How to Format Your Manuscript
Why Proper Formatting Matters and How to Get It Right
By Melissa Burnham
Do you need to format your manuscript? Yes!
Even if you’re self-publishing? Also yes!
What if it’s a short story for a contest? Still yes!
Why Format Your Manuscript?
If you’re submitting to an agent or publisher or entering a contest, formatting your manuscript shows that you’re serious and know how to at least do the basics. Having your manuscript properly formatted is like a first impression when you meet someone. If it’s not formatted, it’s like rolling out of bed and going straight to an interview. Just like you’re not getting that job, your manuscript might get chucked out the window before anyone even reads it.
If you’re self-publishing, having it formatted and consistent in Word makes it easier and saves you time later when you’re working on the layout since the programs used to typeset/format a manuscript for publishing inherit the bulk of the formatting from Word. If you have any squirrelly or wonky formatting in Word, it will cause problems and unending frustration to fix when you're doing the typesetting. It’s easier to do the basics in Word and the final polish in a program specifically for layout/publishing.
If you complete a line edit or a proofread with us, we’ll do all of this formatting for you!
How to Format Your Manuscript
Formatting a manuscript is not as difficult as it sounds. (I know, easy for me to say, right?)
I'll be showing how to format within Microsoft Word because it's the industry standard for word processing. Other word processor programs are out there, yes, but Word is the standard in the publishing world.
Here’s a step-by-step list of how to format your manuscript in the easiest order of completion.
I’ve included a basic list first, so if you know how to do all of these things and just need a checklist, great! If you’re not sure how to do some or all of these things, you can either keep reading or click the links to jump to the section that you need help with.
Step-by-Step Guide
If you're submitting your manuscript to an agent/publisher, also include a cover page and add a header with your name, manuscript title, and page number.
Single spaces
- Use Find and Replace to eliminate any double spaces. Even if you are used to only using one space between periods, still search for double spaces because they have a tendency to sneak in there—under Home→Editing (far right corner)
Basic formatting
Select your entire manuscript (Ctrl + A)
- Set to Times New Roman—under Home→Font
- Set to 12 pt. font—under Home→Font
- Align text to the left. We’ll fix the chapter titles to be centered later—under Home→Paragraph
- Set to double-spaced (2.0)—under Home→Paragraph
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Make sure margins are set to one inch. This is the default in Word, but you never know—under Layout→Page Setup
Paragraphs indented by half an inch
- Check for manual tabs at the beginning of paragraphs. Word will sometimes correct this for you automatically as you go by removing the manual indent and replacing it with the default indent, which is what you want.
- If you’re not sure if you’ve used the manual tab key (and it didn’t auto-correct), turn on the Non-Printing Characters (under Home→Paragraph, the button that looks like the paragraph mark ¶), and look for the indent indicator (an arrow at the beginning of the paragraph—see image below). If the indent area in front of the paragraph is blank, you’re good to go and can skip the Find and Replace step below.
vs.
Indent with Paragraph Settings (what you want)
- If you do see the arrow at the beginning of each paragraph, you can use Find and Replace to take them out, without having to do it manually.
- Click Replace, under Home→Editing, and then click the More button.
- Click Special Characters→Tab Character.
- You’ll leave the “Replace with:” field blank.
- Select Replace All.
- Now that you know you don’t have any manual indents, you’ll indent each paragraph by half an inch from the paragraph settings at the top, not using the tab key. We’ll go through and fix the first paragraph of each chapter and scene to have no indent later.
- Make sure your entire manuscript is still selected (Ctrl + A).
- Under Home→Paragraph, click the little arrow at the bottom of the paragraph section to expand the settings. In the Indentation section under Special, select First Line, and then under By, add 0.5”.
You can unselect your text now if you haven’t already.
Each chapter starts on its own page
- Make sure each chapter starts on its own page. There should be a page break (NOT a section break, which will mess up your formatting) at the end of each chapter. If you’re not sure what you used, turn on the Non-Printing Characters under Home→Paragraph (the button that looks like the paragraph mark ¶), and you’ll be able to see which you used. If you used a section break, just remove it using backspace or delete, and add a page break.
- To add the page break, make sure your cursor is where you want the page break to go, which will be at the end of the last sentence of the chapter. Go to Insert→Pages, and click Page Break.
Chapter titles centered
- Center each chapter title on the page. Since it will have been indented during the earlier step, backspace so it’s left aligned and then center, otherwise it will be off-center.
- An easy way to do this if you’ve used the format “Chapter 1,” “Chapter 2,” etc. is to search “Chapter” and center them as you go. This can also help you make sure you didn’t accidentally skip any chapter numbers or add two of the same one.
- Remove the indent in the first paragraph of each chapter (just use backspace).
Centered “#” sign between each scene
- Add a paragraph return between scenes within a chapter and add a “#” sign centered on that line to indicate the scene break.
- Remove the indent in the first paragraph of each scene (just use backspace).
“The End” centered on the line after the last paragraph
- At the end of your manuscript, add “The End” centered on the line after the last paragraph.
Submitting to an Agent or Publisher or Contest
If you’re submitting your manuscript to an agent or publisher or entering a writing contest, follow these additional steps.
Most agents and publishers will have their own specific formatting guidelines. So, before you submit your manuscript, be sure to check the guidelines for each place you plan to submit. Those guidelines will always override any of these guidelines if they contradict.
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Add a cover page with:
- Your name, address, email address, and website (if you have one) in the top left corner.
- The approximate word count of your manuscript in the top right.
- The title and your name in the center about a third of the way down the page.
- Start each chapter about one-third of the way down the page. You can just hit enter approximately four times.
- Add a header in the top right corner starting on the first page of your manuscript (not on the cover page).
- Double-click at the very top of the page to add a header (or go to Insert→Header). Click the box that says Different First Page, so that your header won’t get added to the cover page—under Header & Footer→Options.
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- On the first page of your manuscript (not on the cover page), add the page number first to the top right corner, under Header & Footer→Header & Footer (on the left side of the toolbar). Then, add your last name and the title of your manuscript with the page number at the end.
- You’ll want the page number to start at one not two on the first page of your manuscript (not the cover page). To do that, highlight the page number, right-click, and then click Format Page Numbers. Where it says, Start at, you’ll put 0. That way, it counts the title page as 0 and then the first page of your manuscript as 1.
Self-Publishing
If you plan to self-publish, your next step is to do the layout of your book. You can hire folks to do this, but it’s not too hard to do on your own using a program designed for this. As I mentioned above, the programs used to typeset/format your manuscript into a book will inherit the bulk of the formatting that was in the Microsoft Word document. That means that if there's some squirrelly formatting in the Word doc, you'll have to deal with it during the typesetting phase. So to save yourself time and frustration in the typesetting stage, format your manuscript correctly in Word before moving on to typesetting.
Madeleine, one of our editors, uses Vellum to format her books. Or, Google will give you a long list of tools to choose from if you’d like to peruse your options.
Wrapping Up
If you complete a line edit or a proofread with us, we’ll do all of this formatting for you, so your manuscript will be one step closer to being ready to go!
Ready to start the editing process? Fill out our Contact form and request a free sample edit!
By Melissa Burnham