Proper Manuscript Format for Short Stories

[MichaelJWinegar]

Here's the link to William Shunn's proper manuscript format.

This is the best template for a number of high profile markets, as well as what is used for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

[Chime85]

Great find, any chance the powers that be can sticky this one?

[Benjamin Clayborne]

We actually don't sticky individual resources in this particular forum; since the whole forum is for posts about writing resources, it wouldn't make much sense for one particular resource to get stickied.

That said, Shunn's doc is fantastic and it's what I use when I'm putting things into manu format.

[Steerpike]

I think the document is quite good as well.

Always read the guidelines for a particular market. I'm glad he noted in the document that things are changing. When I was an editor, I asked that formatting in manuscripts be presented as they are intended to be seen (e.g. italics used in the manuscript instead of underlining), because that is easiest to use when dealing with an electronic end product. I got quite a few submissions that ignored this and used the traditional formatting indicators. I didn't hold it against anyone, because I was happy enough to see manuscripts that had a quality format, but it did signal to me right away that the author did not read the submission guidelines.