replace With” box, type, “. Remember to do this with your exclamation points and question marks. You can invert these if you prefer one space instead of two the same end: constancy.
Let’s take a look at your new stage breaks and chapter heads. The broken scene is not too difficult; enter the tone, put in the ‘#’ symbol, and then enter the tap again. It will be like this:
“… and the bold MS Word Formatter fell on the cold stone floor, dead.
#
Meanwhile back in Duckberg…
The chapters are just a little complicated. A new chapter always starts on the next page, so when you get to the end of the chapter, you can power through a hard page and enter at the same time. This navigates the rest of the page and starts you off on a new note. To your left, you’ll see a bunch of numbers representing the digits on the page. Tap until your typing cursor is at 2.5 inches, or 3 inches. Choose one of these and use it consistently. Save everything to the left of the casino (don’t pretend to be a printing-press!) and then, when you’re in the chapter number, put the title of the chapter and any other information, such as the date and time or the quote, on an extra line between the chapter and your text, E.G.:
Chapter One
MS Word and Elixir Formatting
Duckburg
1,000 hours
The beggar had a new plan; instead of a dancing monkey, he finds himself charming, mischievous, twisted…
Now let’s take care of the title. Here you should try to go crazy, and put the title in a beautiful font, a joyful font, in size 66. Don’t. At the very top of the document, on the left, a small number, in the normal size of the twelve letters of the new font, is formatted like format 1;
Duckburg’s Figure of the Problem
By Bartholomaeus Klick
100,000 words
Represented by [agent name if one]
[If you have an agent, he will put his notification below his name. If you don’t have an agent, enter your contact details here, and skip the represented line. This should include your address, email address and phone number. Do not allow MS Word to convert your email address into a link; simply press after the email address and the backspace key to remove the formatting link.]
Start chapter one at the 2.5 or 3 inch mark below this one on the same page.
Do all your prose in standard paragraph form: just enter one period at the end of each paragraph. You don’t want an extra blank line between paragraphs because you’re already double spaced, and because it looks childish. Start each paragraph Press tab. Look at the top of your MS Word box; you will look at another measure of assertion; Make sure that the three distinct shapes that inhabit this bar are all lined up in the middle space between gray and white. [See illustration] All of these affect the lines in your document, and they need to be placed exactly one at a time, as shown. If you are correct, and have used a font similar to yours, the format will cause each tab to yield five or one-half inch spaces.
MS Word has a page numbering tool; go to INSERT | Page numbers and make sure “position” reads “top of page” and “alignment” reads “right.” Leave the “show number on first page” option checked. Now at the top of each page you will see the numbers rolled up. So don’t worry; they are actually formatted black, and will show up correctly when you print the document. Double click on the page number. This will open the header format box, and move the typing cursor into it. Select the Conline icon on the right, and then enter your name, space, scope and space, book title, space and scope. Now if an editor happens to put down your manuscript, you’ll be able to get back together with ease.
That note, don’t block the code when you send it. Either enclose the paper, or leave the leaf loose. Use rubber bands to fasten across. Staples are annoying, and the printout is hard to read.
These methods for formatting a document in MS Word do not ensure that your manuscript will be published; but they guarantee that the publisher will not win when he sees the first page – and this, my friend, is the first step on the road to success.
