This week: Manuscript Mistakes Edited by: Max Griffin đłď¸âđ  
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| My journey as a fiction author began almost twenty years ago. I've learned a lot about writing since then, thanks to many generous people on WDC. Last year, I decided to try publishing, which led me to become an editor. That experience has led to learning more new things, this time from a new perspective. It occured to me that authors on here might be interested in what another author has learned after becoming, at least part time, an edtior. |
Usually, I like learning new things. In fact, you could say learning has been a life-long obsession. But, sometimes, you learn frustrating things. Thatâs happened this week, so excuse me if this newsletter is a bit persnickety. Even churlish.
As regular readers know, a little over a year ago I started a small quarterly for short fiction. This week Iâve been going through submissions for the Spring issue and Iâve learned some new mistakes authors make, mistakes that wouldnâtâ have occurred to me. Usually, I try to be positive in these newsletters, but this time Iâm in the mood to include things to not do when submitting.
The focus of this newsletter will be on two things: mistakes authors make in openings and mistakes they make in manuscript formatting.
Here we go.
Mistakes in Opening Paragraphs
Your opening has to hook the reader. It also has to orient the reader. Your opening couple of paragraphs are the most important in your story, so pay attention to those two basics. The call for submissions to Tales from the Crosstimbers specifically says that openings are the most frequent reason for rejections and gives specific guidance on things a good opening should do.
The evidence suggests that the majority of submitters to the upcoming issue donât understand what these two basic things mean. Based my limited editorial experience, here are some things that you should not do in an opening.
Do not start with scenery. Yes, I know, Raymond Chandlerâs iconic opening to Red Wind is essentially a weather report about the Santa Ana winds. But it also brilliantly establishes the atmosphere of the Los Angeles of Chandlerâs story and hence orients the reader. Unless you can write with Chandlerâs skill (trust me, you canât), then you canât hook the reader with scenery. Itâs more reliable to start with action, or at least with your point-of-view character interacting with fictional world.
Do not start with a disembodied voice speaking. Yes, I know, speaking is acting, but the reader needs context for the speechâyou must first orient the reader on who is speaking, who is listening to the speech, and where the speech is happening. So, at a minimum, orienting the reader on point-of-view comes before someone speaks.
Do not confuse the reader. Sure, your point-of-view character might be confused. If they are, then show that through their words, deeds, and internal sensations. But, whatever you do, donât confuse the reader! How could confusing the reader possibly be a good idea? Yet a couple dozen submissions to the aforementioned spring issue do exactly this, and apparently on purpose. A few never even establish minimal physical attributes of the fictional world.
Donât start with an info-dump telling the reader about stuff. Readers donât want read a narrative about social injustice in nineteenth century Paris. What they do want to read is Les MisĂŠrables.
Of course, if your story is about social justice in nineteenth century Paris, showing that injustice is part of orienting the reader. So itâs necessary information to the story, but itâs information you need to show, not tell.
Do not keep the name of the point-of-view character secret. I really donât understand this one. Iâve got several stories in this weekâs stack of submissions that ramble on for a couple of pages before we learn the POV character is named âJoe,â or some other inconsequential name. Thereâs a corollary to this one: donât use a pronoun to refer to the POV character before we know their name. This mistakeâa pronoun without an antecedent--isnât a killer, especially if the name follows soon after. Itâs just annoying.
None of the above are, by themselves, story killers. But they all work against the two most basic goals of an opening: hook the reader and orient the reader. When confronted with choosing between a story that does these two things and one that does not, itâs pretty clear which one any editor will pick.
Mistakes in Manuscript formatting
Of course, what you write is more important than how you format itâsee above. Formatting canât correct deficiencies in writing, but first impressions do matter. Following the standard document format for submissions tells the editor you are at least trying to be professional.
Most publishers have specific guidelines for manuscripts. If they do, follow those guidelines. They are there for a reason. If they donât have specific guidelines, there is a widely acknowledged standard for manuscripts, something called the Shunn manuscript format. Tales from the Crosstimbers specifically mentions that manuscripts should use this format, yet a significant number of authors have evidently never bothered to look at what that means.
The guidance for authors on the website for Tales from the Crosstimbers links to the Shunn website.
https://www.shunn.net/format/
This website has subsections for short stories and novels, and even provides templates for Word. Itâs also got a checklist if you donât have the patience to read the entire thing.
https://www.shunn.net/format/2024/01/a_brief_manuscript_formatting_checklist.htm...
Yet over half the submissions I get donât come close to the standard format, which means they never bothered to look. Thatâs not professional and does not make a good impression.
Iâll read a submission if it doesnât use the Shunn format. I admit, however, my mindset is more favorable if the author has at least given passing attention to the standard format. There are, however, some critical âdo notsâ for formatting.
Do not submit a manuscript with distracting errors. The printed words on the page are the readersâ gateway to your fictional world. Conversational English and dialect are fine where they contribute to the readersâ grasp of that world and the characters living in it. Thatâs different from obvious spelling errors, missing words, or other things that are clearly mistakes and, hence, distracting. So proofread your manuscript and run it through a spelling and grammar checker. That will at least make it more likely that the âmistakesâ in your copy are intentional, i.e., not mistakes.
Beware of spell-checkers that are âenhanced by AI.â Wordâs now has that feature, and it has degraded the accuracy. Remember, âAIâ isnât intelligent, despite the name. Itâs mimicry. That means if a grammar error occurs frequently in its training data, AI wonât find it.
Curiously, the most irritating error involves formatting at the most basic typing level. One authorâone who writes really high-quality fictionâinsists on manually formatting his own paragraphs instead of using Wordâs native paragraph formatting. That means that heâs ended paragraphs with two manual line-feeds instead of paragraph marks. Worse, heâs indented every paragraph with five manual spaces. Except sometimes itâs six spaces, sometimes itâs four, and sometimes it's a tab. Do you have any idea how hard that makes it to get good copy, printable copy? I cringe when I contemplate formatting his stories, even though the story quality is high.
This same author manually centers three stars (***) at every scene break. At least I can delete that entire line and replace it with a properly centered line.
Another common error involves putting two spaces after the period at the end of a sentence. I get this one. I learned how to type in the dark ages on a manual typewriter, when the standard was two spaces. Modern typesetting programs like Word automatically put a smidgen of extra space after a concluding period, so that extra space is no longer needed. Itâs also pretty easy to globally fix, so I wonât include that in my âdo not do thisâ list.
The standard also used to say to mark italics by underlining. Donât do this: use real italics. Itâs just another annoying thing for the compositor to fix. In the case of Crosstimbers, thatâs me. Similarly, use real boldface if you must, but generally italics should suffice.
The standard also used to say to use Courier or some other monospaced font. This is also no longer required. Times Roman is easiest to read, and Courier is downright ugly. Again, easy to fix and only mildly annoying. On the topic of fonts, donât submit something with a tiny font, or with peculiar fonts. Donât start a paragraph with a big letter, like this one does. Do left-justify your copy, do not right-justify itâjust leave the right margin ragged. These are all little things that make your copy look less professional. The basic idea is to keep the editor focused on the words on the page, not the formatting.
Oh, and submitting a PDF is another thing that becomes annoying, at least if the story is accepted. The reason, again, is that itâs a challenge to get it into a properly formatted document for printing.
Conclusion
Okay, thatâs almost 1400 words of what I hope is practical advice on manuscript preparation.
Iâm stepping away from newsletters, and next month will be my final newsletter, at least for the coming year. If there is something youâd like me to write about, this is your last chance to make a request! In the meantime, thank you for reading these missives over the years. I hope youâve at least occasionally found something useful here.
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For Authors: January 14, 2026 Issue [#13546]
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