Bedford Writers Guild

GENERIC SUBMISSION GUIDELINES v1.0

Individual publishers and editors have their own unique guidelines for submissions. Whenever available, read and conform to their guidelines. The following are only general guidelines. Unfortunately, I am still using Word 200 , so some of the short cuts and menu options that I outline here may not be applicable in more recent editions of Word. I will update future versions of this document to account for any changes. MARGINS !et your margins to "# all around by pressing $T%&'( to select your entire document then go to )*ile# in the menu, and select )+age !etup.# Under ),argins,# set Top, %ight, &eft, and -ottom to "#. .on/t worry about the settings for 0utter. This is a publishing feature. While there, select the )&ayout# tab and chec1 the bo2 for ).ifferent *irst +age# under the 3eader and *ooters header, which leads us to . . . FIRST PAGE AND RUNNING HEADERS !elect )4iew# from the menu, and then )3ead and *ooter.# 5our first page header will include the following information6 YOUR NAME !"YS#CA$ MA#$#NG ADDRESS EMA#$ ADDRESS TE$E!"ONE NUMBER WORD COUNT (i.e. 600 WORDS

Use your real name, as it would appear on a ban1ing statement. 5ou can discuss pseudonyms after the story has been accepted. ,any writers will round up the word count to the nearest "00, but it is 7ust fine to use the amount given by the Word $ount utility in your Tool menu. It is easy for manuscript pages to be misplaced or for the pages to end up out of order. Therefore, each successive page will include the following te2t (&I089. T: T39 %I03T6 5:U% 8(,9 ; TIT&9 ; +(09 8U,-9% *or longer titles, use only two or three distinctive words in the header. *or e2ample, I 3ave 8o ,outh but I ,ust !cream would 7ust be ),U!T !$%9(,.# The page number is inserted using the )Insert +age 8umber# option in the 3eader and *ooter pop'up menu, or by selecting )Insert# from the menu and then )+age 8umber.# TITLE

5our title is in (&& $(+IT(& &9TT9%!, and is followed by your name on the ne2t line. *or a novel, this is its own page, and the title is aligned to the center. *or a short story, this is part of the first page of the manuscript, and the title is aligned to the center or left. +ut your title between .<# to halfway down on the page. FONT Use "2 +oint COUR#ER NEW for your document =including your headers>. This is a default font that closely resembles a typewriter font, which was considered by many editors to be easy to read and easy to eyeball when determining formatting and manuscript length. Individual publications will have their own preferences, and an increasing number prefer other fonts li1e Arial or Times 8ew %oman, but Courier Ne% is the safest choice. 8ever use WACKY, ZANY FONTS. U8.9%&I89 in place of ITALICS. .o not use BOLD unless you %9(&&5, REALLY must. 0enerally, $(+IT(& &9TT9%! e2press emphatic sentiments. HOT KEYS IN WORD $T%&'- for Bold $T%&'I for Italics $T%&'U to Underline SENTENCES 5our first sentence begins two lines down from your byline. 5ou only need to put a single space between sentences. This is also standard for 7ournalism. .o not ?ustify the margins for your te2t. Write hyphens with a double dash '' and do not let your computer autoformat this. PARAGRAPH 8ew paragraphs are indicated by an indent. Using the tab 1ey is fine. .o not put a space between paragraphs. .ouble space your document by going to )*ormat# in the menu and selecting )+aragraph.# Under )&ine !pacing,# select ).ouble.# This formatting will yield pages with a 2<0 to 00 word count each. SCENE BREAKS Indicate brea1s between scenes or chapters li1e this6 @@@ The new scene begins. Word will sometimes try to autoformat this into a long line. 5ou can undo this with $trl'A HOT KEYS IN WORD $T%&'A to Undo

 (fter the last line of the story, center the word6 98. SPELLCHECK

$T%&'5 to %edo =perform last function again> $T%&'$ to $opy $T%&' B to $ut $T%&'4 to +aste

Word features an e2cellent spellchec1er, which can be accessed by pressing *C or by selecting it from the Tool menu. This will catch many of your mista1es as you ma1e them by underlining them in red for spelling error or green for grammatical. 3owever, do not be wholly dependant on the software. $arefully chec1 your wor1 for spelling errors and grammar yourself. In particular, loo1 for instances where the misspelling is still a real word or where the misspelling has been substituted with the wrong word. *or e2ample, if you typed )!he grabbed the gnu from his hands,# Word assumes that your heroine is now holding a large antelope and will not correct it. &i1e the $ommodore/s song, chec1 your spelling once, twice, three times the lady. PRINTING +rint single'sided using only blac1 in1 on white paper. When printing, my personal preference is to go into the +roperties menu, select $olor, and set my printer to print grayscale with blac1 in1 only. This is only important in that it saves you a little money, as most printers use some color in1 when printing blac1 D white. 8ot important at all if you aren/t a cheaps1ate li1e me. .o not staple your manuscript. Use a plain paperclip to hold the pages together.

*or another good resource consult6 http6;;www.shunn.net;format;story.html +rior to the last buyout, Weird Tales posted the following submission guidelines, which numerous other publications lin1ed to. They were perhaps the most thorough and insightful guidelines ever posted for aspiring authors, covering both style and formatting6 http6;;www.internet'resources.com;stash;weirdtales'".html