Talk:Standard manuscript format
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In an attempt to improve this article, I have distinguished it from the topic of manuscript formatting in general, and have added links to some apparently authoritative information on the subject of "standard" manuscript format, which is commonly used for short fiction and other literary genres. Dylan k (talk) 03:34, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
This article gives the erroneous impression that there is a single "manuscript format".
The format discussed is for short stories submitted to a magazine. Different formats apply to other media, such as screenplays and books. Okay, there's a link about screenplays hiding at the bottom.
Book manuscripts are almost never submitted to publishers any more. Tor and Harlequin are the only significant book publishers I know of who still accept manuscripts from authors. Book manuscripts are almost always sent to agents, who generally have different format preferences than publishers do. Doug Pardee (talk) 22:43, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
Deleted information
editI deleted some unsourced information about using double hyphens for em dashes and underlining instead of italicizing. Those were typewriter approximations that were forced upon writers due to the mechanical limitations of the typewriter. If it is possible to use em dashes and italicize items that should appear like that, I cannot imagine why someone would force an antiquated convention that is now obsolete (unless someone is still using a typewriter and has no choice).
Of course, that brings us to another issue. Most everything is unsourced in this article (except the source I added a while back). That will need to be rectified quickly or I will start deleting unsourced information that looks controversial en masse. Airborne84 (talk) 06:12, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
24 or 25 lines per page or per book or per what exactly?
editThe article says that a document with standard manuscript format will have 24 or 25 lines of text. Is that 24 to 25 lines per page or 24 to 25 lines per document? Generally, a document is more than one page long. font. size. 24 or 25 lines of text. Paperpineapple (talk) 01:01, 11 May 2023 (UTC)