[Physics Knight]

Thanks for combing through my questions Holbrook! Very useful. DAW just says double-spaced, one side of the page, number them consecutively, white paper etc. Nothing too detailed, but I still want to put my best foot forwards.

About the goodies... seems I'll leave them out of the initial submission then. I don't have volumes of appendices or anything needed to get the story. Everything in the appendices is in the story itself. It is more of a refresher to organize info from the story, to keep everything straight for the forgetful reader.

I personally love to have character lists and such whatever I'm reading books. Just wasn't sure if editors like them too. Currently working my way through the Godfather and I wish Puzo put that in. I keep scratching my head thinking "who is that again?" Maybe I just have a worse memory than most readers.

[KatG]

Holbrook basically has it for you, but:


1. How does one format chapter titles? New page each chapter? Is it underlined or not? Is there extra spacing around it?

If you start a new chapter, you go to a new page, yes. Traditional formatting is to start the text on the first page of the chapter half-way down the page, or at least several lines down from the top. This helps signal that it's a new chapter. Chapter titles, if you have them, or headings such as Chapter Three should be just above the start of text, then double-space once to the text. The titles can be centered or justified to the left-hand side, like the text. The title can be underlined, but it doesn't have to be. So it would look basically like this:

Chapter Three: George's Journey

George started his journey....

Except the first line of text would be indented five spaces to the right, but I can't get the post formatting to do that. :)

2. How is a book inside a book formatted? ie One of my characters reads a book and I include a few paragraphs of it in my novel. For now I have the passages in italics. However, in manuscript formatting italics are supposed to be replaced by underlining. I think that's fine for a word of two, but a paragraphs of underlining is seriously ugly.

Yep, but it's the format that tells them it's italics. You could also put the text in italics and probably they won't care, but it is standard to use underlining, so I'd say just go ahead and underline. It doesn't have to be pretty. :)

3. The goodies! I have a list of my characters, family trees, and a map to help my reader (for instance the family tree of the royal family is very helpful since the order of succession is important to the plot). Should these be included with my submission, or only be mentioned later in the unlikely event I actually get accepted? If so, should I mention them in the cover letter so the acquisitions editor knows to find it? Now for my map, I'm not artistic, so it's just plain lines and dashes drawn by hand, and then I scanned it in and typed the text over top to spare people my atrocious handwriting. So should the map be included, or just character lists? Both? None?

None, as Holbrook said. An editor or agent is only interested in your goodies if they are interested in the novel. Why waste my time looking at a map when I have no interest in the text? Remember that they are reading hundreds of ms. The text is the first thing they go to. If they like it, they ask for more text, usually the full ms., at which point you can send them the character list and family tree. If they like the ms. and you're talking possible representation or offer, you can then tell them you have a map and show it to them. But maps, family trees, appendixes and the like -- those are for readers, not the publishing folk. That you have a pretty map is not going to sway them to represent the work or buy it. That you have what they feel is a smoking good novel will, and then they'll probably let you put in your pretty map.

4. Other weird things. Do they really want "--" instead of the extra long hyphen that Word auto-texts in? (It'd be a pain to change back) Do they like straight or smart quotes?

They don't care.

Are there any other annoying auto-insertions that Word has done to me that I am possibly unaware of and may mess up the manuscript if I don't undo them? I'm fed up enough with Word that I'm considering LaTeX'ing my next novel.

No, unless they change the nature and meaning of your text so that it would confuse them. If it's just a choice between one formatting style and another, they don't care. Readability is always the big thing, which is why Courier is favored as type-face.

[Barrett]

Alright, I have a few to ask, if I may.

These may seem self-explanatory to many of you, but I appreciate the help anyway, as they are not so obvious to me.

1.) Manuscripts should have a 1-inch margin. Every page should have name/title/page# in the upper right hand corner of the page... but is that inside the 1-inch margin as well, or can it be outside the 1-inch margin?

2.) I have widows and orphans all over the place, and sure as I try to correct them, later editing of the draft creates more. How important is this to correct?

3.) what justification is the standard? I have read center and left justified text in some places, and I wanna know the exact terms editors want.
I have two settings in Appleworks (which I hate, but it's what I got for now) that both give left sided alignments, but one is less strict than the other.
Which do I use?

[KatG]

1.) Manuscripts should have a 1-inch margin. Every page should have name/title/page# in the upper right hand corner of the page... but is that inside the 1-inch margin as well, or can it be outside the 1-inch margin?

Outside the 1-inch margin. It's a header at the top of the page in the high right-hand corner, separate from the text. You can also do page numbers at the bottom of the page, centered, but right-hand corner is easier to see.

2.) I have widows and orphans all over the place, and sure as I try to correct them, later editing of the draft creates more. How important is this to correct?

Not very important. If you think it looks really bad, you can try to fix it, but it's not an issue for them.

3.) what justification is the standard? I have read center and left justified text in some places, and I wanna know the exact terms editors want.

Left side justification to the 1-inch or so margin is standard. Don't ever justify the right side -- makes it really hard to read. If you are doing an excerpt from a journal within the fictional text or want to highlight a dream sequence or something like that, you can center that bit of text, but the overall ms. should be justified to the left side.

I have two settings in Appleworks (which I hate, but it's what I got for now) that both give left sided alignments, but one is less strict than the other.
Which do I use?

I'm not sure what you mean here. I'm not familiar with Appleworks.

[Physics Knight]

Thank you for the help KatG! Though my map is not pretty. Just functional!

No, unless they change the nature and meaning of your text so that it would confuse them. If it's just a choice between one formatting style and another, they don't care. Readability is always the big thing, which is why Courier is favored as type-face.

Okay, this is a big relief. I was worried for a while I was going to have to insert two spaces after each period and stuff like that, which would have been a huge pain.

[Power to the J]

Just so you know, I use a typewriter for my 1st and then last drafts. I'm weird.