Drop down about halfway on the first page, and center your title. Your byline goes beneath it. These are double-spaced.
On page two (and subsequent pages), add a header that includes your title and last name.
Be sure to double-check your page numbers and headers. They need to be in the same font as the rest of your manuscript. It won’t happen automatically unless your program is preset to those specifications.
How to Create a Header
On page two of your manuscript, hover your cursor about one inch from the top to reveal the header bar. Type your title (or a key word from your title if it is very long) in the header bar, add a dash, and type your last name. Then add one more dash, two spaces, and your number (this extra space allows for double-digit page numbers).
Align your header text to the right. This allows the header to be in place without interrupting the flow of the prose as it is being read.
Make sure your header doesn’t begin until the second page of your manuscript. This will leave page one clean and pretty. You might need to visit the headers and footers section of your word-processing program and mark the box that says (or says something similar to), “Hide on first page of section.” The second page’s text should begin three or four spaces below the header.
In the body of your work, save any italics, boldface, and words typed in all capital letters for times when you—artistically—want to emphasize something. Don’t use them unless you really need to. Ask yourself, Do I really need to use them?
A caveat: Industry format standards were put in place to make your manuscript easy to read by those overworked editor eyes, but don’t be too rigid on the small stuff. If you like your page numbers in a different spot—that’s fine. Put them in a different spot. Want to capitalize your title? Do it. Just make sure the result is a manuscript that looks clean and professional.
One Space, Not Two
Should you use one space or two after closing a sentence with punctuation?
The answer: one space.
You only need to use one space after a period, an exclamation point, or a question mark. This has been the industry standard for years, but many new writers aren’t aware of the change because most other industries don’t press the point. But you’re a professional writer; if you haven’t yet converted to “one space” typing, now’s the time.
In the days of typewriters, an extra space was necessary to create a more defined space between sentences for the reader’s eye. Typewriter fonts are monospaced—all the letters take up the same amount of space—and writers then were taught in typing class to add that extra keystroke at the end of a sentence. But computerized fonts are proportionally spaced, and a single space after a full stop is sufficient to provide a visible break.
When in doubt, turn to the The Chicago Manual of Style, whose official view on this issue is that there is no good reason to use two spaces after a period for work that is to be published. Obviously, this rule does not apply to personal correspondence, notes, your other job, etc.
Editors are going to upload your manuscript to a digital platform for the printer or an online publication. When they do, they’ll need there to be only one space after each of your sentences. Send it to them correctly, and save them the trouble of fixing it.
Have you been using an extra space throughout your entire manuscript? Here’s a quick fix to fill your two-space gaps: You can easily reformat your work with the “find/replace” function on your word-processing program. In the “find” box, type two spaces. Then in the “replace” box, type one space. As you retrain your fingers, you might want to use the find/replace function just to double-check yourself before sending new work out to editors.
How to End a Scene
When you have a scene break, center a *** or ### on your page. You can use something else if you’d like, but use a clean indicator that’s easy on the eyes. Don’t get too fancy, or it will be difficult for editors to format your work for the digital upload.
Naming Your Files
When you’re ready to submit a short story or essay, take a minute to rename your file something appropriate for editors to see. Perhaps use your title and name (The Pond_Harris) or just the title. You can also use a key word or two from the title. The last thing you want to do is confuse editors with a placeholder title you put there during the first draft, especially if it no longer has anything to do with the work you’re submitting.
WORKING IN WORD VS. PAGES
The world of publishing works in Microsoft Word, though the majority of writers I know use a Mac. You’d think that we would have integrated these two systems perfectly by now, but we haven’t. Files from Pages do not easily open in a Word document system. Since every editor you will meet is working with a Word-based document system, that can cause a problem for us Mac users.
Not to worry, there are a few easy fixes available if you’re in the same camp as me. Anytime you send a file as an attachment or submit your work through an electronic upload, you’re going to need to send those files in a Word document, so be prepared. Whenever you complete a final draft (including proper manuscript formatting), export the file to a Word document. You’ll have both the Word and the Pages files on your computer. You’ll know which one is the Word file because the manuscript icon will have one corner bent down.
REMEMBER: If you need to convert your work to a Word file, do so now.
18
SUBMITTING SHORT STORIES & ESSAYS
By now you know exactly how to describe your writing project, where you’d like to send it, and how to introduce yourself. You also have a perfectly formatted manuscript on your desk ready to go. It’s time to submit your work!
Nervous?
I know. I understand. It isn’t easy to share your creative work with strangers. It requires you to take a leap of faith. You’ll feel vulnerable and face uncertainty, but this is a necessary step to get what you want. This submission is the bridge between your creative work and publishing; this is the right path for you. Be brave enough to follow through with the process. A few things to feel great about:
You are sending your work to editors in a professional way. You’re not just tossing something out. You’ve edited your prose. You’re following their writers’ guidelines. You’re submitting this great piece of writing to someone who is actually looking for writing like yours.
Your writing will be read by someone who cares. Your manuscript is going to land in the hands of a devoted editor who likes writers and great writing. Editors are our partners on this journey. They’ll take you seriously, and they’ll treat you kindly. They’re hoping to make a match, too.
Nothing bad will happen if your story or essay gets rejected. You won’t be blackballed from the writing industry. You won’t lose your ability to create new work. You won’t lose friends or love or health. In fact, you will gain something very important: credibility. Not the credibility you’ll get when one of your pieces gets selected for publication but the kind of credibility you’ll have among writers—street cred. That “I Put Myself Out There” badge of honor that we admire in our fellow writers. Getting a rejection means that you’re in the game. You’re really doing this.
WHAT’S IN A NAME
It’s time to think about your byline—the name you’ll use as a professional writer. Before you send anything out the door, you’ll need to decide what name you’d like attached to your creative work. The obvious choice is to just use your first and last name. That might be the right decision, but maybe it’s not.
Take a minute to Google your name. What comes up? If you’ve got a few bylines under your name already or a blog or book out there, you’ll see those show up on the first page. If you don’t have any writing credits yet, you might only find your Facebook page listed. Either way, you’re going to see other things listed there under your name, items that don’t have anything to do with “the real you.”
If the items you find are other same-named people’s Facebook pages and Twitter a
ccounts or LinkedIn profiles, then go ahead and use your regular name as your professional byline name. But if the items you find attached to your name—products of those other same-named folks—are surprising in any way, you need to think about what you’d like to do next. Things I’ve found in a Google search of Market Coaching clients’ real names: porn, racist rants, prison records, sex-offender notices, and eye-popping YouTube videos. None of the aforementioned items were from the real lives of any clients, just their “name twins.” Find out what your name-twins are up to.
If anything you see connected to your name online is incongruent with who you’d like to be known as in the writing world or if your name isn’t new to the writing world, then you need to make a decision. Do you want to risk people wondering if that name-twin is you, or do you want to create an identity that is unique?
If you need a name-tweak, there’s a quick and easy fix. Add your middle name or middle initial, or use initials for your first and middle names. You can use your middle name instead of your first name or just make up a name. Keep Googling the combinations until you like what you find in the search results.
One more thing to think about: You’ll likely want a website at some point, and that site should reflect your byline name. Check the purchase availability for your byline domain, and buy it as soon as you can, even if you don’t plan to launch that website yet. I chose to use my middle name in my byline when I discovered that a well-known real-estate agent was already using windyharris.com. My website is windylynnharris.com instead.
THE FOUR DIFFERENT WAYS MANUSCRIPTS REACH THEIR DESTINATIONS
There are four distinct ways of sending your manuscript into the hands of an editor. You’ll send your work by e-mail, regular mail, digital upload, or you’ll be given a WordPress login password by the magazine’s editor. Each magazine’s preferred submission method will be listed in the writers’ guidelines.
Snail-mail submissions are pretty rare these days. Uploads have become the most common practice overall, with e-mailed submissions close behind. Only a few magazines use the WordPress password system, so you might never send a submission that way. If you ever do come across this type of submission, just follow the online directions.
Since a digital upload is the most common submission situation you’ll experience, let’s take a closer look at that system. Magazines that use a digital upload do so because it’s an easy way for them to keep track of manuscripts. Lucky for writers, it’s the easiest way to submit, too.
Most editors use Submittable, but there are a few other brands out there. Digital-upload systems are embedded into a magazine’s writers’ guidelines, usually with a simple “submit here” button. When you click, a portal will open to a submission page. There will be boxes to fill in and a place to upload your manuscript. The boxes vary from magazine to magazine, but the most common things you’ll see are:
Add your name/contact information here.
Paste your query letter here.
How did you hear about the magazine?
Below that will be a button that says “upload your manuscript” (or something similar). When you click, you’ll be able to search your computer for a Word file. Some magazines also accept .pdf files.
One of the best things about magazines that use Submittable is the transparency it offers writers. At the time of your first Submittable upload, you will create a user account. This account allows you access to a private online page that lists every Submittable submission you have sent to editors and the status of that submission. When you submit new work via Submittable, your page will automatically reflect the action and give a status of “received.” When an editor opens your document, the status changes to “in progress.” When a decision is made, the status changes again to either “accepted” or “declined.”
Submittable also makes it very quick and easy to withdraw a submission, should you have to. Just click the “withdraw” button next to the magazine’s name. A text box will appear so you can write the editors a quick note.
THE MANUSCRIPT’S JOURNEY
Let’s imagine you are sitting at a table with your polished manuscript and cover letter in front of you on the computer screen. You know where you’re going to send these pages, and you’ve double-checked the submission guidelines. The magazine you’ve selected asks that all submissions be e-mailed, so you open your e-mail program and begin. You fill in the contact information and paste your pages into the body. You press that “send” button and hear that unmistakable whooosh! Your work is on its way. Let’s look at what happens to your submission once it’s out of your hands.
Your submission will arrive at its destination immediately (unless you’re sending by post), but it might be weeks or months before it gets read. Many magazines have a backlog of submissions. Be patient; know that the process has started. Go write something new. Read magazines you might query someday. Visit your local library, and see what short-story or essay collections they have on the shelves.
Eventually, someone is going to open your document(s). It might be the person you intended, but it might just as likely be someone else at the magazine. It might be an MFA student or a volunteer editor hunting through the submissions for promising work. Whoever does the job, here’s her task: This first peek is an initial credibility screening. This person is looking to see if you sent the kind of writing that she actually publishes (so much of what gets sent isn’t!), she’s looking to see if you’ve sent the right length of prose (so much isn’t!), and she’s looking for the overall professionalism of the submission package.
Lucky for you, you’re going to nail all of these things and pass this first screening with ease. Your work will move on to the second phase of the process: the read. The first person to open your documents might be the only one who reads your work, or your prose might get passed through many hands before a decision is made. Some literary magazines have a large editorial board that meets once a month. Editors bring their favorite submission to the meeting, and everyone works together to choose the most cohesive collection of great submissions from what is available.
Your work can get rejected at different stages throughout the process. During the first read, your writing might get rejected immediately for reasons beyond your control:
The magazine recently published something with a similar topic or theme.
They’ve already accepted something for an upcoming issue with a similar topic or theme.
They are near the end of the selection for the next issue, and the piece you submitted is too long for the space they have left.
They are near the end of the selection for the next issue, and they have already selected enough short stories (or essays).
If you receive a quick rejection letter, think about these auto-rejection situations. You’ve likely fallen into one of these areas.
If your submission passes that first glance, your writing has a shot at getting published. Your work will be given a thoughtful read. If the first reader likes what you’ve sent, he will send it along to the other people making decisions at the magazine. If he is the only decision-maker on board, that editor will set your work in a pile with other great items and make a decision based on the overall content available to him. Someone might even let you know that you’ve made it to the next round of decisions. This “thorough-read period” is also where you might get rejected. Perhaps the editor doesn’t think the work you submitted is a fit for the magazine, or maybe he feels your prose isn’t ready for publication yet. In either case, you’ll be notified with a generic rejection letter, and then you can move on to other opportunities.
But back to the positive scenario: Your work is in that nice pile of submissions that the editor really likes. Your prose is near the finish line. The only thing standing between you and an acceptance letter is the fact that there are many other writers out there producing great work, too. The top literary magazines can only publish about 3 percent of the work that comes in. If you receive a rejection at this stage,
it is likely for similar reasons to those quick rejections. Your work was good enough, but it didn’t fit the very specific needs of this magazine for the upcoming issue. It didn’t shine the brightest out of all the gems available.
Now let’s talk about all of those times in your future where your work does make the cut; the moments when an editor selects your prose for publication. The editorial team will take into consideration things like overall physical layout of the magazine and flow of the included pieces as part of the decision process. The editor will send you an acceptance notice by e-mail as soon as she has a final plan. This is a critical time for the magazine, since they’ve also sent rejection letters. They’re counting on you to accept their terms so that they can move on to the production phase. It’s customary for you to respond with an acceptance of terms within twenty-four hours.
Your short story or essay is now in production. First, there will be formatting for a digital upload to either the online platform or the printer. Copyediting comes next. Then an editor will have a galley copy printed; if necessary, just to check the overall formatting and editing. Some print magazines will send you a galley to sign off on; others won’t include you in this part of the process at all.
Then comes publication day.
If the magazine is going to publish your work online, you’ll see it happen on publication day. They’ll usually tell you that date at the same time they accept your work. You might or might not be reminded on publication day, so mark your calendar.
Writing & Selling Short Stories & Personal Essays Page 19