How to format a manuscript for submission

The rules, one by one

There is no official standard manuscript format, no body that sets it. What editors mean by it is a set of conventions, and the reference most of them point to is William Shunn’s guide, Proper Manuscript Format, which Asimov’s and Clarkesworld both refer writers to. These are its rules for a short story, in its modern edition (last updated 13 July 2026):

• Font: 12-point, black, a standard serif such as Times New Roman. Avoid sans-serif faces. Courier New is still accepted, though Shunn thinks it is on its way out; a market asking for “Shunn Classic” wants Courier.
• Page: plain white paper, 1-inch margins on all four sides.
• Text: double-spaced from the start of the story, left-aligned with a ragged right edge, never justified. Indent each paragraph’s first line half an inch, with no blank lines between paragraphs.
• Page 1: your legal name, address, phone and email at the top left; a professional membership after them if it is relevant; and you may leave out anything you don’t feel safe giving. The word count goes at the top right.
• Title and byline: the title centred a third to halfway down page 1, the byline (which can be a pen name) one double-space below it, and the story two more double-spaces down.
• Header: your byline surname, a keyword or two from the title and the page number, flush right at the top of every page except the first.
• Sentences: one space after a full stop in modern format; two was the typewriter habit, and the classic edition keeps it.
• Emphasis and dashes: italics for emphasis unless a market asks for underlining, and two hyphens for an em dash, with no spaces round them.
• Scene breaks: a # centred on a line of its own, never just a blank line. No end marker is needed, though some writers centre “END” after the last line.

A novel adds two rules, from Shunn’s sample novel manuscript: a separate title page, with the contact block at the top left, the title and byline centred in the middle and the word count at the bottom; and each chapter starting on a new page, well down from the top, with pages numbered from 1 on the first page of text.

Rounding the word count

Shunn’s guide says to take the count from your word processor and round it to the nearest hundred, so 1,507 words becomes “about 1,500 words”; when a story is edging into novella length, round to the nearest 500. He gives no rule for novels; his sample novel’s title page reads “about 80,000 words”, so this page rounds novels to the nearest thousand unless you choose otherwise. It treats stories from 15,000 words as edging into novella length, since novellas start at 17,500 under the Nebula and Hugo rules. A few examples: 3,449 words is about 3,400; 3,450 is about 3,500; 16,260 is about 16,500; and an 80,449-word novel is about 80,000.

As Shunn explains, the word count tells an editor roughly how much space a story will take up in the publication, not its exact length. Use the count from the file you are sending, not a page estimate.

When a market’s guidelines differ

Shunn’s own advice is to check each market’s guidelines and follow them where they differ. Three examples, as of 5 November 2026:

• Strange Horizons reads fiction blind: no name, address or other personal details anywhere in the document, which otherwise follows standard format. Your details go in the cover letter instead. It rounds the word count up to the next hundred, takes RTF, DOC or DOCX files, and caps stories at 5,000 words. Tick “Blind submission” above for a file without your details.
• Clarkesworld asks for standard manuscript format, prefers the modern edition but accepts classic, and takes only RTF or DOCX files of 1,000 to 22,000 words.
• Asimov’s Science Fiction links to Shunn’s guide, wants the word count at the top right of page 1, and takes DOC, DOCX or RTF files.

Printing and the RTF file

“Print pages” prints the first page of a story, or a novel’s title page and first page, at real size on the paper you chose, so you can hold it against your own file. “Download RTF” saves those pages as a Rich Text Format file with the margins, font, double spacing, indents and page header set, ready for you to paste in the rest of your manuscript. RTF is a plain document format that word processors open, and all three magazines above accept it.

Common mistakes

• Two spaces after full stops in a modern-format manuscript. The check above counts them.
• Blank lines between paragraphs, as on a web page. Manuscripts use indents instead.
• “* * *” or a blank line for a scene break instead of a centred #.
• The header on page 1 of a short story, or a header without your surname.
• An exact word count such as 7,212 on page 1. Round it.
• Your name in a blind submission. Markets that read blind, such as Strange Horizons, ask for no personal details anywhere in the file.

To check a title’s capitalisation before it goes centred on page 1, Amber Headline converts titles to title case in several styles.