Forgetting the Rules

[irysangel]

Every writer (aspiring or otherwise) knows that there's a specific 'rules' set that goes with publishing. You use 12 point font. Your query letter should be no more than 250 words. Your synopsis should be short (unless it should be long...). Double-space. No adverbs. No fragments. Correct grammar. Be polite in queries. Contact info in the header.

Comments

[mdhenry]

I have consistently forgotten to type "the end" after I've finished my manuscripts. In fact, I've never typed it on anything I've submitted.

I feel like I've been robbed my closure!

I always use Times New Roman, never turned in anything in courier, nor could I write in courier--that font's just too ugly.

[irysangel]

I heart TNR too! Courier is icky. I used to be die-hard courier, and now I find that I can't stand to read it. :)

[tmthomas]

I put it into Courier to submit. I use TNR or Garamond, because I got used to it in an old job and it's purty.

[jayewells]

I use fragments. All the time. And I start sentences with conjunctions.

[mdhenry]

I...overuse ellipses...for dramatic...if not comic effect.

[irysangel]

I noticed that...about you...Mark...

[irysangel]

LOL

[shanna_s]

I once referred to Standard Manuscript Format in a conversation with a former editor, who was pretty high up in a major publishing house, and she asked me what that was. Meanwhile, I had submitted my manuscript to an agent in SMF, in Courier and all that, and she changed the font to TNR to submit to editors because she said a lot of the ones she knew hated Courier.

So it would seem that a lot of the things that writers stress over getting exactly right is stuff that the editors don't necessarily care much about. As long as they can read it and it doesn't smell funny, they really don't seem to care.

[carrie_ryan]

And trust me, smells do seep onto the paper. I just got back documents from a client and they REEKED of smoke -- made my entire office smell of stale smoke.
-Carrie

[shanna_s]

That was something I heard from an editor. At a conference she said that if you smoke, to please take your manuscript to Kinkos to copy or print it. You may not notice the smell because you're used to it, but paper absorbs the smoke smell, and opening the envelope is like getting hit with a blast of smoke in the face if the paper has been around smoke. If the editor in question is sensitive or allergic to tobacco smoke, she's not going to be able to focus on your book while her eyes are burning and she's fighting to breathe. Even if she's not that sensitive to it, if she's not a smoker, it will be an unpleasant experience, and you don't want reading your manuscript to be an unpleasant experience

[elialshadowpine]

Aside from allergies, migraine triggers. The additives in cigarette smoke are a major trigger for me, and I've had severe migraines from just clothes worn by somebody in a smoker's house.

If I were an editor, it'd have to be a damn good MS for me to even consider looking at it after that. Especially if it were bad enough to land me in the ER for a migraine shot.

[dpeterfreund]

Jill, I have not heard of a lot of the things you are talking about. Double spaced manuscripts, yes. Correct grammar -- well, unless it's incorrect on purpose! And yeah, I think being rude in business transactions is probably a bad idea. Nothing else have I ever heard, and I've seriously heard some doozies.

All talk of "rules" is silly.

[irysangel]

I admit that I hang out on a lot of boards/chat with folks and we talk 'shop' all the time. The same subjects come up over and over again, and some of them are just silly to worry about.

Good writing trumps all, of course!

[elialshadowpine]

Tell me about it. I don't think I hang out on the same boards as you, but there are the same sort of topics that come up over and over. Invariably, about once a month if not more, we have someone ask a nit-picky question about submission. Sometimes the questions are just plain ridiculous. I doubt very much that an editor is going to count the number of lines down the page you start the manuscript, or what brand of paper you use, etc. They care that all your contact information is there and that it's legible.(That said, there are always exceptions. I remember a SF/F ezine that had ridiculously complicated submission formatting requirements. Their explanation was that if the author can't be bothered to read and follow the guidelines, then they don't deserve to have their manuscript read. My view of this is that I don't want to submit to someone that cares more about the precision of the submission format than the story itself. If they're so anal retentive that they will proudly reject a story that has one line off, what kind of horror

[claudiagray]

We approached a publisher without a completed manuscript, and yet it worked out. I am still shaking my head over that one.