Mslexia

Mslexia, the magazine for women who write | www.mslexia.co.uk

Essentials

Q: How should I present a manuscript?

A:

◊ Whether submitting a piece of writing to a magazine like Mslexia, or sending a manuscript (also called a typescript) to an agent or a publisher, stick to the following presentation guidelines.

◊ Use a wordprocessor or typewriter. Most editors etc. will ignore or be put off by a handwritten piece of work, so pay a secretarial service to type it as a Word document saved on a disc or CD.

◊ Choose reasonable quality white A4 paper, typing on one side only. Use 1.5/ double spacing, and allow wide margins (at least 3cm) so that there is plenty of room for corrections to your manuscript.

◊ Use a 12-point standard font, with a ‘ragged right’ justification – i.e. only justify on the left hand side. It’s preferable to indent paragraphs rather than leaving gaps between them, inserting blank lines to indicate a change of scene or subject.

◊ Number each page (or ‘folio’ as called by publishers). If submitting several chapters or a book, number in sequence from beginning to end (don’t begin each chapter with ‘1’). You may wish to add the story or book’s title to the page number, to identify your submission should any pages get detached.

◊ Create a title page, with name, address and contact telephone numbers (publishers prefer the bottom right hand corner).

◊ With short submissions, use a paperclip, not staples. And keep it simple: don’t bother with folders or plastic pockets. With a bulky manuscript, publishers and agents prefer a wallet folder of loose pages (avoid slippery plastic folders).

◊ No: fancy fonts, clip art, handwriting, dot-matrix printouts, coloured paper, faint photocopies

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