THE ICE PICK

The Writer’s Digest Guide to Manuscript Formats, by Dian Dincin Buchman and Seli Groves. Cincinnati : Writer’s Digest Books, 1987. ISBN 0-89879-293-2. $16.95.

Do you know how to format anecdote, article, book, filler, greeting card, poem, recipe, screenplay, script, and short story manuscripts for submission? How about the forms for submitting illustrations, proposals, and queries? Or how to present cover letters? Or do you avoid even trying to submit certain things, because you don’t know the proper format? If so, then this book is for you.

In the section discussing fiction, for example, there are sample cover letters; a list of steps to follow in submitting your novel; a sample proposal including cover sheet, table of contents, novel overview, bio, and outline; and sample manuscript pages with instructions on spacing for your title page, your first text page, succeeding chapters’ first pages, and normal text; as well as how to format your novel’s acknowledgments, dedication, epigraph(s), foreword, preface, and table of contents. And there is a sample follow-up letter for when you don’t hear from the publisher after many moons.

There are similar sections for short stories and other short forms, nonfiction, and scripts that answer nearly every question you could have. The only thing I’ve found lacking was how to format and submit a sidebar with an article.

Buchman and Groves have also included mailing information, such as when to fold a manuscript, packaging tips for everything including photos, and a checklist so you don’t forget anything.

Also, there are a number of blank checklist and log pages that can be photocopied, including a Book Progress Checklist, Editorial Checklist, Research Correspondence Log, Telephone Expense Log, and Submission Logs to help you track your work.

There are even special sample letters for everything from requesting information from an agent to asking for corrections in reprints and from requesting rights to requesting permission to quote from another’s work or reproduce their graphs or charts.

But the instructions on formatting, typing, and spacing are the heart of the book. If you ever wonder what your margins should be, how to space your lines or arrange your headers, or what should be centered or capitalized, you can find the solution here, and the index is one of the best I’ve seen, making it easy to find what you need to know quickly. Whether you use a manual typewriter or a computer, this book will help you present your manuscripts in the most professional manner possible.

It’s one of my favorite writing reference books, and I highly recommend it.

{Published in GPIC, the Oklahoma Science Fiction Writers Newsletter, Oct. 1999.}