What standard manuscript format looks like
- Font and spacing: 12-point Times New Roman or Courier, double-spaced, left-aligned with a ragged right edge.
- Margins and indents: one inch on every side; each paragraph indented half an inch, with no blank line between paragraphs.
- First page: your legal name, address, phone and email at the top left, an approximate word count at the top right, then the title and byline centered.
- Header: every page after the first shows your surname, a short title and the page number at the top right, like
Writer / LONG WAY HOME / 12. - Scene breaks: a centered
#on its own line, so a blank line is never mistaken for a page break. - Novels: a separate title page, and every chapter starts on a new page, the same distance down the page each time.
Always check the guidelines first. Standard format is what most agents and editors expect when they do not say otherwise. If a submission page asks for a different font, a different header or no contact details, follow it.
Short story or novel?
A short story starts on the first page: contact block and word count at the top, the title about halfway down, and the story right under the byline. Manuscripts traditionally end with a centered END.
A novel gets a title page with the same contact block and word count, and the title in the middle of the page. Each chapter then begins on a new page, about a third of the way down. Page numbers start at 1 on the first page after the title page.
Tips for a clean result
- Paste from Word, Google Docs or Scrivener and your italics come along. Paste from a plain text editor and mark italics with *asterisks* or _underscores_.
- Writing in Scrivener and can no longer open the project? Get the text out with the Scrivener converter, then open the .docx here.
- Not sure how long your book is in pages? The words to pages converter shows manuscript and paperback page counts.
Write the next one in QuillSpace
QuillSpace is a book writing app for Windows and Mac that helps novelists and long-form writers organize a whole manuscript, write in focus, and keep their files on their own computer. Chapters and scenes sit in a binder you drag into place, there is no generative AI, and nothing goes to a cloud.
Free to start. Windows and Mac are separate apps, purchased separately.