Preparing Your Manuscript for Critique or Editing

This is an Inner Circle post, intended for my mentorship or developmental editing clients who are sending me documents with multiple pages. These guidelines help me evaluate your manuscript on a more polished level, so I can give you better feedback.

These are all fairly standard guidelines, and if you follow them, you’ll have a manuscript that is formatted well. That said, you should always check an editor or agent’s guidelines before sending them your manuscript.

MANUSCRIPT PACKETS

  1. Send me a .docx file (Microsoft Word) - I tried for a while to accept Google Docs, but there are a number of problems with formatting that make it hard for me to give good feedback and to guide the professional presentation of the project. It’s important to me to be able to help you in this way. Word is still the publishing industry standard, so you will need to invest in it at some point.

  2. Include a header on each page with your NAME, WORKING TITLE, and PAGE NUMBER in it. Sometimes I have to get off my computer and work off a physical copy, and this helps me keep all the pages together. (Note: physical copies are shredded after our work together is complete. I care very much about your IP, and I want you to feel safe sharing it with me.)

  3. Use 1-inch margins all the way around.

  4. Use a 12-point font, Times New Roman or Arial. No fancy fonts, please. You can use underline or italics to show words that are emphasized or that should be formatted differently.

  5. Double-space.

  6. Format new paragraphs to indent at .5-inch and remove extra spaces before or after paragraphs. Don’t use the Tab key or Space bar to indent new paragraphs as this can become messy during the editing process. (Although I will probably not notice if you do your indentations like this, to be quite honest!)

  7. Separate scenes with the # or * symbol. My preference is to have it centered. (I use ***. Whatever your choice, be consistent.)

  8. When starting a new chapter, insert a page break and center your new chapter number and/or title. (This can be done at the top of the page or 1/3 of the way down the page. I’m not picky here.)

  9. Name your file YOUR NAME_Packet #.

QUERY LETTERS

  1. Send me a separate .docx file. While queries usually go out in the form of an email or submissions portal, and this is easy to pop into an email to me, a few guidelines will assure I can offer you valuable feedback in comment form.

  2. Use 1-inch margins.

  3. Single-space, may skip a space between paragraphs.

  4. Use 12-point font, Times New Roman or Arial.

  5. Name your file YOUR NAME_Packet # Query.

SYNOPSIS

I rarely ask for a synopsis, but if we’re working on one together, please create a separate .docx file and follow the same rules you would follow for your manuscript.

Exceptions:

  1. Your header should include NAME, WORKING TITLE Synopsis, and PAGE NUMBER.

  2. A one-page synopsis should be single-spaced.

  3. Name your file YOUR LAST NAME_Packet #_Synopsis.

Following all of these guidelines helps me stay organized and get to your critiques and edits faster! And it helps YOU be taken very seriously when you move on to whatever your next step in publishing is. Thanks for trusting me and letting me be a part of your journey.

Inner CircleCeleste